Growing Spuds, High Risk, High Reward
In the first three years of raising potatoes—what was then Southern Alberta’s hot new crop—John Vossebelt almost lost the farm. Twice. “When we started in 2000, we were partly froze out,” says John, noting an early frost that destroyed a...
Growing Spuds, High Risk, High Reward
In the first three years of raising potatoes—what was then Southern Alberta’s hot new crop—John Vossebelt almost lost the farm. Twice. “When we started in 2000, we were partly froze out,” says John, noting an early frost that destroyed a...In the first three years of raising potatoes—what was then Southern Alberta’s hot new crop—John Vossebelt almost lost the farm.
Twice.
The Vossebelts
“When we started in 2000, we were partly froze out,” says John, noting an early frost that destroyed a large portion of his first harvest. While the next year provided a good yield, “2002 froze us out again.
“When you just start in this business [making] the big investments, you cannot have a bad year,” continues John. “But we had two.”
“We’d gotten the equipment, prepared the land and ourselves by learning about growing [potatoes],” John says. “We knew potatoes would be a high-risk crop, but we knew in our gut we could be successful.”
A decade and a half later, with the help of his wife, Ann, their five children and, says John, “many others,” the Vossebelt patriarch has built a successful, 2,500-acre operation named Chin Coulee Spud Farms. John now shares management with his two sons, Delbert and Dwayne, and runs a fleet of farm equipment that’s almost entirely AGCO-made.
We’re proud to be one of the Vossebelt’s partners in their farming enterprise. They put a lot of trust in our equipment, depending on it to get the job done reliably and effectively. We don’t take that lightly. After all, to John and his family, farming is more than a business.
“The potatoes have been good. We’ve had success as farmers, even though we had a difficult start, and it allows me to work with two of my children.”
He then looks around, smiles and asks in that booming, Dutch-laced baritone, “I can say that over the years we’ve been blessed in a lot of things, yes?”
