What can you find on QFA director Bill Fairbairn’s farm? There are 35 head of Horned Hereford cattle and a poodle named Suzie. “The cows just think she’s a cat,” laughs Fairbairn when asked about the relationship between the creatures.

Fairbairn grew up on his farm, which has been in his family since the early 1800s, in Wakefield, Quebec. His father had been a dairy farmer but Fairbairn switched to purebred horned Herefords in the 1960s when they stopped shipping cream in his area. As a youngster, he remembers haying in the summers and recalls having to milk the cows before going to school every morning as well as in the evenings.

For 22 years, Fairbairn also worked at E.B. Eddie, a paper mill in nearby Hull, Quebec. But he never stopped farming. “I figured, if I lost my job at least I’d always have something to eat!” he laughs. Although he admits there are some days when he wonders “why the hell he’s farming,” he admits that it is a very satisfying industry because “at least you can always see what you’ve done.”

Fairbairn optimistically predicts that within the next 20 years, farming will be an industry in high demand in Canada because people will realize that we are importing too much food instead of producing it ourselves. “It’s terrible when you have to depend on another country to feed you,” he says. “Look at all the farmers that have quit in recent years. Pretty soon people are going to be asking where they are all gone.”

Fairbairn notes a big presence of this phenomenon in his region where lots of farms are going unused these days. “The land is still there and it’s still good but it’s not being used.” Many farm land owners, he explains, are renting out their land or just not producing on it.

“It’s because there is too much legislation in farming,” he says. “We are being red taped to death.”

For now, Fairbairn hopes to pass on his farm to his son, Jeff. “He’s supposed to unless he gets smart and changes his mind,” Fairbairn jokes. They are currently considering cutting back the herd size and focusing more on marketing their own beef.

In addition to the QFA board of directors, Fairbairn is the President of the Gatineau Outaouais Beef Improvement Club (GOBIC), an Interim-Director of the Slaughterhouse project in Shawville, a director of the UPA’s Gatineau South English mini-sector, and a director on the regional syndicate the Beef Federation.