Farmer Rancher June 18, 2020 by Battlefords News Optimist

Serving the producers of the Northwest

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FARMER North Battleford, Saskatchewan

Thursday, June 18, 2020

State of Agriculture: COVID-19 forces auctioneers, farm shows to retool Evan Radford

Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Leader-Post

The COVID-19 pandemic is marking an unfamiliar milestone for auctioneer Blair Stenberg — the first time in three decades he’s been at home, missing the spring auction circuit. “I really miss the road and the travel and the people and everything. This is the first April I’ve stayed home in 30 years, since I was literally 19 years old,” he said from his farm near Hodgeville, Sask. Stenberg is an auctioneer with Ritchie Bros. He auctions farm equipment, but he’s also a regular at Canadian Western Agri-

bition (CWA) in Regina, driving animal sales. Thanks to the pandemic, he’s now among a broad swath of people and businesses in the agriculture industry adjusting to the times. The auctions he works are still loud, but absent of in-person bidders, always at his home in Rouleau, Sask. He works in front of a computer screen, using Ritchie’s online auction registration system as potential buyers wrangle to win a fair price. “It’s really different. It’s tough to get an upbeat feeling when all you’re looking at is a computer screen, right? ... You’re selling to the world still, yet there’s

no one there.” Were it not for the pandemic, he’d have been working auctions in Edmonton and Chilliwack, B.C., in mid-May. Instead he worked both from Rouleau. Bids are “yelled at us through the speaker and then we just go up from there. It’s just like having the ringman out in front of you; it’s all electronic though.” Sales still seem strong, because farmers and producers still need equipment, Stenberg said. But that doesn’t mean he enjoys driving up bids through pixels and bandwidth. “It’s a totally different world. The interaction’s

The title of Grand Champion Speckle Park Female at last year’s Canadian Western Agribition, Canada’s largest livestock show, were to the animal shown by River Hill Farms, owned by Barry and Elaine Ducherer from Neilburg. Photo submitted

Local Journalism Initiative reports from underserved communities The federal government’s Local Journalism Initiative supports the creation of original civic journalism that covers the diverse needs of underserved communities across Canada. Funding has been made available to eligible Canadian media organizations to hire journalists or pay freelance journalists to produce civic journalism for underserved communities. The content produced is made available to media organizations through a Creative Commons license so that Canadians can be better informed. In this issue of Farmer Rancher, a sample of agricultural/COVID-19 stories from across Canada is offered up. See inside for more of these stories. way off.” Ritchie Bros. says the shift to online-only auctions hasn’t hurt bidder-participation. Vice-president Simon Wallan said they held 56 auctions during the spring session, seeing a “40- to 100-per-cent increase” in bidder registration and participation, compared with spring 2019. He oversees everything agriculture-related in Canada. COVID-19 contributed in part to the percentage jumps. “People shelter in or (follow) social distancing guidelines; (they) had more time to be online and to be watching, paying attention to and participating at these auctions,” he said. Ritchie Bros. intends to keep running online-only auctions for its summer season, from June 15 until Aug. 8. If it returns to in-person, on-site auctions,

it will use “real-time information” while contending with health orders from four different provincial governments — Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia, Wallan said. Come fall, Stenberg hopes to be in Regina for Agribition; this year marks the show’s 50th aniversary. For now, Agribition CEO Chris Lane says it’s still “full steam ahead” planning the 2020 event. Staff are brainstorming different ways to host it, whether in a different format or not at all in 2020, depending on what the coronavirus does and what social gathering rules governments order or loosen. “We’re a Phase 5 event in every way, shape and form,” Lane said, referencing the province’s fivephase reopening plan. June 1 marked the final sub-section of Phase 1 (parks and

AUCTIONS

campgrounds). Phase 5 of the plan increases public gatherings beyond 30 people. Like Phase 4, it didn’t yet have a date as of late May. “We’re over 100,000 people (who attend), and so we’re looking to make sure that whatever the guidelines are around putting on an event that’s safe and allows people to do the business of agriculture, we’ll be nimble enough to fully comply,” Lane said. If Agribition 2020 is outright cancelled, the Regina area stands to lose almost $45 million, based on economic impact data from 2017. “That’s jobs we create, visitors we bring in and what they spend shopping, eating and staying in the city,” Lane said. The same data set shows a provincial impact of $75 million. Continued on Page 5

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Potato farmers facing mental, financial stress from production cuts By Jennifer Henderson

Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, St. Albert Gazette

As Alberta’s potato industry reels from the devastation of COVID-19, one industry spokesperson says he is worried the mental health and wellness of farmers could be at stake. Terence Hochstein, executive director for the Potato Growers of Alberta (PGA), said recent blows to potato farms have stoked his concerns for farm families. “I’m worried about the growers, the families – the mental stress and the mental strain on the family farms. It’s hard on the spouse, it’s hard on the kids, it’s hard on the workers. That’s where the untold story is – the mental stress and the financial stress on these family farms,” Hochstein said. As restaurants closed their doors to ward off the spread of the pandemic, potatoes that would otherwise go toward fries and chips sat in producers’ freezers instead. As a result, farmers have been advised to cut the volume of potatoes they grow this year by up to 30 per cent. That means the potato processing industry is facing down a $60- to $70-million loss, while seed potato farmers will lose between $5 and $6 million. Hochstein said that’s a

10-per-cent income cut for farmers who already operate on razor thin margins. According to Statistics Canada, 54 per cent of Canadians eat out in restaurants once a week or more. The lion’s share of potatoes grown in Alberta get bought up by restaurants, while the remaining potatoes are grown for cooking and eating at home. Last year, the industry produced 850,000 tons of potatoes for fries and chips; overall, Alberta potato growers churned out 1 million tons. Hochstein said the industry is sitting on some 100,000 tons of potatoes right now that need to be processed by September. As the backlog grew and freezers hit their limits, processing plants such as McCain Foods, Lamb Weston and Cavendish Farms shut down temporarily, partly because they had nowhere to send the finished product. “The plants are up and running now, but we’ve lost so many run days in a plant that they can’t begin to use all of these potatoes,” Hochstein said. There’s nowhere else for these potatoes to go, either: the type of potato used for french fries, the russet Burbank, doesn’t make a very good table potato. “They’re planted for a specific use, and that is predominantly french fries, hash browns and the breakfast patties – frozen

potato products,” Hochstein explained. Rerouting potatoes that were once destined for restaurants isn’t easy. The majority of fries produced in plants are packed in five-pound clear plastic bags and don’t have a consumer nutritional label on them. Hochstein said once those fries are packaged, they can’t be repackaged. However, McCain Foods and some other producers have been able to redirect some of their products to grocery stores, although there’s a limited capacity for that as well. The industry is trying to get its products anywhere they will be valued, including food banks and feedlots. Still, the oversupply of potatoes mean farmers are sitting on literal tons of crop. Russ Van Boom, a seed potato farmer, who lives in Sturgeon County, said reducing his planting by 30 per cent means seeds are going to waste. Van Boom started growing seed potatoes last summer that were destined to be planted in farms this summer. The farmer made the decision on how much to grow nearly a year before COVID-19 rocked the agricultural industry. In 2019, consumers were eating plenty of potatoes. Demand was so high, Van Boom grew more seed potatoes to meet this year’s expected demand.

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Farmers have been advised to cut the volume of potatoes they grow this year by up to 30 per cen. (Chris Colbourne/St. Albert Gazette)

“At that time, the demand in the potato industry was such that ... expansions were happening like crazy. So as much as we could grow, the market was really calling for that,” Van Boom said. Now, he has more than 1 million pounds of potatoes, worth more than $1 million, left over and he has to find a way to dispose of them. He said a fifth of his crop is left in the bins. “I’ve never seen a year like this.” Since they’ll go bad before next season, he will have to dump them out in the field and bury them so they don’t become a magnet for disease. The farmer said he will also try to find a feedlot to take them, but the market is so saturat-

ed with excess potatoes it could be difficult to find a buyer. Van Boom said he has to get rid of excess potatoes each year, but this is a “significant amount.” “It’s a little hard to stomach. Only a few short months ago, we were in a situation where we didn’t have enough potatoes to sell. Everyone wanted these potatoes. Now, we’re in a situation where no one is taking them and now we also have the added effect of having to get rid of them,” he said. “It’s not a great situation.” Van Boom isn’t sure yet the exact dollar figure attached to his losses this year, but he expects his farm to operate at a loss. His usual profit of five to 10 per cent is just enough to make a few small improvements to his farm; now, he is working just to pay the bills. He’s still looking at the positive side, though. In the years leading up to 2020, although weather buffeted the potato industry, demand for potatoes was booming. He also built social distancing into his lifestyle by living out on his farm. “I take that as a blessing to say that our health has maybe been protected through this,” he said. He doesn’t have to struggle to get four or five workers on his farm, either,

since he is within commuting distance from Edmonton. He remains an optimist. “We could be in other parts of the world. A 30-per-cent or 20-per-cent cut in business – that’s not fun, but it could be a lot worse,” he said. He says there’s an opportunity now for the government to step in with more support for the industry, to help farmers surmount these challenges. “If not now, when?” In early May, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney and Alberta Agriculture Minister Devin Dreeshen announced new supports for the potato industry. The province began increasing interim payments under the federal/provincial AgriStability program to 75 per cent from 50 per cent for the potato industry, but that doesn’t cover inputs and equipment – the main expense on a potato farm. The federal government’s Canada Emergency Business Account (CEBA), providing interest-free loans of up to $40,000, won’t do much to help farmers like Van Boom, either. “In this day and age of farming – I guess I appreciate the gesture, but the scale of farm that is necessary to be sustainable these days, the impact $10,000 is going to make ... is very, very minimal,” he said.

Hugh Nerlien

MLA- Kelvington-Wadena (306) 278-2200 nerlien.mla@sasktel.net

Todd Goudy

MLA - Melfort Constituency (306) 752-9500 goudymla@gmail.com

Fred Bradshaw

MLA - Carrot River Valley (306) 768-3977 fbradshaw.mla@sasktel.net

Delbert Kirsch MLA – Batoche

Larry Doke, MLA

(306) 256-3930 batochemla@sasktel.net

Cut Knife - Turtleford Constituency (306) 893-2619 larrydoke@sasktel.net

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Picturesque

New to the world. Two new little ones. Photo by Louise Lundberg

The Battlefords, Thursday, June 18, 2020 - Page 3

New and interactive forage selection tool launched Submitted The Saskatchewan Forage Council is excited to announce the launch of Forage U-Pick, a new interactive forage species selection tool for Western Canada. Designed to provide users with information for forage selection, seeding rates, and weed management, Forage U-Pick is a mobile-friendly tool offering timely and efficient advice. Forages for hay and pasture are essential for beef production. Ensuring that forage species are well-suited to growing conditions improves establishment rates, yield, vigour and quality. The Forage

U-Pick tool provides information that can help to reduce costs, improve utilization and number of grazing days, and increase profitability. “Forage U-Pick has been a massive undertaking,” says SFC President Tamara Carter. “The Saskatchewan Forage Council is delighted with the collaborative efforts of all the contributors, and project manager Julie MacKenzie, forbringing our vision for a western Canadian forage tool to fruition.” Forage U-Pick is an intuitive and easy-to-use platform. Forages Suited to My Field allows users to choose their province, soil

zone or a regional zone and provides a list of forage species that are suited to the selected zone. The Seeding Rate Calculator is used once users have selected the forages they want to seed, ensuring that the right amount of seed is put into the ground to have the best possible chance for a good stand. The Forage Weed Management area of the tool touches on how the economic success in forages can increase with proper weed control. Forage U-Pick, launched June8, can be found on the SFC website www.saskforage.ca and at www.upick.beefresearch. ca

“They’re like family”, he says. Peter remains in contact with his regular TFW’s through WhatsApp, and they are equally confused by the restrictions. He is frustrated, but will have to face this reality for the season. Greater Ontario Ginseng Farmer Mario Slegers is also far behind due to the lack of TFWs. He expected seven workers on 15 April, but only

four arrived on 19 April. Upon arrival, the workers required two weeks of quarantine before they could start work. Slegers has struggled to find locals to replace the foreign hands, claiming that the CERB has made it more difficult to find willing workers. Slegers says he is frustrated with the policies put in place by the federal government, asserting that they painted the entire

agricultural industry with one paintbrush. Furthermore, the agriculture industry relies on Mother Nature weather, temperature, and timing all play a factor. Most farmers cannot simply delay their planting or harvesting. Slegers worries about supply chain shortages, warning that Canadian farms will be unable to produce enough fruit and vegetables this fall.

Missing workers are putting farmers behind By McKinley Leonard-Scott Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Middlesex Banner

Peter Gubbels, owner of LCP Farms Inc. in Mt. Brydges, Ont., says that he has fallen behind. Every year, his operation relies on the help of Temporary Foreign Workers (TFWs) from Mexico. Due to COVID-19 restrictions on travel and health monitoring, his help

is late and heavily reduced in numbers. Before the pandemic, Gubbels expected seven foreign workers to arrive around the end of April. To date, just two workers arrived on Friday, 29 May, with no updates on the others. The workers are required to self-isolate for two weeks, so are not immeidately helpful on the farm. In the meantime, Gubbells has recruited the

help of family and local high school kids to get his planting done. Although he appreciates the help, he explains that TFWs are highly-killed, some with more than 20 years of experience. The knowledge they have cannot be taught ‘on-thefly’. Many of the same workers have returned to Gubbels’ farm for years, and they have developed a good working relationship.

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Some pork farmers operating at a loss due to COVID-19’s impact on market By Jennifer Henderson

Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, St. Albert Gazette

Some pork producers in Alberta are raising their animals at a loss as the COVID-19 pandemic pummels the hog market. Darcy Fitzgerald, executive director of Alberta Pork, said some farmers won’t make a profit this year on the animals they’re currently raising. “We’re basically asking these farmers to produce food for us and go broke,” Fitzgerald said. “In some cases, (farmers) could be faced with the bill ... for an extra $20 or $30,000 after they sold the pigs. The pigs are sold for less than what it cost to raise them.” The fortunes of Canadian pork farmers are often closely linked to the pork industry in the U.S. The shutdown of U.S. pork processing plants has pounded the Canadian pork industry – while pork plants in Canada have been mostly saved from the catastrophic viral outbreaks that hit beef plants, several outbreaks at U.S. pork plants mean that country’s processing power has dropped by an estimated 25 per cent

to 50 per cent. Some hogs are sold on a futures market, which means market speculators try to predict whether the value of a commodity will go up or down. As U.S. plants shut down, there has been more supply than processers can handle, crashing the price of the product. “The problem really for the hog industry ... is the prices crashed and it’s crashed into the futures as well,” Fitzgerald explained. “At the end of the day, because of COVID-19, the farmer just isn’t getting paid.” That’s despite global demand for pork surging and supplies dwindling due to an outbreak of African swine fever. China, the world’s largest consumer of pork products, has faced an outbreak of the swine fever over the last year, leaving

them with a mass shortage of the popular protein. The country consumes as much as 50 million tonnes of pork per year and is expected to be short between 20 and 30 million tonnes this year. World exports of pork clock in at around 10 million tonnes, with Canada exporting one million tonnes. According to the Canadian Pork Council, Canada’s pork industry generates $23.8 billion in total economic activity from farms, inputs, processing and exports. In Alberta, the economic impacts of pork production hit $1.6 billion in 2015, according to a report from Alberta Pork. Canada’s pork industry is a major exporter, with 70 per cent of all pork products leaving the country. The Japanese market pays the most for Canada’s pork products, while China and the U.S. take a large portion of the remaining exports. There are approximately 200 producers in Alberta raising around 3 million

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finished hogs annually. Jurgen Preugschas, who has been a pork farmer for 40 years near Mayerthorpe and was the former president of the Canadian Pork Council, said this has been a tough year for the industry. “This is as bad as we’ve seen it,” Preugschas said. The industry has faced hard times before and spent more than a decade in crisis between 2001 and 2013, during which time roughly a quarter of the farms in the country closed. Hog production dropped from 32 million animals Canada-wide to 25 million. Those challenges were brought on by a high Canadian dollar, which lowered the price for pork internationally; high feed prices and mandatory country-of-origin labelling laws in the U.S. drawing business away from Canadian products. The industry adapted during that rough patch, with many processing plants purchasing pigs and paying farmers to raise them to slaughter weight. One such plant is Olymel in eastern Canada, the country’s largest pork producer. Olymel was forced to close a plant in Quebec for 14 days, starting on March 29, after nine employees tested positive for COVID-19, causing a backlog of 90,000 pigs waiting for slaughter. Shutdowns of Canadian pork plants haven’t had a major impact on production levels, though: in the five weeks leading up to May 2, Canadian plant shutdowns caused the country’s plants to slaughter just 1.3 per cent fewer hogs than they did over the same period the previous year. Backlogs – even small ones – are more difficult to manage in the pork industry than in other industries like cattle. When pigs are ready for slaughter, they need to go to slaughter, since there is not enough pen space to hold them back while continuing to

take in the newer, younger pigs required to keep the food chain going. That means if one processing plant goes down in Western Canada, it could be catastrophic for the industry. In the U.S., shutdowns have caused a backlog of 600,000 pigs per week, which dropped the price of the product in both the United States and in Canada. The two countries’ hog markets are very intertwined, and when the backlog in the U.S. caused the price of American hogs to drop, Canadian prices dropped as well. In 2013, Preugschas adapted with the industry and secured a contract with Olymel. The new business model, known as “custom finishing”, works like a pig hotel, Preugschas says: he receives 25-kilogram pigs from Olymel and raises them until they weigh 125 kilograms. The process takes roughly 17 weeks, and then the pigs are shipped to the Olymel plant in Red Deer for slaughter. He said that contract protects him from fluctuating market prices, since he doesn’t own the pigs outright. That means the Preugschas farm, known as Pigs R Us Inc., isn’t suffering as much from the impacts of COVID-19 as independent pork producers. Those independents are seeing their prices tank by 50 per cent. “They’ve been affected drastically,” Preugschas said. Fitzgerald said he has been fielding a lot of calls from farmers across Alberta who say they could have to shut down their operation if they don’t get government help. The last thing they want to do is have to euthanize pigs, and Fitzgerald said most prefer to keep them and sell them at a loss. “A lot of them will take the hit and feed them … and be in the hole hundreds, if not millions, of

dollars in some cases – and then (they) just have to figure out what they’re going to do next to try to come back out of that,” Fitzgerald said. “We might just see a decrease in the number of pig farms in Canada, which isn’t very much already.” Without government support, it’s also hard for local pig farmers to compete with U.S. producers who receive a lot of government subsidization On May 5, the federal government announced $252 million in agriculture funding to support the Canadian food chain, but pork producers say that doesn’t go far enough. Industry experts have estimated pork producers will lose $675 million in 2020, and the Canadian Pork Council has been asking for $20 per hog to feed the animals and keep the lights on for pork operations. “For the past five years we have heard from our government that they want to help us to grow our sector, yet when our house is burning, they are offering us a glass of water to save it,” said Rick Bergmann, Canadian Pork Council chair, in a statement. “We are thankful (Agriculture and Agri-Foods Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau’s) continued advocacy for our sector, but Canadian pork farm families are in danger. Should they fail, food insecurity will increase as supplies tighten and food gets more expensive.” Fitzgerald said in the end, farmers may stop producing hogs, requiring the country to import products from large American producers instead of relying on producers here at home. Right now, Canada is the third-largest pork producer in the world. “If we get pushed out of the marketplace, you’re really reliant on foreign countries to supply what you have for food products,” Fitzgerald said.

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The Battlefords, Thursday, June 18, 2020 - Page 5

State of Agriculture

COVID-19 forces auctioneers, farm shows to retool wouldn’t have had (it).” Once the province limited all social gatherings to 10 people or less, it killed all auctions, he said. Since then, “a pile of bull sales have been held online.” Of those he watched, he’s impressed by how many bulls sold “with nobody in the stands.” Alexander, now in his 70s, agreed breeders miss the familiar face-to-face, handshake way of reaching a deal. Such settings draw about 100 to 300 potential buyers. “The old days of people just showing up on sale morning and going through the bulls and buying a bull changed this year,” he said. But he says people are adjusting to the so-called new normal: Buyers scheduling appointments to assess a bull one-on-one with the owner; frequent telephone calls; and owners working as impromptu videographers to market their bulls online. “We were moving that way, slowly, but this pandemic made it move a lot faster in that direction,” he said.

Unlike Agribition, Canada’s Farm Progress Show didn’t have time on its side: Organizers announced in late April they’re postponing this year’s event; it was to run June 16 to 18. Hosting it in 2020 is likely out. But Regina’s Evraz Place, the hosting company, is using it as a chance to retool. It’s surveying producers and exhibitors for when each year they want the show scheduled. “We’re trying to make a long-term decision about when the best timing is,” said corporate development vice-president Jerry Fischer. “It’s given us an opportunity to step back and say, ‘when is the best timing for the show? Is June the best time? Is it in fact the time people want?’ And put that question to bed for the future,” he said. That’s not to say the pandemic’s effects have been expected. “When you’re in the major event world and everything comes to a complete stop, it’s just unprecedented.”

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Continued from Page 1 If the show goes ahead in a different form this year, Lane said the virtual-digital route is on the table. “For years we’ve been doing online streams of our shows. Online cattle sales are certainly not uncommon these days. If there was any lack of exposure to the ways of doing that business, I think we’re kind of overcoming that,” he said. Similar to Stenberg, Grant Alexander is seeing steady interest in online auctions for pricey purebred bulls, most of which sell in the $4,000 to $8,500 range. The Weyburn-area farmer is semi-retired, but he still specializes in selling bull semen and embryos, along with a few pure-breds per year. After selling his two bulls to buyers in Illinois and South Dakota on March 10, he hit this year’s target, just in time, too. “None of us knew that any of this was coming down the pipe when we had our sale. If it had been a week later, we probably

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Page 6 - The Battlefords, Thursday, June 18, 2020

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Chicken farmers adapt to ongoing pandemic with lower quotas; national cut is 12 per cent By Jennifer Henderson

Local Journalism Initiative Reporter St. Albert Gazette

The Canadian chicken industry cut output for May and June by roughly 12 per cent nationally to manage the drop in demand for chicken products brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. In July and August, chicken producers will increase their output slightly, said Lisa Bishop-Spencer with the Chicken Farmers of Canada, but they’ll still be 11 per cent below normal production levels. In the Western provinces, the reduction hasn’t been as significant, with chicken farmers cutting their output by roughly 7.5 per cent. The industry originally determined in 2019 how much chicken it would produce for the spring of 2020, Bishop-Spencer said, but as the pandemic swept in and interrupted the regular food supply chain, farmers wanted to make sure they could handle any processing plant shutdowns. The chicken industry is closely linked to the restaurant industry, and Statistics Canada has found 54 per cent of Canadians eat out in restaurants once a week

or more. Despite the popularity of chicken across the country, grocery store purchasing of the product couldn’t make up for the consumption drop the industry saw from the closure of restaurants. “We’ve been affected by a decrease in food service. Food service represents about 40 per cent of the production we do in Canada,” Bishop-Spencer explained. “There was a rapid increase in demand for retail product, but it’s not enough to meet the gap.” Despite supply chain hiccups, chicken is still the most popular protein in Canada. Bishop-Spencer said demand is still high, with 83 per cent of Canadians having bought chicken the week prior and the same amount planning to buy it again the following week. Supply management The production of chickens in Canada is regulated by a federal agriculture policy, just like eggs and dairy, that manages the supply, imports and pricing of the product, helping farms to stay profitable and ensuring consumers can access these products at stable prices. Supply management al-

lows for the industry to set production quotas so there isn’t a surplus or shortage of their product. “We’re trying to make sure that we didn’t have too much on the market, because you’ve got to find places to freeze it and store it,” Bishop-Spencer explained. Cutting their spring and summer quotas also means farmers can give processing plants some more breathing room. “That’s not to say that if some major plants go down, we won’t be in a position to have to probably depopulate birds. That’s still a very real risk,” Bishop-Spencer said, adding that isn’t considered an acceptable option and would only be used as a last resort. Typically, the industry works together to reroute birds to plants that have the capacity to process them, rather than culling flocks. While the farming side of poultry is supply managed, the processing side is not. However, producers are working together right now to help ensure all birds can be processed. Birds can only move so far in Canada, though, since there are laws and legislation on how far live birds can be transported

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for processing. If a major plant goes down in Ontario, some plants close by may be able to pick up the capacity, but those birds couldn’t be transported out to British Columbia, for example. Physical distancing measures in processing plants are also resulting in changes to the type of products that are being produced. There has been an increase in bone-in, skin-on products being sold in grocery stores, and Bishop-Spencer said more whole birds are coming on the market as well, since it takes less “person power” to process whole birds. “That’s really interesting for people on the consumer side because people might not be getting the cuts that they want, but they’re still buying the chicken and they’re using it,” she said. Trickle-down effect When chicken farmers cut their quotas, that reduction trickles down into hatcheries, said Drew Black, the executive director of the Canadian Hatching Egg Producers. “Any reduction or change in the chicken market has an impact for us pretty quickly and dramatically as well,” Black said, noting the hatching

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working hard to address that,” Black said. The current life of a laying flock is around 60 weeks. Black said the pandemic has forced farmers to reduce laying time to 56 or 55 weeks in order to cut the number of eggs produced. The industry is also working toward reducing the amount of hatching eggs Canada imports and focusing more on domestic product. Typically, the country imports roughly 20 per cent of its hatching eggs. Despite the cutbacks, Black said farmers are working together in each province to help protect the viability of the industry and ensure farms won’t go under while the COVID-19 pandemic remains a threat. “We’re taking a number of steps that we really hope (will) contribute to ensuring a sustainable industry moving forward,” Black said, noting it is still a difficult time for farmers. “There’s a lot of uncertainty right now and I know that’s stressful for a lot of our farmers.” The industry remains hopeful economic recovery will start in early 2021, boosting the industry back to where it was prior to the pandemic.

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industry tends to mirror the chicken industry since they are a direct supplier for them. Canada’s 240 hatching egg farmers are responsible for some 820 million eggs annually that hatch into chicks which, once grown, go to slaughterhouses. That industry, valued at more than $370 million and supporting more than 7,700 jobs, helps supply more than 2,500 chicken farmers with chicks. Due to decreasing chicken capacity, there will be 33 million fewer hatching eggs needed over the next few months – a reduction of roughly four per cent. That means $15 million in lost farm cash receipts for hatching producers. Since chicken consumption in Canada is normally relatively stable, hatching egg farmers usually plan for a stable supply of eggs over the course of the year as well. With a rapid change in production, like that brought on by COVID-19, farmers lose the money they have already sunk into producing those hatching eggs. “The product is there and it’s got nowhere to go, so there’s a bit of an oversupply issue right now across Canada and we’re

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Brazilian cowboy on an epic eight-year trek By Masha Scheele

Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Hinton Voice

During the last leg of an eight-year horseback trek crossing the Americas, Brazillian Cowboy, Filipe Masetti Leite, spent five nights outside of Hinton at the Old Entrance Bed and Breakfast. This final trip will take him back from the Yukon to Calgary, arriving on Friday, July 3 — the date the Calgary Stampede would have held the 2020 Stampede parade. Despite the Stampede being cancelled, Masetti Leite was named the honorary Calgary Stampede parade marshal for 2020. “What are the chances that the year the Calgary Stampede gets cancelled, for the first time in almost a century, there’s a cowboy riding in on horseback,” Maseti Leite said. His final stretch will celebrate everything that the Calgary Stampede stands for, Western Heritage, and the horse and the cowboy way of life, he added. “I just want to be a beacon of hope and represent this rodeo and this culture that I live and grew up in,” he continued. Masetti Leite first saddled up to start his trek in 2012 from the Calgary Stampede’s centennial celebration. His first destination was the Hospital de Amor in Barretos, Brazil, where a five-metre tall monument can now be found of Masetti Leite and his horse. Through his trip, Masetti Leite raises funds for this hospital that treats children with cancer and talks to people along the way of the importance of an early diagnosis of childhood

cancer. “In Brazil and all over Latin America, we end up losing a lot of kids because they’re getting to the hospital too late and this hospital is a state of the art facility that could be found in Sweden or Canada or the U.S.,” he said. Raising funds for the kids in the hospital is also what kept him going while he was riding through storms, hadn’t been able to shower in weeks, or while making his way through dangerous situations. “You have to have drive, otherwise you don’t do this. Every day is a mental war, it’s tough,” Masetti Leite said. After his first trip to Brazil, he made his way down to the most southern tip of South America before heading back up north. When all is said and done, Leite will have travelled more than 25,000 km. Steeds Mac and Smokey set out on May 20 to take him from Grande Prairie, Alta. to Calgary. While Masetti Leite rode alone for the majority of his journey from Calgary to Brazil when he first set out in 2012, he’s had many friends ride with him along the way and his final trek is accompanied by his girlfriend. “My girlfriend, who I met in southern Patagonia on my second trip, she’s driving a motorhome that was lent by a couple out of Claresholm, Alberta, and it’s a support vehicle where we carry hay for the horses, feed, water,” Masetti Leite said. Throughout Alaska and the Yukon, they travelled through some extremely remote areas and the support vehicle made it easier to take care of the horses

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along the way. “The animals’ welfare is always number one, without them you don’t travel a single kilometre and they become your kids you know, you love them so much,” he said. The exciting part about having company along for the trek was being able to share it with someone, he added. “Sometimes you’re up on this beautiful mountain looking at a gorgeous sunset and it just doesn’t seem to have the same colour. It’s not the same as sharing it with someone that you care about. It’s amazing,” Masetti Leite said. Travelling through the Yukon was a dream that very few people, even few Canadians, get to experience, he added. Throughout eight years he travelled through many incredible places but he said Mexico still holds a very special place in his heart. Nobody celebrated his journey like the Mexicans, with thousands of people saddling up their horses and riding with him. Travelling on horseback is part of their culture, and what Masetti Leite was doing was special to them, he added. “Although I was treated amazingly well in every country I crossed, that was the best part of the trip,” Masetti Leite said. The inspiration for the trek came from a childhood book that told the tale of adventure of a Swedish school teacher riding horseback from Argentina to New York in 1925. As a child on the farm in Brazil he imagined what it would be like to cross those countries by horseback, swimming through rivers, and climbing mountains. At nine years old, his family moved to Canada and he grew up in Ontario where he eventually studied journalism at Ryerson University. “My last year of journalism I thought, it feels like everything I’ve done in my life has gotten me to the point to ride back home

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and capture everything, film it, write about it, and share this story with people and live this dream,” he said. Masetti Leite turned his dream into his job and started raising funds in 2010. Most of his friends and family told him he was crazy and that the trip was too dangerous, but he continued working towards his dream. He eventually got the funding and a production company to come on board to film a reality series of his trip to Brazil. During the first trip, they posted a web series with 90 small clips. A Nashville-based production company filmed a three season reality show, which they are currently trying to sell. Masetti Leite wrote his first book after he rode from Canada to Brazil, which took him two years and three months. It took him another year and three months to get from Brazil to Ushuaia, Argentina. He then came back to Brazil to write another book and plan for his trip up North. His second book will be released this July and he hopes to publish another book about his final journey next year. “This is my last long ride, it’s been very difficult mentally more than anything. It’s been a 10

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year project that I’ve been working on, 10 years is a long time to work on anything, nevermind riding horses through continents,” he said. His first book is now being made into a movie, which he plans to help out with once his final trip comes to an end. Masetti Leite also plans to work with a production company on a series and maybe even a documentary as well of the real footage he shot throughout the past eight years. As a journalist, his dream and end goal is to own a travel show, featuring cultures in faraway places to people that may not know they exist. “Being from Brazil and coming to Canada at an early age, I was able to see the other side of the coin. My country is the dichotomy of those that have and those that have not is gigantic,” he said. “I think if some people see the reality of how some people live in the world, it will change the way that they act and deal with things.” He added that if he learned anything during the journey, it’s that there’s only a very short time people get on this earth to enjoy. “If you’re not happy, change. If you have a dream, live it. You don’t have the money? Excuses. You don’t have the knowhow? Excuses. If you want it bad enough and you’re

willing to work for it, you can do whatever you want. You can cross the Americas on a horse,” he said. Masetti Leite found himself in many life-changing situations over the past eight years and he considers himself lucky to still be alive. During his first trip, all three horses he brought had major accidents, including getting hit by a truck, falling in a deep hole, and falling in a cattle guard. He stayed in the home of a drug lord in Honduras, saw two people shot dead in Guatemala, witnessed a man trying to kill his wife in the home where he stayed in the capital of Honduras, crossed grizzly bears, swam rivers, crossed the backcountry of Yellowstone, the Andes, and the Rockies several times. “Once you’re in the situation you just find a solution for the problem that has risen around you,” he said. He remembered being in the house of the drug lord who he had befriended and having beers with him. “You’re like, ‘Wow, this guy has a petting zoo in his house, everyone has automatic weapons, and there’s a nine-year-old kid with a pistol.’ It just becomes mundane, but now looking back, yes, I’m very lucky to be alive because I crossed some very dangerous countries,” Masetti Leite said.

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The Battlefords, Thursday, June 18, 2020 - Page 9

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Saskatchewan agriculture manufacturers making adjustments due to COVID-19 By Rob Paul

Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The World-Spectator

Agriculture manufacturers in southeast Saskatchewan are making adjustments to their operations to adapt to COVID-19 SeedMaster in Emerald Park is one of the leading innovators in the agriculture industry for their work in seeding and to continue to be there for their customers during the pandemic they’ve had to adapt to the circumstances. “Of course we’ve felt the impact,” said SeedMaster Director of Product Strategy Rochelle Beaujot. “We’ve been lucky from a financial standpoint because farmers are considered an essential service which granted us the ability to continue on and not have to close down completely. That was one of the best outcomes that I could have ever imagined with Covid-19 coming into our lives.” “We had to take pretty big precautions with our staff because of that and try to maintain good physical distancing. We minimized the amount of office staff tremendously, we only allowed people who couldn’t work remotely to stay in the office. It was a very small number of people that we had stay in the office. All of our shop floor staff had to have additional PPE to ensure that they were safe and the people around them were safe. We added additional hand washing stations throughout the facility and dedicated times for staff to wash their hands at different points throughout the day. We also added additional cleaning measures with our cleaning staff here more often and doing more frequently cleaning ourselves in the office.” With COVID-19 escalating so quickly in Canada, the decisions and changes came fast for SeedMaster to continue

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operating. “It was definitely on the fly and it changed drastically every day, especially in the beginning,” she said. “But we were able to adapt and we have an amazing HR manager here and she took on the bulk of the responsibility to make sure everybody was safe and all the protocols were met that we were putting in place. It wasn’t easy by any stretch of the imagination, but it definitely was something that we were able to overcome and we worked hard to make sure that we could do it and keep open.” “At the end of the day we wanted to make sure we could service our farmers and that they were the light that kept us moving forward all of the time.” “I don’t know if it will ever feel normal because as Canadians we’re polite most of the time and it’s a strange feeling when you’re in the office talking to a co-worker and they’re standing across the room from you,” she said. “Nothing really feels normal, it will always feel a bit odd.” Although the adjustments SeedMaster had to make felt strange to the employees, they were smooth and had little impact on their customers. “I think it took a little while to get used to working remotely,” she said. “Some people excel at it and some people struggle, it’s very much dependent on people’s personality, type, I think. For the most part the transition was smooth, we had to do a bit of work with our IT to make sure that everything was secure from remote stations and there were a lot more security precautions put in place because of it. It took a little while to feel comfortable being remote and with children at home, it’s not easy.” “On the outside I think things ran pretty much the same as usual,” she said. “I’m not sure if customers

even noticed a difference. We did lock our doors to outsiders so when they do pick up parts they have to pick them up outside the office. The changes that the customers would have felt were minimal. Our support staff does most of the online support through phones and not one-onone with farmers unless there’s a need to actually see them. It has been pretty steady for the customers and we’ve been able to keep up. I think we’ve been able to keep things as normal as possible.” With how frequently things have changed during the COVID-19 pandemic, Beaujot says it’s hard to know what type of longterm impact it will have on the agriculture industry. “It’s really hard to say (how long the impact will be),” she said. “I’ve heard predictions that it’s going to be six months to two years before things become a bit more normal and markets start recovering a bit more. I think because of the industry we’re in it might be a lesser amount, hopefully closer to that six months. It’s very hard to predict right now.” Bridgview Manufacturing owner and Saskatchewan farmer Kevin Hruska runs one of the most trusted farm equipment manufacturers in Saskatchewan and he says having time to prepare for change helped the situation. “On the Bridgeview side of it, we’re just keeping the distance, doing extra cleaning, just the more hygienic things that maybe we all should have been practicing anyway.” “Not big changes because we are so rural, we’re used to working alone, and we don’t have anybody around us that has it. Saskatchewan and us people in this area have enjoyed the privilege of the advanced warning from the rest of the world. With that advanced warning we

“Once your business is lost and that day comes when it’s supposedly over, your business doesn’t come back. You have to rebuild it from scratch, just like you did the first time.” stopped kissing each other and sharing drinks before it really hit.” “On the farm side we’re in it for the long haul so we’re business as usual,” he said. “We grow good grain and people have to eat, maybe they’re eating a little less, but less stuff is being wasted. We’ve had to make very few changes on the farm side because you’re sort of in a self quarantined position anyway.” Farmers are used to having to constantly adjust to continue on says Hruska, and although COVID-19 offers different challenges, it’s not all negative. “We have some business going on and when you’re ag related — farmers have lifetime mentalities. We go through these ups and downs all of the time. On the grain side, contracts were honoured and grain is moving. As a matter of fact, the only positive I can see from it on the ag side is the trains have nothing else to do and they’re actually moving our grain because they have spare time. They’re moving on time

and doing a great job. With the economy slowing down they have spare trains and are actually moving product on time. That helps us. It seems like countries are taking our grain because this isn’t the time for them to ration and they’re keeping the grain coming.” “I do have a concern though, every deep fryer on the face of the planet was shut off one morning,” he said. “Eventually that’s going to come and really hit the canola market. How much canola oil do you use when you put one teaspoon into your pizza dough compared to when you fill your turkey fryer at Thanksgiving. That’s kind of the worry.” Overall, Hruska says it’s hard to gauge where things will be down the road for his business and the ag industry in general, with all of the negative factors right now. “On the manufacturing side we’ve felt the impact, we’re sort of running in a limp mode,” he said. “It’s not as bad as a restaurant or anything like that, generally speaking the agri-

culture side hasn’t taken as big of a hit yet, but I think it’s more of an erosion and I don’t know how we’re going to turn it around. Once your business is lost and that day comes when it’s supposedly over, your business doesn’t come back. You have to rebuild it from scratch, just like you did the first time. I’m sort of expecting that, however, the economy really wants to fight back on this one so we’re hoping for the best. It’s silenced the phones, though.” “People are hunkering down, there’s no overtime, we’re running short shifts, their income is damaged,” he said. “But people have disposable money and they’re not wasting it. That’s part of what’s hurting our business. The negative news with politics, with China resisting our product, a rogue president in the United States antagonizing the world and their internal fighting. How can you turn on the news and feel like spending money? There’s a negative vibe out there and COVID-19 is just part of it.”

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Canada’s largest grower of its type calls off makeshift harvest

Outbreak forces asparagus farmer to abandon 450 acres of lush crop By J.P. Antonacci

Local Journalism Initiative Reporter The Hamilton Spectator

Canada’s biggest asparagus grower has lost his crop. Scotlynn Group in Vittoria said despite an “overwhelming” response from locals who came forward to replace over 200 migrant workers sidelined by a COVID-19 outbreak, nearly 450 acres of asparagus will not be harvested this year. That’s 12 per cent of all the asparagus grown in Ontario. “We weren’t able to salvage the crop with the locals,” said Scotlynn president and CEO Scott Biddle. “We tried. We went out fighting.” The loss will be felt across the country, as Scotlynn is the exclusive supplier of asparagus to several major grocery chains. “It’s just unfortunate that we won’t be able to provide some of our customers with that product,” Biddle said. “They’ll have to source from Peru or

Mexico.” Bernie Solymar, executive director of the Asparagus Farmers of Ontario, hopes those customers will look a little closer to home. “I would sincerely hope that the retailers he supplied would go to other Ontario sources and that would be their first choice,” Solymar said. “I would think their customers would expect that as well.” Despite some smaller growers abandoning their acreage due to labour shortages, Solymar said there is still plenty of Ontario asparagus available after the recent heat wave revived the frostbitten crop and sparked a mad scramble to harvest. “We ended up getting a huge flush of asparagus. We went from an empty pipeline to a full pipeline in five days. Crews were out there working overtime,” he said. But without the usual number of migrant workers in the fields, Solymar added, “there were hundreds of acres being mowed down.” With his workforce in

quarantine, Biddle offered Norfolk residents $25 per hour to pick asparagus in prearranged groups of five. People responded in droves, with some offering to forgo the inflated salary and work for free to salvage the nutritious spring crop. “It’s humbling, for sure,” Biddle said. “It was unbelievable, the amount of people who came out to show support and gave us a hand.” But on the first day of this makeshift harvest, it quickly became clear the plan wasn’t going to work. Not being trained on the machines used by migrant workers, the new farmhands walked the fields and tried harvesting by hand. “We brought them in and went through it,” Biddle said. “We got in by 7 a.m. but by 9 a.m. we called it off.” Compounding the problem, some of the fields had gone too long without being worked and could not be saved. Biddle said the fields will be mowed over and harvested next year

when the perennial plant returns. To Solymar, the short-

lived experiment illustrated how specialized the farm labour performed by

migrant workers is. “It’s strenuous work,” he said. “If nothing else, his attempt showed Canadians why migrant workers are essential to food production in Canada.” Solymar said reports of the outbreak prompted some worried residents to ask if Ontario asparagus is safe to eat. “There’s no proof that produce carried COVID,” Solymar said. “Fresh produce is not a risk.” Seven of Scotlynn’s 216 migrant workers are in hospital. The remainder are in self-isolation in hotels or on the farm, where groceries are being brought in. Biddle said workers continue to receive their full pay. The farm is closed to visitors, and the offices, bunkhouses, company vehicles and equipment have been professionally cleaned and disinfected. “We want to reassure everyone that it is our desire to return everyone to work as soon as it is safe to do so,” Biddle said.

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Page 12 - The Battlefords, Thursday, June 18, 2020

Regional News-Optimist

w w w. n ew s o p t i m i s t . c a

Flooring BATTLEFORDS

CENTRE

FLOORING SALE STONE COMPOSITE VINYL PLANK FLOORING KANGA BACK CARPET

as low as

SQ. FT.

OUTDOOR CARPET 6 colours to choose from

$ 29 SQ. FT.

start ing at

SHEET VINYL FLOORING as low as

SQ. FT.

OUTDOOR TURF 3 colours to choose from

SQ. FT.

LAMINATE FLOORING as low as

SQ. FT.

DROP & GO VINYL PLANK 5 ML

SQ. FT.

DON’T PAY FOR UP TO 6 MONTHS or 0% INTEREST FOR UP TO 24 MONTHS Sale ends 5:00 p.m. Sunday, July 5, 2020

We are your Insurance Specialists. We are ready to serve you on all your Insurance needs.

battlefordsflooring@sasktel.net