Farming For Tomorrow May June 2023

Never say you’re ‘too busy’

Dallas Vert and Natasha Pospisil are always open to new projects

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Grain Millers is a family-owned company and has been a leader in whole-grain milling for over 30 years. We depend on direct farmer relationships and of fer competitive farm gate pricing, agronomy and sustainability advice, and strong markets for your grains. Our commitment to producing quality products begins with you

Kevin Hursh, P.Ag.

Kevin Hursh is one of the country’s leading agricultural commentators. He is an agrologist, journalist and farmer. Kevin and his wife Marlene run Hursh Consulting & Communications based in Saskatoon. They also own and operate a farm near Cabri in southwest Saskatchewan growing a wide variety of crops. Kevin writes for a number of agricultural publications and serves as executive director for the Canary Seed Development Commission of Saskatchewan and the Inland Terminal Association of Canada (ITAC).

Twitter: @KevinHursh1

Real Estate Investment Trumps Farming Income

For farmers, their primary source of wealth isn’t actually farming; it’s real estate investment. At least that’s the case for farmers who own most of their land rather than renting.

The 2022 FCC Farmland Values Report shows a resurgence in farmland values in all three Prairie provinces.

Percentage Increase in Farmland Values – Farm Credit Canada

The Farm Credit Canada evaluation further breaks down each province by region and it should be noted that within each region there’s a wide variation in farmland values. For instance, in central Alberta, the average farmland value in 2022 was $5,500 an acre, but the range was $2,400 to $10,900 with the high side no doubt influenced by factors other than agriculture.

In west central Saskatchewan, the 2022 average was $2,800 an acre, while the range was $1,300 to $6,000. In south central Manitoba, described as Central Plains – Pembina Valley, the range was $2,900 to $11,900 an acre with the average coming in at $5,800.

For the first time, FCC included pastureland values in its report. In Alberta, the average year-over-year increase in pastureland values was 5.5 per cent, with Saskatchewan coming in at just a 2.8 per cent increase. The west central and southwest Saskatchewan regions showed no increase.

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Manitoba was a different story with a year-over-year pastureland price increase averaging 18.5 per cent.

The full report is available on the FCC website. Also available is a document showing historical farmland values dating back to 1985. That report shows that farmland values actually decreased in most of the years from 1985 to 1992 in each of the three Prairie provinces. The FCC numbers show three more years of small declines in Saskatchewan from 1999 to 2001. From then on, the increases have been steady and often substantial.

Alberta’s biggest percentage increase was 17.4 per cent in 2007. Saskatchewan’s biggest year-over-year increase came in 2013 at a whopping 28.5 per cent. In both 2012 and 2013, the annual increase in Manitoba was 25.6 per cent.

If you bought land in northeastern Saskatchewan back in 2002, the average price in the region was $438 an acre. Twenty years later, the average land price was $3,000 an acre. In 2022 alone, that region saw a price increase of 24.2 per cent.

Not many investments have seen such a significant and sustained return. Only recently have GICs started to provide a respectable return and the best rates are still only around five per cent. If your mutual fund investments over the past year performed like mine, the money would have been better off stuffed in a mattress.

Let’s look at farmland from a landlord’s point of view. Cash rental rates are all over the map and are not publicly reported, but let’s assume the aforementioned $3,000 an acre land in northeastern Saskatchewan is earning a cash rent somewhere between $70 and $120 an acre. Even if farmland values cool down a bit to only a 10 per cent annual increase, that’s $300 an acre.

For most farmers, the majority and often the vast majority of their net worth has come from farmland. The farm is hopefully profitable, but the net worth increase is coming mainly from the real estate rather than the farming.

Canada Pension Plan exited its 100,000 acres plus of Saskatchewan farmland ownership in 2021/22. Some of the approximately 100,000 acres was sold to tenants or other farmers, but most was picked up by other investment companies. Some tenants feel they weren’t given a fair chance at the land.

No one can foresee the future with much accuracy, but so far, land prices have defied the rapid rise in interest rates, high input costs and the major drought of 2021. There’s tremendous pent-up demand from farmers wanting to expand their operations.

For anyone buying farmland over the past 20 years, it’s been a good investment. Over the foreseeable future, barring catastrophic economic events, most observers predict the continuation of a bullish land market.

Scott Shiels

Scott grew up in Killarney, Man. and has been in the grain industry for 30 years. He has worked with Grain Millers Canada for 10 years and manages procurement for both conventional and organic oats for their Canadian operation. Scott is a newly elected board member for Farm and Food Care Saskatchewan and sits on several other committees on both the organic and conventional sides of the oat industry. Scott and his wife Jenn live on an acreage near Yorkton, Sask. Find out more at www.grainmillers.com.

Marketing and Long-Term Relationships

There is nothing more important, in my opinion, in our industry than the relationships that we build and the integrity that they are constructed upon.

Over the past couple of years, we have watched an extreme drought drive prices to never before seen levels, and then watched that pendulum swing hard in the opposite direction with a really great crop the following year across much of the Prairies.

In the drought year, our industry had the opportunity to see what we were made of, and to witness the resilience of both the farmer and the end user. With virtually no crop produced on most of the farms in Western Canada, buyers were forced to reach out beyond their normal draw areas to find supply, and often to make do with quality that they wouldn’t normally be able to use. Many of the millers in North America, who are supplied largely by the farmers in Western Canada, were forced to look offshore for supplies to keep the mills running and the store shelves stocked with products produced by our facilities.

Unfortunately, along with the showcasing of positive qualities, we also experienced the worst of the negatives that can happen in a year like that. While the number of producers who decided to walk away from contracts to chase higher dollars was relatively low, it was very upsetting to see customers throwing away long-standing relationships for a few bucks. On the other side of that coin, we also saw buyers not only issuing buy-ins for contracts to producers, but in many cases adding insult to injury by tacking on high administration fees to these invoices.

Now don’t get me wrong, these fees are usually (not always) written into the contracts that are signed by both parties, but when the situation is as dire as it was, relationships could have been somewhat salvaged by at least waiving the admin fees, rather than kicking guys when they were down. Now, the same can be said for the unscrupulous producers who walked on their contracts to chase higher prices elsewhere. Those that chose to ignore their signed obligations forced buyers to replace those grains with much more expensive products. Now some will argue that our side of the market can afford it, but that’s not the point. Agriculture has always been the one industry where relationships matter, and a person’s word and a handshake count for something … at least that’s the way it used to be.

Fast forward to March of 2023, and we have just seen the other side of that coin. A Saskatchewan company has just decided to cancel grain contracts with a group of producers, a decision that will cost those farmers tens of millions of dollars. I am sure that by the time you are reading this, there will be much more information come to light, but as I am writing this, the reasoning behind their “force majeure” stinks to high heaven. When the drought hit two years ago, would this buyer have been OK with their contracted suppliers cancelling their contracts? I think not. But when the market goes the other way, they figure they can just walk?

You may be asking, “what does all of this have to do with marketing?” Maybe just a reminder that we are all in this together, and my desire to get this industry back to one where integrity matters.

Until next time…

NEVER SAY YOU’RE ‘TOO BUSY’

Dallas Vert and Natasha Pospisil are always open to new projects

By Angela Lovell

Photography By LNA Photography

You know the saying, you become like the people you hang around with? It’s true, and that’s why Dallas Vert and Natasha Pospisil, who run a farm and two other side businesses, make sure they’re surrounding themselves with creative and interesting people.

Since they won the Alberta Outstanding Young Farmers (OYF) title in 2019, they have gotten to know many other successful farmers and people throughout the agricultural industry.

“When you’re talking about ideas and someone says, ‘that’s a pretty cool idea,’ it gives you a little pep in your step,” Vert says. “Whereas if you’re talking with negative people who say, ‘that’s a stupid idea, why would you do that?’ it brings you down. Surrounding ourselves with positivity has energized us and helped us be more successful.”

Vert and Pospisil need a lot of energy. Not only do they seed 12,000 acres of grain land, they operate a general store and post office, and a fertilizer, seed and input retailer in their local town of Kirriemuir, Alberta. They are also raising three small children: Reese (10), Tegan (7) and Ryker (3). But they don’t use any of that as an excuse to shy away from new opportunities.

“If we would have said, ‘we’re too busy,’ we wouldn’t have had all the opportunities that we have had,” Pospisil says.

Striving to constantly improve

After returning to the farm in 2001 with an agribusiness diploma from Olds College, Vert realized that the farm wasn’t big enough to support two families. He began custom spraying as a sideline with the aim of growing and improving the farm over time.

“If you don’t try to grow and change, you’re always going to be in the same spot you were 10 years ago,” Vert says. “My focus on the farm is to constantly try to improve, even if it’s small improvements throughout the year, say on grain marketing or cost of production. If you try and improve all those different avenues, it adds up to a big dollar return at the end of the day.” Slowly, the family grew the farm through a combination of renting and purchasing land. Vert and Pospisil, who married in 2009, took over the farm from Vert’s mother in 2017 following the death of his father that year from progressive supranuclear palsy, a rare neurological disorder.

Since then, they have maintained their growth mentality and have remained open and receptive to taking on new things. It’s an important ingredient in their formula for success.

“If you do the same thing all the time, it can start to feel redundant and you need something to rejuvenate you,” Pospisil says. “It helps to spark your creativity and reinvest

Dallas Vert holds his youngest son, Ryker (3), and stands alongside his wife, Natasha Pospisil, and their two other children, Reese (10) and Tegan (7)

your interest in what you’re doing if you can incorporate something new or take on something else.”

Pospisil, who runs the general store and does the books for all three businesses, grew up in northern Saskatchewan, helping in her family’s outfitting and summer resort businesses from a young age. After graduating from Olds College with her land agent licence, she worked on land acquisitions for oil companies. She met Vert during a visit to the farm to discuss a pipeline route on Vert’s land.

Watching for possibilities

There are many ways that farmers can diversify into other ventures both on and off the farm, but more often than not those ideas and opportunities come from putting yourself out there, building relationships with people and being attuned to the possibilities.

Vert had worked cooperatively with his uncle, who previously owned the retail outlet, to build up his customer base for custom spraying.

“We had a good relationship where he recommended me to his retail customers and just asked that if any of my customers were looking to buy chemical that I would recommend him,” Vert says. “After doing that for several years, I got to know his business and how it worked. When he was looking to retire, we came up with an agreement and Natasha and I took ownership in 2012.”

“We had a good relationship where he recommended me to his retail customers and just asked that if any of my customers were looking to buy chemical that I would recommend him. After doing that for several years, I got to know his business and how it worked. When he was looking to retire, we came up with an agreement and Natasha and I took ownership in 2012.” - Dallas Vert

Getting creative

Although willing to take a few risks and seize opportunities, the couple know that their decisions need to be financially responsible to ensure long-term viability of their operations. Sometimes that means thinking things through from different angles and coming up with creative ideas.

As an example, six years ago they expanded the farm from 6,000 to 10,000 acres but didn’t want to have to buy more equipment or hire more people. A different approach was needed.

“We have one air drill and one tractor, so we started experimenting by seeding very early, around the second or third of April, as soon as we can get onto our land,” Vert says. “There was some skepticism that our crops were going to freeze when they came out of the ground, but we’ve been doing it for six years now and we’ve been getting a two-week jump on our seeding window. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but it takes us 25 days to seed and we’re done seeding the first or second week in May. That makes a big difference, not only financially, by not having $4M worth of seeding equipment, but by getting things done in a timely manner. It’s the small, out-of-the-box thinking that can make the difference.”

Understanding your business

Vert and Pospisil have defined and different roles in their various enterprises. That has happened organically by virtue of their different expertise and interests. Vert is hands-on, likes the day-to-day challenges and often comes up with new ideas that he’s anxious to run with. Pospisil is more detailoriented and organized; she creates some structure around Vert’s ideas. They complement each other perfectly but admit that the key to building a well-functioning business system, especially with so many moving parts, is communication, something they work on constantly between themselves and with their outside advisers.

“One thing we started doing about five years ago is having more constant communication with our bank manager, lawyer and accountant so that, at any given time, they know what we want to do in the future, and we know what’s expected of them and what they expect of us,” Vert says.

They also understand that knowing the numbers inside out is vitally important. They review their finances weekly.

“You need to know bottom baselines, where you need to be, where your projections are,” Vert says. “One extra day in the office trying to figure out logistics and crunching numbers accelerates you one month of hard physical work.” That’s important because time is not something that Vert or Pospisil have a lot of to spare, and certainly not to waste on things that don’t matter or are distracting to their operations.

Dallas Vert and Natasha Pospisil are teaching their kids a lot about running a business as they juggle three enterprises; a 12,000-acre grain farm, General Store and seed and input retail business, near Kirriemuir, Alberta.

Rosetown

CELEBRATING 70 YEARS

Farm

“We make 10 to 13 substantial decisions in a day, and if we pushed them off and procrastinated, we would never get anything done,” Vert says. “The biggest thing is to accept what you need to do, execute it and then carry on to the next job.”

Pospisil finds it useful to make lists to help her manage her time and stay focused. “Sometimes I’ll just make a list of the things that I’ve got to hammer off the next day, or it’ll be for the week, and it keeps me on track,” she says. “You have to make sure that you don’t lose focus when you have so much orbiting around you. You want to make sure that your focus is always very sharp.”

There’s a lot to learn

Vert and Pospisil are the first to admit that running multiple enterprises is not easy and has presented challenges for both of them. They have had to learn how to run very different businesses while juggling their family and outside commitments.

Although Vert had a basic understanding of how the fertilizer world worked from a farmer’s perspective, he soon found that running a fertilizer plant was a totally different business model than a farm.

“There is a lot of risk, especially with the current volatility in the markets,” he says. “If you buy the product at the wrong time, and all of a sudden, the floor drops out and the value of that product is much lower, you know you have to take that loss to be competitive in the market. Every year, purchasing is totally different. You can’t make a decision on a whim, you have to be educated on the trends, and calculated. It took a lot of time to learn and understand that.”

For Pospisil, it’s been balancing family and work life that has proven the most challenging, especially with no childcare options in their rural location. Again, she has learned to use her own experiences growing up to help find creative solutions that allow her to manage her two worlds to the benefit of both.

“I have had to learn to slow down and it’s been beneficial

“You need to know bottom baselines, where you need to be, where your projections are. One extra day in the office trying to figure out logistics and crunching numbers accelerates you one month of hard physical work.”

- Dallas Vert

Winning the title of Outstanding Young Farmers (OYF) in 2019 pushed Dallas Vert and Natasha Pospisil to look for new ways to advance their farm. Now they do it to set an example for their three children.

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because I’ve become good at integrating the kids,” she says. “I have learned to incorporate them into the business. From day one, they have come to work with me every single day, so that’s been huge. It’s important to me because I grew up with a family who integrated me into the family’s work. The kids are so involved with the customers and it’s nice to see them a part of something. They see the world through a different lens and I think it’s going to pay off well for them in the long term.”

Besides running their operations, Vert and Pospisil are heavily involved in industry and community organizations and projects. They still work with the OYF program and sit on a producer panel for the Olds College Smart Farm. They also donate a lot of time to their tiny K-12 school’s fully operational farm which operates a hydroponic growing system, grows produce for a local community-supported agriculture scheme and provides agricultural education to local and urban students.

Policies and perception

The couple do more than their share of paperwork. They have environmental farm plans in place and try to follow new trends in regenerative and ecological production practices as much as they can. But Vert and Pospisil admit they are sometimes concerned about the impact of environmental policies on their operations.

“What worries me is whether the governing bodies understand how the farm community works,” Vert says. “For example, they are starting to introduce legislation that you know isn’t possible, such as the reduction of fertilizer by 30

per cent (by 2030). We are not going out and randomly spending X amount of dollars just because we can; we’re trying to get by with the best possible blend that we can. We’re not spending 30 per cent more if we don’t have to, so that kind of stuff is a little bit unnerving.”

He is also concerned that these kinds of policies send negative and unrealistic messages about the farming industry to the general public.

“Public perception is that farming is negative, contributing to our carbon footprint and hurting the environment, and [decision-makers] need to be better educated before they make those kinds of decisions,” Vert says.

The future lies in small things

Vert and Pospisil have focused on steady growth over the past 10 years, but for the immediate future they are switching their attention to efficiency. Following the same philosophy that allowed them to make efficiencies at seeding, the couple just built a large grain dryer so they can begin combining earlier and make the most efficient use of their two combines instead of having to buy a third to finish harvesting in time.

“We plan to focus on smaller increases in production, better marketing, better equipment use efficiencies, that kind of stuff rather than just going out and buying another 1,000 acres,” Vert says. “We have a good base, we’re trying to tweak our workforce, and we want to fine-tune and make our business more viable and more profitable with what we have.”

Farming Smarter

By Becky Zimmer

Ken Coles hates the term “applied research organization.”

The industry has evolved beyond that to help and support farmers instead of solely creating profit-focused policy and practice, he says.

As CEO of Farming Smarter, this is the goal for Coles and his team of 10 diversely educated staff members. In addition to 10 to 15 summer, practicum and intern students, they thrive on researching and testing practical, bottom-up agricultural innovations with only one goal in mind: “keep our farmers as profitable and sustainable as possible,” he says.

Just like in the name, projects are not designed to reinvent the wheel but look at farming ideas and practices that are already being done on the farm, working smarter and making them more valuable.

But there are plenty of social and political challenges ahead as Coles works to bring innovations to Canadian agriculture.

In terms of expanding, challenging and succeeding in innovation, failure is not the F-word people make it out to be, says Coles, as there is need for the agriculture industry to continuously try new things from around the country and the world.

Coles knows that can be difficult when your business and livelihood is on the line. If a crop fails, it is not a quick fix for a farmer who’s not only lost their income for the year, but has also spent money on planting that crop.

However, that is one of the benefits of Farming Smarter. They can take those risks on behalf of farmers and truly innovate instead of doing the same thing, says Coles.

“The types of impacts and the scale and magnitude of mistakes we have is pretty tremendous in agriculture,” he says. “That builds in a general fear of trying something different and new.

“With any new innovation, there is always going to be a touch of risk.”

Nineteen different projects, from precision agriculture testing to crop, pest and input variation trials, were listed for 2022 on the Farming Smarter website. From small plot to field-scale studies under their agronomy research, custom research, extension, field-tested programs, Coles says they test and examine all their projects from an unbiased, scientific approach on all the different practices and products that farmers use or could potentially add to their farming toolbox. Their grassroots approach still doesn’t stop certain farmers from being hesitant as adoption is very much operation dependent, says Coles. If farmers see more of a profit margin from year to year—Coles cites southern Alberta with irrigated farms and high-value crops as an example—those operations are more risk tolerant and are more willing to take the plunge compared to dryland farmers who are more likely to still do what already works, he says. And, as always, there are also farmers who will simply never take the plunge.

Realistic and holistic shifts needed to innovate Canadian agriculture

While there are many moving parts to that puzzle of how to promote producers to adopt new farming techniques, there has also been a drop in the public’s unbiased perspectives in the industry, so much of whether an operation will adopt a new innovation depends on what information farmers receive.

While this adds a new layer of challenges for the innovators like Coles, there have been two positives that he has seen since Farming Smarter started in 2012.

Retailers are needing to prove the value of their products to farmers as they’re starting to realize more and more what harm this can do to their business if this is not done, or done incorrectly.

The other positive is how this is opening the discussions on best practices.

Through his recent Nuffield Scholarship, Coles has been looking at the benefits of thriving non-profit organizations and how they communicate with and help farmers innovate the industry. He has hosted ag professionals in Canada, and has travelled to six countries with New Zealand soon to be a seventh. His primary goal is to investigate how these organizations work within other countries.

The same grassroots organizations that exist at the regional and provincial levels in Canada are only pipe dreams in a country like France, he says. Farmers he spoke with didn’t know what was going on in their own backyard due to not having that bridge from innovators to the end users. That is a huge message he wants to bring back to Canada—keep farming supports local.

“What I’ve experienced so far is that there is very much still a need to have a more localized community that works together on these things because we tend to have big broad scope organizations, like the federal government or the provincial government, but farms still kind of work in communities,” he says.

While the country and industry focus on big solutions that will “solve everything,” Coles notes data and genomics as two of the things policy-makers and industry leaders are not taking enough of a realistic and holistic approach to innovating the agriculture industry. A lot of funding is available for projects before people know what the problem is they’re solving, he says, with investments in drone technology being an example.

It makes Coles skeptical. He says he is not completely dismissive of things like big technology, but also believes that throwing money at new technology, venture capitalism and centralizing helpful ag organizations is not going to make the Canadian market more competitive.

Ken Coles believes failure is necessary to move the agricultural industry forward.

Instead, the agriculture industry needs to focus on what they already do great—raising the best cattle, wheat and canola in the world.

“We’re switching gears to technology and venture capitalism without maintaining good agronomics and breeding, sort of the tried, tested and true stuff that Canada excels at,” he says.

“We’re trying to be something we’re not.”

Value-added businesses have always been a topic of discussion throughout Coles’ career, he says, but that is not something that will magically benefit the Canadian agriculture market either, unlike European countries that have unrestricted access to seaports and less distance to participate in the global markets.

Existing in a larger sphere of global agriculture, Coles says the Canadian industry has lost its sense of their own competitive advantage. To gain that back, Coles says the industry has to keep those grassroots growing.

“I’m an advocate for the farm, and the farmer and the farming community, and that’s what our true resources are.”

“We’re switching gears to technology and venture capitalism without maintaining good agronomics and breeding, sort of the tried, tested and true stuff that Canada excels at. We’re trying to be something we’re not.”

- Ken Coles

Nineteen different projects, from precision agriculture testing to crop, pest, and input variation trials, were listed for 2022 on the Farming Smarter website.

Moving Grain With Pneumatic Systems

Moving grain around a farming operation can be timeconsuming, energy-intensive and even risky. Some farmers are tackling these problems by installing pneumatic grain handling systems.

Using air pressure to move grain from a drying system, central distribution hopper or a cleaning point can be more efficient than using traditional augers. It can also cut back on damage to valuable commodities.

Doug Termeer, Walinga sales representative for Saskatchewan and Manitoba, says some of his clients have 20 to 30 bins in their Walinga Ultra-Veyor systems.

With the air blower, airlock and piping all on one system, pressure is consistent throughout the movement process. Farmers have flexibility to move grain wherever it needs to go without moving heavy equipment. While equipment, like augers, drag conveyors and elevators, can easily be moved around, a permanently installed pneumatic system saves time and energy.

During busy times, like harvest, moving the auger from one bin to the next can take a lot of time. This system eliminates that problem. “If you want to switch from one bin to the next,” Termeer says, “we have a distributor that we sell with it. It’s a matter of pulling one lever and turning it and locking it into place. It takes about 30 seconds to change which bin you’re blowing to.”

The new pneumatic

Pneumatic systems have come a long way in the past decade. In the past, Termeer says, farmers would set the airflow rates fast enough to move the heaviest products the farthest distance without plugging the system. This added wear to the system and some damage to lighter products travelling shorter distances. Walinga worked with a farmer customer to develop its Smart-Flo system to address this problem.

The Smart-Flo system will automatically adjust the airflow to what it needs to be. “If you have too much air and not enough grain,” Termeer says, “you’re going to get premature wear on your pipe, and you’re going to damage some of the product. On the reverse side, if you have too much grain and not enough air, it plugs.”

For instance, when really wet grain means more drying time and a lot less grain entering the tubing, the system knows that less airspeed is required to get the grain through the system. For farmers, that means higher grain quality and a longerlasting system.

“If you’re blowing light products, like oats, to a bin that’s 100 feet away, you’re going to need a lot less air than if you’re moving that same product 400 feet, so it’s going to automatically adjust that.”

By Becky Zimmer

These adjustments are not something that can be done with an auger, especially at the tail end of moving grain when there isn’t a lot of product being pushed through. Termeer says that is when the system is going to grind away at the product and cause damage.

Safety is another benefit that comes with pneumatic movement. When grain is moved with air rather than a conveyance, there are fewer moving parts for farmers to worry about, meaning less concerns about getting caught in a scary situation.

Termeer is also proud of the flexibility of the system. Grain can travel on its own for as long as it needs with the right length of tubing, again without getting tractors out to pull augers, elevators or other conveyances into place. There’s no easier way for grain to cover these long distances, he says.

“We have systems that go 300, 400, 500 feet horizontal before they go up into the bin,” Termeer says. Some customers run pipes under or over driveways. “If the bins aren’t in a perfect line, it doesn’t matter. If one bin is 48-footdiameter, the next bins are 30-foot diameter and the heights are all different; it doesn’t matter.”

While the pneumatic system is gentler on grain, it can only move between 200 to 2,000 bushels an hour, while an auger right off the truck can move closer to 20,000 bushels an hour. But despite the unload delay, farmers still find value in the ability to drop grain at a central distribution point and let the pneumatic system take over.

Depending on grain types and volumes, there are different

“We have systems that go 300, 400, 500 feet horizontal before they go up into the bin. Some customers run pipes under or over driveways. If the bins aren’t in a perfect line, it doesn’t matter. If one bin is 48-foot diameter, the next bins are 30 foot diameter and the heights are all different; it doesn’t matter.”

- Doug Termeer

Walinga sales rep Doug Termeer says some systems go up to 500 feet horizontal before they go up the bin.

Photo Credit: Walinga

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tubing sizes, different airlock distributions and motors with various levels of horsepower that can create an efficient system for any setup.

Arie Koster farms south of Carman, Man., and has been using a pneumatic system since 2020. At the best of times, he only has himself, his wife and his father, with a hired hand intermittently working on the farm. He can’t waste time and energy having someone constantly monitoring the dryer and moving augers to move freshly dried corn. He needs to know he can drop his truck load and head back out to the field for another.

Installing a pneumatic system was an easy decision, he says.

“It was the most cost-effective and simple system.... It’s simple, easy to use and it works the way it should.”

With a small corn operation, Koster currently has five bins set up flowing out of his grain dryer with room to double that when he starts planting more acres.

A custom-made system

Wentworth Ag in southern Manitoba sells GSI products across Western Canada. Derek Holenski does everything from sales and quoting to designing grain handling systems for clients.

“It can be as simple as just drawing a couple of circles for a guy

and telling him that’s where his bins should go, or the full-scale set of construction drawings for a multimillion-dollar grain elevator facility,” he says. It’s important to consider what clients need now, and how their systems might evolve over time.

In late winter, Holenski was busy selling and quoting farmers on new or improved systems. Farmers were looking forward to getting their new systems ready for harvest. That can be stressful with a short construction window.

“Once (the installer) is there and he’s doing the installs and he’s going through it with them, they kind of relax and they get kind of excited about it again and realize that they don’t have to use augers and trucks to move their grain once it’s dried.”

The most typical grain handling operation is one that connects the bins right from a drying system, like Koster’s system. Holenski sees farmers include a pneumatic system

A pneumatic system can save time moving grain around a system. Photo Credit: Walinga

In this system, grain is gravity-fed into the pneumatic airlock and blower and piped out to the surrounding bins. Photo Credit: Wentworth Ag

“It was the most cost-effective and simple system.... It’s simple, easy to use and it works the way it should.”

- Arie Koster

with their brand-new dryers or improve the system they already have with a new pneumatic setup.

There have been no limits to what a pneumatic system can handle, Holenski says. He has seen every conceivable crop moved through a pneumatic system as long as the system is used correctly. He has even seen a plastic manufacturer in Winnipeg use a pneumatic system to move plastic pellets throughout their operation. Since plastic doesn’t move the same as grain within the bin, they had to add some vibrators to shake the bin to get the pellets moving. Once it was in the airlock, there was no problem getting the product through the system, Holenski says.

Although there are no limits to the potential benefits of a pneumatic system, Holenski says, the system does have to match the farmer’s handling needs to justify the cost. For a farmer with only five or 10 5,000-bushels bins, he says, “they might not think that that’s worth the price. If they’ve got six 30,000-bushel bins, then that really starts to look like an attractive option.”

Because no two farm sites are the same, there’s no way to measure how much farmers with pneumatic systems are saving on the input costs and man-hours that they aren’t putting into moving grain. Holenski says the farmers he talks to say they are seeing their systems pay for themselves in a matter of years. However, the system provides benefits beyond the financial value. The biggest selling point for Koster is that the system really saves time on the farm.

When farmers can move grain by flipping a switch instead of physically moving an auger into place when they’d rather be fixing equipment or getting the combine back into the field, it is hard to put a tangible value on that the time savings, Holenski says.

“Most guys see that return pretty quickly.”

Doug Termeer, Walinga sales representative for Saskatchewan and Manitoba, says some of his clients have 20 to 30 bins in their Walinga Ultra-Veyor systems.

Photo Credit: Walinga

“They might not think that that’s worth the price. If they’ve got six 30,000-bushel bins, then that really starts to look like an attractive option.” - Derek Holenski

The Truth About Steel and Bin Prices

Construction demand and COVID-19 supply chain issues caused steel prices to soar in 2021 until they hit an all-time high in May. But then, steel prices fell through most of 2022—a 31 per cent decrease from June 2021 to June 2022, partly due to the war in Ukraine and the energy crisis in Europe. Of course, the price you pay for steel varies based on the type of steel you need and where you are, but this trend was global.

Steel is the largest component of grain bins, yet bin prices went up through most of 2022. In Alberta government’s farm input price index, the price of a 4,000-bushel bin with a hopper bottom increased from $19,261 to $23,508 from January 2022 to January 2023—that’s 22 per cent. What’s going on?

Sid Lockhart is Meridian Manufacturing’s marketing manager. Lockhart says the problem for Meridian began before 2022, when steel prices rose from 50 to 60 per cent. “There’s no way that we could pass that on to the customers,” Lockhart says. “You’d basically just shut the doors.”

Meridian knows farmers have other storage options. If bins become too expensive, there are always grain bags. And in a pinch, grain can even be stored on the ground.

So instead of passing on the full steel price increase in 2021, Meridian only passed along roughly half of the increase, lowering their profit margins. Then, he says, “Last year, when steel prices started coming down, we didn’t drop our prices until about November.”

Bin prices were lower last November, but don’t plan on that forever. In early March 2023, prices started rising again.

When it comes to steel prices, Meridian and other manufacturers find themselves in a tough position. Steel is not publicly traded, so there’s no simple way to hedge their input prices. Instead, Lockhart says, “We do bookings with our dealers.” In October or November, Meridian speaks for the steel they’ll need for the upcoming year.

If farmers have the cash, Lockhart says, “They’ll hedge their farm inputs by owning them.” Once you’ve paid for a year’s worth of fertilizer, you risk watching the price fall, but at least you know how much you’ve paid and you can work around it. Buying steel is different. Meridian doesn’t get a firm price until after they’ve received the steel. “When our forklift touches the truck, they time stamp the weight bill,” Lockhart says. Then Meridian is charged the price that was in place at exactly that time. “They give us a ballpark price in advance,” he says, “but we don’t actually know what it’s going to be until it’s delivered.”

While farmers could stockpile fertilizer in case of a future price increase, Meridian doesn’t have that option. Steel suppliers ration Meridian’s supply based on previous use or future projections.

“We’ve been blessed over the decades as a company,” Lockhart says, “But this is one of the things management and ownership have to deal with.

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The Long-Term Path for Interest Rates

No matter how much we get used to it, rarely has the global economy forced us to navigate waters so seemingly calm, but with such potential for swell. On a historical basis, grains remain expensive, fertilizer prices have–surprisingly–fallen over the winter at the world level and the downward trend in inflation is continuing. In a way, the market is waiting for the next explosion, which unfortunately may well come, again, from Ukraine.

In the meantime, at home, the slowdown in consumer price growth suggests a rate cut in the medium term. Our patience will be tested: a cut is not expected before the end of the year, and central banks will be cautious in this regard. They will be very wary of a revival of inflation, especially in a context of full employment. So, beyond being patient, one should not expect rates to return to their pre-2010 level, since many inflationary factors will persist.

First, the energy transition. The movement will be gradual, but over the decades fossil fuels will make more room for wind, solar, hydroelectricity, etc. This transition will require massive investments and will be inflationary as a corollary. Add to this the geopolitical tensions on a global scale. The ambiguous position of many countries–including China–with regard to the RussianUkrainian conflict raises the spectrum of an East-West split similar to that of the Soviet era. Thus, taking as a basis the increasing fluidity of world trade that has marked the last decades, the current political uncertainty will lead many countries or companies to review their strategic choices. Managing this risk increases the cost of doing business and generates inflation.

Another inflationary factor, possibly the most important one, is demography. Not only in the West, but also in China, the age pyramid suggests several tight years in terms of labour availability. On the one hand, companies will have to be more attractive, especially through higher salaries. On the other hand, an inevitable wave of automation is starting or continuing in several sectors of activity. These are all factors that fundamentally generate inflation, which leads to the belief that a policy rate of around 3 to 3.50 per cent in the long term is more likely than the very low rates that have prevailed for more than a decade.

In the shorter term, the current business environment is relatively calm. It may be a bit of a stretch to talk about calm when interest rates are nearly triple what they were just 18 months ago and the war in Ukraine is looking like a stalemate. The fact remains that inflation is easing, which is reassuring. This suggests that future rate movements will be downward, as long as inflation continues to react as expected.

Risk management in agriculture is complex. In addition to the interest rate waltz, grain inventories are rather tight overall. So tight that weather shocks in key production areas have big impacts on markets. After the Canadian Prairies in 2021 and Europe in 2022, it was Argentina’s turn to suffer from drought. Although the current state of the markets suggests a year of positive margins in crop production, experience has taught us to be prepared for anything.

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What is the Right Dollar Amount?

Farmers are unique in experiencing financial swings in our industry, but I do feel the level of extreme this time is unique. As I work with my clients and attempt to look at financial feasibility beyond one year, I keep asking, “What is the right dollar amount?”

Many of the assets we own or want to buy have increased in value by astronomical proportions. So many of the day-to-day requirements of a farm, like fertilizer and seed, have more than doubled. The equipment and products we need are not readily available. When I look at these products I wonder, “What is the right dollar amount?”

The revenue we receive per bushel has more than doubled. Prices are softening but we are still at record prices. Farmers sold oats for $10/bushel! That is unheard of. Farmers sold IP canola for over $30/bushel which is crazy! Farmers sold yellow mustard for $50/bushel which is insane! As we look at grain prices going forward, we ask ourselves, “What is the right dollar amount?”

No one has a crystal ball that works, but there are some aspects that we know will be here for a while.

Rising Input Costs

The price of land has doubled in my area in the last four years. If you bought this land, that cost is going to affect your farm for years to come. It will affect your ability to borrow, your cash outflow and your overall long-term feasibility. Was the price of land too inexpensive before or is it too expensive now? What is the right dollar amount?

If you had to recently negotiate a land rental deal, it will have gone up. If you lock your rate in for five years, this will affect your overall cost of operation for those years. You are guaranteeing that the cost of your land base is increasing. How much is a fair land rental price? What is the right dollar amount?

The cost of common herbicides like glyphosate and glufosinate have dramatically risen and now fallen. They were available and then they were not available. Name brands were tough to find and generic products were abundant. If I prepay and the retailer cannot deliver it, what is the right dollar amount? If I buy it but I don’t want to take it home as I have no place to store it, what is the right dollar amount? If product is truly in short supply, what is the right dollar amount?

The cost of post-emergent herbicides has increased by 150 per cent in some cases. The product is the same and it appears to be abundant, yet the price is much higher. But what is the right dollar amount?

The cost of a combine is $1 million and headers are a quarter of a million dollars. There is a wait to get the unit. The technology has not changed greatly in the past three years. Is this combine worth that much money? What is the right dollar amount?

Tractors have become quite the spectacle. Apparently, we bought all the tractors and the tractor store quit making them. I have no idea what happened, but clearly, something happened. Quad track units over 500hp are now well over $1 million. If you act now, you can have one in two years. Does this make sense that we cannot go to a dealership and pick out a tractor? Does it make sense to order the tractor two years in advance? Is $1 million the correct price? What is the right dollar amount?

A Long-Term Look

The main issue with all of these situations is that there is a long-lasting effect. If the cost to run a farm goes up dramatically as the revenue rises, but then the revenue drops, how does this affect our operations?

In our free market world of supply and demand, I have faith it will work out. The problem is that damage will occur while it gets worked out. If CIH and John Deere overprice a tractor and also can’t supply the product, eventually some other company will come in and fill that void. How long will that take? I’m going to guess it will be years.

Land rental prices will correct if crop prices drop, but it may take many years. The demand for farmland may not take the same path because other factors are at play. Regardless, recent purchases of land will have a long-term effect on your operation.

When I work with clients, I try to provide information and direction to assist in decision-making. This is now my struggle. When clients

are looking at purchasing new equipment, renting land or purchasing land, I am at a loss to give a grounded recommendation. My go-to answer is that if canola stays above $20/bushel and wheat stays north of $10/bushel, you can do whatever you want.

I was talking with a colleague at a lending institution and they were doing projections of revenue using $15/bushel for canola. I can see how this has some mathematical relevance from an averages perspective. From a reality perspective, it does not make sense. Prior to 2021, canola was worth $10 or less for a long time. Then it went to over $20 for a couple of years. It has very rarely been $15/bushel. Is it realistic to use $15/bushel to budget canola income for a 25-year mortgage?

If we wait to buy a tractor, will that be better or worse? Will combines come back down in price? History shows that this does not happen. But what if we go back to 2021 and prior income levels? In my area of east central Saskatchewan, from 2020 back to 2016, $400/acre revenue was a good crop. In 2021, those same producers grew $800/acre and even $900/ acre crops. What are we to expect in 2023, '24, '25, '26? If we go back to $400/acre revenue, our farms will be in a loss position. We all like to remain positive and expect that crop prices cannot drop dramatically because our cost to farm has

increased. The reality is: markets that determine the price of crops do not care about our cost to produce them.

Plan Your Strategy

With my clients, we are keeping a close eye on historical revenues and trying to keep our break-even numbers as close to those as possible. We look at strategies like consolidating debt if prices dropped. The increase in interest rates has reduced the effectiveness of this strategy but it can still lower cash outflow. We look at keeping some equipment longer than in the past. We also look at using the windfall from recent years of high prices to reduce long-term cash outflow.

Know your numbers. Compare your fixed costs today to what they were in 2020 and prior. Take your historical income from 2020 back and see if you can manage your farm with that level of historical income and today’s expenses. Try using numbers like $15 canola and see what that does to your break-even. These exercises will help prepare us for any changes in revenue our farms may experience.

If you have made excess profits for a few years, you may have to experience some cash flow losses for a couple of years. Prepare yourself for that as well.

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Tammy Jones B.Sc., P.Ag

Tammy Jones completed her B.Sc. in crop protection at the University of Manitoba. She has more than 15 years of experience in the crops industry in Manitoba and Alberta, with a focus on agronomy. Tammy lives near Carman, Man., and spends her time scouting for weeds and working with cattle at the family farm in Napinka.

Simple Scouting Hacks

Scouting weeds prior to applying herbicide is incredibly important for weed identification, staging and assessing densities to fine-tune herbicide selection. Different tools can be used for scouting, ranging from boots on the ground to machinery in the field to drones in the air. The next step is to scout after the herbicide application to make sure that a certain level of success has been achieved. Usually waiting two or three weeks after a herbicide application will allow for a good assessment of the effectiveness of the treatment. And while the adage of “scout early, scout often” is true, when it comes to assessing weed control, there is such a thing as being “too early” but also a huge danger in being “too late.”

First let’s tackle the concept of too late. While herbicides are typically very effective in controlling weeds, it’s essential to double-check for any weeds that might have escaped. This allows for other weed control actions to take place that will prevent or reduce seed set, especially important with herbicide-resistant, tough-to-control or prolific seed-producing weeds. Preventing seed set is preventing future problems. If the scouting operation is left too late, there may not be any good options for preventing seed set.

There are at least three possible timings that could be considered “too late.” Those timings include:

• once the weeds reach a certain growth stage where there are no effective herbicides;

• when the weeds have already begun to set seed; or,

• when weeds that were controlled effectively have turned to dust and new flushes of weeds have germinated so there is no way to know if the weed control action had any effect at all.

It isn’t a specific date in the calendar, nor is it a specific number of days after seeding or spraying. Too late might be something like fungicide timing, when there are no herbicide options, or no way to mow or till out the weed patches without causing significant damage to the remaining crop. For that reason, going early is far better than too late, which is almost impossible to recover from.

How is it possible to scout “too early” after weed control strategies have been executed? The primary challenge is allowing the weed control action to take effect and then being able to assess the efficacy. With tillage, it would mean waiting to see if the weeds died or re-rooted, while mowing would be monitoring to determine when to mow again, in order to prevent seed set. With herbicides, symptoms will usually take 10 to 14 days to appear, although it could take longer in certain growing environments. The trick with herbicide applications is being able to recognize the symptoms (or lack thereof) and make a decision on whether to take further action.

Assessing herbicide efficacy is challenging, especially if the weed hasn’t completely died. There are many resources that can help with this step including agronomists (retail or independent), regional and provincial weed specialists, and representatives from the chemical manufacturers. These experts are fantastic at providing information, but it may be a challenge to get them to the field exactly when you want it scouted. In that case, since there haven’t been many new herbicide modes of action introduced in the past decade or two, there are still many relevant publications with pictures of herbicide symptoms to help with assessments.

Most contact herbicides will impact on leaf material in a matter of hours or days, sometimes bleaching the leaf white or turning them yellow before the plant turns brown and dies, and the challenge is assessing if there will be any

Volunteer sunflower with Group 6 injury.

regrowth. With systemic herbicides, symptoms may take longer to appear even though the weed is no longer growing. Some systemic herbicides impact at the growing point, such as Group 2 herbicides, while others cause plants to grow in unusual ways (Group 4 herbicides). Older leaves may stay green for days or weeks with some herbicides, which can be a source of confusion when scouting. In addition, herbicide mixtures may show a combination of different symptoms at different times under different growing conditions.

If the weed is still green, the final step is to determine if it is actively growing. There are three ways to determine this. First is assessing the growing point. For instance, Group 1

herbicides will cause the growing point to pinch off and turn brown and will easily pull out. If the growing point is not helpful, then digging up the plant and assessing the roots may be an option. If the roots are thickened, pruned or lack root hairs, that is an indication that the plant is no longer actively growing.

If the first two tests are inconclusive, then the easiest tool might be a can of spray paint! Spray paint has been used to assess how fast a corn crop is growing, or the variation in the germination of a crop, so it should also be able to help assess growth of the crop and weeds after a herbicide application to decide on efficacy. Spray painting the growing point of the crop and then of suspect weeds will allow you to return to the area and assess the growth of both. If the crop has put on new leaves, but the weeds have not, then the herbicide has been effective. If the weeds are continuing to grow, then it’s time to develop another strategy for reducing their impact. Scouting early gives you more time to make those plans.

Regardless of which scouting techniques are ultimately employed, the old adage of “scout early, scout often” rings true. The danger of scouting too late is that there may be no way to remedy the situation. The downside to scouting too early is that you might underestimate the effectiveness of the treatment and take action when it is not needed. The upside to scouting too early is that you can always check back!

The danger of scouting too late is that there may be no way to remedy the situation. The downside to scouting too early is that you might underestimate the effectiveness of the treatment and take action when it is not needed.

Volunteer sunflower with Group 2 injury.

Tom Wolf, PhD, P.Ag.

Tom Wolf grew up on a grain farm in southern Manitoba. He obtained his BSA and M.Sc. (Plant Science) at the University of Manitoba and his PhD (Agronomy) at Ohio State University. Tom was a research scientist with Agriculture & Agri-Food Canada for 17 years before forming AgriMetrix, an agricultural research company that he now operates in Saskatoon. He specializes in spray drift, pesticide efficacy and sprayer tank cleanout, and conducts research and training on these topics throughout Canada. Tom sits on the Board of the Saskatchewan Soil Conservation Association, is an active member of the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers and is a member and past president of the Canadian Weed Science Society.

Why Can’t We Solve the Boom Problem?

If I were to rank all the technologies on a sprayer in order of importance, the nozzle would be in first place. It determines the coverage and drift; it ensures that the spray mix is uniformly distributed under the boom. The success or failure of a spray operation often comes down to nozzle choice and how it was operated. Nozzle technology is fairly mature —we know the spray quality we need for success, and all major nozzle manufacturers create products that can deliver what we need.

But the nozzle can’t do it alone, and that’s why on my list, the spray boom is in second place. It is responsible for a host of tasks such as delivering the spray mix at a uniform pressure along its entire length, folding quickly and compactly, as well as preventing the buildup of pesticide residues and, if necessary, allowing for easy decontamination. But its most important task is to be the steady hand of the spray operation, ensuring nozzles maintain a uniform speed along the ground and a uniform height from the target. Not doing those tasks properly can undo much of the nozzle’s good work.

We commonly refer to fore- and aft-movement of the boom as yaw, and up and down movement as sway. And bringing these two parameters within an acceptable range has been a project generations in the making.

Why is boom stability important?

Nozzles create a tapered fan spray for which a certain amount of overlap with adjacent nozzles is necessary. They also create a wide variety of droplet sizes, ranging from about five µm to over 2000 µm. The speed of the droplets, and the distances they travel in a straight line depends on their size. Small droplets slow down significantly almost immediately on their release from the nozzle. Their movement quickly becomes subject to prevailing winds and turbulence, much like that of dust, chaff or down feathers.

For these reasons, nozzles need to operate within a fairly narrow window of distance from their targets. For a typical boom with 20-inch nozzle spacing, boom heights less than about 15 inches have insufficient overlap that creates gaps in coverage, visible as striping. Boom heights over about 25 inches can lead to excessive spray drift because the smaller droplets will, by then, have slowed down enough to be easily displaced by wind. That’s why we see plumes of small droplets behind spray booms. Once they’ve left the spray cloud, they can stay aloft for a long time, and the spray operator has lost all control over their movement.

A rule of thumb is that spray drift potential doubles every time the boom height is doubled. A low boom can make it possible to spray in significantly higher winds than a high boom. With a lower boom, the droplets are still moving fast when they enter the canopy. Their initial energy prevents them from being displaced by wind.

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Figure 1: Spray nozzles need a minimum height for proper overlap.

Wind speeds are lower the closer one gets to the ground. The friction of wind with the soil or crop canopy slows it down. A small droplet is less likely to be carried away if it never enters the higher wind of the greater elevations.

But higher boom heights also make the spray less effective in other ways. For example, the ability of an angled spray from a twin nozzle to target a vertical object, or the back of a target, requires the droplets to move in the direction determined by the angle of the nozzle. With too much distance, enough time passes for headwinds or gravity to deflect the path of the droplets. By the time they arrive at the canopy, the original direction is lost and the spray may as well have been created by a vertically oriented nozzle.

The best example for this is fusarium head blight sprays, where angled nozzles are usually recommended. Too high a boom negates their effectiveness.

But that’s not all. High booms can also create problems with deposit uniformity. Wind is not uniform. Its speed rises and falls, creating different amounts of displacement. The higher the boom, the more exposed the spray will be to these fluctuations.

Small water droplets also evaporate quickly. And once the water has evaporated, they are even smaller and more prone to all the displacements we’ve already mentioned. The uptake on the leaf surface may also be lower—dry deposits are not as easily absorbed by a cuticle than a wet deposit.

Boom yaw is another problem area. When booms whip forward and backward, they underdose and overdose, particularly at the boom ends. These problems are less common than sway, but are nonetheless still present.

Where are the stable booms?

Overall, I think it’s safe to say that maintaining the correct boom height is one of the more important jobs on a sprayer. When

pull-type sprayers with outrigger wheels were common, setting and keeping that height was easy. It’s more difficult with suspended booms.

The benefits of low booms are often cited in guidelines to reduce spray drift. But with boom sway of 20 to 30 inches on undulating ground, operators find it difficult to comply with this advice. The risk of the boom making contact with the ground is simply too great. As a result, suspended booms commonly operate at 30 to 35 inches above the target. The cost of this practice, in terms of spray drift or lower deposit uniformity, hasn’t been tabulated. But it may be significant.

It’s time that sprayer manufacturers make boom stability a greater priority. Why do we even have to ask? One of the best developments in the North American sprayer market has been the arrival of European sprayers. These sprayers need to compete in a home market where boom stability is a key performance feature, where significant resources are spent to distinguish a brand from a large number of competing firms. North America has a relatively small domestic manufacturing base—John Deere, Case, RoGator and New Holland making up the majority, with Apache and a few other small manufacturers fighting over the remainder.

In comparison, Europe has about 75 manufacturers, although many are small and regional. Some European countries have had strict performance guidelines about which sprayers can enter their market, and this resulted in engineering efforts to meet those standards. Customers are the winners in this kind of arrangement, with better plumbing systems, and better booms having to be manufactured. Field days are held where 10 to 15 different sprayers march down a standard bumpy track, allowing prospective customers to see the winners and losers first hand.

It’s been refreshing to see the likes of Agrifac, Horsch Leeb and Amazone making their more sophisticated units available in our market in recent years. But even they can do better.

Figure 2: Even on modern sprayers, level booms are not guaranteed.

As the role of the sprayer evolves towards more sensing tasks with boom-mounted cameras, and as spot spraying gains momentum, there will be a host of new reasons to have stable booms available. For example, a spot spray of a single nozzle is very sensitive to boom height. At a boom height of 27 inches, a 30-degree fan creates a bandwidth of about 15 inches. When the boom sways down just five inches to 22 inches, the band has narrowed to 12 inches, creating an overdose of 22 per cent. If it sways up five inches to 32 inches, the bandwidth is 17 inches, resulting in a 16 per cent underdose.

These numbers wouldn’t be acceptable in any other industry where inputs are costly and product rates are tightly regulated.

There are signs of change. As John Deere readies itself to introduce its flagship spot sprayer, See & Spray Ultimate, to market, it has developed a boom with a claim that it keeps the tip of the boom “within 10 inches of the target height, 95 per cent of the time.” One might argue with the impressiveness of this claim, but the point is that the company has obviously made a commitment and is prepared to share its specs.

We need to see more of the same design goals so prospective customers can make informed decisions on specifications that matter. Tell us how quickly the boom folds, and why we can trust it to flush clean. Give us a reason to believe a low boom height can be set without fear of striping or boom damage. Allow applicators to take advantage of low, steady boom heights. And may the best boom win.

Figure 3: Bandwidth of spot spray nozzles at different boom heights.

It’s time to start changing the way we talk about farmers and farming. To recognize that just like anyone else, sometimes we might need a little help dealing with issues like stress, anxiety, and depression. That’s why the Do More Agriculture Foundation is here, ready to provide access to mental health resources like counselling, training and education, tailored specifically to the needs of Canadian farmers and their families.

Most people seek help when they need it. Farmers go it alone.

shouldn’t be any different

Finding a New Normal in Machinery Prices and Repairs

By Leeann Minogue

Prairie farmers calling their machinery dealerships to talk about new equipment have been getting some shocking surprises. Prices are high. But even worse, sometimes you can’t get the equipment you want at any price, not without a long wait and maybe an uncertain delivery date. We asked Jim Wood, Rocky Mountain Equipment’s chief sales and operations officer, the impossible question: “When will things be normal again?”

“This is just a blip,” Wood says. “They’ll ramp the factories back up. It won’t happen this year, but probably by the end of 2024.” The lack of machinery sitting on local lots can be frustrating. This is a result of lowered manufacturing capacity due to supply chain issues and labour shortages throughout the supply chain. In the case of CNH, Wood says, “There was a strike as well.”

But, Wood says, “You’ll get back to the time when the manufacturers will increase production. The supply chain will come back, and we’ll be back to where we were before 2020.” Some types of machinery have been especially difficult to source this winter, such as FWD tractors and sprayers. “Combine production seemed to be more manageable,” Wood says.

Wood points out that even though prices for new machinery

have increased, “in our world, most people have a trade-in.” Although, he says, “The [trade-in] difference is more than it used to be just because of economics.”

Buying used equipment

Used equipment has also increased in price, but many farmers are finding quality used machines to add to their lineups. “We sell as much used equipment as we do new equipment in a year,” Wood says. However, for some machines, even used equipment is in short supply. As sales of new equipment tighten up, “you have less used coming in,” Wood says. “Our shelves aren’t bare, we’ve definitely got some used [machinery] to sell.”

“This is just a blip. They’ll ramp the factories back up. It won’t happen this year, but probably by the end of 2024.”

- Jim Wood

Is a shortage of used equipment a problem for Rocky Mountain Equipment? “Some of our salesmen are concerned that there’s not as much to sell as there used to be. I would argue that we had more than we needed in the past,” Wood says.

Keeping it in good condition

“If you’re going to keep it longer, make sure you maintain it,” Wood says. Some farmers might be keeping used equipment longer than they typically might under today’s conditions. “They may keep it a little longer, but if they maintain it, these machines are built to last a long time,” Wood says.

Keeping older machinery well-maintained pays off in the long run, with less downtime in the season. Farmers seem to be doing that this year. “Our shops are packed full of equipment that customers are getting inspected preseason.”

Since 2020, supply chain issues have caused problems in all types of industries, including your local parts department. Sometimes parts are hard to find or can take weeks to order in. The main issues, Wood says, are rubber and electronic components. This impacts things like wire harnesses, computer chips and all kinds of components necessary to keep today’s equipment running smoothly. Difficulty ordering parts hasn’t just been a problem for CNH, it’s causing difficulties across all lines of agriculture equipment.

At Rocky Mountain Equipment, the parts department is doing what it can to ease farmers’ pain. “Every dealer is stocking way more parts than they normally would.” Wood estimates that stocking extra parts costs Rocky Mountain Equipment an extra $6 or $7 million per year, across the chain of dealerships.

Courtney Brumback is part of the CNH Industrial service marketing team in New Holland, Pennsylvania. “Since COVID, we’ve seen that spike across the supply chain,” she says. To counter the problem, “We’re forever evolving.” While there will probably always be some sticky issues with the supply chain, Brumback says that the more a dealership can pre-plan for upcoming issues, the better prepared they can be.

Taking a proactive approach

“As technology and equipment get more sophisticated,” Brumback says, “it becomes really critical that maintenance items are done.” CNH Industrial is encouraging farmers to schedule off-season inspections to keep machinery in optimal condition. “Proactive maintenance is a way to stay on top of the maintenance need,” Brumback says.

Rob Slonski is the director of service operations for Pattison Agriculture. Pattison is taking full advantage of the capability of John Deere equipment to link machines with dealers electronically. Staff at Pattison dealerships monitor customers’ machines for alert codes. “If trouble codes come

up in certain sequences or times, it’s predicting failures,” Slonski says. “We have to be on them right away.” Dealership staff will contact customers to let them know about the problem, or check to see if there may be another reason for the codes, like a cold start.

“The road that we’re taking is a proactive approach,” Slonksi says. “Our goal in service is to proactively prevent breakdowns.” Early intervention can often prevent big, major failures.

Promoting annual inspection services is another proactive approach to equipment repairs. An annual inspection, Slonski says, “keeps the cost of running equipment down.” Pattison offers new machinery buyers a chance to finance future inspections along with their purchase, including the option to lock in inspection prices for three years. (CNH Industrial is also working on a program that will allow farmers to finance inspections, and plans to phase it in later in 2023.)

When you’re paying the bill for an annual inspection, ask

yourself, as Slonski points out, “What really is the cost of a machine being down?” These days, Slonkski says, more and more farmers are using annual inspection programs. Compared to the cost of having your combine out of commission in peak season, “What you paid for an inspection is really cost-effective.”

Like all machinery dealerships, Pattison has seen supply chain problems and had difficulties getting parts. However, Slonski says, “The parts situation is getting a lot better.” One thing Pattison did to address the parts supply issue was to double its parts inventories over the past three years.

Looking forward 10 or 20 years ahead is a major part of Slonski’s role with Pattison. “This industry is changing so fast, it’s unbelievable,” he says. In the future, Slonski sees the relationship between farmers and dealerships becoming even more of a partnership. Dealerships need to know what farmers need; farmers need to know what challenges dealerships are

“As technology and equipment get more sophisticated, it becomes really critical that maintenance items are done. Proactive maintenance is a way to stay on top of the maintenance need.”

- Courtney Brumback

facing. “The key,” he says, “is for everyone to work together and be patient at times when patience is needed.”

Keeping dealerships staffed

Labour shortages are hurting the entire machinery supply chain, says Jim Wood, Rocky Mountain Equipment’s chief sales and operations officer. Warehouses are short of staff that can pick parts, and keeping dealerships fully staffed is a major challenge.

“It’s tough to get trained techs and attract talent to the industry. I think it’s an industry thing and it’s a rural thing.” Not everyone wants to live in a small town.

Rocky Mountain Equipment is looking for ways to change this. “We spend a lot of time recruiting and trying to attract people to the industry. And trying to keep them in the industry.” One method that has worked for Rocky Mountain Equipment is hiring temporary foreign workers. “We’ve had a lot of techs move from other countries,” Wood says. “They’ve been great employees and great members of the community.

Rob Slonski, Pattison Agriculture’s director of service operations, says Pattison also brings in a lot of staff from other countries and is investing a lot in retention and recruiting. “It’s a lot of work. It’s not waiting for people to grace your doorstep with a resumé.” Pattison also has to work with the fact that not everyone wants to live in a small town. But, Slonski points out, some potential recruits are attracted by possibilities of rural amenities like hunting and fishing. “They don’t want to live in big cities.”

Pattison reminds new service recruits that they’re getting into a very technical role. Machinery repair has changed to the point where it’s more about electronics than pulling apart heavy machinery. Overall, Slonski says, Pattison has more service technicians now than in past years.

“We spend a lot of time recruiting and trying to attract people to the industry. And trying to keep them in the industry. We’ve had a lot of techs move from other countries.

They’ve been great employees and great members of the community.” - Jim Wood

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