This March, veteran Ontario mink farmer Kirk Rankin was honoured by the Stratford Perth Museum with the addition of his name to its Agricultural Wall of Fame. Launched in 2014, the Wall honours individuals from Perth County who have made outstanding contributions to local agriculture.

Kirk and family have been raising mink near the town of St. Marys, southwestern Ontario, since his grandfather, Dow, began the business in 1937. Then a cheese-maker with an eye for the next opportunity, Dow Rankin saw his cousin farming mink and decided to follow suit. Starting with just three breeding females, by the time Dow's son, Jim, returned from college in 1949, he had grown the herd to 40 females. In time, Jim took over the reins with his best friend, William Bradley, and incorporated the farm in 1965. R.B.R. Fur Farms is named for two Rankins, Dow and Jim, and a B for William.

Then along came Jim's son, Kirk Rankin, who at first pursued a career in forestry, but later opted to make a life with future wife Judith on the family farm.

Nowadays, Kirk and Judith run R.B.R. Fur Farms with sons Jamie and Curtis, and nephew Steve. That's four generations!

At the farm’s busiest in the mid-2000s, it raised the kits of over 4,000 breeding females.

SEE ALSO: A year on a mink farm. Part 1: Breeding. Truth About Fur.

Leadership Roles

During all this time, Kirk has filled several leadership roles, mostly in the mink-farming industry but also in the wider agricultural sector.

His first leadership role was as President of the St. Marys Mink Breeders Association, an organisation he had joined while still in high school.

He then served as President of the Ontario Fur Breeders Association.

From 1994 to 2020, he was also a Director of the Perth County Federation of Agriculture, where he advocated on land use planning issues and the importance of agriculture in developing policies.

And from 2004 until 2018, he was a board member of the Canada Mink Breeders Association, where he served as President from 2013 to 2015. Among the several committees he chaired was one responsible for revising the Code of Practice for the Care and Handling of Farmed Mink.

This is not the first time the Rankin family have been honoured for their contributions to agriculture. For example, in 2014 they were featured for the month of February in the annual Faces of Farming calendar produced by Farm & Food Care Ontario.

And in 2018, R.B.R. Fur Farms received a BMO Ontario Farm Family Award for its outstanding contributions to Ontario's agricultural sector and rural way of life.

Animal Activists

Kirk is also known for his outspoken views on animal activist raids on livestock farmers.

In July 2015, activists released 6,800 mink from his farm, at a time when the majority were kits and the herd totalled about 26,000. Just the previous May, activists had raided another local mink farm.

"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and some people don’t want us to raise the animals for their fur," he said at the time, "but basically we take a lot of human waste that people choose not to eat and turn it into a very luxurious, good-looking, warm product.”

“So, I don’t agree with them at all that what we are doing is wrong. I agree that everybody certainly has their opinion and if you don’t want to wear fur, then you are entitled to not wear fur.”

“Everybody gets their own opinion, but some people believe that they have the power, and I totally disagree with them, to break the law and do things to people who are in the fur business. So, if they maybe looked into it, they would understand what we do and why we do it. If they still don’t want to wear fur, that is their right in our country.”

Thankfully, raids on mink farms by animal activists are far rarer now than they once were, so we're hoping Kirk can enjoy his twilight years in peace.