Some kids are just born to grow.
Our front page recently featured Milan Lukes’ journey into the world of giant pumpkins (see above) as he prepared for this past weekend’s 25th annual Roland Pumpkin Fair.
One one hand, it’s a story about a pretty impressive 13-year-old who has converted his family’s suburban backyard into a pumpkin patch.
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But stepping back, his story captures the essence of big challenges facing agriculture today.
It starts with his passion. Lukes told reporter Lorraine Stevenson he has dreamed about becoming a champion pumpkin producer ever since he first went to the pumpkin fair when he was six years old. He looked for all the information he could find and talked to whomever he could.
Sure, there’s a financial prize at stake, but he’s driven by something more — his desire to be the best grower he can be.
It has often been said the biggest challenge farming faces today is inspiring tomorrow’s generation. Could it be so simple as giving kids a taste of food production and farming when they are kids? Speakers at the Canadian Federation of Farm Writers annual convention in Calgary last weekend suggested that efforts to engage the consumer must start with youth. Kids are influencing a family’s purchasing decisions long before their hands are managing the wallets.
For Lukes, big isn’t about growing more pumpkins on an ever-increasing scale. His focus is on growing bigger and better pumpkins using the base that he has. With the price of land these days, the same principle applies whether you are talking giant pumpkins or 100-bushel canola crops — attention to detail is his most important input. Imagine what he’d be doing with a section of land.
And there is his need for mentorship. As he put it so succinctly in his interview with a reporter, “it’s really inspiring just to talk and share information, because there’s not a lot of people you can actually talk about giant pumpkins with.”
True enough. With an aging farm demographic and the trends towards fewer crops produced on larger acreages, the same might soon be said about growing oats, buckwheat and flax.
Without playing favourites, we offer our best wishes to Milan Lukes. May his giant pumpkin reach Roland in one piece and may he leave the event just as enthused as when he came. He may not know it, but he’s already a champ.
