Family farming in Canada

When you think of Cana­dian agri­cul­ture, you imagine the vast expanses of the prairie provinces, like Saskatchewan, where the average farm size is 720ha. However, most farms are located in the province of Ontario, where agri­cul­ture is small-scale by Cana­dian stan­dards, with farms aver­aging 98ha according to the last agri­cul­tural census (2021). Large or small, 97.3% of all Cana­dian farms are family farms, says Kelly Daynard, exec­u­tive director of Farm and Food Care Ontario. “And we’re very proud of that.”

Theiler Farms is located 25 minutes by car south-east of the capital Ottawa in Eastern Ontario, a rather flat region strongly shaped by agri­cul­ture with many dairy and arable farms. Straight roads cut through the land­scape as if designed on a drawing board. The farms are spaced far apart along this road and can be reached via an access road, next to which a Cana­dian flag always flies. The farms are surrounded by meadows and fields, and many of them have the tall silos typical of North America. The four silos on Theiler Farms rise up to 30m into the sky. “They store lucerne, grain with a residual mois­ture content of 27%, and 900t of chopped corn (maize),” explains farmer Josef Theiler during a tour of the farm.

Farms fly the flag

Most of this is animal feed for the 70 Holstein dairy cows in teth­ered housing, which is permitted in Ontario, as long as the cattle are outside for two months of the year, says the 37-year-old farmer. There are also 550 Swiss Saanen dairy goats and 380 young animals that are expected to produce milk in a year’s time. The farm includes 200ha of agri­cul­tural land, of which 80ha are leased. “In a typical year, there are 60ha each of soyabeans and grain maize, around 20ha of winter wheat, and grass­land for hay and silage.” The straw from the winter wheat is baled and used as bedding for cattle and goats. In good years, Josef can sell around 100t of soyabeans and 200t of surplus grain maize on the market.

Milk quota and a thou­sand goats

Josef does not breed his own dairy replace­ments. “It doesn’t make economic sense; if I need a new cow, I’ll buy a two-year-old one.” The cows produce around 36 litres of milk per day, at 3.2% protein and 4.2% fat. “We feed for a high fat content, which is very popular in Canada.” Canada oper­ates a quota system (per kg of milk fat), and the milk price is set in advance depending on the season and market situ­a­tion. Theiler Farms can supply 90kg of butterfat per day at a current purchase price of $0.95 CAD (£0.51) per litre of milk (as of October 2025).

“The fixed purchase price creates income secu­rity,” he says – and room for exper­i­men­ta­tion. Josef leased a dairy farm five kilo­me­tres away, which was aban­doned due to the lack of a successor. He converted the 8 × 8 milking parlour designed for 150 dairy cows into a 20 × 20 milking parlour for goats. He also bought another aban­doned dairy farm just one kilo­metre away. The build­ings, like the barn with a hipped roof, date back to the early 20th century. He plans to reno­vate the build­ings even­tu­ally, when the goat farm requires more space – the goal is to milk 1,000 dairy goats one day. “The poten­tial is there; the demand for goat’s milk is high and exceeds supply – and unlike cow’s milk, there is no quota.”

Josef enjoys going to auctions to purchase used machinery and equip­ment. “There is a lot of old equip­ment; more and more of the smaller farms are closing down, and the larger ones are expanding and require different tech­nology.” In order to survive as a smaller farm, you have to be able to impro­vise, he says. He enjoys tinkering and inventing tech­nology that makes his work easier, or dele­gating tasks where possible.

He is partic­u­larly fond of his “back­packers”, as he calls the young people who have been coming to his farm from all over the world for many years to work with him in return for food, accom­mo­da­tion, and a family connec­tion. Some bring valu­able exper­tise with them, in which case they also receive pocket money. For some years now, he has also employed two people from Guatemala, along with his colleague Walter Vandekemp, who combines his crops, and his neigh­bour Tim Moher.

Maple leaf, a Cana­dian symbol

The latter runs an arable farm (soyabeans, maize, winter wheat) across 180ha of land. He also has 10ha of “bush”, as Tim calls his maple forest, which he culti­vates for the produc­tion of maple syrup. No agri­cul­tural product is more “Cana­dian”, he enthuses, “and the maple leaf is the quin­tes­sen­tial Cana­dian symbol”. When trav­el­ling in Canada, you come across the maple leaf every­where. It adorns the national flag, and food­stuffs are labelled with it in shops to facil­i­tate regional purchasing deci­sions. The right maple trees and climate converge in north-east America, allowing the sugar sap to be extracted from the trunks in spring. Canada is the world’s leading producer of maple syrup, far ahead of the United States and respon­sible for over 70% of global produc­tion. Germany is the most impor­tant market outside America.

Tim invites us on a forest walk. To extract the sap from the maple trees, small holes are drilled into the trunks and fitted with a tap with a bucket hanging under­neath. “Good trees can produce up to 15 litres of sugar sap a day,” he says. In commer­cial produc­tion, the sap is trans­ported from the tap to the sugar shack via plastic hoses. In Tim’s case, this is a wooden barn that stands back on the farm. There, he shows where the sap is boiled down into syrup – around 40 litres of tree sap make one litre of maple syrup.

The warm-hearted farmer then takes the oppor­tu­nity to show­case a small part of his John Deere fleet: wife Arlene drives the lawn tractor, daughter Hayley a utility vehicle with a tipper body, and Tim a lovingly main­tained John Deere two-cylinder tractor. He proudly presents his model M, from the first produc­tion run in 1947. Daughter Hayley laughs: “It’s show­time”.

A visit to the Deere Pen

“That’s nothing”, dismisses Tim. We really must visit his neigh­bour Henry Doorn­waard: “He’s crazy about John Deere trac­tors”. The first one is already at the entrance to his farm. Tim knows his stuff: “This is the 4320, built in 1972”. The tractor is connected to an auger conveyor. A little later, Henry will use it to unload a new truck­load of grain maize that he has brought from the field to the drying plant. Just behind this are seven silos, each with a capacity of up to 650t.

It’s mid-October and the grain maize harvest is in full swing. The 69-year-old manages the 320-ha arable farm (here too: maize, soyabeans, winter wheat) with his sons Garrett and Trevor and daughter Jenna. A sign saying “The Deere Pen” is displayed on one of the machine barns. This is where he stores some of his John Deere trac­tors. “Yes, I’ve become a collector,” admits the like­able farmer some­what sheep­ishly. He now owns 15 trac­tors. The oldest is a D model from 1939, and a rarity is the 2510 petrol model from 1965 with Power­Shift trans­mis­sion, which was produced in limited numbers.

Back to the Theiler Farm. Josef helps his daugh­ters Claire, Erika, and Heidi (aged between seven and three) into the car – they wear dunga­rees like little farmers. Josef wants to visit his colleague Jean-Luc Jaquemet: “A passionate farmer who is always ready to help with tips”.

He also works on a farm that is partic­u­larly large for the region, with 1,618ha of land, mainly growing soyabeans, maize, and winter wheat. An area of this size requires power – and he has plenty.

Jean-Luc Jaquemet’s large fields require power: A view from the X9 1000 combine harvester during the maize harvest.

Jean-Luc Jaquemet is a farmer with passion. “Born to farm” is written on his truck, which he uses to trans­port maize to his drying facility.

During our visit in mid-October, the grain maize harvest is in full swing. He harvests with the John Deere X9 1000 combine – and is “thrilled”, he reveals. The header is almost 14m wide, and the combine can harvest up to 183t/hr! “Born to farm” is written on Jean-Luc’s truck, which he uses to trans­port the freshly threshed grain maize to his drying plant, where there are imposing storage silos with space for up to 30,000t of crop.

He tells us that his parents emigrated from Switzer­land to Canada with 10 chil­dren. His father wanted to give each of his five sons the oppor­tu­nity to run a farm, which was not possible in Switzer­land: a small country with limited land. They were able to do this in Canada. Fifteen farms now belong to the family busi­ness – an oper­a­tion of a some­what different magni­tude. Jean-Luc is in his mid-fifties and has seven chil­dren, including four sons; his siblings also have chil­dren. The amiable farmer laughs mischie­vously: “There must be around 100 of us now”.