Turning opportunity into a future for the family farm

When Aaron and Amber Hoffus talk about the growth of their farm near Bjorkdale in northeast Saskatchewan, they don't start with acres, equipment or production records.

They start with people. The parents who helped build the operation before them. The neighbours who created opportunities when it was their time to retire. The team of employees that work hard alongside them. And the advisors helping to map out the future.

Long before they were cultivating more than 11,000 grain acres and running a 300-head cattle operation, Aaron studied environmental science and spent 15 years working in the oilpatch. Amber completed her CPA designation and built a career in accounting and insurance. All while quietly planning for something else.

The farm.

"We chased our dreams back here to start a family and start farming with my mom and dad," Aaron says about moving back home in 2012. For 10 years prior, he used income from his off-farm career to help pay down land and invest in equipment, while scheduling holidays around calving season so he could be home to help.

The growth that followed wasn't part of some carefully mapped-out expansion. It arrived when neighbours began retiring and opportunities started appearing, sometimes all at once. Many came from people the Hoffuses had known their entire lives – people who wanted to see the land they’d spent decades nurturing cared for into the future by someone they trusted.

"If you can't do it, that's your one crack at it," Aaron says. "Once it's out of the pool, you're never getting it again."

One opportunity led to another. Then another. And along the way, the Hoffuses navigated several major opportunities using the Farm Credit Canada (FCC) Transition Loan to help make those complex land and farm transfers a reality.

Growth brought opportunity, but also responsibility. There were difficult seasons too, including a crop failure that left them buying out grain contracts at significant cost.

Over time, those experiences changed how Aaron and Amber defined success. "It was about creating opportunities for ourselves, and now it's less about that and more about creating sustainable opportunities for all of us – our nephew, our kids and maybe someday their families," Aaron says.

"At the start, our metrics for success were size, production and profitability," Amber adds. "While those things are still critical, I think we've added some considerations... are we making changes and adopting innovation that put us in a better position?"

The future now includes their nephew, Brett Holmes, who works alongside Aaron and his dad on the cattle operation. Aaron sees Brett as an important bridge between generations, creating a pathway for the family's younger children – their son Vance and daughter Grace – to one day decide what role they may want to play.

The Hoffuses laugh that Grace was "born with the disease." As a baby, she spent evenings with Aaron in the calving barn and developed an early love of cattle.

For Aaron and Amber, preserving opportunities for the next generation is just as important as building the business itself. "Our biggest indicator of success is going to come way down the road," Amber says, "if our kids grow up and say, 'This is a life, and business, I want to be part of.'"