Census shows agriculture in decline, but northern farmers see golden age ahead

Chris Regele has discovered he doesn't look like a farmer.

"A new guy drops seed off and says 'Is the owner around?' and 'I say, yeah that's me.' I guess they don't see it that often," the 27-year-old said.

Regele was just 21 when he and his wife bought a dairy operation near Earlton, Ont. not too far from his father's farm and he doesn't see too many other 20-somethings driving tractors.

The average northern farmer is about 55, but Regele thinks that could soon change.

• Census: thousands leave northern Ontario cities over last 5 years

Temiskaming is one of the only parts of the north where more land is being farmed than five years ago, with about 2,000 more acres being used to grow food.

Regele, whose own father moved north to be a farmer in 2003, credits government grants being made available for the clearing of land and installation of tile drainage, which is helping to attract producers being priced out of the business in southern Ontario.

He said some are young people looking to get started in farming and some are Mennonites looking to continue their traditional lifestyle away from the sprawl of the south.

Agriculture is also growing in the outskirts of Greater Sudbury, with 1,200 more acresbecoming farmland in the last five years.

Eric Blondin, 30, who runs Three Forks Farms near Warren, counts himself as part of the local food movement people who didn't grow up on a farm, got interested in the business and who now supply vegetables tothe growing number of farmers markets in the region.

"Just wanted to know where their food comes from and then wanted to become farmers. There's definitely a shift that has occurred," he said.

That shift is seeing producers move from livestock to the more lucrative cash crops of soy beans and grains, said Matt Bowman, a cattle farmer near the village of Thornloe in the Temiskamingdistrict and president of the Ontario Beef Producers Association.

His group is actively trying to recruit cattle operators in southern Ontario to move north where there are cheaper pastures with a program called Beef North.

Despite the gloomy census numbers, the 52-year-old believes a golden age for northern agriculture is on the horizon.

"Twenty-fiveor 30 years from now we're going to have to feed the world somehow and if cities continue to grow in southern Ontario they're going to be looking to northern Ontario to provide more food all the time," said Bowman.