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FARMER North Battleford, Saskatchewan
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Thursday, October 22, 2020
These simple farming techniques can curb greenhouse gas emissions By Marc Fawcett-Atkinson Local Journalism Initiative Reporter National Observer
Saving our climate — and the future of food — could be as simple as planting fields of clover or putting cows to pasture on wheat fields in winter. These steps could go a long way in reducing farmers’ need for artificial nitrogen fertilizers that are driving rising nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions, a greenhouse gas roughly 300 times more potent than CO2. A study published recently in the scientific journal Nature revealed that, without major transformations to farming systems globally, these emissions will send global temperatures soaring far above the 1.5 C “safe” limit agreed to in the 2015 Paris climate agreement.
Ian McCreary has been using cover crops, cattle and soil maps to reduce his farm’s use of nitrogen fertilizer in an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Photo provided by Ian McCreary
“(This) is really caused by the excessive use of nitrogen fertilizer, and nitrogen fertilizer used in areas that was above what the
plant needed, and in wetlands,” said Ian McCreary, a Saskatchewan grain and cattle farmer and member of Farmers for Climate
Solutions, an organization aimed at helping farmers reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Nitrogen fertilizers dominate human contributions to global N2O emissions, which have increased by 30 per cent since 1980. And in Canada, nitrogen fertilizer shipments, an indicator of how much is used in the country, have almost doubled in the past decade. That increase is driving rising greenhouse gas emissions from Canada’s agricultural sector — the country’s sixth-largest emitter. Reducing these emissions will be impossible without transforming how food is grown in the country, said Darrin Qualman, director of climate policy at the National Farmers Union — and what it’s grown for. “The core of the feder-
al government’s agricultural policy is to increase export,” he said.“And increasing exports translates into increasing production; increasing production translates into increasing fertilizer use. What we’re seeing (with) the nitrous oxide is a fairly predictable outcome of the federal government’s focus on maximizing production and exports.” Artificial nitrogen fertilizers are a relatively new creation, with the industrial process required to create them having only been developed during the Second World War. It was an invention that revolutionized agriculture, fuelling a global postwar boom in industrial high-yield agriculture. That growth came with consequences, beyond N2O emissions: Excessive nitrogen fertilizer use can
also seriously harm soil health and water quality. However, managing emissions is a particularly tricky problem, explained Sean Smukler, a professor of land and food systems at the University of British Columbia. “I describe (the breakdown of nitrogen) as a leaky pipe,” he said. Nitrogen in the soil is broken down by bacteria in the soil — and the type of bacteria involved is key. “During the microbial transformations (that break down chemical nitrogen into gas), you have some that leak out into the atmosphere in a very benign way. Or you could have it leak out in a way that’s actually contributing to global climate change.” For instance, if soil is more than 60 per cent saturated with water, the Continued on Page 2
Job rebound sluggish in Canada’s agri-food sector By Sylvain Charlebois Statistics Canada’s recent September job market data is reassuring, overall. But for the agri-food sector, the reality is quite different. Overall, employment in the country increased in September, creating 378,000 jobs, the majority
of which were full time. This increase in September brought total employment to 720,000, shy of the level we had before the pandemic. Obviously, children being back to school has helped bring some normalcy to our lives. For the economy, that’s encouraging.
The agricultural sector, however, is hiring far fewer people than at this time last year. There are 17,000 fewer jobs than in September 2019. Undoubtedly, agrifood recruitment has been particularly difficult, given the challenges getting foreign workers. But with public investment
A
discussions between the federal government and the provinces on more controlled-environment agriculture projects, seeing fewer jobs in the sector is to be expected. Our collective enthusiasm for greater food autonomy across the country has many thinking differently about food security.
Te c h n o l o g y - d r i v e n models in agriculture will control costs and, of course, limit the influence of the weather. As such, it will help consumers who are fleeing highly volatile prices, especially in produce. Right now, it’s typical to see prices for certain vegetables and fruits rise by 25
per cent in a single month. The cauliflower incident a few years ago was exactly that. With more domestic high-tech production, this is less likely to happen. And with 48 per cent of the population concerned about food shortages, this would matter. Continued on Page 2
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Page 2 - The Battlefords, Thursday, October 22, 2020
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Simple farming techniques can curb emissions
Continued from Page 1 bacteria living in that environment will produce N2O. That means reducing the amount of excess nitrogen in the soil — nitrogen that hasn’t been absorbed by plants during the growing season — is key to reducing emissions, he said. And while chemical nitrogen is particularly harmful because it is so concentrated, manure and even cover crops — the two other key sources for the nutrient — can also lead to emissions if they end up putting too much nitrogen in the soil. However, figuring out when the
release of N2O occurs is complicated, Smukler explained, because the emissions vary depending on microbial activity in the soil. “You can’t just turn on the engine and measure what’s coming out,” which is the method commonly used to calculate greenhouse gas emissions from cars or industrial sources, he said. Instead, researchers like Smukler rely on year-round field measurements in their efforts to figure out how farmers can use nitrogen to maintain yields without destroying the climate. Healthy soil, which
can be nurtured by livestock grazing in the off-season, can help reduce emissions. Cover crops like alfalfa and clover, which both take nitrogen out of the atmosphere and put it in the soil, can also help. Then there’s soil mapping — making a map of the varying nitrogen concentrations across specific areas, said McCreary, the farmer in Saskatchewan. “We use (soil mapping) and GPS to constantly adjust our fertilizer rate as (it is applied) across the field,” he said. That kind of precision, Smukler said, when com-
bined with more traditional techniques such as letting livestock graze on — and add manure to — fallow fields or cover cropping, can work well to reduce N2O emissions. “The more the plant takes up in terms of nitrogen, the less you have floating around in the ecosystem that could be susceptible to losses,” he said. “There’s evidence that what can work best is being able to use a hybrid approach (to) reduce emissions without any yield penalty.” Still, making these changes on a national and global scale will take more
than good research. There also needs to be incentives for farmers to make the shift, especially if the transition to a more sustainable agricultural system might put them out of business, McCreary said. “There will have to be international trade rules that limit N2O so everybody has to quit using so much nitrogen. And the price of cereal crops (which have barely changed in 40 years) has to come up a little. (The federal government) will also have to readjust farm support programs so they’re specific to supporting cover crops,” he said.
These are calls McCreary and Qualman think the Trudeau government has heard, noting that last month’s throne speech acknowledged “farmers, foresters and ranchers as key partners in the fight against climate change” and that the federal government will support “their efforts to reduce emissions and build resilience.” In the meantime, McCreary is putting his cows to work. “Our cattle right now are out grazing on a wheat field, which is where I want them,” he said.
Job rebound sluggish in Canada’s agri-food sector Continued from Page 1 Other food sectors are also suffering. Although the hotel and restaurant industry has reached the one-million-employee mark again, this sector still employs 15.2 per cent fewer people than at this time last year. This is the largest drop among all sectors. With the second wave of the pandemic affecting several major regions, it’s
expected that the number of employees for these sectors will fall below one million again in October. But the resilience of hoteliers and restaurateurs is nothing short of impressive. Given the several blows the sector has had to endure, 15.2 per cent isn’t much. But the biggest problem is in food processing. Across the country, companies are struggling to
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recruit. Estimates provided by Food and Beverage Canada and by the Conseil de la Transformation Alimentaire du Québec suggest that almost 28,000 jobs in food processing remain vacant in Canada. That’s about 10 per cent of all positions available in the entire sector. The sector’s labour shortage is worse than it was before the pandemic, even with a higher unemployment rate. Under-staffing forces many employers to reduce production and cut working hours. Some factories have had to close production lines. This explains, in part, the few barren shelves in some supermarkets and retail stores. Canada won’t experience a food shortage any
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time soon but our processing sector needs help, and fast. The average hourly wage in the sector is about $21 to $23, well above the minimum wage across the country. Working conditions, however, aren’t ideal. And during the first wave of COVID-19, several food processing and distribution plants were put to the test. Media coverage was overwhelming, focusing on closures and outbreaks within facilities, making the sector look much less attractive. The Cargill beef plant in High River, Alta., experienced the largest outbreak in the country thus far. For recruitment, it was a public relations nightmare. In addition, with the
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end of the Canadian Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) program and the introduction of the enhanced employment insurance program, recruitment appears to be even more challenging for the sector. Hundreds of work-ready Canadians are opting to stay at home until the weeks of program eligibility run out. An anemic food manufacturing sector may mean that some products will be out of stock from time to time, especially at the meat counter. And the situation could get worse. Raising wages to make the sector more attractive is one option. With industry going it alone, that could add to the pressure that retail prices are under, at the risk of raising the price of food. A timely program
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Serving the producers of the Northwest
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A community newspaper published Monthly . Owned & Operated by Prairie Newspaper Group LP a division of GVIC Communications Corp. 892 - 104th Street, North Battleford, Saskatchewan S9A 1M9 Telephone: 306-445-7261 • Fax: 306-445-3223 E-mail: newsoptimist.news@sasktel.net We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada. Nous reconnaissons l’appui financier du gouvernement du Canada.
Dr. Sylvain Charlebois is senior director of the agri-food analytics lab and a professor in food distribution and policy at Dalhousie University. troymedia.com
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would give Canadians incentives to work in the sector. Perhaps Canadians wanting to work in the sector could get compensated while retaining a portion of their employment insurance for a while in a hybrid program of sorts. Despite the federal government’s good intentions to keep people at home and safe, CERB and now the new employment insurance program haven’t helped food manufacturing. Food manufacturing is like no other sector. The labour shortage it’s experiencing could become a food security nightmare.
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The Battlefords, Thursday, October 22, 2020 - Page 3
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Page 4 - The Battlefords, Thursday, October 22, 2020
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‘We can grow hops in Saskatchewan’ - hop farmer expanding By Rob Paul
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter The World-Spectator
Hops on the Shepherd farm near Moosomin. Victor van der Merwe, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
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Driving south from Moosomin on Highway 8 one can see the canola and wheat being harvested. The landscape has changed from the green and yellow of July to a golden brown. At JGL Shepherd Farms, meanwhile, there are vines of lush green hops swaying in the wind. Four years ago Justin Shepherd and his family started getting the farm ready to be the first major hops grower in the province. Now you can see acres of vines when you turn onto the property. They started off with a 1.3 acre hop yard on their farm between Moosomin and Fleming and over the years have expanded. They have grown from 400 plants in 2018 to 9,000 plants today. “We always knew it had to get bigger to be a commercially viable business, but there was not a set fouryear plan to get to this specific size,” said Shepherd. “We started with 1.3 acres. This is about 8 and a bit. So just over 20 miles of cable up top. We’re shooting for 9-12 acres—on that scale. This would be one of the bigger ones in the three prairie provinces right now.” The last four years has been a continual process of expanding and upgrading. “You have to keep upgrading. You always run into what is the next equipment that needs to be upgraded. Our harvester will do 10 to 12 acres of hops, so we knew we had to get to that size to make this machine pay for itself,” said Shepherd. The need to grow at such a rate is not so much a matter of demand at this point, but a necessity.
“You need to be a certain size where a brewer has enough options. You can’t be too small and you can’t be too big,” said Shepherd. Last week brewers were taking tours of the Shepherds’ operation. The hops have been used in products created by microbreweries such as Pile of Bones Brewing in Regina, and by larger operations such as Great Western. “I would say we are still in market development mode,” he said. “We have days where we have brewers out to try and convince them that we are legitimate, we are a business, we are not doing this out of our back yard. “There have been some of the brewers that have been more interested than others. Some have no interest in using our product, so it’s up to us to convince them that we grow a good product, that it’s high quality, and that they should try it. “We’re still learning what our aromas are and how different we are. One variety we have is Centennial, and how different is that than the west coast. It’s slightly different. Is there enough of a difference there to say that’s terroir where there’s a real regionality, I don’t know. “But hopefully year in year out we’ll see what that aroma profile is and how it develops over time. As the plants mature, it does change. So it’s a work in progress still. “They know we’re here, but some of the ones that have showed up today (last Monday, when brewers were visiting for an open house at the hop farm), this is their first time visiting us. Some have used us and some have not. So this is a great opportunity to show what we are doing, the
different processes, what makes us unique, why they might want to try our hops, and we’re hosting a field day closer to harvest this year just so when they walk through the fields, most of the varieties are close to harvest and have the aromas they would expect when we actually harvest . . . What you smell today is what you are going to get in a lot of the varieties.” Shepherd says growing hops is more like growing grapes than the traditional commodity crops on the prairies. “It’s more like grapes in how you sell them. For wheat, as long as you are willing to accept a price there’s always a market for it. Someone is willing to use it, whether it’s food or feed or animals. With this they could be free and if they aren’t the right aroma, they aren’t the right variety, nobody is going to use them. So it’s a real specialty crop, it’s not at all like a commodity crop, and it makes it a lot more challenging from the marketing side. But it also means there are fewer people willing to take on the risk.” New industry in Saskatchewan The goal is to one day be a big part of the brewing process in Saskatchewan, an industry that is growing, with more and more microbreweries popping up and potential for much more growth. “Whether it’s a small micro-brewery to a group like Great Western, our focus is definitely the Saskatchewan market place. Maybe in a couple of years we will produce enough where we’d have to look outside. As we grow, Saskatchewan craft beers continue to grow. This year there’s supposed to be four or five breweries opening Continued on Page 6
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The Battlefords, Thursday, October 22, 2020 - Page 5
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Page 6 - The Battlefords, Thursday, October 22, 2020
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Protecting soil and food from mercury contamination Submitted
One size does not fit all when it comes to using biochar for soil remediation, according to researchers who used the Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan. Mercury is used in a variety of industries, including textile manufacturing and gold and silver mining. When released into the environment, this highly toxic element causes widespread contamination of soil. As mercury enters rivers, lakes and oceans,
it is converted to methylmercury, a neurotoxin that moves into the food chain through fish and seafood, posing a serious risk to human health. Conventional methods of remediating mercury-contaminated soil – such as adding activated carbon – can be quite expensive to apply on a large scale. However, recent research has found that biochar, a charcoal produced by superheating agriculture or forestry waste in the absence of oxygen, holds promise as a low cost,
“green” alternative. Most studies to date have focused on biochar’s ability to control the release of mercury and production of methylmercury from waterlogged soils. A team of researchers from the University of Waterloo recently set out to determine how effective biochar is at amending soils that see frequent drying and rewetting, such as floodplains. PhD student Alana Wang and colleagues added two types of biochars – sulfurized wood and an-
aerobic digestate – to soil samples drawn from floodplains along Virginia’s South River. A chemical plant in Waynseboro, VA disposed of mercury waste in that river from 1929 to 1950. Each soil sample was subjected to 10 cycles of wetting with river water and drying with repeated testing throughout. The research team was surprised to find that, early on in the study, the biochar-amended soil actually released higher levels of mercury. “Our previous studies demonstrated that the addition of sulfurized hardwood biochar was very effective for removing mercury from aqueous solution under both stagnant and saturated-flowing conditions,” said Dr. Carol Ptacek, a member of the research team. As the wetting and drying cycles continued though,
the biochar-treated soil released less mercury and had lower concentrations of methylmercury – more in keeping with what they had expected to find, based on other studies. Wang and Ptacek believe the higher levels of mercury and methylmercury they initially observed were a result of the soil being dried before the start of the experiment – similar to what might occur after a lengthy drought. The researchers used the SXRMB beamline at the CLS to analyze sulfur in the solid materials they collected during their research. The synchrotron enabled the team to detect changes in the sulfur chemistry, which suggests sulfurized biochar is prone to oxidization after repeated wetting and drying. These chemical changes have the potential to cause other environmental prob-
lems such as turning the water acidic. “The results of the sulfur analyses at the CLS provided important information on how drying and wetting affected sulfur chemistry in the amended systems,” said Wang. “Our group’s work benefited tremendously from the application of a variety of synchrotron techniques,” added Ptacek. The team concluded that repeated drying and wetting can affect the ability of biochars to stabilize mercury in soil and published their findings in Chemosphere. “We found out that soil remediation does not have a one-size fits all solution,” said Wang. It turns out that remediation projects likely need customized materials to add to the soil, based on the specific soil characteristics and conditions in a given area.
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Continued from Page 4 up. The biggest thing is to convince them that we can grow hops in Saskatchewan,” said Shepherd. What sets JGL Shepherd Farms apart from other growers in the province is the fact that they have committed to be a large scale hops grower.
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“There are a few people out there that has half an acre or a quarter of an acre, this would be one of the bigger ones in the three prairie provinces,” says Shepherd. “There are lots of people trying. There are lots of people taking a stab at hop farms. It is as very high failure rate just based on the marketing and actually getting people to buy them. It is hard to grow them. There is no text book on how to grow them in western Canada so we are writing it as we go,” said Shepherd. Family project The Shepherd family have joined in with Justin’s passion project and that has made all the difference. The hop yard has reignited interest in the farm among some family members. “I didn’t know anything about hops when we started. I liked craft beer, that is all I knew at the start. We thought we could maybe start a brewery, I home brew, but that is not really my passion. We are farmers, we are good at farming. My family didn’t laugh me out of the room when I said, ‘let’s try something different,’ they thought this is a nice challenge and then they went along with it,” said Shepherd. The new and interesting crop at the farm has ignited a new energy into the family. Shepherd’s siblings, parents, aunts and uncles all help with the hop farm. “My little sister does Instagram for us. We send her pictures and she puts filters on and does that marketing spin. My big sister does art work for us. She is in Regina and helps when she can. It’s been a big surprise to me that it has brought our family closer together in farming, where as growing up, maybe the rest of them
didn’t really care about farming because it was wheat and hay, but now it is fun. We will see the whole family out planting together. Lots of us live in different parts and we all come back together for the harvest and for spring. It has been really rewarding to see family members interested in the farm again,” said Shepherd. Local and quality Marketing is crucial, since brewers won’t buy hops just because they are locally grown. “The hardest part to learn has been that brewers will not just buy it because it was Saskatchewan-made. You can get a sale, maybe, because it is local the first time, but it doesn’t get you a second sale. We always knew that we would have to care about quality and I think we have done a good job of that, but brewers have not been lining up at the door to buy either. They have their established suppliers and they have established groups they work with, so we just need to keep proving ourselves time and time again and get them out here, show them around and make them feel that this is a really neat place,” said Shepherd. “Our product, it’s at least as good as anywhere else, if not better.” The process might be hard, but there is progress being made. “We are finally at the stage where we are selling hops and we are seeing them when a brewer shows up with beers and it has our hops in them. The first couple of years where we produced 10 pounds, it was not enough to be used commercially, you don’t really get that gratification out of it. Now we are at the point where we are seeing brewers use them consistently and that is a lot of fun,” said Shepherd.
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The Battlefords, Thursday, October 22, 2020 - Page 7
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MSRP $195,162 Now
147,980
$
Thor Outlaw 29J SUN 1731. Luxury Toyhauler MH.
109,980
29,980
$
$
Over 300 UNITS
IN STOCK!
$
SUN 1730. Luxury Class A.
SUN 1732. 2 bedroom also available. MSRP $149,980 Now
134,980
MSRP $171,253 Now
Thor Ace 33.1
SUN 1623. Ford diesel, queen bed.
$
$
Thor Axis 25.6
Thor Compass 23TB
SUN 1729. Ford gas, Class A.
116,980
MSRP $168,400 Now
MSRP $175,574 Now
129,980
$
NEW THE ONLY HORSE TRAILER IN ITS CLASS
ONLY AT SUNRIDGE: • Horse Trailers • Living Quarter Trailers • Stock Combo Trailer • Snowmobile Trailers • Livestock Trailers
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SUNDAY BY APPOINTMENT
Page 8 - The Battlefords, Thursday, October 22, 2020
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WHY? WE JUST HAVE
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