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and work away at it to get it harvested,” he said. “But [in the
U.S.], if a guy has 2,000 acres of winter wheat, when it is ready,
it is all ready, and he likes to see machines moved in so it is done
in a couple days.”
For Petersen, custom combining rates range from $30 to
$40 per acre, but there can be a lot of variability in the details
depending on the size of the crop, hauling distances and
other factors.
“Timeliness is worth a lot,” said Petersen. “If you have a
40-bushel crop that goes as No. 1, that’s worth a huge amount
compared to if there is some weather delay and it comes off as
a No. 3.”
While there is always business turnover, Petersen works
mainly with an established clientele—some who have been with
him for 16 years.
Petersen and Thacker are two of about a dozen Canadian
custom combining operators making the trek south each
year to harvest mostly winter wheat crops fromNewMexico,
north through Texas, Colorado, Oklahoma, Nebraska and
Montana, before arriving back in Canada in
time to harvest a variety of crops, including
barley, wheat, canola, flax, peas, lentils and
mustard.
They are carrying on a business tradition
that became well established during the
Second World War. With a shortage of
manpower and machinery during the war
years, U.S. farmers needed help to get the
crop off.
“The shortage of labour and machinery
during World War II, coupled with
the resurgence of wheat production,
precipitated custom combining,” said
Thomas Isern, a history professor at North
Dakota State University. “And it wasn’t even a labour issue as
much as a machinery issue. With limited allocation of steel,
there weren’t as many machines available.”
Isern said records show there were about 500 machines in
itinerant operation in 1942, and as many as 8,000 machines
operating in Kansas alone by 1947. One of the most dramatic
episodes of the era, he said, was a special allocation of steel to
Massey–Harris of Toronto in 1944 to build 500 self-propelled
harvesters to be used as custom combines.
While the demand for custom combining services increased
for many years, it eventually plateaued and, for a number of
reasons, has been on the decline since the 1970s, said Isern.
Petersen and Thacker, who are president and vice-
president, respectively, of the Association of Canadian Custom
Harvesters, said there is still work out there, but margins are
getting tighter and manpower continues to be an issue, as well.
“There are fewer Canadian custom harvesters going into
the U.S. for several reasons,” said Thacker. “On the U.S. side,
we’re seeing farms get larger, and perhaps more self-sufficient
in harvesting their own crops. And we’re seeing some diversity,
too, with different crops in rotation, so not everything is ready to
harvest at once.
“From the custom combining side, it takes a fairly large
capital investment just to get started,” he added. “And
custom harvesters run into the same issues as farmers in trying
to find labour. When I started there were about 80 custom
harvesting outfits in Canada and today we’re down to about
12 crews. There is work out there, and a demand, but margins
are very tight.”
Petersen agreed that the economics, labour issues and, of
course, the lifestyle—not everyone wants to be on the road away
from home for three months—are all challenges for the industry.
“Economy of scale is important. You can be out there with
several machines, but I know several operators who just have
one combine, good clientele and make it work, said Petersen.
Tackling the millions of acres of wheat harvest with thousands
of harvesting machines is an amazing sight and lifestyle, said
Conrad Weaver, a U.S. filmmaker from Frederick, Maryland.
Earlier this year, he completed a 65-minute
documentary film called
The Great American
Wheat Harvest
, airing at different venues this
summer, and he hopes to release it for TV
distribution and DVD sales later this fall.
The film captures the life and times of
custom harvesting outfits that spend months
on the road, travelling from town to town
and from state to state, bringing in the vast
U.S. wheat crop. Petersen and his crew are
among those featured in the film.
“I grew up on a dairy farm in Ohio,”
said Weaver. “So I had a connection with
farming, but I didn’t know a lot about the
whole custom harvesting business. One
day, about four years ago, I was reading a blog about custom
harvesting on the Great Plains and my wife said, ‘you should
make a film about that.’ So that’s when I really started thinking
about it.”
Over the next three years, he followed three custom
harvesting crews, capturing the experiences of the people as
they worked their way across the American Midwest.
“I think what struck me the most is here are these custom
harvesters and they each have made this huge investment in
machinery and in their lives for this career, and yet they have
no real safety net themselves,” said Weaver. “It is a very risky
business. If they run into drought in Texas, or hail in Colorado,
freezing temperatures, or storm systems that can settle in for
weeks, they have no protection themselves.
“There is opportunity there, and they seem to get this harvest
bug for the lifestyle. The film has beautiful scenery and it also
captures the story of the lives of these people—their resilience.
And you also get a sense of the real community they form and
how they help each other. It is a great story.”
Fall
2014
grainswest.com
39
“If you have a
40-bushel crop that
goes as No. 1, that’s
worth a huge amount
compared to if there
is some weather delay
and it comes off as a
No. 3.”
–Lee Petersen