Mike Pasztor reflects on how farming has changed — and what it takes to carry a family farm into the future.
For generations, farming has been about family, land and the hope that the next generation will carry it forward.
But the farm of today looks different from the one Mike Pasztor grew up on.
Mike and his brother are the third generation of their family farming in Norfolk County. Their grandparents came to Canada after the war — his father's family from Hungary and his mother's from Belgium.
Their parents bought the family farm near Port Burwell in the 1970s.
Today, the Pasztor family grows corn, soybeans, rye, pickling cucumbers and peppers. The family also operates AJ Pasztor and Sons Farm Supply, a business that began in 1977.
Tobacco, once a dominant crop in the area, has largely disappeared. Farms have become larger. Costs have risen. And the economics of farming have become increasingly complicated.
But some things haven't changed.
This is Mike Pasztor's story of growing up on the farm — and of trying to keep a family farm going into the future.
