Roul Van Asch is running a custom farming business that is bigger and busier than he ever imagined.
When Van Asch first started ION Ag in 2020, he didn't think that he would reach the point he's at now.
"The first year was really, really slow," says Van Asch. "So, we started taking equipment more long distance to places like Calgary, Edmonton, Red Deer, Vermillion, Saskatoon and there was a lot more work farther from home than there was close to home.”
ION Ag loans out farming equipment, and sometimes operators, to farmers across Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Based in southern Alberta, the custom farming operation offers baling, bale hauling, bale stacking, mowing, raking, manure spreading, rock picking, flat deck hauling and more. While the original plan was to keep things local, Van Asch quickly realized that his services were needed all over the prairies. Now, he has grown his fleet of equipment to over 20 pieces of machinery and is kept busy throughout the summer and fall.
"We run equipment either bigger than what the farmers' themselves have or we run equipment that the farmer can’t justify," Van Asch explains. "So that’s where we get the phone call. For example, a bale stacker. Is it something every guy is going to need? Absolutely not. Is it something every guy can pencil in? Absolutely not. But we do enough bales that now we are running two of them.”
Last year, ION Ag was so busy that they had to bring in two more tractors and operators externally to help with the workload. Usually though, it is Van Asch and his girlfriend operating most of the equipment. They bring in help when they can find it but at the end of the day, they run the majority of the business, and the business is booming.
In July, ION Ag bought out another company and added to their expanding business. They took over the equipment and will be able to add to their growing fleet of machinery.
Although the summer is definitely their "bread and butter," according to Van Asch, he has recently picked up some winter work for his tractors. Van Asch does snow removal in Lethbridge for CCK Snow Removal in the winter and last year, was able to trial one of his tractors.
“Our tractor runs absolute circles around all of [CCK's] equipment," he says. "Sounds like this year we will have one and possibly two tractors plowing snow full time in Lethbridge this winter.”
Winter is also the time for odd jobs and shop work in preparation for the busy summer season. This year, they are hoping to do lots of straw hauling and maybe some metal hauling over the colder months. Van Asch says it is not uncommon to get some "weird" requests over the winter but he is up for anything.
"We get some really oddball request that don’t make sense to me but I’m not going to question it, I’ll come," he says.
