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by LISA GERVAISSun StaffRESTON - A lot can change in a year.just ask Buck Martin.Doctors gave the Reston farmer one to five years to live after cancer surgery last spring.Martin spent most of the summer receiving chemotherapy treatment in Winnipeg only to return to a drought-stricken farm.The cancer is in remission, though, and Martin, who farms 5,300 acres with his son and brother says the crops are the best he has seen in 10 years.“I feel better about things . . . it’s better all around,” Martin said Friday.‘‘After surgery last Spring I was given one to five years. I had a clean scan in mid-June, came home, we got five inches of rain in a 24-hour period and the crops look like this.”Martin isn’t the only one with a new outlook on life.Members of the community — located about 120 kilometres west of Brandon — say there is a more positive attitude this year.Martin waded into a waist-high field of barley — twice as high as it was last year when the crop produced just 15 bushels per acre. It is expected to turn out 70 to 85 this year.“Cooler temperatures and timely rains,” Martin explains.The night before three-quarters of an inch of rain fell.On June 10 five inches fell over 24 hours. Farmers say that was the turning point.“If it wouldn’t have come then it would have been the same as last year,” Martin said.“They’ve (rains) been right on time,” son Rick added. “It’s a wonder what a little rain will do to you. It is a lot more promising than it was last year.”The turn-around has Rick rethinking his future. He had all but given up the idea of taking over the family farm until this summer.“I was starting to losemam***CONTENT: Buck Martin happily inspects a barley field.interest. This year I’m starting to change my mind a little bit. You can see what the land will do.”Things are not perfect inReston.Low crop prices have farmers worried. Grasshoppers have farmers worried. Diseased crops have farmers worried. Low subsoil moisture has farmers worried. But most of all the fact the crop “isn’t in the bin yet” has farmers worried.But they say one more rain may put it in the bag.Businessmen here say that means farmers may have a better attitude but they’re not going to go on any shopping sprees.i t i « l • T* ' *“Farmers are a little more optimistic but I think they’ll hold onto their money a little while yet. They’re not going to go crazy,” Larry Wright said.Wright owns Wright’s Family Bakery on the town’s main street.“They’ve had three bad years. They are not going to blow it all at once.”At the Reston Fair Coun. Gordon Forsyth pointed to crop entries for the grains and grasses competition.“It is good quality,” he said. “The best quality we’ve had for quite a few years.”“Last year it (wheat) was about that high,” he said holding his hand about a foot from the ground.“Everybody seems happier.”The local farm equipment dealership said it is having a better year.Owner Larry Berry said farmers have not used their equipment much in the past two years because of poor crops but they are using it now.He said that means farmers are buying used equipment, getting repairs and buying parts.“The last two years there was very little happening,” Berry said. “But now they have to bite the bullet and get the stuff in the field in ready condition because they can’t gamble.”Like the farmers Berry cautions it is too early to run cackling to the bank.He said there is not a lot of money in the community.He too laments low crop prices and the fact one good year cannot overturn a decade of bad years.“When farmers start getting $9 an acre for their wheat we’ll get a sign,” he said pointing to a Case logo with no local identifier.Berry
Newspaper Details
Brandon Sunday
Brandon, Manitoba, CA
Sun, Jul 29, 1990
Page 2
Full Page
Clipped by
Jodi B.
DC, CA 08 Jan 2022
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