Blenheim family star in new online farm show
Web series gives look at daily routine of those who make an income off the land
Chris Renwick is a seventh-generation farmer and he hopes the tradition continues with his children. Renwick and his wife Rachel, both 40, are ensuring their children — Melyse, 14, Sadie, 11, and Shawn, 8 — learn everything they can about farming.
The Wheatley-area couple, who grow corn, soybeans and wheat on 700 acres (283 hectares), are also doing their part to try to help inform the vast majority of Canadians who have a very limited knowledge of agriculture. The Renwicks are one of three Canadian farm families featured in a new six-part documentary web series — titled Real Farm Lives — produced by CropLife Canada. The series kicked off on Wednesday at realfarmlives.ca, which featured the Renwicks in the first episode. “There was a time when everyone had a real close connection to the farm,” Chris Renwick said.
He noted people had a parent, grandparent or other relative who had a farm and they would go and see how it operated and understood how and why things were done. Renwick said he’s heard in some families there are four generations that are separated from the farm. That separation has resulted in a lack of knowledge about agriculture. “There are things that are changing on the farm that people don’t understand,” Renwick said. A recent survey from the Canadian Centre for Food Integrity revealed approximately 93 per cent of Canadians say they know very little about farming.
The web series aims to give an honest look at the daily lives of farmers, including delving into the issues of GMOs (genetically modified organisms), the use of pesticides along with the science and technological advances of modern farming. “There’s a big investment when we buy a piece of land and there’s a big investment when we buy seed and fertilizer, and anything that we’re using to control any pests that are out there,” Renwick said. “You want to make sure you can get back everything that you can,” he added. “We’re trying to use the best genetics that we can and we’re trying to use the best new (seed) varieties ... to maximize what we can off our acreage.”
Pierre Petelle, president and CEO of CropLife Canada, said producing this web documentary “is about as ambitious of an initiative that we’ve ever undertaken” when it comes to speaking directly to consumers.
“Ideally, if we could get every Canadian out to a farm to actually have those conversations, that’s the ultimate,” he added. “This is the compromise, this is the ability to create a connection.” Petelle said today’s farmers are producing much more on the same land than ever before and doing it in a much more sustainable way. “A lot of the complexities and problems that arose in the early days of farming have been addressed through science and modern technology,” he said. Rachel Renwick also grew up on a farm and is glad her husband is being a voice for farmers in this series. “I was pretty proud of Chris,” she said. “He works hard at trying to educate people and advocate for agriculture.”
The Renwicks are partners in their farm operation, with Rachel taking care of the paper work and other business aspects of their farm operation. “Whatever I need to do to make sure Chris can keep working in the fields, that’s what I want to be able to do,” she said. Chris Renwick also works off the farm, but the goal is to grow the operation so he can some day farm full time and be able to see the eighth generation of Renwick farmers continue the tradition. “That’s always the goal of a family farm, I think, is to move it on to the next generation,” he said. He added to achieve eight generations would be “pretty impressive, there’s not too many that get to that point.”
A lot of the complexities and problems that arose in the early days of farming have been addressed.