Cge140331

EASTERN EDITION

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March 31, 2014 $3.50

DETOUR OFF-FARM JOB FIRST, OR STRAIGHT HOME?

+PLUS MANITOBA FARMER GOES GLOBAL WITH ON-FARM INVENTION A FARMER’S RANT — THE WEST FUMES ABOUT SLOW RAIL 10 YEARS LATER, LOCAL FOOD MARKETS ARE STILL BOOMING Publications Mail Agreement Number 40069240

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CONTENTS

MARCH 31, 2014

BUSINESS 8

FUTURE FARM (2)

10

THE NEW LAND BARONS

14

A NEW SPIN OF FARMING

26

A JAM OF A BUSINESS

31

GUIDE HR — SEVEN DEADLY SINS OF THE ENTREPRENEUR

32

GET IT BUILT

36

LOCAL FOOD CO-OPS GROW UP

FCC futurist Calvin Mulligan continues our exploration of how farming will evolve, including “sustainable intensification.”

The Canada Pension Plan’s purchase of 115,000 acres in Saskatchewan ushers in a new era in Canadian agriculture.

Business is booming for farmer Mark Devloo now that he’s a manufacturer too. But that doesn’t mean life is easier.

Two friends make a business starting from their homes.

Next step is a commercial kitchen, plus a whole new brand.

It’s good business to recognize the special vulnerabilities and weaknesses that go with business success.

A canola biofuel plant made perfect sense on paper. Getting it off the drawing board, though, was a whole different job.

Many of the most sophisticated new farm co-ops are actually in the local sector, where they’re driving total sales and growth.

38

LOCAL VICTORY

42

FARMERS ARE FROM MARS…

44

A FARMER’S RANT

58

GUIDE LIFE — FAST OR SLOW

60 62

Does it still make sense for the next generation to start off-farm careers before deciding whether to make a go of taking over the farm? We bring you two profiles, one who took the detour, plus one who went straight to the farm after school. Is one better? You decide.

Ten years later, the local food trend is still booming, as are the business goals of the farmers who have signed on.

And consumers are from Venus, says our Scott Garvey. How can we communicate when we don’t speak the same language?

Our Gerald Pilger sees anger and disappointment in grain farmers all around him. It’s time for a new direction, he argues.

Choose the right appliance to make preparing healthy farm meals a snap.

EVERY ISSUE 5

PG. 18 DETOUR TO THE FARM

MACHINERY GUIDE

PRODUCTION 47

SNOW JOB

50

PROFIT THIEVES

52

HIRING TODAY’S YOUTH

56

PEST PATROL

What’s new for 2014? Here are four last-minute entries.

GUIDE HEALTH

Marie Berry helps us maintain mineral levels for health.

HANSON ACRES

Elaine is in no mood to be forgiven for not getting the cheque.

After record rains last fall, and record snows this winter, what do you expect in the field this spring?

These persistent and insidious pests could be chewing away at your profits, year after year.

The job of grooming next year’s farm employees starts this year, while they’re still in school.

Even Mike Cowbrough struggles to remember the right order for mixing a spray tank. But he gets the job done right with WALES.

Our commitment to your privacy At Farm Business Communications we have a firm commitment to protecting your privacy and security as our customer. Farm Business Communications will only collect personal information if it is required for the proper functioning of our business. As part of our commitment to enhance customer service, we may share this personal information with other strategic business partners. For more information regarding our Customer Information Privacy Policy, write to: Information Protection Officer, Farm Business Communications, 1666 Dublin Avenue, Winnipeg, MB R3H 0H1.

Occasionally we make our list of subscribers available to other reputable firms whose products and services might be of interest to you. If you would prefer not to receive such offers, please contact us at the address in the preceding paragraph, or call 1-800-665-1362.

MARCH 31, 2014

country-guide.ca 3

desk EDITORIAL STAFF Editor: Tom Button 12827 Klondyke Line, Ridgetown, ON N0P 2C0 (519) 674-1449 Fax (519) 674-5229 Email: tom.button@fbcpublishing.com Associate Editors: Maggie Van Camp Fax (905) 986-9991 (905) 986-5342 Email: bmvancamp@fbcpublishing.com Gord Gilmour (204) 453-7624 Cell: (204) 294-9195 Fax (204) 942-8463 Email: gord.gilmour@fbcpublishing.com Production Editor: Ralph Pearce (226) 448-4351 Email: ralph.pearce@fbcpublishing.com ADVERTISING SALES Lillie Ann Morris (905) 838-2826 Email: lamorris@xplornet.com Andrew Winkels Cell (204) 227-5274 (204) 954-1414 Email: andrew.winkels@fbcpublishing.com

Tom Button is editor of Country Guide magazine

Opportunity at the door Over the last several issues, we’ve been taking a closer look at local, organic and “natural” food trends. We’ll even continue next issue too, with an update on ethnic foods and the opportunities for Canada’s farmers in that market.

It’s a dangerous area for us. Some readers will complain our focus should be on real farms, not on the fringes.

I don’t want to exaggerate this, but part of my response is that these trends, which used to seem so offbeat, are getting picked up by successful mainstream farmers all across the country.

It’s especially true for young farmers, who may in the first place be more sympathetic to urban food attitudes, and who are also searching to work their way into a career of farming in an era when land prices are a hurdle.

Nor is it only young farmers.

The objections we always hear are that these consumer-based markets are either niches that can be flooded with a single truckload of American produce, or they’re fickle because of fickle consumer whims.

So this is what we looked for, alert for evidence that these trends are flashes in the pan. I’m like most Country Guide readers, after all, and I have more than a bit of skepticism in these waters.

Still, it isn’t what we have found.

Maybe some fall flat, but most are quite successful, and a surprising number seem every bit as sustainable as traditional farms.

4 country-guide.ca

Nor are they clustered only around big cities, although there can be no doubt that their choice of crop or livestock to produce is very dependent on location.

Still, when you ask most farmers across the country, I think you will find, as we have found, they know a farm or two in their area that is testing such markets.

Even more surprising is that these farms are proving very sustainable, with business plans as sophisticated as most grain or livestock farms. Often, in fact, as you have seen in our pages, they are run by farmers who are also successful at commodity production. Again, you’ll see more of this in our pages next issue too.

The point isn’t that we believe this is Canada’s future, with every farm raising goats or growing spelt. Eggplant is never going to rival canola.

But there are two points that we are becoming convinced of. First, local and natural farmers are succeeding. They are becoming a permanent part of Canadian agriculture.

Second is that often — not always, but often — the most successful farmers in these markets are farmers who have succeeded at traditional commodities, and have spied an opportunity. Talk to them.

They rarely have regrets.

These markets aren’t our bread and butter — a metaphor I have chosen carefully. But they deserve a look. Are we getting it right? Let me know at tom.button@ fbcpublishing.com.

Head Office: 1666 Dublin Ave., Winnipeg, MB R3H 0H1 (204) 944-5765 Fax (204) 944-5562 Advertising Services Co-ordinator: Sharon Komoski Fax (204) 944-5562 (204) 944-5758 Email: ads@fbcpublishing.com Designer: Jenelle Jensen Publisher: Lynda Tityk Email: lynda.tityk@fbcpublishing.com Associate Publisher/Editorial Director: John Morriss Email: john.morriss@fbcpublishing.com Production Director: Shawna Gibson Email: shawna@fbcpublishing.com Circulation Manager: Heather Anderson Email: heather@fbcpublishing.com President: Bob Willcox Glacier FarmMedia Email: bwillcox@farmmedia.com Contents of this publication are copyrighted and may be reproduced only with the permission of the editor. Country Guide, incorporating the Nor’West Farmer and Farm & Home, is published by Farm Business Communications. Head office: Winnipeg, Manitoba. Printed by Transcontinental LGMC. C o u n t r y G u i d e is published 13 times per year by Farm Business Communications. Subscription rates in Canada — Farmer $39 for one year, $58 for 2 years, $83 for 3 years. (Prices include GST) U.S. subscription rate — $35 (U.S. funds). Subscription rate outside Canada and U.S. — $50 per year. Single copies: $3.50.

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Call toll-free 1-800-665-1362 or email: subscription@fbcpublishing.com U.S. subscribers call 1-204-944-5766 Country Guide is printed with linseed oil-based inks PRINTED IN CANADA Vol. 133 No. 6 Internet address: www.agcanada.com

ISSN 1915-8491 The editors and journalists who write, contribute and provide opinions to Country Guide and Farm Business Communications attempt to provide accurate and useful opinions, information and analysis. However, the editors, journalists, Country Guide and Farm Business Communications, cannot and do not guarantee the accuracy of the information contained in this publication and the editors as well as Country Guide and Farm Business Communications assume no responsibility for any actions or decisions taken by any reader for this publication based on any and all information provided.

march 31, 2014

Machinery

By Ralph Pearce, CG Production Editor

Photo: Syngenta Canada

What’s new? At this time of year, that’s a question that applies to a lot of things on the farm, from the weather forecast to the crop plan, the commodity price outlook, and of course, machinery. This is that “in between” time, after the farm shows and before the ground is quite ready. This past winter, in between launches for tractors or new sprayers, there were some machinery items that don’t always fall into the regular categories. Yet they’re functional, practical and well worth a look.

Deflector kits for planting treated seed 

John Deere ExactEmerge High-Speed Planter 

This spring, government agencies have issued bulletins alerting growers to the limited availability of deflector kits for their negative vacuum planters. At issue is the link between neonicotinoid seed treatments and a significant number of bee kill incidents in 2013.

Currently, Kinze and John Deere have expansion boxes available, although it should be noted that some planter manufacturers may not support warranty or performance claims with an installed deflector.

Producers should view corn planter deflectors in the same way as choosing the proper nozzle on a sprayer to reduce drift. Ontario, for one, is urging producers to contact their equipment dealer to determine what’s available. Kits may be eligible for financial assistance from the Growing Forward 2 program.

Time is money and John Deere has come up with a new highspeed planter billed to increase your overall efficiency. The ExactEmerge planting system claims to provide precision seed placement at speeds up to 10 m.p.h. (where conditions permit). There’s more to hiking productivity than just boosting the speed through the field, though, so the ExactEmerge also employs electric metering, including a 56-volt electrical system that serves as the enabler. The challenge at higher speeds is to avoid bouncing the seed as it’s released to the seed trench and to get better placement with greater consistency.

That has been accomplished with a brush system that reduces the drop distance to as little as two inches, along with a new seed bowl that provides better singulation.

www.ontario.ca

www. deere.com

March 31, 2014

country-guide.ca 5

Bobcat Tier 4 5600 and 5610 Toolcat 

Yetter 2940 Air Adjust System Series 

Quick and agile with the latest in emission standards and improved traction, the Bobcat 5600 and 5610 Toolcat are Tier 4-compliant and take full advantage of an enhanced traction control system, capable of sensing speed differentials and adjusting to any ground conditions — soft, hard or under snow and ice.

The traction control system complements the Bobcat’s four-wheel independent suspension system. At 61 horsepower, the 5600 and the 5610 are compatible with more than 40 frontmounted attachments to help with installing fences, removing snow or sweeping. Either of these two-passenger machines can handle a range of challenging jobs, including hauling, towing or lifting.

Making on-the-go adjustments in today’s business of farming not only saves time, it can lead to more acres planted per day. That’s possible with Yetter’s 2940 Air Adjust series of products, from the residue manager to a coulter/residue manager combo and other units. The key to the Air Adjust system is the source. Farmers can choose from hydraulic or electric compressors from Yetter or stay the course with an existing hydraulic compressor.

All of these options can connect with the easy-to-read, in-cab controller, with a digital screen and buttons that allow for precise adjustments. That means growers can make up or down pressure adjustments without leaving the cab. Push-button simplicity allows the operator to increase down pressure in no till or conditions with heavy residues, or decrease the down pressure in lighter-residue situations.

www.yetterco.com

www.bobcat.com 6 country-guide.ca

March 31, 2014

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BUSINESS

FUTURE FARM (2) Farms take three calories of energy to grow one of food, FCC futurist Calvin Mulligan tells our Madeleine Baerg. Fixing that imbalance, he says, is only one change to come

By Madeleine Baerg

Who’s on your agri-business’s team? A great accountant, a skilled agronomist, a lawyer and… a futurist? In this evolutionary era of rapid technological, political and consumer change, someone who can provide strategic insights into possible and likely ag futures may be a helpful addition to your team. If so, we’ve got you covered, minus the crystal ball and tea leaves.

Last month we brought you the first instalment in a threepart look at agriculture’s trends, big developments and trajectory. This month, we speak again with Farm Credit Canada’s resident futurist Calvin Mulligan about what will be important both to individual farms and to Canadian agriculture in the near and longer term.

CG: Let’s start with the very biggest of farm related questions.

Experts predict we will need to increase global food production by 50 to 70 per cent in order to feed a population of more than nine billion by 2050. Can this be done?

That’s the basic narrative of the so-called “global food challenge.” I don’t think it’s the most useful framing of the problem, however. I prefer that of Jonathon Foley, the director of the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota, who suggests the dominant driver of food demand will likely be changing diets, not population growth.

The predicted population of two billion more people on Earth by mid-century is an increase of 28 per cent, so logic would say we will need roughly 28 per cent more food. But that’s not the whole story. As Foley explains, there are three to four billion people with increasing discretionary income living in China, India and elsewhere. If this population shifts to richer diets with more meat and dairy products, it would put a lot of pressure on the global food system.

While roughly one-third of the future food demand that you mentioned is likely to come from population growth, two-thirds could come from a shift to richer diets.

8 country-guide.ca

MARCH 31, 2014

PHOTOGRAPHY: CAREY SHAW

Mulligan:

business

CG: So the predicted enormous increase in food demand isn’t a given? And the biggest issue is dietary choice?

Mulligan:

Yes, dietary choices among others. Foley’s central point is that the world has choices… several in fact. For example, how much of the world’s farmland is dedicated to production of livestock feed or biofuels versus growing crops consumed directly by people. He also argues that the food waste problem — from field to landfill, it’s estimated at from 30 to 40 per cent — deserves more attention.

It’s actually a more hopeful perspective. It opens up the range of options, and makes room for both supply-side and demand-side solutions. Framing the problem this way also suggests how other parties, in addition to food producers, can play a part in addressing the situation.

The goal is to get that closer to a one-to-one ratio. And water usage is, of course, an issue too when you consider how the aquifers beneath some of the major food-producing areas of the world are declining.

CG: What technologies could play a role in addressing the food security challenge?

Mulligan:

There are no one-size-fits-all tech solutions to the food security challenge. Tailoring the technologies to type of enterprise and management context is important. According to a report by the International Food Policy Research Institute, the largest production yield increases by 2050 are most likely to be achieved by using different combinations of technologies for different crops.

CG: What kinds of strategies for meeting the global food challenge make sense, based on this more holistic perspective?

CG: Consumers are taking a greater interest in the methods and technologies of food production. Where is that headed?

Mulligan: It starts with recognizing that this is a complex issue with socio-cultural, economic, political, ecological and agronomic dimensions.

Providing improved educational opportunities for girls and more job opportunities for women in developing nations could be part of the solution to the global food challenge. There seems to be a fairly strong consensus that improved economic conditions leads to smaller families, thus reducing demand.

On the supply side, small holders manage up to 80 per cent of the farmland in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Helping these producers increase their productivity will be important.

Mulligan: There was a time in our history when the average person was happy to have enough to eat.

Today, the idea of food as medicine has taken hold, and (health) conscious consumers connect the foods they eat with their health and ultimately their life expectancy. And more affluent, cause-oriented consumers express their values and who they are by their food purchases, individually and collectively.

They are in effect using their food dollars to “vote” for the kind of world they wish to live in.

CG: Let’s go back to the food waste-efficiency issue.

Mulligan: A 2013 Food and Agriculture Organization

(FA0) report provides some numbers that put the problem in perspective. In total, food loss and waste amounts to 1.3 billion tonnes of food per year. And growing that food puts 3.3 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases into the air. It also requires a land mass the size of Mexico and an amount of water equivalent to the annual flow of Russia’s Volga River.

CG: So the current system may not be the best way to go?

Mulligan: The resources-waste-efficiency problem is just

one indication of the need for a rethink of the current industrial model of agrifood production.

A group in the U.K. has started a conversation about the kind of agrifood system needed for the 21st century in terms of “sustainable intensification.”

The concept of sustainable intensification reinforces our understanding that the future of agriculture hinges on its ability to produce more using lower levels of resources while preserving the environmental and ecological infrastructure.

CG: We’re hearing a lot about the importance of sustainability in agrifood production these days. Some say today’s agriculture and agrifood system isn’t sustainable. How do you see it?

Mulligan: My definition of a sustainable system is one that is capable of operating in perpetuity. It currently takes, on average, three calories of fossil fuel to produce a calorie of food in the U.S. context.

MARCH 31, 2014

CG: So what’s the bigger picture for food activism?

Mulligan: In a broader context, I see food activism

growing.

Information technology and social media have been a tremendous boon for food activists and the food movement.

One American health enthusiast and food blogger has mobilized her followers several times over the last three years regarding specific ingredients which big companies were using in their foods. In each of three cases, the targeted companies have made changes. In a recent campaign to get one sandwich company to remove a chemical from its bread, it took just 24 hours for this individual to generate 50,000 signatures.

CG: So what’s the future on animal welfare standards?

Mulligan: I believe it was a pork conference speaker

who recently described animal welfare standards as an “advancing frontier,” and that pretty much captures it. The author of a recent article in the New York Times suggests that a concern for animal welfare may not reflect the full extent of human responsibility for animals. He suspects we are moving into an era of concern for “animal dignity.”

CG: How should producers view changing public attitudes?

Mulligan: Any time you spot a change or a trend coming,

it’s good to ask what the implications for the status quo are and what the related business opportunities are likely to be.

At some point, though, the new becomes the norm, so getting the timing of a new venture right can be tricky. CG

Next issue, Calvin Mulligan tackles questions about how we’ll farm in a world of climate change and input shortages. country-guide.ca 9

business

The new land barons A new land rush is underway, based on enormous pension funds that expect to lock up land ownership for decades

By Gerald Pilger n the November 2013 Country Guide article “Selling Out Farming,” I wrote about the growing demand by private investors and speculators for farmland. However, the impact private investors have on land values, rural society and farming as we know it today will be minor compared to the most recent group of buyers into the farmland market: pension funds.

The old adage says: “Farmers live poor but die rich.” Perhaps a more accurate perception would say: “Farmers live cash poor but die asset rich.”

In part, both statements reflect the propensity of farmers to invest a large part of the returns from farm operations into land ownership based on the appreciation of that land over time.

For many farmers, land ownership has served as their personal pension plan. Instead of paying into a pension plan or even an RRSP, farmers have invested in land with the expectation that the appreciation in the value of that land will translate into a stable income when they quit farming and rent the land out or sell it.

Now, pension funds are interested in adding farmland to their investment portfolios for many of the same reasons farmers have sought to own it.

Farmland investments in the developed world are considered very safe. Land isn’t easy to steal and doesn’t disappear. Historically, total farmland returns have exceeded all other asset classes. Over the past 20 years, farmland has outperformed the TSX and the S&P 500.

Farmland investments are also low volatility.

Economists have estimated the volatility of owning Canadian farmland at less than one quarter of the volatility of the S&P 500.

Farmland also has a low correlation to other asset classes so farmland can easily diversify any and all investment portfolios.

Plus, like farmers, pension funds find one of the most attractive features of investing in farmland is that farmland also yields a reliable cash flow. Farmers eagerly compete to rent land regardless of who owns the land.

As a result, farm leases often yield a rate of return that exceeds those of other safe investments. To pension funds, farmland is considered “gold with yield.”

Until now, however, there have been two major 10 country-guide.ca

obstacles to pension funds investing in farmland, starting with the fact that pension funds had no way of accumulating large enough properties.

Pension funds have no interest in buying a quarter here and there, or even a million-dollar farm.

Pension-fund investing typically starts at an investment of $100 million or more, and there are few if any farms of this magnitude for sale.

Secondly, pension funds have no interest in managing farm operations. They are simply looking for return on investment. While more than willing to invest money into farmland, they want someone else to manage the leasing or farming of that land, as well as to accept the production risk of farming.

Both these obstacles have been overcome in the last decade through the appearance of scores of private agricultural investment funds. Savvy investors turned to agricultural funds as interest rates fell and returns in other sectors of the economy sagged due to the global economic crisis. Private investors witnessed the world food shortages of the mid-2000s and they are also well aware of the increasing global population, the loss of agricultural land to urbanization, and even the risk of declining food production because of climate change.

All of these factors are reasons why investors believe agriculture is a growth industry and why they have rushed into buying agricultural land.

However, most investors and speculators have a desire to secure their profits within a relatively short time frame. Land speculators and agricultural funds are no different. Right now, many private agricultural funds that have accumulated large land holdings are seeking buyers of their portfolios to lock in the recent record appreciation in land values. Most of these agricultural portfolios not only include land, but the services of the professional land manager or operator who has been managing the lands for the agricultural fund.

This all means that the investor-owned agricultural land portfolios that are coming on the market now are exactly what pension funds have been looking for: large acreage, single-owner, professionally managed tracts of high-quality agricultural land yielding good rental returns.

As a result, in the past few years we have seen a significant amount of land purchased by pension March 31, 2014

business

funds, and it appears the interest by pension funds is set to skyrocket.

The Canada Pension Plan now owns farmland!

In the November article I reported on the purchase of 2,500 square km of timber and agricultural land in Australia by the Alberta Investment Management Corporation, which invests on behalf of numerous Alberta pension, endowment and government funds.

Since that report, there has been a major purchase much closer to home by another Canadian pension fund. On January 10, 2014, Assiniboia Farmland Limited Partnership completed a sale of its entire farmland portfolio to the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) for roughly $128 million.

As a result of this sale, 115,000 acres of prime Saskatchewan farmland is now owned and controlled by the investment arm of the Canada Pension Plan (CPP).

The most significant change between ownership

by Assiniboia and CPP is the expected ownership time frame. The Assiniboia website states: “Assiniboia Farmland Limited Partnership was established in 2005 to provide investors with a turn-key opportunity to gain exposure to Saskatchewan farmland with the stated intention of creating a liquidity event for investors within a reasonable window of time.”

“Most private farmland investment funds only expect to own the land for five to seven years,” explains Brad Farquhar, a founder of Assiniboia Farmland. “Pension funds are looking at a much longer ownership period — up to 70 to 100 years.”

The 115,000 acres now owned by the CPP will likely not be available for purchase by actual farmers for generations, if ever.

Nor should we expect this to be a one-time purchase of farmland by the CPP. In fact, further investigation revealed the Assiniboia deal wasn’t even the first purchase of farmland for the CPP. Earlier in 2013, CPPIB purchased the farmland portfolio of North American Agricultural Investments LLC. When asked about the North American purchase, CPPIB media officer May Chong said, “CPPIB made its first agriculture investment in a portfolio of high-quality and geographically diversified farmland in the U.S.” Chong would not reveal the amount of land involved or the value of the farmland, citing a confidentiality agreement with the seller.

Furthermore, in the media release announcing the acquisition of Assiniboia, André Bourbonnais, senior vice-president for private investments at CPPIB said: “We look forward to working with management (of Assiniboia) to grow the portfolio and contribute to the development of the farming sector in Saskatchewan.”

Farquhar confirms that the management team of Assiniboia has agreed to an exclusive relationship with CPPIB to manage the CPPIB farmland portfolio MARCH 31, 2014

as well as acquire more farmland for CPPIB in the future.

These farmland purchases by CPPIB are the result of a new agricultural investment program the board launched in 2012 that focuses on acquiring farmland in Canada, the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, and Brazil. According to the 2013 CPPIB Agriculture Investing Backgrounder paper provided by Chong, “the CPP Investment Board has adopted a strategy to broadly diversify the portfolio to enhance longterm returns. Within the $192.8 billion CPP Fund (as at September 30, 2013), which is expected to grow significantly, investments in agriculture align with CPPIB’s strategy to assemble a diversified portfolio of assets which are expected to deliver stable riskadjusted returns over a long-time horizon.”

The paper also explains exactly why the CPPIB is investing in farmland. “Farmland is an asset class which is characterized by steady capital appreciation and long-term risk-adjusted returns. These characteristics make the asset class a good match for the long-term nature of CPPIB’s investment strategy.”

Nor are grain producers the only farmers who will have to compete with the billions of dollars held by the CPP when purchasing farmland. The backgrounder adds: “CPPIB will initially focus on annual row crops (grains and oilseeds), although we will be Continued on page 12

CPP’s $128 million purchase of prime Saskatchewan farmland is just a start, insiders say. More sales are coming Risk versus Return

Volatility

Higher Returns

Less Risk 10.6%

3.8%

2.4%

19.7%

Farmland

TSX

Farmland

TSX

country-guide.ca 11

business Continued from page 11 flexible in exploring opportunities to invest in other sectors such as perennial crops, dairy and pasture.”

To summarize, CPPIB considers farmland to be a stable, low-risk, long-term investment, and they intend to invest in agricultural land to diversify the nearly $200 billion CPP fund.

Other pension funds also own farmland The CPP investment in farmland is a drop in the bucket compared to other pension fund purchases already made and that are planned. According to the Oakland Institute report “Down on the Farm, Wall Street: America’s New Farmer” as of late 2012, UBS Agrivest held over $800 million in farm assets on behalf of a long list of public pension plans ranging from those of people working in stores on army and air force bases to the Iowa Public Employees Retirement System.

The same report estimates that as of 2012 the Hancock Agricultural Investment Group controlled farmland holdings worth $1.8 billion on behalf of more than 10 pension plans.

The Teachers Insurance and Annuity AssociationCollege Retirement Equities Fund did not own any farmland prior to 2007. “As of today,” the Oakland report said in 2012, “TIAA holds over $3 billion in farmland and nearly one million acres spread across South America, Australia, Eastern Europe and the U.S.” Besides being one of the biggest pension funds in the world, the TIAA-CREF is now the biggest institutional farm buyer in the world.

A dangerous trend “One industry source estimates there is currently $10 billion in institutional capital targeting U.S. farmland,” said Anuradha Mittal, executive director of the Oakland Institute, a California-based independent policy think tank. “The purchases we have seen up to now are only the beginning of an unprecedented land rush by institutional investors.”

While this inflow of new capital is a boon to those farmers nearing retirement and wanting to sell, Mittal fears the unmet demand for farmland by investors and pension funds has the potential to prevent many farmers from expanding their operations and will discourage anyone considering farming.

Individual farmers simply cannot compete with the bank accounts of global pension funds.

Mittal sees a real risk to food security, and sees fewer farmers having the opportunity to own the land they farm as more and more land is owned by investors and funds.

Mittal also fears for the sustainability of farms, and is concerned about potential environmental impacts as landless farmers maximize production in order to meet the rental costs imposed by absentee landowners who are only concerned about generating top rental revenues.

Mittal said the reason the Oakland Institute wrote 12 country-guide.ca

the “Down on the Farm” report was to increase awareness about the huge threat institutional investors pose to farmers, food security and the environmental sustainability of the agricultural industry.

“The report is not only a warning, but hopefully a tool farm groups can use to push for new agricultural policies which will protect our food system,” Mittal says. “Unless something is done, we are giving away our future.”

The report also outlines a number of strategies for farmers to use to compete with funds including farm linking, alternative financing, and trusts.

The “Down on the Farm” paper can be found at: media.oaklandinstitute.org/sites/oaklandinstitute.org/ files/OI_Report_Down_on_the_Farm.pdf.

Where do we go to from here?

In Canada, the federal government isn’t concerned. “The influx of institutional investment in farmland has been marginal,” said a spokesperson at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. “Investment funds that buy land are generally renting the farmland to existing farmers, and this can allow farmers to expand without the capital needed to buy additional land.”

The funds justify their purchases by saying the money they invest in farmland enables farmers to grow their farms by giving them rental opportunities. They also see the transfer of funds as a way for those who want to get out of the industry to maximize the dollars they sell for, and they say it is a way to move cash from urban to rural areas.

What funds do not address is how their purchase of farmland limits who is able to rent that land in the future. Without question, there is a danger that fund purchases of land will limit the ability of new farmers to get into the industry and for small farm operations to rent additional land.

Fund reasoning also overlooks the fact that improvements in farmer’s equity come not just from returns from production but also from appreciation in assets — the biggest being land. Various studies have shown about half of the growth in farm equity is a result in the appreciation in land values. When farmers no longer own the land, this equity appreciation flows out of the actual farm operation.

However, the biggest unknown is whether instead of “living cash poor and dying asset rich,” the next generation of farmers must both live cash poor and die asset poor? Are farmers being pushed back to a time when farmers were no more than landless serfs competing amongst themselves to rent the land they farmed? Are pension funds going to become the 21st century land barons and masters?

This is no longer a hypothetical question. There is a new land rush underway, and it is set to grow exponentially over the next few years. We need discussion and public policy addressing the future of farming and who should own and control prime agricultural land. CG march 31, 2014

FarmSmart

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business

14 country-guide.ca

March 31, 2014

business

A new spin of farming

By Angela Lovell

Business is booming for farmer and mud-scraper manufacturer Mark Devloo, but that doesn’t mean it gets easier ark Devloo never watched much television as a kid growing up on his fourth-generation family farm. He was too busy outside fixing things, learning to weld, and building go-carts with his father, Gerry, who came up with the design ideas.

It wasn’t much different 40 or so years later when, after getting frustrated by not being able to find a mud scraper capable of keeping the packer tires clean on their equipment, Gerry came up with a concept for a better mud scraper, and they built a set for their own seeder.

“One day Dad dreamt up the idea of a rotating, cup-shaped mud scraper,” says Mark, who farms 2,700 acres of grain land together with his father and brother Jamie near the small village of Somerset in south-central Manitoba.

The Devloo Roto Mudscraper system is a set of rotating, laser-cut, carbon-steel scrapers attached to the seeder with custom-made brackets which hold them an eighth of an inch away from the packer tire and are offset so they won’t spin until the mud builds up enough to touch the scraper.

The brackets can be custom designed to fit just about any equipment that has a packer wheel and Devloo has in-stock brackets for many equipment makes including Morris, Seed Hawk, Seed Master, Bourgault, New Holland, Versatile, Amity, Salford, Ezee-On, John Deere, Pillar, Flexicoil and K-Hart, plus a few seeding tools from Europe.

To get seeding done Devloo often can’t wait for the fields to dry out completely. “We tend to start seeding a little bit earlier than average because we’ve March 31, 2014

found that the first crop seeded is usually the best yielding crop,” says Devloo. “Most farmers don’t go until the fields are completely dry, but with our rotating mud scrapers they can start earlier, even if there are a few wet spots in the field.”

The problem of seeding into what Devloo calls “sticky” soils is that if mud builds up on the wheels of the seeding equipment, it can alter the seeding depth, causing uneven germination. “As you’re going through the wet spots your tires get bigger from the caked mud, so instead of putting your seed at, say, a half-inch deep, your seed ends up shallower because the wheel gets big and lifts the opener up out of the soil,” Devloo says. “We were finding that we had poor germination in strips on each side of the wet spots as well as in the wet spots themselves.”

“The problem compounds as the season progresses,” Devloo continues, because uneven germination leads to uneven crop growth, thus affecting weed competitiveness, fungicide windows and harvesting.

“Just about every farmer has more than one soil type on their farm and most farmers need scrapers from time to time. It doesn’t take long to pay off a set of mud scrapers, especially when seeding canola,” says Devloo.

It took Devloo only a couple of minutes after seeing the prototype scraper working on their own equipment to realize he had something that would help other farmers, and that he could add as another enterprise to help diversify the farm. Now, he has sold over 20,000 of the Roto Mudscrapers that his father designed four years ago, and believes he’ll probably have 30,000 sold by this spring.

Designed for their own farm, Mark Devloo and son Tyler are on course to selling their 30,000th mud scraper by the time they break for seeding this spring.

Continued on page 16 country-guide.ca 15

Continued from page 15 Devloo believes he has sold those 20,000 because it’s a good product, working better than stationary, flat scrapers and outlasting them too. “The scrapers spin so they don’t heat up,” says Devloo. “There is very little friction and therefore very little wear.

We’ve got four seasons out of ours and they haven’t changed diameter yet.”

The Roto Mudscraper has won innovation awards at virtually every Canadian agricultural show that Devloo has attended, including Manitoba Ag Days, the Regina Farm Progress Show and the Agri-Trade Exposition in Red Deer, Alta. He also went to the Agritechnica show in Germany last November and generated plenty of interest, as well as a personal audience with Michael Horsch, who seemed to recognizeda fellow inventor. Horsch got his start tinkering with farm equipment on the family farm in Sitzenhof, Germany, in the early 1980s and eventually grew Horsch Maschinen into a major European seeding and tillage equipment manufacturer.

On-farm manufacturing takes “a lot more work than I expected,” Devloo says. But it also helps son Tyler and the family stay on the farm As a result of their conversation, Devloo is working on adapting the Roto Mudscraper for Horsch machinery and is hoping to do a field trial with the Horsch Sprinter in the heavy clay gumbo of the Red River Valley this spring. Horsch, who went to university in the U.S., has told Devloo that if he can prove his Roto Mudscraper works under those field conditions, he’s definitely interested in the product to offer as an add-on for his machinery.

Devloo is confident that it will work. “I definitely want to make it for their equipment and I’m confident that we’ll get our product working there in that Red River gumbo,” he says. “I’m excited about it because I know I can help out the guys that farm there.”

Providing a practical solution that helps farmers be more efficient and successful has been another important motivation for Devloo. “I take pride in what we do and we’ve completely redesigned and improved our product since last year,” he says. “The feedback we get from farmers and at the shows is awesome. Some guys have told me it has totally changed their drill and I’ve had comments that if it wasn’t for our scrapers they would have lost two or three days of good seeding weather.”

“In order to keep the retail cost of the product low and affordable for the farmer, I have been selling direct to them. It takes extra margin to have a dealer network in place,” says Devloo.

But selling direct to farmers has meant a considerable investment in marketing. “A lot of people don’t realize how much work and costs are involved 16 country-guide.ca

to market a product,” says Devloo, who admits it surprised him too. He has already invested tens of thousands of dollars in marketing and product development, including a redesign of the bracket that has made it more durable and efficient.

“The research and development is a lot more work than I expected it to be,” he says. “We had 15,000 units out by last spring, so we’ve learned more about the soil types and what’s needed and we’ve evolved from that. We had a lot of good feedback on our first year but what we’ve got now is night and day from our first design. We’ve built the brackets stronger and with more clearance for the mud and fibre. It’s a big challenge to make sure that everybody’s happy, but I love working with farmers.”

There are other challenges for a farm-based manufacturer that are a bit off the beaten path too, one of which is freight. Devloo ships the Roto Mudscrapers unassembled to save on freight costs but it’s not as easy as getting a truck in to pick up and deliver. He uses Canada Post for shipping and deliveries because it’s cost-effective, but with the rounds of cuts recently to small postal outlets in rural areas, he’s holding his breath hoping they don’t close the small post office at the nearby village of Somerset.

One of the lessons Devloo also learned is that he couldn’t do everything himself. “A challenge for me is the fact that I try to do too much on my own,” he says. Devloo has a hands-on nature. He built most of his house himself from the ground up, learning how to do everything from drywall to plumbing. “I had someone do the kitchen, otherwise from the finishing, the painting and laying the linoleum, doing the concrete, everything was myself and a couple of friends,” he says. “I have always been into that kind of stuff.”

He has finally learned to delegate to other family members and has sub-contracted the manufacturing of the brackets to a local Hutterite Colony and says things are running a lot smoother now. “Last year I did a big part of this all on my own,” he says.

“I had my son Tyler working in the shop and my sister Teresa working in the office and we did all of our own research and development and built all our parts, packaged and shipped the product ourselves.”

All of Devloo’s four children are now involved in the new business in some way and he has some nephews and nieces helping out from time to time too. Daughter Natia (27) divides her time between Winnipeg, where she works part-time as a veterinarian assistant, and the farm, where she and sister, Jovita (24), help part-time with the administration, paperwork and working at the trade shows.

Sixteen-year-old Desiree, the third daughter, helps out at trade shows and does the Photoshop work for the website when she can. Son Tyler (23) manages the manufacturing, inventory control and shipping of the scrapers. “We are all excited about the business and work very well as a team,” says Devloo.

The family is enthusiastic about the business March 31, 2014

Photography: Sandy Black

business

business

and Devloo admits that he hasn’t spent a lot of time thinking about where he wants it to go, but it will depend on whether the kids want to continue with it in the future. “It all comes down to the kids,” he says. “There is a lot of potential here to continue to help farmers around the world with a good quality product, and it has helped make it possible for my kids to work at the family farm.”

A feature of the Devloo Roto Mudscraper is that it only begins to spin when the mud builds up on the packer tires and touches the scraper. The rest of the time, says Devloo, “It just sits there looking pretty.”

That’s especially true of a special edition of the Roto Mudscraper which can be ordered in pink, in support of a cause that has personally affected Devloo and his family. “My mom had breast cancer some years ago and I just decided that for every pink scraper we sell, we will donate $5 towards breast cancer research. So far we’ve sold two full sets and some part sets in pink, and have donated $685.

Everyone seems to know someone who has been affected somehow with cancer.”

Devloo realized, because of his own experience March 31, 2014

and the needs he had on his own farm for a product that worked, there would be a lot of interest in the Roto Mudscraper. “I knew there was going to be interest because there are a lot of people out there that need the product,” he says. “I knew there’d be interest but I didn’t know which parts of the globe really had sticky soils. What we’re finding out is that there are sticky soils all over.” Devloo has sold product across the Canadian Prairies and into Australia and New Zealand and is working on a design for a few equipment manufacturers in Germany.

He admits the success of the Roto Mudscraper has caught him a bit off guard, but as an entrepreneur at heart he’s managing to shorten his bucket list thanks to his new business enterprise.

“My goal in life was always to travel, and when I was younger I was hoping to be semi-retired by this age,” says Devloo, who is 48. “What I have done is expanded and increased my work load, but I really enjoy talking to people and I get to travel, so at the end of the day it’s a lot of work but I love what I am doing.” CG country-guide.ca 17

business

Take a detour?

For some farms, there are big wins when the next generation gets work experience off the farm before coming back home

By Andrea Hilderman Take a look across the country and you’ll see myriad ways that farmers become farmers, and just about as many opinions on the right way and the wrong way to go about it.

Good farm succession advice is abundant, as well as checklists to work through, seminars to attend, and even government resources to help fund the process, all with the goal of ensuring that your succession is smooth and seamless, rather than fraught with emotion and drama.

Even with all that advice, though, a lot still depends on the personalities and families involved, as well as on their business skills as communicators, managers and planners.

But farm families also know that succession planning is a process than can span many years, even decades, as the knowledge, control and ownership gets transitioned from one generation to the next.

Is there a right way, wrong way or better way to prepare for this process?

Equally important, is that way the same way as a few years ago, before the bull market, when farm parents would encourage their children to look for off-farm opportunities, and when farming seemed full of difficulties and uncertainties that might be wisely avoided with a good job in town.

In many cases, an off-farm job was needed even for children who planned to farm, because the farm didn’t generate enough cash flow for two generations at the same time.

Now the situation has come almost full circle. Farming is a truly viable option — just look at how farmland values have sky-rocketed, reflecting the optimism within agriculture. Farming has also gained in stature as a career, and many families are working hard to grow their businesses into enterprises that will be able to sustain the next generation as well as any offfarm career might.

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March 31, 2014

business

More skills, more skillfulness

Tracy Court, Plumas, Man.

Photography: Sandy Black

Manitoba’s Tracy Court hadn’t planned on farming, but job skills learned off-farm helped change her mind.

March 31, 2014

“I never wanted to farm,” says Tracy Court, agronomist and business partner with her parents in Court Seeds and Greenhouses at Plumas, an hour northwest of Portage la Prairie. “I never worked on the farm growing up and I never had any interest in becoming a farmer.”

“Honestly,” says Tracy, “growing up, I could never understand why anyone would want to work that hard for that sort of return.”

Tracy describes getting into agriculture as an accident. “I loved chemistry and biology in high school,” she explains.

“Food science seemed like a good combination for me with some excellent job opportunities after graduation. I didn’t know at the time that the food science department was in the agriculture faculty at the University of Manitoba.”

It proved a critical coincidence. Being a farm girl, she naturally became friends with others from the farm in the faculty.

By her second year, she started to really get into the food science core courses and surprisingly, she didn’t like it and started to look for other options. “My friends were taking agronomy and business courses in agriculture and it seemed a lot more interesting than making acidic solutions or whatever I was doing, so in third year I switched.”

Tracy graduated in 2008 with a fouryear degree in agriculture with a major in agronomy. “During my summers in university, I worked at Kelburn Farm for Richardson’s,” says Tracy. “That was my first real, hands-on farm job.”

She also worked for Bayer CropScience at their Portage research farm, and after graduating, she moved to Lethbridge for a summer job with Monsanto as a canola seed production agronomist — which then became a full-time job.

But by then she was thinking of new challenges. “That’s when I moved to Hudye Soil Services,” Tracy explains. “I did trial work, independent crop scouting and had some retail responsibilities.”

“I still wasn’t thinking about farming,” Tracy recalls. “I still saw a lot of risk and long hours, plus I didn’t have a lot of experience — nor could I fix a tractor.”

Continued on page 22 country-guide.ca 19

WHAT MATTERS MOST?

Family. When we’re all done we hope to work for our boys, so we’re putting resources into place for them now.

Our Syngenta Rep is always there for us and treats our sons well. That trust and respect make all the difference.

We know when our boys take over they’ll be in good hands.

Hugh Dietrich, 2nd generation farmer and owner, Hugh J Dietrich Farms Limited, Lucan, ON

Visit SyngentaFarm.ca or contact our Customer Resource Centre at 1-87-SYNGENTA (1-877-964-3682).

Always read and follow label directions.

The Syngenta logo is a registered trademark of a Syngenta Group Company. © 2014 Syngenta.

business Continued from page 19 The job at Hudye Soil Services, however, turned out to be the best experience to help her with her decision. She did most of the extensive trial work that Hudye conducted every year. She also honed her agronomy skills with the crop scouting aspect of the job.

After two seasons with Hudye, the conversations about moving back to Plumas to farm with her parents started. “My dad was excited, and nervous,” laughs Tracy.

“He wanted me to farm with him, but he

also didn’t want me to become stuck on the farm, nor did he want to pressure me in any way. And in many respects, it’s still a bit of an experiment. We’re still figuring it out.”

Back to the farm “I’ve taken over most of the farm planning, the agronomy management and the crop scouting as well as being involved in the day-to-day operations,” says Tracy. “Now Dad is freer to focus on other projects, new investments, other business opportunities and networking, which is what he loves to do.”

Tracy’s parents see her increased professionalism and efficiency as benefits of off-farm work.

22 country-guide.ca

The farm is now operated by a management team consisting of Tracy’s parents Randy and Jeanine, and Tracy. The Court farm is a business first and foremost, and it’s run that way.

“Jeanine and I always ran our farm as a business,” says Randy Court, first generation farmer and partner with his wife Jeanine and now daughter Tracy in Court Seeds & Greenhouses. “It’s because we built it from nothing to what it is today.”

Randy and Jeanine always encouraged both their children to get good educations and to follow their dreams wherever they led. In the case of their son it took him to Calgary, Alta., and a career in computer programming.

“I think Tracy came to realize that she wanted to (a) work for herself and (b) work in agriculture,” explains Randy.

“The natural intersection of those two desires was to farm herself. Then the leap to become a partner with Jeanine and me in the farm wasn’t that great.”

Randy himself is a cat of a different colour — starting the farm as a city boy fresh out of university and newly married. Jeanine too built up the greenhouse side of the business and ran two retail garden centres in Neepawa and Gladstone for 25 years. Entrepreneurship obviously runs deep on both sides.

According to farm succession experts, often the biggest hurdle to the young farmer joining the farm business is the handover of not only the production work, but the management and decision-making. For the Courts, this seems to have been a smooth transition.

“Tracy brings her skills and experience to the table and between us, we’ve divided up the management roles,” says Randy. “We are together and discussing our plans all the time, but Tracy has her responsibilities around crop planning, agronomic decisions and so on, and I am responsible for variety selections, investment planning with equipment and land, human resources and so on.” Marketing and sales are joint responsibilities.

What the Courts have found is that having Tracy join the team has opened up new business opportunities. “She’s also brought a tremendous energy and enthusiasm back into our business,” says Randy. “I have increased motivation now to explore opportunities, and of course, I have the time to do it as Tracy takes over more and more of the reins.”

March 31, 2014

business

From the classroom to the tractor

Gary Lenderbeck returned to the farm as soon as he graduated. There are benefits to starting while young, he believes

March 31, 2014

Photography: carol's photography

Gary Lenderbeck, Roblin, Man.

Gary is the youngest of three boys born to Don and Gaye Lenderbeck, and he took a direct and focused route to farming.

“I’ve loved farming since I can remember,” says Gary. “I knew this was what I was going to do. I came home in the summers from university to work on the farm and I hated having to go back in the fall, so coming straight back to the farm after I graduated just made sense to me.”

Gary saw university as a good way to upgrade his skills and knowledge. “I was aware of many opportunities while I was at university, but I wanted to come home to farm while I was still young,” says Lenderbeck. “I don’t have far to look back yet, but I feel like I’ve made the right decision.” Gary majored in agronomy, which he thought would be the most helpful to his mixed farming operation, taking a variety of courses in agronomy, animal production and soil science.

“I bought a half-section of land in my last year at university,” says Gary. “Land is not that easy to get in the area, so you have to strike while the iron is hot.”

His goal in the short-to-medium term is to expand the amount of land he owns and reduce his reliance on rented land.

“Our operation is limited in scope by labour,” Gary explains. “We are pretty much maxed out on hired help now, and with only so many hours in a day, the amount of land we can farm is capped.”

Not having worked off-farm, Gary feels he struggles somewhat with the human resource management aspect of being a young farmer. “I am young and I don’t have a great deal of experience managing staff,” says Gary. “Would working off-farm have given me management experience? No. But maybe working for a manager would have been useful.”

“I encouraged all my boys to follow their own dreams,” says father Don. “The two older boys followed their dreams to careers off the farm, but Gary always loved farming. Am I surprised he wants to farm? Not at all.”

Don’s eldest son took computer science at university and the middle son took herd management at Olds College but is now involved in directional drilling consulting.

Continued on page 24 country-guide.ca 23

business Continued from page 23 Don and his brother both farm. They started out together but they separated things after Don married. “I like to say that we farm together, apart,” laughs Don. “We share the work, we have our own equipment and land, but we don’t share the payments.” The way the farms are situated suits this style of co-operative farming. Their combined land runs north to south across a valley, with the southernmost land usually ready for seeding first, and staying about one week ahead throughout the season.

Don doesn’t feel his son is trapped by his decision at such a young age to buy land, believing the land has increased in value over the years since. He also feels Gary is learning from himself and his uncle and that not having the off-farm experience won’t hold him back.

“The biggest concern I have is that we farm in a fairly isolated area,” says Don. “We’re over 30 minutes from the nearest small town… there’s not much in

Get a job, or stay home?

Is there a farm succession formula to guarantee succession success? In a word, no.

Succession experts warn that there’s no magic answer. Whether the next generation works off the farm, or comes home straight from school, there are going to be challenges.

It’s not an easy process. There’s no just signing over the title of the farm, cashing a big cheque and finding an over-55 condo in town, and maybe one in Phoenix to boot.

“Is there a recommended path to follow in farm succession? Farm families wish,” says Elaine Froese of Boissevain, Man. “I’ve been working with farm families for many years and the only recommended practice I can advise is to get a coach or a succession expert, or experts, working for your family to help navigate what is more often than not a bumpy path.”

Farm succession takes many years even if it is done right. Often the farm is the business that supports the family and it is also the retirement plan for those thinking of calling it a season. Bringing these needs together for a smooth transfer of the farm from one generation to the next is fraught with emotion, role struggles, and conflicting visions of what constitutes success.

Still, when it comes to letting go of the reins of management to the younger gen24 country-guide.ca

Don’s big concern for son Gary is that the farm can be socially isolated. “This is a hard life, that’s for sure.” the way of a social life for a young man around here.”

Being able to socialize with people his own age and have the opportunity to date is not something most young people

eration, Froese strongly advises that off-farm work experience can make this transition easier. “The off-farm experience can give the young person a sense of independence as an adult,” she says.

“It can also provide invaluable experience working with and for managers with different styles than their parent,” Froese says.

But there’s a danger too. The farm might not be ready for the kids. Froese knows young people who ended up feeling snared in that trap, including one who successfully managed over 100 employees in the oil patch out of province, only to come back to be micromanaged at home on the farm.

Down the road at Headingley, Man., Kimberly Dufaj is a farm succession specialist and financial adviser at Scott Wolfe Management Inc. “Intergenerational farm transfer is a very complex process,” agrees Dufaj.

“Not only does the family have to navigate the financial maze involved, there is also the transfer of management responsibilities, the addition of new family members, husbands or wives, what the other children get who don’t want to farm, and a host of other issues that arise over time.”

The financial aspect alone is daunting, but Dufaj also points out that often, as part of the planning process, gaps in skill sets are identified that can be addressed by university or other schooling and off-farm work.

have to worry about, but it is an issue for Gary. “In that respect, this is a hard life, that’s for sure,” says Don. “I would hope that drawback doesn’t deter Gary from his dream.” CG

There is tremendous value in the experiences the young farmer has in an off-farm career, Dufaj says, and there are benefits both for the farm and for the succession process.

While there is no right or wrong way to transfer the farm from one generation to the next, these experts agree, there’s no doubt that off-farm work helps the newly adult children to mature and take on the responsibilities of adulthood before also assuming control of a multi-million-dollar farm enterprise.

For those who choose not to go that route, the succession can be just as successful. It all comes down to individuals and their families, and how well they can work together to achieve the very different set of goals each party is likely to take into the succession discussions.

For more help, Googling “farm succession planning” will return a host of government and private resources. A helpful starting point might be a resource from the government of British Columbia entitled “Family Farm Business Succession Plan Checklist… approaching the porcupine” by Derek J. Fryer, which gives a good overview of the process and a checklist to start you on the road to meeting the so-called “porcupine.” Other resources include www. agriwebinar.com, www.elainefroese.com, and www.scottwolfe.ca.

March 31, 2014

soil matters………..www.ifao.com

Have You Ever Wondered What a Bird Sees?

by Andy van Neikerk, P.Ag.,CCA-ON

Andy is a Certified Crop Advisor serving the Simcoe County and surrounding area.

Technology allows us to be more efficient in our livestock buildings; remote temperature monitoring, remote trouble sensing, remote feed detection etc, etc. And technology allows us to be more efficient with our time.

What’s our time worth?....Well some would say …. “Everything!”

So…why do we not use some type of remote sensing for our crops?

Imagine using remote sensing to determine the best place to walk a field to look for those “hotspots” in the field. Or estimating the exact unseeded or flood damaged acreage. Or maybe finding those tile drains in your fields, to install another run exactly between them. You can even construct an “elevation” map with 6 cm accuracy to start your tile drainage project.

With the use of a unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) you can remotely accomplish that and more by utilizing geo-referenced photography, both natural (RGB) and near infrared (NIR) images.

Plant health monitoring is a prime example.

Did you know that plants reflect light differently at least two weeks before “telling”

you they feel sick? With a bird’s eye view you can compare the differences in crop imagery giving you a broader view of your crop.

Using geo-referenced NDVI imagery to construct a variable rate fungicide program can help make your decision easier to pull that “fungicide trigger.”

However, a UAV does not replace proper ground scouting. Remember, the best thing to put on your crops is still your shadow!

How else would you know whether that heavy growth area showing up on your imagery is a bumper crop or just a bunch of weeds? Everything depends on your point of view and your point of view is different from the air than from the ground.

business

A jam of a business If you haven’t heard of Vanilla Spice Pear Butter or Sundae in a Jar, these young entrepreneurs have some lessons to teach

hen Kylie Wasiuta and Sara Porter met a decade ago, they were in their teens and into reining and horses, completely consumed with showing and competing for prizes. They still found time to share some homemade jam, however, but who then could have predicted their jam-making savvy would bloom into a full-fledged business?

“I grew up my whole life canning and preserving alongside my mother and both my grandmothers,” says Wasiuta (23), who was born and raised in Springfield, Man. “I really took an interest in it when I was 16 and began making all my family’s preserves myself… with a little help from my mom now and then.”

Wasiuta would always have ample preserves to share with friends and family, many of whom urged her to “sell them to the public.”

It’s the sort of thing that often gets said. So, what made the difference this time? Why did the dream become reality?

There’s a moment when a sideline can become a business. Getting there in good shape is the goal After all, at the time, Wasiuta had her hands more than full showing horses. But then came 2012, when Wasiuta retired two of her performance horses, freeing up some time to consider going to farmers markets in the summer with her homemade jams, and moving into production on a larger scale.

Wasiuta’s business partner and friend, Porter (25), grew up in Winnipeg before moving to Portage la Prairie two years ago to bake at a bakery while working with Wasiuta on their new business venture.

At the age of 10, Porter began taking riding lessons and fell in love with everything about it. Living in the city at the time, she spent her summers and 26 country-guide.ca

weekends at Miracle Ranch, just south of Birds Hill Park. Later, once she bought her first horse and began showing, horses became a bigger part of her life.

After having met at horse shows about five years ago, Porter and Wasiuta soon discovered they shared many interests and quickly bonded. Since then, the duo combined forces to start up Forever Prairie.

“Being an entrepreneur is what I’ve always known I should do,” says Porter. “After trying some of Kylie’s jams and getting hooked on them myself, I knew this was it. We could go public and once people try them, they’ll be hooked on them too!”

“People want to know what’s in the food… and what’s not,” Porter says. “We knew going in that we could offer that, a healthy alternative to the sickeningly sweet stuff you find in stores.”

For Wasiuta and Porter, business start-up costs weren’t an issue, as they started small and manageable and worked hard to create a product people loved. From there, their business just naturally grew.

It all started back in April of 2012, as the duo sat down and began planning. “In one evening we’d chosen our name and slogan, had planned which weekends we’d be at the farmers markets, what we wanted to sell product-wise, and what our goals were for the season,” says Porter.

“It was very exciting to see our dream becoming an entrepreneurial reality.”

They started as vendors at the Pineridge Hollow farmers market in Birds Hill Park for the summer, and continued into the fall/winter season doing local Christmas craft sales as well as some in Winnipeg, plus Brandon’s “Big One” Arts and Crafts sale in October.

After meeting a lot of people in 2012, Wasiuta and Porter were excited to enter the year 2013, expanding their marketing at craft sales and farmers markets while also increasing their product line.

Within two short years, the business received a lot of recognition and publicity has taken off.

The duo hopes to expand into more stores in 2014 in and around Manitoba so their brand will become more widely known. They are ready to take it to the next level.

MARCH 31, 2014

Photography: Sandy Black

By Rebeca Kuropatwa

business

Brand recognition As Wasiuta and Porter work to get their Forever Prairie brand more recognition, their customers are taking in their slogan, “Prairie hearts and country souls, bringing the taste of the prairies to your home.”

“Going to different markets and trade shows, especially in the city, gets people talking about us, as does getting the products into more stores,” says Porter. “Social media has also been a huge advertising tool for us… and it’s free.

“I’d love to get to the point where we’re on shelves all over Manitoba, maybe even across Canada, and we can do this full-time,” Porter says. “I really believe in us and our product, and will continue doing it as long as I can.”

Dividing the work Wasiuta and Porter aim to split everything evenly, with Porter doing more of the financial and accounting work and Wasiuta doing more of the packaging and labelling.

When it comes to creating recipes, they bounce ideas off of one another.

MARCH 31, 2014

The duo share the work of making the products equally, carving out specific days, which they refer to as “jam days.” These days are typically long, starting around 9 a.m. and finishing at about 8 p.m.

On any given jam day, they make about 22 different flavours or products that are packed in approximately 132 jars.

“Making sure we were following all regulations took some research and asking the right questions, but we managed to figure it all out,” says Porter.

“As part of the business expansion, as of 2014, we’ll be moving into a commercial kitchen. Until then, we’ve been making most of our products at home.”

Adds Wasiuta, “Making sure we complied with all the farmers market and health code regulations was our first step. Updating our labels so we could sell in public businesses was another.

“Moving into a commercial kitchen will help expand our product even further, as we’d like to start offering salsas that we’ll make from our own organically home-grown tomatoes and peppers.”

Later this year, Wasiuta and Porter will move production to a commercial kitchen.

It’s a big step, preceded by market development and branding.

Continued on page 28 country-guide.ca 27

business Continued from page 27

Expand the lineup When Wasiuta and Porter launched Forever Prairie, they thought it would be only on a small scale for fun. Viability wasn’t on the table. They knew they had found good business partners in one

another and they began to share mutual goals for the business.

“We learned that if you have the passion and are willing to work for it, you can make it happen,” says Wasiuta.

By the time the business took off and they realized they were really onto some-

thing good, they knew that turning back wasn’t an option. “We love what we do and that we can share our homegrown goodness with people,” says Porter.

Family support “If not for my mom, I would have never grown up doing this or having this knowledge, so I owe a lot to her,” says Wasiuta.

“My earliest memory of making jam is going strawberry picking with my mom and making jam as soon as we got home.”

Porter agrees, “We’ve gotten a lot of advice from Kylie’s mom and grandma,” she says. “But, as far as the recipes go, we’re pretty creative and create most of them ourselves. My mom is a great resource from the business end, as she has an accounting background and is always there to help find us a deal on supplies.

Both our families are very supportive.”

Wasiuta grew up picking wild chokecherries, saskatoons, cranberries and blueberries with her grandparents. She learned a lot about these wild berries from them as well as how to make large batches of jam (before her grandmother’s passing). It is Wasiuta’s grandmother’s chokecherry and wild cranberry jam recipes Porter and Wasiuta use today.

Horses first While they will never leave their first love — horses — Wasiuta and Porter’s second love, Forever Prairie, continues to pull on their heart strings, as they grow tomatoes, peppers, carrots, tomatillos, cucumbers, strawberries, raspberries, grapes and more. “We grow as much of it as we can ourselves,” says Wasiuta.

“When we can’t, we support local Manitoba U-picks and farmers.”

Forever Prairie chokecherries are picked wild right off their farm, as are crab apples, wild plums, blueberries, cranberries, pin cherries and raspberries.

Wasiuta and Porter also formed a working relationship with a family that owns several of the B.C. fruit trucks so often seen along the highway in the summer. The deal gives them access to a steady supply of local, Canadian-grown fruit on a larger scale.

“The most rewarding part is knowing, start-to-finish, we have handcrafted that jar of preserves,” says Wasiuta. “A lot of work went into growing, selecting and Continued on page 30 28 country-guide.ca

March 31, 2014

Spotlight on Crop AdvAnCeS

Crop Advances is an annual report that summarizes applied research projects involving the OMAFRA Field Crop team, in partnership with commodity groups, industry and the OSCIA. www.ontariosoilcrop.org/en/resources/cropadvances.htm

Investigating the potential impact of zinc and sulphur in starter fertilizer blends on corn yield

By Lilian Schaer Should producers be adding zinc and sulphur to starter fertilizer blends for corn to boost yields? A two-year project headed up by Greg Stewart, Corn Specialist with the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food and Ministry of Rural Affairs, set out to find answers.

Researchers looked at what impact the application of sulphur and zinc through pre-manufactured micro-nutrient starter blends and traditional starter fertilizer blends has on corn yield response – and whether such an application would make economic sense. The study also evaluated the importance of including potassium in the sulphur and zinc fertilizer blends.

“Out of the 20 sites we’ve trialed in the last two years, only a few showed a response but we don’t claim that this represents every soil type or possible situation,” says Stewart. “We realize that environmental deposition of sulphur is less than it used to be, so I don’t want to say growers shouldn’t be interested; there might be a response for sulphur and zinc for them.”

How was the research conducted?

In both 2012 and 2013, starter fertilizers were evaluated at 10 locations. In 2013, four trials located at Alma, Elora, Bornholm and Strathroy were “intensive”, which means they looked at corn yield response to phosphorous (P), potassium (K), sulphur (S) and zinc (ZN) in dry starter fertilizer blends, as well as other dry/liquid fertilizers and placement options. The other six locations in Glen Morris, Paris, Wallacetown, Ridgetown, Chatham and Ancaster were “farmer” trials, where only

core phosphorous, potassium, sulphur and zinc starter fertilizer blends were tested.

In dry fertilizer blends, nutrients were applied in a two inch by two inch band.

“Split” treatments involved applying two-thirds of the product in the band and one-third in-furrow. Two different P-S-Zn products were compared in most trials: Mono-Ammonium Phosphate (MAP) blended with sulphur and zinc products and Micro Essentials Sulphur Zinc (MESZ), where each fertilizer particle contains P-S-Zn with half of the sulphur in elemental form.

What has the project found?

No response to any of the starter fertilizer treatments was observed at three of the four “intensive” locations, where soil test P and K ratings ranged from medium to high.

At Elora, where P and K soil test ratings were low, the highest yields were obtained when starter fertilizer delivered a high amount of K. There was no significant yield advantage at any of the intensive locations from placing part of the treatment infurrow compared to the band application.

Significant yield responses for starter MAP were seen at four of the six “farmer” trials, most of which had medium range soil test P results. However, including sulphur and/ or zinc with MAP didn’t increase yields significantly over MAP alone at any of the locations. MESZ also did not result in significant yield response at any of the locations. The addition of potassium also did not enhance yield response to starter fertilizer at these sites in 2013.

“This is clearly on our radar but our data set would be a source to give growers pause. Do I really want to invest in sulphur

ONTARIO SOIL AND CROP IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATION

and zinc if I don’t have potash across all my fields?” says Stewart, adding that investment in those minor nutrients can be a disappointment without boosting K levels.

Overall, study results support the importance of addressing phosphorous and potassium nutrition as a base requirement for high corn yields. At sites with multiple nutrient deficiencies, yield response was limited until all the deficiencies were addressed.

Where can I get more information?

More information on this project can be found in the Crop Advances section of the OSCIA website at http://bit.ly/1jR58Qp. How was the research funded?

Investment in this project was provided by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada through the Canadian Agricultural Adaptation Program, which is delivered in Ontario through the Agricultural Adaptation Council. Additional project support was contributed by Grain Farmers of Ontario, Alpine Plant Foods, John Deere, Agris Cooperative and Cargill (Princeton), as well as farmer co-operators. OSCIA assisted with communication of research results.

“From our study, don’t ignore the potassium for minor nutrients. Deal with potassium first and then consider sulphur and zinc. Not everyone in the province needs sulphur and zinc to maximize yield and profit.”

-Greg Stewart, Corn Specialist, Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food and Ministry of Rural Affairs

Mission: Facilitate responsible economic management of soil, water, air and crops through development and communication of innovative farming practices

www.ontariosoilcrop.org/default.htm

business Continued from page 28 picking the fruit — creating each batch and developing new recipes so when people read the label, they can’t believe it’s a jam. It’s so encouraging to hear people ask if it’s us young girls who do this and ask what inspired us. Many ask if we have a team of grandmas making our jams for us and it makes us proud to say that this is 100 per cent us.”

Says Porter, “The only part we aren’t crazy about is the accounting side of things.”

That’s where their passion comes in, however, making the hours on the books a fair trade for the chance to excel at the areas they enjoy more. “We both really enjoy making the products and talking to new people at sales,” says Porter. “To hear people’s praise for our product makes us smile.”

Wasiuta and Porter swear by maintaining a positive outlook and feel that just knowing they are capable of doing this is what lifts their business to the next level, giving them the energy and drive to grow their sales.

For more information on Porter and Wasiuta and Forever Prairie, follow them on Facebook as they post which craft sales and farmer’s markets they will be at and when, at www.facebook.com/ForeverPrairie. Readers can also find their products at Wild West Farm and Garden Ltd. (at 539 Main St., Oakbank, Man.), and soon, in many more stores in Winnipeg and beyond. CG

Not your mother’s jam Sara Porter and Kylie Wasiuta make about 130 different flavours and usually carry about 80 at farmers markets and craft sales, depending on availability of the fruit in season. Their most popular flavours are Raspberry White Chocolate, Vanilla Spice Pear Butter, Sundae in a Jar, Banana Split, and Carrot Cake.

While they have many other popular flavours, these were their best-sellers in 2013.

All Forever Prairie products are made with the lowest amount of sugar possible so customers will taste the fruit rather than simple sweetness. “We’re always coming up with new recipes that we release for a limited time to see how popular they are,” says Porter. “If they’re a hit, we add them to our product line.”

To simplify things for themselves and their

30 country-guide.ca

customers, the duo divides their preserves into series, starting with plain fruit jams or jellies usually consisting of one or a couple fruits, with their best-sellers being Gooseberry, Chokecherry, Saskatoon, and Strawberry Rhubarb.

The next series are savoury jams, including their collection of pepper jellies, ranging from sweet and mild to inferno hot, and then veggie and herb jams made with homegrown veggies and herbs, such as Tomato Basil jam, recommended as a spread on grilled cheese sandwiches.

Another product line Wasiuta and Porter offer are fruit butters, which are made without pectin and, are more spreadable in consistency and go nicely on pancakes, crepes and waffles. Their best-seller is Vanilla Spice Pear Butter.

Forever Prairie’s chutneys have thick fruit chunks that combine a balance of flavours in each bite, mixing sweet and savoury flavours from the onions and garlic in them, recom-

mended for use on cheese or meat plates.

Their best-selling chutneys are the Mediterranean and the Black Cherry Walnut.

Their conserves are made with larger fruit chunks and (usually) nuts, suggested as being a great fit in oatmeal or as a cheesecake or ice cream topper, with their bestseller being Maple Apple Pecan.

Wasiuta and Porter also created a unique dessert series that is liqueur-inspired by their favourite desserts or beverages, with their best-sellers being Strawberry Margarita, Blueberry Grand Marnier, and Peach Bourbon.

They also offer sugar-free jams and jellies, and have just begun producing a Honeyed Butter series sweetened with local honey.

“Custom cakes and cupcakes are what really make me tick,” said Porter. “I’m hoping to integrate that with Forever Prairie now that we’re in a commercial kitchen. While I still work as a baker, in the future I hope to grow the business and make it a full-time operation.”

M arch 3 1 , 2 0 1 4

hr

Seven deadly sins of the entrepreneur It’s good business to recognize our special weaknesses and vulnerabilities

By Pierrette Desrosiers, M.Ps., work psychologist, speaker, business coach and author hose who are a little older might recognize the phrase “deadly sins” as a church reference. In Catholicism, the seven deadly sins represent the major sins from which all others flow.

Regardless of your religious affiliation, however, this teaching has a lot to contribute to the running of a healthy business. Let’s revisit the seven sins through the lens of the psychology of success: 1. Pride: a very favourable opinion, often exaggerated, of your own value at the expense of consideration of the value of others.

Pride can produce an inability to accept criticism and advice because bosses may think their ideas are always the best. Excessive pride can also lead to measuring yourself against others, bringing about a morbid and unhealthy competition, or to belittling others to boost your own ego.

2. Avarice: seeking to accumulate excess wealth.

From an entrepreneurial standpoint, the leader will want to possess everything, which leads to the attitude that the ends justify the means and an inability to share your resources and power. It’s important to maximize profits, but not at the expense of the long-term health of your company, industry and reputation. Inevitably, this never-ending quest isolates the business executive while drawing them to ethically questionable choices.

3. Envy: sadness or anger in the desire to possess another’s property or characteristic, and a willingness to take ownership.

Entrepreneurs can place too much importance on comparing themselves against others. They can display extreme envy and spend all their energy and resources trying to beat the competition or to simply be able to compare themselves favourably to them. As a result, they miss opportunities to develop their business and maximize growth. Moreover, they fail to appreciate what they have, and they are not interesting to be around. Avoid the temptation to always compare yourself by concentrating on your own achievements. You will win some battles and lose others.

4. Anger: excess against others in word or deed.

Insults and physical or emotional abuse can result in major conflicts, separation and the termination of employees, successors or associates. This upheaval is unhealthy and damaging to any business.

5. Lust: the pursuit of immediate pleasure and excessive gratification.

Success has a lot of appeal. The search for money, status, fame, fast cars, fancy houses or sex can draw valuable focus, energy and resources away from what is March 31, 2014

needed to run, sustain or develop the business. Entrepreneurs seduced by lust spend valuable time and money to fulfill their needs, putting the entire operation at risk.

6. Gluttony: the need to consume to excess.

Whether their weakness is food, alcohol, drugs or property, entrepreneurs can quickly damage their business with their unsatisfied appetites. The pursuit of disproportionate acquisition without regard to unintended consequences wastes money, time and energy that leaves a business owner unable to pay sufficient attention to their organization.

7. Sloth: laziness in the face of responsibility.

Entrepreneurs cannot be successful long-term if they are slothful, whether this takes the form of procrastination or an inability to make decisions and stick to them. Hard work is required in business; sustainable success takes effort to develop and maintain.

Most of these “sins” contribute to loss in a business.

Unable to admit their weaknesses or seek advice due to the risk of being poorly perceived, the leader will take decisions that make no economic sense. This continued behaviour will push away others. In time, they will lose the support necessary for thier own success.

More than 2,000 years ago, Socrates proclaimed: “Know thyself.” We must recognize our weaknesses and vulnerability if we want to improve ourselves.

After self-knowledge, the second major emotional skill that a leader must possess is self-management.

The old traditions that advocated moderation might not be so obsolete after all.

Who has never committed a “sin?” However, some sins have a greater impact than others. Thus, excess eating (gluttony) during a party doesn’t have the same consequences as infidelity. Must one be a sinless saint to succeed in business? Certainly not.

However, a good entrepreneur must be aware of potential problems — and their consequences — and be able to make choices consistent with their goals.

Are these “sins” — which have been repeatedly observed in companies both large and small — also present in our behaviour?

We must keep our eyes open, because temptation is never far away. CG Pierrette Desrosiers, M.Ps., CRHA, is a work psychologist, professional speaker, coach and author who specializes in the agricultural industry.

She comes from a family of farmers and she and her husband have farmed for more than 25 years ( www.pierrettedesrosiers.com ). Contact her at pierrette@pierrettedesrosiers.com. country-guide.ca 31

business

Get it built

Starting a biodiesel plant can make going on ‘Dragon’s Den’ look like a walk in the park

By Shirley Byers ong before the foundations ever got poured, or even dreamed of, Zenneth Faye was already on the road toward Milligan Biofuels Inc., Canada’s first canola-based biodiesel fuel plant, in Foam Lake, Sask.

In fact, he traces his role in its origins to the mid1980s, when he got involved with Saskatchewan Canola Growers Association and he was part of a group that successfully petitioned for a canola development commission that would collect a checkoff. In 1991 SaskCanola was established, supported by some 26,000 levy-paying canola producers, and Faye was on its first board of directors, chairing its market development committee.

It’s the kind of group that makes some skeptical farmers wonder whether it’s just another bureaucracy.

The board rolled up its sleeves, Faye recalls.

“Through those levy dollars, we started looking at crop development and variety development,” he says. “We funded research with agronomics; we funded extension activities.”

It has always been part of his nature not to do traditional things, so it also seemed right to begin a hard look at other uses for canola too.

In 1990 while he was seeding, Faye had heard a radio report about biodiesel in Europe, where crop-based oil substitute had been mandated as fuel.

The broadcast piqued his interest. Meanwhile, the Canola Commission was looking at how to make use of off-grade canola.

In a year when much of the crop froze, Faye was getting calls from all over Western Canada reporting prices as low as 25 cents per bushel. “Crushers at that time would buy it at that price and then blend it in (with high-grade canola) at very low volumes to get it out of farmers’ bins.”

The Canola Commission began some research projects with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.

“There was a bright young grad student at that time, Martin Reaney, and we got connected with him,” says Faye. “I’m an engineer as well, and one of my old professors, Barry Hertz, was still there (at the University of Saskatchewan). The three of us were

“ We were very naive,” says Zenneth Faye. “We thought we could just use some of the traditional recipes.”

Photography: Carol's photography

talking about opportunities one time over coffee.

And we talked about how we could add some value to this very low-grade product.”

With research dollars available through the Canola Commission, they put together a small project to look at making biodiesel.

32 country-guide.ca

Quality and quantity In a text book, it might look simple to make biodiesel. The reality, Faye discovered, is far more complex. When you’re using off-grade canola, the quality of the oil is never the same.

“But, at that time we were very naïve as well,” he says. “We thought we could just use some of the traditional recipes and technologies that were out there, but we quickly found that that was not the case.”

March 31, 2014

business Nor is making biodiesel in the lab all that great a way to learn how to make biodiesel in larger quantities. In short, through the ’90s, the group produced and dumped lots of bad product, but a few good batches were also produced, Faye says. “When we had the good ones, we then tried to streamline the research, keep focusing on how to continually and consistently make this high-quality product.”

This was the heyday of marketing clubs in every town, and in Foam Lake the marketing club suggested they should get the word out, letting people know what biodiesel is and how it works.

The problem was finding a place where enough biodiesel could be made.

“We couldn’t get anyone in Saskatchewan to make us some,” says Faye. “We wanted about 100 gallons and we were making it by the test tube.”

They finally found a very similar product in Florida made from soybeans.

They purchased some and over that summer the Foam Lake Marketing Club did trade shows around the area to demonstrate how biodiesel could be used in a vehicle. Faye had his own vehicle running on biodiesel for the summer, fall and part of the winter till the supply ran out.

By this time production in the lab had been scaled up to five-gallon-pail quantities and Barry Hertz had taken it upon himself to buy a Volkswagen diesel engine and do some testing in his lab at the university.

Adapting to the marketplace Meanwhile, the federal government was mandating the fuel companies to decrease the amount of sulphur, a known carcinogen, in their fuels. But when they reduced sulphur, the lubricity of the fuel was also reduced, and as Hertz showed in his lab, there would also be higher engine wear.

Plus, the city of Saskatoon was looking for ways to promote itself as a more environment-friendly city. Saskatoon would be hosting an international oilseed conference, says Faye. “They wanted to have something to showcase and we said, ‘Hey, why don’t we put some biodiesel in your buses and escort these dignitaries around?’

We did that, and sort of got people understanding that biodiesel works.”

“And yeah, it works. It sort of smells like cooking, and when a bus goes by and you see that black cloud of smoke it would be like you’re cooking french fries.”

Continued on page 34 March 31, 2014

country-guide.ca 33

business Continued from page 33 The buses were run with between five and 10 per cent biodiesel. “We were also doing some testing work on them,” Faye says. “We put posters on the sides of the buses. And we got very good publicity.”

Pitching for a place While all this was going on, Faye was touring the province talking to various communities, trying to convince them to look at building a biodiesel facility.

In his own words, he wasn’t getting very many bites.

“Things weren’t great in Saskatchewan,” Faye says. “Economic development committees would hear about us and ask me to come and speak. We didn’t have a lot to offer except the concept. It was almost like going into the ‘Dragons’ Den’ without a good business plan and getting shot down.”

“So finally one day, I said, ‘You know if I can’t convince the community I live in to do this, it might as well just get packed up and put away.’”

With that in mind, he made one more pitch, this time to a small group of farmers and business people in Foam Lake.

And their answer was… Yes.

The town of Foam Lake Faye felt they were finally making progress. The Regional Municipality of Foam Lake and a group of farmers threw in some cash, becoming partners on a number of projects to continue the development. “There was no technology at that time,” says Faye. “We had lots of stuff done in test tubes but nothing done to any kind of scale.”

With funds from the Foam Lake group as seed money, the group leveraged research and development grants from government, and it was this research that led to the major breakthrough.

Hertz’s work showed that their canola-based biodiesel could excel as a lubricity additive.

In 1996, Milligan Biotech was formed.

The company went into production making a biodiesel additive that could be put into traditional diesel to increase lubricity and add to engine life. They began marketing the product in 2001.

The canola-based biodiesel and the co-products were developed by the team effort of the Bio Processing Centre in Saskatoon, University of Saskatchewan scientists and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. The technology is owned by AAFC, the Canola Development Commission and Milligan.

Another new product was later added after coming about by accident. Through a glitch in production of their biodiesel additive, the group ended up with a penetrating oil that was found to be much better than a certain well-known penetrating oil.

“When you plan for something and it goes the other way, you still come out with something that can make a dollar — that’s how the second product came about,” says Faye.

Other co-products have been added.

These include a rust inhibitor made from high-quality canola derivatives that is non-toxic and biodegradable, plus a road dust suppressant which can be used on clay and gravel roads, yard sites and helipads. The group also markets an environment-friendly asphalt release agent and a high-quality, high-oil meal for feeding animals.

The big news On June 29, 2011, Canada’s environment minister, Peter Kent announced that Ottawa was moving ahead with a two per cent renewable content requirement in diesel fuel and heating oil.

When it all began with nothing more than an idea, did Zenneth Faye believe that the use of biodiesel would someday be made mandatory in Canada?

“I hoped, but I didn’t think I’d live long enough to see it,” Faye says.

One of the challenges in those early days, Faye says, was that they didn’t have any production. It’s why in the early years Milligan needed a co-product, which in turn explains why the fuel additive and the other co-products were so important.

The end goal never was to replace diesel with biodiesel. That wouldn’t even be possible, says Faye. “All the vegetable oil in the world would only replace three percent of the fuel. So it’s never going to happen.”

The goal was to establish a market for off-grade canola. Today, Milligan buys over 60,000 tonnes of green, frozen or otherwise unwanted canola seed per year, produces over 20 million litres of biodiesel from their facility in Foam Lake that employs 46 people.

Milligan Bio-Tech Inc. is now Milligan Biofuels Inc. and its first CEO, Zenneth Faye, no longer works at the plant. But he’s still with the company as an adviser.

And, he’s still fascinated with finding more uses for damaged canola seed.

One of them is glycerine. Depending on purity, there are a number of products in which it can be used. Pharmaceutical glycerine is the top end. At present, glycerine from Milligan is being sold for processing elsewhere, but…

“It’s like when you make doughnuts, you have the centre of the doughnut left,” Faye says. “You make Timbits and get more than you would for the doughnut. The leftovers have value too.

They just need a little processing and development work.

“That’s the part I like...I love dealing with the unknown. That’s probably why I’m still farming.” CG

Today, Milligan Biofuels buys 60,000 tonnes of unwanted canola, producing 20 million litres of biofuel.

34 country-guide.ca

March 31, 2014

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BUSINESS

Local food co-ops grow up Today’s experts in farm co-ops are more likely to wear straw hats, grow ‘natural’ food and be incredibly successful

By Steven Biggs, CG Contributing Editor first meet up with the folks from the Ontario Natural Food Co-op (ONFC) at a health food show in downtown Toronto. They have an interesting mix of foods at the booth. On sample are Ontario-made pickles, fish and kambuca, a drink popular at health food stores.

This is a show for grocery and health food store owners and buyers, and ONFC is here to promote its line of products.

Already 38 years old, the Ontario Natural Food Co-op is moving to a new 100,000-square-foot warehouse I’m here from a farm perspective, looking for insights into food distribution. The natural food co-op, I learn, distributes food through its web of members.

Hannah Renglich from ONFC tells me the history of the organization. “It started because there were several food co-operatives in the city of 36 country-guide.ca

Toronto that recognized they needed better food distribution,” she says, adding, “The first thing they did was buy a truck.”

Some of the founding members are still on the board 38 years later, she says, and the one truck is now many. This year, the co-op is also moving to a 100,000 square foot warehouse.

But it’s doing something else too: by growing the web bigger — by fostering more co-ops and more collaboration — it’s carving a larger niche in the food distribution system. While Renglich works for the ONFC, her role is fostering co-operation amongst co-operatives through a project called the Local Organic Food Co-ops Network.

In 2009, the Ontario Co-op Association, an association of co-operatives, brought together a few food co-ops, including ONFC, to see if there were synergies or best practices to share. That initial meeting eventually led to the network, which is hosted by ONFC. “When I began three years ago we had 17 co-ops involved, and today I’m just sending out invitations to our annual assembly to almost 80 groups, about 55 of which identify as members of ours,” Renglich says.

The members of the network are varied, including MARCH 31, 2014

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“ We wanted a structure that would give everyone equal decision-making power,” says Tourne-Sol’s Daniel Brisebois (r), seen here with the team of young farmers helping lead Quebec’s local food movement. farm co-ops, processor co-ops, retail co-ops, co-op cafés — even a coffee-roasting co-op and a biodiesel co-op. Most common, though, are co-ops involved in food procurement and sales.

Renglich acts as animator and facilitator, supporting new groups and connecting existing groups to one another. The threefold mission, she says, is to educate, network and build capacity.

The annual assembly allows co-ops in the network to interact and learn. Along with groups sharing information and peerto-peer learning, they bring in outside experts such as lawyers or accountants. “Probably most importantly it’s about new inspiration,” Renglich says.

Renglich also notes that co-ops tend to be ideologically driven, and part of that ideology is about working in a collaborative way. “Unlike other forms of business, co-ops are willing to share hardships as well as successes,” she says. In one such case, a long-established food co-op in Toronto was on the cusp of closing last year until other co-ops helped it chart out a recovery strategy.

“This is happening all over North America; it’s not just here in Ontario,” says Renglich as she talks about what she calls the third wave of food co-operative organizations. “The first wave of co-op organizing was the supply co-ops of the Depression era.

The second was the wave most people are familiar with — the hippie food clubs of the 1970s,” she explains. This third wave, she feels, is different because there’s an interest in supporting farmers through fair prices and sustainable food production.

While a renaissance sounds nice, I ask Renglich how co-ops can compete with the likes of Wal-Mart and other big players in the food system. Renglich says that co-ops can’t compete on price alone. But that doesn’t mean they can’t compete. She gives the example of a food co-op that recently opened in Hamilton, Ont. The community worked on the idea and setup of the co-op for two years, and at the time of store opening, already had 1,200 members. “It was incredible to see the sense of ownership and excitement,” says Renglich. Also incredible, she says, was to see the pins that people wore for the opening: “I own my grocery store.”

Co-ops and farming

Tourne-Sol Co-operative Farm Tourne-Sol is a co-operative farm run by five young farmers who met while studying agriculture at university. With five members, each can focus on a different aspect of the business. The farm, founded in 2004, is located 60 km west of Montreal on 12 acres of rented land, and produces vegetables, flowers and herbs.

Daniel Brisebois, one of the five co-operative farmers, did not grow up on a farm, but studied agricultural engineering before starting to work on farms.

“We wanted a structure that would give everyone equal decision-making power in the enterprise,” Brisebois says, explaining how they decided on a co-operative setup. Being the first farm in Eastern Canada incorporated as a worker co-op meant that they didn’t have a model, he says. “We had to make things up.”

For people considering the co-operative model, Brisebois says it’s important to spend time up front discussing issues such as collective vision, decision-making framework and exit strategies. And he emphasizes the importance of communication, saying it is worth getting a trained facilitator to work with a group.

The co-operative model means that members can take vacations in the summer — and also take statutory holidays, although Brisebois points out that members might not all take the holiday on the same actual date.

Also, because members pay into EI — and because there is a team of them — they have also been able to take parental leave.

About the reaction of neighbouring farmers, Brisebois says, “We’ve only had support.”

Renglich knows that while co-ops are largely a newer phenomenon in the city, they have a long history in the farm community.

She’s optimistic about the place of co-operatives in agriculture, pointing out that the traditional farm business model isn’t necessarily for everyone. In a co-operative marketing setting, producers can share marketing efforts: one person can go to market instead of all 10, or farmers can even farm together cooperatively.

Now, she says, farmers can participate in urban food co-ops too. The food co-op that Renglich has joined in Toronto has three farmer board members. “It adds incredible richness to our conversations and policies,” she says. CG March 31, 2014

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Local victory A decade later, it looks like local food has more staying power than anyone imagined

By Helen Lammers-Helps t wasn’t exactly launched by a book, although Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon’s best-seller The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating did give a major boost to the local food market in 2007 by shining their spotlight on the long distances travelled by food in our modern distribution system.

In truth, though, other writers and food activists across the continent had been working on local food since about 2004.

That makes local food 10 years old, and it prompts the question, what’s in store for the next 10?

For the answer, we contacted local food suppliers across the country and got the same “Business is booming!” response from all of them.

In Alberta, Krista Miller, secretary for the Alberta Farm Fresh Producers Association, says their online database of local producers gets 1,000 hits per day through the summer months.

“There is more demand than supply of local food, especially around Calgary,” Miller says. Fruits and vegetables, especially strawberries, are in highest demand.

Many farmers complained that Smith and MacKinnon’s book did a better job counting the miles than explaining why shipping our food such distances might make sense. Even so, the Vancouver couple captured the public’s attention when, after discovering that the food on their plates was travelling an average 1,500 miles from the farm (the statistic came from a 2001 report by the Leopold Centre for Sustainable Agriculture in Iowa), they challenged themselves to eat only local food.

Today, their book is on a very crowded shelf, and the local food movement has spawned its own vocabulary with new words such as “locavore” (someone who committed to eating local food), “food mile” (the distance travelled by food) and “foodshed” (the area where a food is produced and consumed.)

Those aren’t the only changes, however. An entire infrastructure has grown up around local food.

When Saskatoon food writer Amy Jo Ehman, author of Prairie Feast: A Writer’s Journey Home for Dinner, first set her goal to eat 95 per cent local food back in 2005, it was really hard, she says. “This was before publication of the 100-Mile Diet book and even farmers weren’t thinking about it then,” Ehman says.

38 country-guide.ca

“I could get staples like meat and pulses but it was hard to source a lot of other foods,” Ehman recalls. “Information on local foods wasn’t readily available.”

Interest in local food still varies across the country. In Ontario, awareness of food miles was high even before Smith and MacKinnon’s book came out, with Local Food Plus launched in 2005 as a certification system for growers that ensures food is both local and sustainable.

The Local Food Plus website provides a database of certified growers to make it easier for buyers to locate sources of local produce, says president and organic farmer Don Mills. The organization also reaches out to restaurants, independent stores and institutions to encourage them to pledge to buy local food. So far about 100 restaurants, mostly in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), as well as institutions such as the University of Toronto, are buying more local food as a result of the work of Local Food Plus.

Local Food Plus has also worked hard to raise awareness of the benefits of buying local food by March 31, 2014

BUSINESS participating in the Toronto Green Living Show, answering media requests for information, and operating a vibrant social media campaign.

The Kitchener-Waterloo area is another slice of Ontario where local food is thriving. Foodlink, a grassroots organization, began as an outgrowth of a public health initiative there in 2002.

For 13 years, Foodlink has been connecting local producers with consumers in search of local food.

Some 30,000 copies of its Buy Local!

Buy Fresh! map listing 70 area farms and the type of produce they have for sale are printed each year and handed out at tourism offices, libraries and farm markets, says Foodlink’s executive director Anna Contini. The map is also available on their website in a searchable Local Food Finder database.

To showcase local foods, Foodlink also hosts the Taste Local! Taste Fresh! event which pairs about 20 local farmers with local chefs. The sold-out event is both a fundraiser and a networking event, explains Contini.

Now such tactics are catching on across the country.

With such tools, it’s getting easier for consumers to access local food, and the momentum behind local food keeps growing.

Many farmers are also making it more convenient for their customers to buy local by selling produce from other farms in addition to their own at their on-farm stores. For example, in the Kitchener-

Waterloo area, farms like Martin’s Family Fruit Farm, Barrie’s Asparagus Farm & Country Market and Oakridge Acres Country Meat Store, sell a range of local products including meats, cheese, eggs, maple syrup and honey from other producers in addition to their own products.

More farmers are also selling their produce through a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) model which provides a guaranteed outlet for produce as well as helping with cash flow. Customers buy a share of the farmer’s crop at the beginning of the season and in return receive a box of veggies — whatever the farmer is harvesting — each week.

Buying clubs are also making it easier for consumers to purchase a range of local food. For example, Bailey’s Local Foods, a buying club in Waterloo, Ont., procures produce from several farmers based on orders from its members.

Online ordering is available from May to October, with monthly online ordering from November to April.

When it comes to local foods, the old saw applies that where there’s a will there’s a way. Entrepreneurs are getting increasingly creative at finding ways to connect growers and consumers. In Grey County, northwest of Toronto, the Chef’s Forum was formed in 2011 as a matchmaking service for local chefs and farmers. Now, the group has even contracted a Toronto local food distribution company to pick up local food orders from the Chef’s Forum farmer members for distribution to Toronto chefs and buyers.

Increasingly businesses specializing in local food are starting up, adds Contini. For example, Frabert’s Fresh Foods in Fergus, Ont. specializes in local produce and meats, while restaurants such as the Borealis Grille with locations in Guelph and Kitchener, bills itself as “Obsessively Local.”

Contini says demand for local food is still growing. There is a distinct part of the population that is becoming aware of where their food comes from and wants to support local food, she says.

Normand Bourgault, a marketing professor at the University of Quebec says “buying local is more than a trend. It is here to stay,” driven by concerns about the environment, global warming and food scandals around the world, he says.

Studies generally show that consumers are willing to pay up to 10 to 15 per cent more for local produce as long as the product quality is also there, Bourgault says. Those who prefer to buy local have a sense of belonging to their local community and want to support the farmers in their area.

Foodlink has licensed their map template and brand to 15 other regions including one in the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia. Shayne Wright, founder and co-ordinator of the Buy Local BC Initiative in Lake Country, near Kelowna, is producing the area’s first Buy Local! Buy Fresh! map.

Already, 27 growers have signed up Continued on page 40

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country-guide.ca 39

business Continued from page 39 and Wright expects to print about 8,000 maps.

Wright says, too, that the area’s wine industry and farmers markets are flourishing, and more restaurants are offering local menu items.

Farmers markets are also booming, thanks in part to the local fever. The Saskatoon Farmers Market is doing well, says Debby Claude, manager of operations. Farmers who used to come once a week are now coming two to three times a week, she says. And many farmers are extending their season using greenhouses, she adds.

The Saskatchewan Liquor and Gaming Authority (SLGA,) relaxed its rules for cottage wineries, distilleries and brewers to sell their products at farmers markets, which has also helped local vendors, says Claude.

Each year in February, the Alberta Farm Fresh Producers Association offers a two-day workshop called Alberta Farm Fresh School to provide information on production and marketing. Alberta Agriculture also offers grower support.

In some provinces, governments are also taking a leadership role with legislation to promote the local food movement. According to the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food, the purposes of the Local Food Act of 2013 are to foster successful and resilient local food economies and systems in Ontario, help increase awareness of local food in Ontario and develop new markets for local food.

Specifically, the act sets targets for institutions such as hospitals and daycares to procure local food. It also provides for teaching food literacy in schools so students learn how to use fresh whole Ontario food. Plus, the act supports innovative local food projects through the Local Food Fund, says

However you define it, Canadian chefs say local will be the biggest food trend again in 2014 Carolyn Young, acting director of Sustain Ontario, a province-wide, cross-sectoral alliance that promotes healthy food and farming.

In Nova Scotia, the Environmental Goals and Sustainable Prosperity Act (EGSPA) aims to support and encourage local food consumption and production. By 2020, the goal is for 20 per cent of the food purchased by Nova Scotians to be locally produced, along with a five per cent increase in local farms.

Local food initiatives are also emerging in Manitoba, says Stefan Epp-Koop, program director at Food Matters Manitoba, a registered charity that helps newcomers, northerners, farmers and families to grow, share and prepare good food. He points out that groups including the Harvest Moon Local Food Initiative in Winnipeg are co-ordinating networks of buying clubs, making it easier for individuals to buy from local farmers.

40 country-guide.ca

More Manitoba farmers markets are also starting up each summer, Epp-Koop says, and the number of CSA farms in the province has quadrupled over the last 10 years. Institutions such as the University of Winnipeg have also taken the lead in purchasing local food. The province of Manitoba has supported local food too through its Buy Manitoba initiative, which labels Manitoba foods in grocery stores.

Not everyone uses the same definition of local.

Local Food Plus, for example, defines local using provincial boundaries. Bailey’s Local Food Buying Club sets a 100-mile limit. And Theresa Schumilas who operates a buying club from her Waterlooarea farm, defines it as only 50 km.

Another problem with defining “local” is that some products leave the region for processing. A case in point is oats from Saskatchewan, says Ehman.

There’s also a problem of scale. To access the larger chain stores which require high volumes of products, it will be necessary to aggregate produce from several farmers, says Mills.

Consumers, however, seem to be in a mood to reward farmers and retailers for making the effort to source locally, rather than strictly adhering to any one number of kilometres.

With so many challenges already overcome, it appears demand for local food is on an upswing, especially since there’s no sign of a let-up in the number of consumers who are concerned about where their food comes from and what’s in it.

Certainly Canadian chefs think the trend is still hot. A recent survey of 350 chefs by the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservice Association has found that the chefs believe locally produced and inspired dishes will be the No. 1 menu trend for the coming year. CG March 31, 2014

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business

Farmers are from Mars… … consumers are from Venus. There’s a disconnect between what consumers want to know about food and what farmers think they need to tell them

By Scott Garvey, CG Machinery Editor

Is this image of high-tech machinery working in a large field the kind of mental picture farmers need to encourage urban residents to imagine when they think about farming?

It might be.

Photo: New Holland

s I drove past a local equipment dealership recently, my eye wandered over to a long row of shiny new four-wheel drive tractors sitting on the lot. As I admired them, I wondered how many of the people travelling past on the nearby highway who have never set foot on a farm really understand what those tractors do, because more than a few recent surveys suggest the majority of the general public now knows very little about agriculture.

“One schoolteacher told me she took her class of inner-city kids that have never been out of the city to the Royal Winter Fair in Toronto,” recounts Crystal Mackay, executive director of Farm and Food Care, Ontario (FFCO). “As soon as they walked into the dairy barn, the first student said, ‘look at the giraffe.’”

FFCO’s mission is to raise public awareness of Canadian agriculture. And given that youngster’s inability to distinguish between a cow and a giraffe, Mackay knows there is a lot of work yet to do, and there are stereotypes to contend with.

“There’s the Old MacDonald thinking, where the public has a very positive view of farming and farmers,” Mackay says. “For the most part, it’s romantic and idealistic. The flip side of it, which our critics use against us and is illustrated by mov-

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ies like “Food Inc.,” is the factory farm image, that farmers just care about the profit.”

But as a survey commissioned by FFCO reveals, most urban people really don’t think about agriculture very often, no matter which view they have.

And just as the public remains blissfully ignorant about agricultural practices, farmers seem to suffer from a similar problem when it comes to understanding how to bolster consumer confidence in the food they grow.

“When the public asks a question about hormones in beef, for instance, the farmer’s normal response is why we use hormones and how they help us grow beef more efficiently,” Mackay explains. “That does not address the heart of the public’s concern about food safety. It’s the emotionbased (question) versus the logic-based (response).”

That makes it kind of a farmers-are-from-Mars, consumers-are-from-Venus situation.

“As farmers we’re technical specialists,” Mackay says. “We’re very focused on the technical knowledge, very much focused on how we do things. The public knows little or nothing about farming and asks emotion-based questions. The basis of most of their questions is self-centred, about their own health first, and food safety after that. So when a consumer is asking a question about a farm practice, it often ties back to what are you doing on your farm that will that affect me through the water I drink or the food I eat.”

Then what should agriculture’s response be when controversies like GMO-free marketing campaigns arise? Do we embrace this as an opportunity to sell higher-priced, specially-grown products for niche markets, or do we try to discourage other retailers from taking that kind of marketing tack?

“That’s a really tough one,” says Mackay.

“There are two ways to look at it.” One is it’s positive for the consumer and for the niche company because they’re offering choice. Unfortunately, the second is based on fear, and the implication is that if you don’t eat the niche product, you’ve made the wrong choice because the regular product isn’t safe — no matter what the science says.

“There are individual companies that will look for a competitive advantage, but we’ve learned the March 31, 2014

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hard way that to use food safety is a really bad idea. You should never market on food safety,” says Mackay. “That’s very short-term thinking that puts a dent in the public trust of all food in the long term. We need to expand that thinking to environmental claims and animal welfare practices.”

But that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for niche food markets.

“A way is to offer (perceived premium food products) in a non-confrontational way, saying we’re offering choice. Like organics, say here’s this product.

Here’s what it means and here’s what it costs. But let every person who just wants to buy regular milk at the grocery store not feel like a bad parent.”

Farmers and other industry players can help make that work by remembering consumer questions are emotion-based. We need to reassure them what we’re providing with modern farming practices is a safe, quality product all across the food spectrum. But if that means shattering the romantic Old MacDonald myth, can we keep the trust inherent in that view and still bring consumers’ awareness up to speed?

“We want to bridge that gap between the expectations and what real farms look like today,” explains Mackay. “What I would say (to the public) is Old MacDonald’s kids have gone to university and they’re home running the farm now, so it’s larger, it’s more specialized, they use technology, but you know what? They still operate it with the same care, commitment and values their grandparents had.”

“If anything, they’re doing a better job caring for the environment with technology. They’re doing a better job caring for their animals by investing in research and trying new things. We can’t lose the heart of the family farm and that positive impression Canadians have of us. We want to bring them along and explain that big isn’t necessarily evil.”

A recent FFCO project proved it’s possible to do that.

“We’ve tested it with our Ipsos research,” Mackay reports. “What we did was take six minutes of clips out of “Food Inc.” Then we took six minutes of clips out of our virtual chicken-farm tour, which showed a real farmer walking through his very modern barn explaining how he did it.”

“We used chicken farming specifically and tough topics like animal welfare and antibiotics.

We showed those across Canada. We tried to pick the toughest crowd, which I would say are innovators and early adopters who use very critical thinking. The virtual farm tour videos came out as the clear winner in these focus groups. The response was overwhelmingly positive.”

It also proved farmers, themselves, can be the industry’s best spokespersons.

“The proven method is to let farmers tell their own stories,” confirms Mackay. “But it needs to be co-ordinated to have enough impact.”

March 31, 2014

Crystal Mackay is executive director of Farm and Food Care, Ontario.

“ Old MacDonald’s kids have gone to university and they’re home running the farm.”

— Crystal Mackay That, it turns out, is really the trick. Farmers can’t — and shouldn’t be expected — to go it alone. The entire industry needs to consolidate its public relations efforts. Even compartmentalized producer groups promoting their own segments of the industry aren’t enough. Food is what consumers want to know about. They don’t break that category down, and neither should farmers.

“When we would be at a farm show, people would ask us all kinds of questions, not just about cows,” says Mackay. “They just want to know about their food. To just be a farm group advocating for one sector we found was just too limiting.

(Efforts) for one product or commodity are just not large enough to be effective. It’s like a quilt that needs to be pieced together.”

“We really need buy in. Does an Alberta canola grower want to put money in the same pot as a P.E.I. potato grower or an Ontario beef farmer, and also Maple Leaf Foods and McDonald’s?

We should all have one collective strategy with a 25-year approach on how to talk to the public about food in Canada,” Mackay says. “The ultimate challenge is we (as farmers) are only two per cent of the population. We can’t afford to subdivide even more.” CG country-guide.ca 43

business

A farmer’s rant There is an anger building across the Prairies deeper than I have ever seen

By Gerald Pilger fter harvesting a record crop, Prairie farmers are unable to move it. Some haven’t even been able to deliver grain they had contracted for movement last fall, and to make matters worse, they can only watch as grain prices fall across the West in spite of strong offers from international buyers.

Farmers are encountering basis levels for wheat up to and over $3 per bushel — in many cases double what the historical basis levels have been. They see country elevators plugged to the roofs, but west coast terminals sit empty and scores of ships clog harbours for weeks waiting for grain, all the while charging demurrage.

Worse yet, farmers see other ships draw anchor and head off to Brazil or some other country that competes with us, and farmers, as they sit on bins and bags and piles of grains, hear that Canada has become an unreliable supplier of grains.

Farmers read the U.S. may need to ration soybean sales due to tight supply, and they watch as soybean prices climb. Yet, canola, supposedly a superior oilseed, sits at the lowest price in years. They see oat millers in the U.S. paying all time record prices for oats, importing oats from Europe, and even talking of closing mills due to lack of oats, yet basically no oats have moved off Prairie farms.

Go into any Prairie coffee shop and you instantly hear what the problem is. Probably 99 per cent of farmers lay the blame for this mess entirely on the railroads. Sure, they are also angry at governments and grain companies for not doing more to make the railroads move the grain, but in most farmers’ minds, the only reason grain prices are so low, basis levels so high, and grain is not moving is the railroads.

“It isn’t that they can’t see the solution. It’s that they can’t see the problem.”

— G. K. Chesterton

O

n March 7, Ottawa announced an Order in Council forcing CN and CP to each haul a minimum 500,000 tonnes of grain a week or face penalities up to $100,000 per day. Immediately a number of ag commodity groups claimed victory.

But let’s look at the numbers. The 5,000 cars mandated per railroad is less than the railways moved during some weeks last fall, and is actually 500 cars less than they have already said they are gearing up to move this spring.

Worse yet, the order only lasts for 90 days, and falls during road-ban and seeding season.

We need to recognize, however, that this 90-day order is the only stipulation on railroads to move grain. The Canada Transportation Act simply states that railroads must offer service to any shipper that requests it. Grain takes no precedence over dry goods, coal, lumber, potash, containers or oil.

It is up to the railroad to decide which goods it will haul and when. This is not to say railroads do not want to haul grain. Grain movement is not something they want to lose. But at the same time, they have other customers also demanding their service. Just as you are limited by equipment, weather and finances on the 44 country-guide.ca

amount of land you farm, they are limited by equipment, weather and finances on how much they can haul.

Yes, railroads may be able to lease more cars and pulling power, and move more grain. But do they have the crew to run those cars? How many more trains can our track infrastructure handle?

Some farmers say we need a third track to the coast, but we better be sure. A new track from the West Coast to the central Prairies would likely cost tens of billions — a bigger amount more than farmers could pay alone and something the federal government would likely not even consider.

The projected cost of a high-speed rail link over the 240 km from Edmonton to Calgary is over $5.0 billion. What would be the cost of a new track 10 times that long from Saskatchewan to Vancouver, with a third of it over and through three mountain ranges, not to mention the grain collection infrastructure we would need to build along the track?

No, rail companies alone are not the entire solution. More importantly, they are not the entire cause of the problem.

Continued on page 46 March 31, 2014

Changing Weather is Changing Farming.

Better Get Ready.

The growing season of 2013 was one for the record books. We had it all: too wet, too dry, too cold, too hot.

Although variability in the weather cannot be changed, we can learn to better manage under these conditions.

Conservation of water and soil is vital to your success in all kinds of weather.

The 6th World Congress on Conservation Agriculture in Winnipeg, Manitoba, will present new ideas on all these topics and more. Be there June 22-25, 2014, for innovative solutions for challenges facing today’s agriculture.

Weatherproofing agriculture is one of three major themes for the conference, along with Growing More with Less and Sharing Innovation Success Stories.

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Continued from page 44

Recognizing a problem is the first step to solving it — Sanya Friedman

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or am I willing to lay all the blame on the grain companies.

Like the railroads, they are doing exactly what they are expected to be doing in a market economy — maximizing ownership profits (unlike farmers who seem more concerned with maximizing production than in maximizing profits).

In my opinion, the real problem lies with farmers themselves. We have bought into the notion espoused by government, industry and even our advanced education system that we, as individual farmers, can compete in a free and open market.

What those parties never tell farmers is there have never been free and open commodity grain markets in Western Canada. From the beginning we have

had to contend with the long distances to our customer base.

I firmly believe there is no better system than a free and open market when there are numerous buyers and sellers sharing equal market power. Without question, in agriculture there is a large number of sellers (farmers), but the other side of the equation has always been dominated by an oligopoly of a few very large, very powerful players. As individual farmers, we simply have no market power in selling commodity grains.

Our grandparents recognized the problem and built the co-operative prairie pools to give farmers market power, only to see the next generations sell the system to the very same companies who dominated their markets.

Some governments tried to give farm-

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them — Albert Einstein

T

he real problem is us, the farmers. What we say is far too often exactly opposite of what we do.

I find it amazing that some of the loudest farm voices demanding more rail service, or more regulation of railways and grain companies, or even for the nationalization of these services are the same farmers who were demanding less market interference and regulation on farms and grain marketing. Too many farmers only believe in the free market when it works for them.

Most farmers and many Canadians still believe we are the breadbasket of the world. Canada isn’t and hasn’t been for a long time. China, India, the United States, Russia, France, Australia and, by some accounts, Pakistan all grow more wheat than Canada.

We say we believe the buyer is always right, but continue to insist customers buy what we want to grow. “You don’t want GMO? Well, tough luck,” 46 country-guide.ca

we reply. “There is nothing wrong with GMOs.” “It may not be the CWRS 1, 13.5 per cent protein wheat you ordered and expected, but, hey, the falling number means it is just as good.”

We compete in a world where most exporting nations have commercial storage that can accept most of the production right at harvest. Yet in the West, we have commercial storage for less than 10 per cent of average production. Is it any wonder if what buyers want is not in export position when needed?

Meanwhile, Canadian farmers fight and argue over ideology. We hinder, and even sell off or give away any semblance of an association that tries to level the market-power playing field.

Instead of working as one voice, farmers and our government further diminish the single voice by creating numerous small competing commodity organizations, often loaded with industry representation whose ultimate goals

ers market power. In July 1935, the R.B Bennett Conservatives tried to help farmers by creating the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) only to have succeeding governments corrupt the purpose and intention of the CWB until the Harper Conservatives finally emasculated it in 2012.

The CWB wasn’t perfect and this isn’t a call for its return, but we are now seeing that it also had a lot more value than many farmers or our government gave it credit for. It definitely gave farmers a voice against the power of the railroads, grain companies and government. It gave all farmers equal access to a very constricted grain movement system. It also managed the logistics of grain movement off the Prairies.

The movement problems we are seeing now are the direct result of the government not addressing (or understanding) the critical role the CWB had in grain logistics and ensuring another body was in place that would fulfill this essential role.

may be opposite to those of farmers and rural society.

Too often we measure farm success only by the financial ratios and our acreage with little thought for the health of the land or the rural community around the farm. Is a business truly successful if it so isolates itself no one wants to continue it?

Don’t get me wrong, not all Prairie agriculture is becoming a basket case.

There are many very successful farm operations, some of them featured in the pages of this magazine. But these are people who willingly stepped away from the commodity mould. They have found and developed their own niche market. Or, like organic growers, they have banded together to offer products outside the marketing channels dominated by a few global players.

We no longer are the greatest country in the world in which to farm. But we can be again.

It will take a new attitude towards agriculture. We will have to relearn the basic business principle that the customer is always right. We will have to again find a way to work together cooperatively rather than competitively. CG MARCH 31, 2014

production

Snow job hen it comes to spring planting, the one thing that keeps farmers well-grounded is the weather. They can plan their seed choice, lay out a timetable and know how they’d like things to happen — but in the end it’s nature that holds the final say. Farmers will start planting only when the conditions allow.

In spite of snowfall amounts that are well above normal for most of Eastern Canada, along with record low-temperatures, most farmers and agronomists agree that spring usually provides enough time to get planting done, no matter what it might look like in late winter.

Rather than fretting about getting on the fields, growers should be contemplating what condition those fields might be in when they do get on them, and what the impact of heavy fall rains and abovenormal snowfall may be on soil nutrients. This factor may be the one that sets 2014 apart, say industry watchers.

Remember last fall The 2013 growing season finished among the wettest on record, with several centres in southern Ontario topping 300 mm of rain between September 1 November 11, and some hitting more than 400 mm during the same period. Added to that has been this winter with few if any “winter thaws.” This winter the snow March 31, 2014

First it was record rainfall last fall. Then it was near-record snow. What’s next?

By Ralph Pearce, CG Production Editor didn’t really melt away during January or February, it just kept piling-up.

According to Keith Reid, soil scientist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, it’s not the amount of snow sitting on top of the soil that’s the issue, it’s how long it will take to melt. In most years, he says, soil becomes saturated as the snow melts.

“But more snow does not equal wetter soil, since a soil that’s already full cannot hold more water,” says Reid, adding that saturated soil will simply translate into more spring runoff. “We could see more infiltration and, hence, more nitrate leached out of the soil, because all of the snow is keeping the ground from freezing hard. So the snow pack will be melting at the bottom and gradually seeping away.”

Reid notes more fields are now tiledrained, meaning a greater capacity to remove excess water from the soil. On the other hand, he says that if there’s a rapid thaw, any increased runoff will also worsen soil erosion on fields that may have had some fall plowing done.

As for recommendations on how to manage conditions heading into spring, Reid cites one trait to keep in mind: patience. Whether referring to soil conditions, plowing and tillage options, or nutrient applications and availability, growers need to wait, no matter how difficult it may be.

“That’s the biggest one — waiting until the soil is actually dry before making that first trip over the field,” says Reid. “The soil is most easily compacted just before

Above: High residue fields will slow the rate that snow melts and affect runoff, but reduced drying can also leave them prone to surface compaction. it’s dry enough to work, so the absolute worst thing you can do to the soil is haul manure because it isn’t fit to cultivate.

That will create issues with shallow root systems, leading to nutrient deficiencies and water stress, because the plants cannot utilize the entire soil profile.”

Reid adds that spring plowing can work well on coarsely textured soils, although they typically show the least yield difference between tilled and no till. On soils with clay content, spring plowing breaks the continuity of pores from the subsoil, causing topsoil to dry in hard clods that won’t conduct moisture from below. That hardening will also prevent root penetration into the subsoil. The best advice from Reid is to avoid a lot of the deep inversion-type of tillage, but light tillage to incorporate residue and help the soil to warm up is OK.

Nutrient issues For growers who fall-applied P or K, widespread risk of runoff is always there, but it tends to be minimal since most of these nutrients do bind well to the soil, and the passage of time from fall through winter has allowed that binding to take place. Reid’s primary concern with fall-applied P is that if it Continued on page 48 country-guide.ca 47

Production Continued from page 47 wasn’t incorporated, there’s a greater potential for environmental impacts.

“The nutrient we have probably lost the most of is nitrogen from fall-applied manure, particularly if it was applied in early fall,” says Reid. “This impact will be greatest with manures with a high ammonium N content, such as liquid swine manure, and less with manures high in organic N, such as solid cattle manure.”

As the planting season gets underway, Reid notes that making sure some N, P and K are applied with the planter will provide some solid insurance against losses that may have occurred during the winter.

Unfortunately, he adds, if it’s a wet spring combined with a later start due to a slow or delayed snow melt, the tendency among growers will be to rush things, meaning more broadcast and less banded fertilizer.

There’s a trade-off between timely planting and optimum nutrient-use efficiency but Reid contends that preparing equipment in advance means less of a need for making compromises.

Whether applying N, P and K at planting or splitting applications using Y-Drop and Greenseeker technologies, it’s possible to overcome a variety of nutrient-loss scenarios to enhance production.

Strength in numbers The same considerations are near the top of Dale Cowan’s list: patience, compaction and fertility. The first is needed in large quantities facing a spring such as this, the second is to be avoided as much as possible and the third can be adjusted heading into the season, and later in spring.

“Patience is always key to successful planting, but it’s hard to do when the calendar says you’re late,” says Cowan, senior agronomist for Southern Co-operative Services, near Rodney, Ont. “Highresidue fields may be problematic with reduced drying, and they’re prone to surface compaction.”

Compaction is a common issue, so adhering to all of the compaction-reducing practices is the standard. Reduce the number of trips across the field where possible, use flotation-tired vehicles, cut back on load weights and reduce tire pressures. Fertility issues, adds Cowan, are easy to address. Start with a soil test and apply accordingly. Remember too that fertility and runoff usually happen in parts of a field, not across the entire field.

“Look at fields that are most in need of fertility and maybe go with starters on those higher-fertility fields,” says Cowan. He echoes Reid’s comments 48 country-guide.ca

March 31, 2014

production about runoff being less of an issue for fertility, especially if fall-applied products were incorporated. “Again, runoff occurs in small areas, not the whole field. However, it’s impossible to have zero runoff. The rate at which snow melts will determine the runoff, and residue cover will slow that. But minimizing the risk with timing, placement, rates of tillage and residue are key activities.”

Winter wheat status Winter wheat will have a tough run in 2014. Planted acres are down and many agronomists have predicted losses of tens of thousands of acres, mostly due to winter kill. Added to this are concerns that extreme cold might have damaged wheat stands. But those scenarios are hard to predict, says Cowan. It’s just too early, particularly with everything precision ag technology is teaching the industry about variability in a field. Winter kill in wheat is similar to fertility or runoff — it seldom occurs across an entire field. Instead, it’s best for farmers to wait until greenup to determine how much of a field is impacted.

“Then you can do a sensitivity analysis on what’s left, determine what yield scenarios to look at and pricing options versus burning it down and choosing an alternate crop,” says Cowan, adding that there are several different plans, depending on previous crops. “Wheat’s a likely choice after soybeans for two years. Are you going to plant a third year of soys, or go to corn? Having a contingency plan in the event wheat is not viable is also good planning. If your wheat’s contracted, can you get out of that contract?

You ask that question now.”

Stand pat Of course, the other aspect to remember with wheat is its impact on subsequent corn and soybean yields, and Tony Balkwill refers to maintaining rotations as “money in the bank.” Although he’s concerned about the effects of a shortage of patience and how that might lead to more compaction, he also believes there’s plenty of time for the planting season to provide growers with the conditions they need.

“Growers can tweak their existing practices or increase their efficiencies, but do they start changing things now?

Not really,” says Balkwill of NithField Advanced Agronomy, near Brantford, Ont. “There’s still some room to work, plus there’s a lot of freeze-thaw that will March 31, 2014

take place, and that will help with compaction. My advice for the most part is to stay the course with soybeans, keep an eye on cost of production with your corn and wheat, and get some added flexibility from cover crops after wheat.

You need to think long-term.”

Balkwill doesn’t favour fall plowing, although he concedes plenty of farmers still rely on it. But to him, the issue is trying to repair in the spring what might have been done in the fall.

“And it’s hard to fix something that’s broken,” Balkwill says. “On heavier ground, there are those growers who are used to working with it, but some get in there and do some serious damage in the fall and that can translate into a shortened spring.”

Another proponent of the “time is on your side” approach is Dekalb field agronomist Todd Woodhouse. “Plowing can be done in wetter conditions whereas vertical tillage options, such as RTS or TurboTill systems, need to be performed in drier conditions,” says Woodhouse, based near Elora, Ont. He adds that some no tillers are also moving to vertical tillage. “So growers need to have patience, depending on their tillage implement.”

Woodhouse also points to the growing popularity of the precision ag units, such as Greenseeker and Y-Drop technologies, noting that in a wet fall and winter combination, the two can provide different application options and strategies without sacrificing crop demands for nutrients.

“Guys can cut back on N and still get good results,” Woodhouse says, adding there are several different strategies to fit various field conditions, timing and soil types. “You can also rely on pop-ups or other starters to get as much nutrient down into the soil as possible.”

One other consideration away from winter wheat or a default to soybeans is in managing corn for those who are maintaining their acres. Woodhouse suggests that if winter causes significant delays in planting, go slow on switching to shorterseason hybrids, perhaps considering a 20 per cent push-back on the maturities.

“Guys can make phone calls and get in different hybrids,” says Woodhouse, noting that shorter-season hybrids provide a hedge against higher drying costs in the fall. “Propane and natural gas prices are up, which means the cost of drying will be expensive.”

With current corn and soybean price outlooks, Woodhouse maintains it’s better to keep costs down where possible.

And try not to spend too much time over-thinking things, he adds.

Above all, say our experts, be ready to adapt to the changes that nature dictates.

“We have to remember that most farmers can plant all of their corn and soybeans in less than 10 working days,” says Cowan. “They have a tremendous capacity to get this done in very short windows of opportunity.” CG

Elite Eight

Planter points to remember As the planting season beckons, it doesn’t hurt to offer up some timely tips and reminders on planter preparation.

1. Check tire pressure one of the more overlooked parameters.

2. Planter levelling affects proper disc-cutting action, seed delivery, planting depth accuracy and press wheel action.

3. Parallel linkage arm wear bushing wear could make row unit planting a little shallower and affect seed distribution.

4. Coulters and attachments can negatively affect seed-to-soil contact, particularly with high residues.

5. Check seed drop tubes for wear keep them clear of obstructions or make sure they’re not worn.

6. Check seed drop final average plant stands run 93 per cent of seed drop (according to U.S. results).

7. Monitor planting speed should never exceed five m.p.h. for optimum finger planter performance.

8. Planter calibration frequency last, but not least, calibrate annually if more than 50 acres per row are planted.

Courtesy of DuPont Pioneer

country-guide.ca 49

Production

Cr op pr otection

Profit thieves A persistent and insidious crop pest could be chewing away at your profits year after year

By Warren Libby, Savvy Farmer

hat’s three-quarters of an inch long, hard-bodied, yellowish brown, lives in the soil, and may be secretly chewing away at your profits?

Wireworms… even their name is descriptive.

Wireworms are the larval stage of the adult click beetle, and while the beetles do no damage, the same can’t be said about their offspring. The click beetles lay eggs around the roots of grasses and grains and the emerging wireworm larvae then feast on seeds and seedlings by boring into stems and roots and by tunneling into tubers such as potatoes.

Crops attacked by wireworms have reduced plant populations and just don’t seem to thrive, since the wireworms continue to feed upon the small roots of many plants throughout the season.

Wireworms are relatively easy to identify. They are darker than most maggots or grubs you usually see in the soil and tend to have hard, tan to orange

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bodies. While there are over 800 species of wireworm worldwide, only 30 of these are pests in Canada What makes wireworms a particularly difficult problem is their persistence in the soil. The larvae can thrive in the same field for two to six years, and can overwinter even in our Canadian soils.

Wireworms move up and down in the soil profile as soil temperature and moisture changes. During the spring growing season, the wireworms migrate into the top few inches once soil temperatures reach 10 C, and remain there until it gets too hot. Once it gets really hot (>25 C) or if the soil becomes dry, they burrow deep into the soil.

Wireworms are typically an issue in fields that have been planted to, or are coming out of, grasses, cereals, or grassy pasture. Since they live up to six years in the soil, they can be an issue for any crop planted after a grassy crop. Crops that are potentially affected by wireworms include small grains such as wheat and barley, clover, corn, potatoes and other

Group Use

Wireworms are the larval stage of click beetles, and they’re a small pest that can take an outsized bite out of your profit margin. march 31, 2014

production

The larvae can thrive in the same field for two to six years, and can overwinter even in our Canadian soils root crops, and various vegetable crops.

Heavy, wet soils also seem to be the preferred home for wireworms and damage is often worst in cool, wet spring weather.

How do you know if you have a wireworm problem? You have to look, and there are a couple of recommended ways to accomplish this. The first involves taking soil samples six inches (15 cm) deep from several spots across the field. Sift the soil to reveal the wireworms. The best time to do this is when soil temperatures have warmed to approximately 10 C in the spring. My research indicates that one wireworm per shovel of soil means there is a population of more than 20,000 wireworms per acre. More than two wireworms per 10 shovels of soil means treatment may provide an economic return.

Another method is to dig several holes

on the diagonal across the field and place a carrot or freshly cut potato about four inches (10 cm) deep. Cover the hole with soil, mark the spot and dig it up about three days later. If one or two wireworms are found per sample, you have a problem.

What are your options to control these nasty little worms? There is nothing registered to control wireworms once the crop is out of the ground, so you need to think about either treating the seed or the soil where the seed is placed.

I suspect that most will want to treat the seed rather than the soil, although there are five soil treatments available. If you prefer to attack wireworms with a seed treatment, you have what might seem like a wide choice of 16 wireworm seed treatment products available, although every one of these is a Group 4 (neo-

nicotinoid) product. That’s not a bad thing, since the neonics are very effective, but it does shed a spotlight on just how vulnerable we are if the concern for bee mortality results in restrictions or a ban on neonics.

The bottom line is that like many small critters in the soil, wireworms can easily go unnoticed since they rarely destroy an entire crop, but rather steal yield and profit in a more insidious manner.

As long as neonics continue to be available as seed treatments, there is no need to allow these hungry little worms to eat your profits. For my money, unless I was sure that I did not have a wireworm problem, I would include a neonic insecticide as part of my fungicidal seed treatment program. It’s easy to do and effective not only on the wireworms, but also on several other soil insects that like to dine on your crop, and your wallet. CG Do you have a crop protection issue you’d like Warren to write about? Send any suggestions to: warrenlibby@savvyfarmer.com.

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Production

Hiring today’s youth The job of grooming tomorrow’s ag employees starts while they’re still in school. These Ontario programs show it can work

By Ralph Pearce, CG Production Editor

52 country-guide.ca

outreach co-ordinator for the program. Already this school year, teacher ambassadors have conducted 162 lessons, compared to 131 for all of last year.

Measure the difference According to a detailed study conducted late last year by Synthesis Agri-Food Network in Guelph, the impact of the ambassador program is actually measurable. Prior to the 2013 Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show, students participating in the program were asked three questions: 1. What is agriculture?

2. Name a career in agriculture, and 3. What’s one question you have about agriculture?

Then students toured the show near Woodstock, including stops at a seed company display, an equipment manufacturer and a robotic milking exhibit, among others. The impact was immediate. Students were asked the same three questions, and the second question yielded a substantial increase in career opportunities.

“We’re finding exactly the same thing in our classrooms,” says Hendriksen, who finds that unless students are from a rural background, they have very little first-hand experience with the sector.

“Afterwards I find they’re starting to see jobs that are part of a bigger system, but also include farming.

The examples we have are arborists, engineers, journalists — they’re starting to see that there are other career opportunities.”

It’s a way of going beyond the online and video resources developed by other companies and organizations which are often geared to those who are already engaged in agriculture at some level.

Teacher ambassadors can showcase agriculture across a variety of career options, appealing not only to those familiar with agriculture, but urbanites too.

“One day, there were two students I was talking to, and to one I said, ‘Have you ever considered a career in agriculture?’” says Hendriksen. “He said, ‘No.’ And I said, ‘Well, what do you think you’d want to do?’ And he said, ‘I want to work in the environment.’ I had to say, ‘Well, chances are, you’ll definitely be working in agriculture.’”

March 31, 2014

Photography: Jane Russell

o the news is in. Agriculture is facing yet another crisis. This time, it isn’t a trade issue, commodity prices or politics. Instead, it’s the pressing shortfall in human resources for the agri-food, fuel and biotech industry.

The number of farmers is falling — just check any recent census. But the demand for all kinds of jobs pertaining to agriculture is growing, and not just for those who drive a tractor, scout fields or breed the latest varieties.

To keep viable, Canadian agriculture will need engineers, biochemists, video producers, lawyers, business planners — the list is seemingly endless.

The question is, where will we find them?

One group that’s looking is Ontario Agri-Food Education (OAFE), a not-for-profit established in 1991 through the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food to help the province’s teachers do a better job of making their students aware of agriculture.

“Ag in the classroom” has been a key OAFE program, but in 2012, the group also launched the Teacher Ambassador Program, a very different type of resource aimed primarily at engaging high school students in learning all that agriculture has to offer.

“It’s impacting students at the intersection where they’re actually having those thoughts (about a career),” says Colleen Smith, executive director of OAFE. “It’s great for younger students to know about agriculture, but our purpose with the Teacher Ambassador Program is to have a very targeted delivery system aimed at a wider audience than OAFE has ever targeted before.”

In the past, OAFE developed its programs and promoted them to traditional classroom teachers. Now, they’re aiming at the next generation of educators who are currently underemployed, by hiring them to conduct classroom sessions as teacher ambassadors.

“This is not a guest-speaker program; they are teachers that are trained to deliver classroom lessons about the agri-food sector, lessons they take with them for life,” says Smith. “They have new skills in their tool kit that differentiate them in the marketplace. And that’s the win-win of this program.”

“It’s definitely growing,” says Rachel Hendriksen,

PRODUCTION

More wins waiting Smith believes the ambassador program still has a long road ahead of it, in spite of its many successes. She points to the fractured nature of agriculture itself, with its many voices, mandates and priorities.

The ambassador program provides training and resources to guide new teachers through many agri-food hot topics, but on its own, this isn’t enough. The culture within agriculture needs to change as well, and Smith acknowledges that won’t happen overnight.

“We have to let go of our outdated notions in agriculture,” Smith says. “We need to be positive and proud.”

“Is it important for Canada to continue to produce its own food? That’s a pretty basic question,

but I don’t think anyone is thinking about that now because we already have so much of it,” Smith adds.

She warns too, though, that it’s possible to get lost in the buzz about the industry, such as “three jobs for every graduate” or the job opportunities arising from new technology. “More important to me is how the Canadian public supports a national food strategy that will keep the food jobs in Canada. Why are we importing so much food when Canada is prolific in food production, and what is the impact on our own jobs? When you look at that reality, you wonder what the heck’s going on here.”

Continued on page 54

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Production Continued from page 53

No apologies

Reaching ahead While OAFE focuses on high schools with its Teacher Ambassador Program, the University of Guelph’s Ontario Agricultural College is working on its own “Reach Ahead” initiative, along with a strategic plan with the Alliance of Ontario Food Processors.

“Application numbers and the enrolment in programs have grown substantially over the past couple of years,” says Dr. Rob Gordon, dean of OAC, First-year enrolment in Guelph’s B.Sc. in agriculture is up 35 per cent from last year. “And I just saw some statistics last week,” Gordon says. “In the province as a whole, applications in universities are down 10 per cent, mostly by demographics within secondary schools.”

Reach Ahead attracts Grades 11 and 12 students who are on track to develop specialized skills in business, agriculture, horticulture, food processing and the environment.

The other OAC initiative is work with the food processors to develop a talent management strategy. It’s a template for providing leadership and a means both of redefining the needs of the value chain and of keeping it moving in the right direction.

Gordon thinks such efforts must be ongoing. Every year there will be a new graduating class of high school students looking for a better sense of the career opportunities that exist in the sector.

“We need to make sure that we have clearly identified career opportunities for them,” says Gordon. “The most frequently-asked question we have today through our liaison events, is ‘Tell me which job this will allow me to do.’ That’s an important question that you have to have an answer to.”

54 country-guide.ca

Among the ambassador program’s big supporters is Lorie Jocius, in charge of special projects with Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show and the current chair of OAFE’s board of directors.

“Unless we want to be 80 and still doing these jobs, we need to engage the younger generations,” Jocius says. “This program is how we’re doing it more effectively.”

Jocius watched the impact of the farm show tour last September, from revealing that car parts are now made out of soybeans, to the mechanics involved in milking robotics or new seeding technology. She also recalls the impact of a John Deere executive saying there is more computer source coding in the newest combine than in a Boeing aircraft.

That changing face of technology means new opportunities. But Jocius also maintains that the issue has to be addressed now, not in five or 10 years.

“I think they’re starting to get it,” says Jocius, “but somebody still needs to step up and say, ‘If you guys still want to have a vibrant agricultural industry in this country in the next 20 to 30 years, you’d better start doing something about the educational concerns within the school system, and with regards to careers.’”

The 2013 Synthesis Agri-Food Network study compared Ontario’s previous approaches, accounted for OMAF’s expectations and even compared OAFE’s program to similar efforts in Michigan and Illinois. Based on that research, Synthesis president Rob Hannam believes the ambassador program is unique, and he isn’t sure other organizations would be capable of copying it.

A key feature is that the program is delivered by certified teachers, Hannam says. On top of that, though, is the link to the Outdoor Farm Show, and the wide scope of the show itself, with all of the things students can see as they’re walking around.

And it does make a difference, says Hannam, who points to the students’ ability to name careers in agriculture. “We moved up by 30 per cent just by exposing people to the careers in farming at the Outdoor Farm Show through the Teacher Ambassador Program,” he says. “That showed me that the program was a big success.”

That success can’t come soon enough, says Jocius. “Employment trends tend to work in waves that are usually reactionary rather than from reflective analysis,” Jocius says. “If you’re reactionary when it comes to an employment trend, you’re already behind the eight ball. We already know there’s going to be a shortage coming and, personally, I think there’s a shortage now. And unless we’re prepared to let our kids or grandkids get their food in cans from other countries, we need to start educating them now.” CG March 31, 2014

CHRISTIAN FARMERS FEDERATION OF ONTARIO 7660 Mill Rd. RR4, Guelph ON N1H 6J1 Voice: (519) 837-1620 Fax: (519) 824-1835 Email: cffomail@christianfarmers.org Web site: www.christianfarmers.org

Partnerships

T

he Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario sees partnership with other organizations as an important element to succeed. Over the past few decades we have built new partnerships to help us increase our presence within the community. One of the relationships we have is with the Canadian Food Grains Bank.

A number of new Food Grains projects have been established across Ontario. The project’s aim is to assist in feeding the hungry in places where people have less than what is needed to feed them.

These projects will be identified by large signs along the road of the fields that CFFO members have generously provided.

The CFFO executive board and staff wish to thank the members who have contributed towards this partnership, which mark the 60th anniversary milestone of the federations work. Thank you to the district boards that have assisted in organizing these projects and getting inputs lined up for spring planting. After this long winter it is something to look forward to, knowing that some

A general farm organization that is rooted in faith and guided by values

where people will benefit from others’ kindness.

As the CFFO celebrates its 60th anniversary this year, we look forward to many more years of serving our members and forging partnerships that are for the wellbeing of agriculture in Ontario. We give praise to our sovereign God whose blessings we receive with thanks. We wish all our partners well this year.

• 22 District Associations Across Ontario • Supporting our members since 1954 • A Professional Organization of Entrepreneurial Farming Families

www.christianfarmers.org

A professional organization of entrepreneurial farming families

PRODUCTION

#PestPatrol

with Mike Cowbrough, OMAF Have a question you want answered? #PestPatrol on twitter.com to @cowbrough or email Mike at mike.cowbrough@ontario.ca.

IN ORDER A handy acronym can help you remember what gets added when during tank mixing hat is the proper order for tank mixing pesticides?

If a tank mix is listed on a pesticide label, there will be specific mixing instructions.

However, the Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) does permit the application of unlabelled tank mixtures if the pesticides are registered on the target crop and are being applied within their labelled use pattern. When you are considering an unlabelled tank mix, it is best to consult the manufacturer of all products involved, as they may have experience with the mixture.

Since the pesticide label won’t provide any mixing instructions for unlabelled tank mixtures, the “WALES” method of pesticide mixing is a reasonable way to minimize any mixing issues. A compatibility test or “jar test” should be performed first so that you can identify any potential problems. Test kits are available through precision laboratories

56 country-guide.ca

(www.goo.gl/Nchc1F) but you could also make your own with a glass jar and syringes to measure out pesticide amounts.

The “WALES” method of pesticide mixing is just an acronym to help you remember the preferred order, although personally I can never remember it, and that is why I will provide it below.

First, fill the spray tank about halfway (some operators swear by three-quarters full) and begin agitation. Then add: • Wettable powders and water-dispersible granules (basically any herbicide with a “dry” formulation goes first).

• Agitate tank mix thoroughly (alright, you caught me, the agitator is already on as per our first step, but it wouldn’t make a good acronym if this point was “wait until the wettable powder is dissolved before adding anything else.”

• Liquid flowables and suspensions.

• Emulsifiable concentrate formulations.

• Surfactants/solutions. CG

MARCH 31, 2014

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life

Fast or slow Choose the right kitchen appliance to make healthy meals a snap

By Helen Lammers-Helps low cookers and pressure cookers work on very different principles but both appliances can help you put a healthy meal on the table in today’s hectic world.

Electric slow cookers first became popular in the 1970s but many of the early recipes relied heavily on processed ingredients, “a can of this and a can of that,” says Judith Finlayson, author of 10 slow-cooker recipe books. Today’s slow-cooker recipes are healthier, she says, calling for more whole foods and fewer processed ingredients.

Slow cookers are incredibly convenient. All of the ingredients can be assembled the night before. In the morning, plug it in before you leave for work and a delicious dinner will be ready when you arrive home at the end of the day. And when entertaining, using a slow cooker lets you spend your time mingling with your guests instead of slaving over a hot stove Plus, since food stays warm for a long time in a crock pot, you can take food you’ve cooked at home to be eaten elsewhere without reheating.

Slow cookers have other advantages, too. While they are particularly good for cooking less-tender cuts of meat such as stewing beef or pot roasts, these versatile appliances can also be used to make soup, lasagna, pulled pork and even desserts. Food seldom burns due to the low heat, and the removable stoneware insert makes cleanup a breeze.

58 country-guide.ca

Better crockpot meals While slow cookers are easy to use, for best results, Finlayson suggests following a few guidelines when using your crock pot: • Sauté meats and vegetables before putting them in the crock pot. This releases natural flavours and sugars for tastier dishes.

• When using a recipe not created specifically for a slow cooker, reduce the quantity of liquid. Since there is no evaporation, liquid generated during the cooking process falls back into the stoneware, and dilutes the sauce.

• R oot vegetables such as potatoes and carrots should be cut into thin slices or small pieces since these take a long time to cook in a slow cooker.

• When cooking less-tender cuts of meat, use the low setting.

Get to know your slow cooker. Different crock pots cook at different rates. You will need to adjust your cooking times accordingly.

When purchasing a slow cooker, look for a brand name device with an automatic timer so that when cooking is complete, foods can be kept warm at a safe temperature until served.

March 31, 2014

life

Today’s pressure cooker On the other end of the spectrum is the pressure cooker, another useful tool for cooking healthy meals. A pressure cooker is basically a supercharged steamer, explains North Bay chef and author Steve Pitt. It works on the principle that because steam is a much better conductor of heat than dry air, if you raise the temperature of the steam by putting it under pressure you can cook food significantly faster than the traditional method of cooking in an unpressurized pan or oven.

As a result, pressure cookers cook food in a fraction of the time, using a fraction of the energy. They also work very well for cooking less-tender cuts of meat and dried beans. For example, cooking time for the Cuban Black Beans was just 25 minutes using pre-soaked dried black beans.

Incredibly, pressure cookers offer all these advantages without sacrificing taste. “Cooking under steam pressure seems to develop intense layers of flavours I would not have thought possible in such a short cooking time,” says Pitt.

Like the slow cooker, pressure cookers are perfect for stews, stocks, pot roasts, soups and curries but you won’t get a crispy chicken skin or crunchy vegetables, says Pitt.

Modern pressure cookers are very safe if used properly. “They have much better designed safety valves than the ones introduced early in the 20th century.” However, unlike slow cookers, pressure cookers require vigilance to ensure the safety valves don’t get clogged during the cooking process.

Pitt says pressure cookers have been all the rage in Europe where energy is expensive but they are only starting to catch on here. If you are planning to purchase a pressure cooker, he recommends doing your research as there is quite a range in the quality of different models.

He recently opted to buy a Swiss-made model over a made-in-China model after discovering the Chinese model had many complaints on the Internet.

The Internet is also a great place to find recipes. Simply type “pressure cooker recipes” into your search engine, and you’ll discover a wide choice of recipes including chicken cacciatore, beef stew and many, many more healthy favourites. CG March 31, 2014

Cuban Black Beans with Spicy Sausage Here’s Pitt’s version of Cuban black beans which he’s adapted for the pressure cooker.

2 cups (about 1 pound) dried black beans, picked over, rinsed and soaked in water with 1 tsp. of salt for 8 hours 1 pound spicy sausage (Chorizo, hot Italian or Andouille), large diced 2 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil (may not need as much if the sausages are not lean) 1 medium onion, fine diced

1 cup 1 tbsp.

1 tbsp.

1/2 tsp.

2 3 cups 3

bell pepper, medium diced ground cumin dried oregano red pepper flakes (optional) cloves garlic, minced low-sodium chicken stock bay leaves kosher salt to taste fresh ground pepper to taste

1. In a six- or eight-quart pressure cooker, sweat diced sausage until the pieces are nicely browned. Scoop out and reserve.

2. If the sausage has not left behind very much oil and fond (brown stuff on bottom of the cooker), add olive oil until you have the equivalent of 2 tablespoons on pressure cooker bottom.

3. Add onions and cook until translucent, scraping any fond from bottom of cooker. Add bell pepper, cumin, oregano, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper. Stir and cook for another two minutes. Add garlic and cook for 30 seconds or until lightly brown.

4. Drain beans and add to pressure cooker. Add browned sausage and bay leaves. Mix all ingredients well and then add chicken stock. Stir again.

5. Following manufacturer’s instructions, cover and lock your pressure cooker.

6. Bring to high heat and cook from that point for 25 minutes.

7. Remove from heat and let it cool for fifteen minutes. Release any remaining steam pressure according to manufacturer’s instructions.

8. Adjust seasoning if necessary. Serve with salad, rice or crusty artisan bread.

Poached Eggs on Spicy Lentils Reprinted with publisher permission from The Healthy Slow Cooker, second edition by Judith Finlayson, 2014, www.robertrose.ca.

1 tbsp. olive oil 2 onions, finely chopped 1 tbsp. minced garlic 1 tbsp. minced ginger root 1 tsp. ground coriander 1 tsp. ground cumin 1 tsp. cracked black peppercorns 1 cup red lentils, rinsed 1 can (28 oz.) no-salt-added tomatoes with juice, coarsely chopped

2 cups vegetable stock 1 cup coconut milk

salt 1 long green chili pepper or 2 Thai bird’s-eye chilies, finely chopped (optional) 6 eggs 1⁄4 cup finely chopped parsley leaves

1. In a large skillet, heat oil over medium heat. Add onions and cook, stirring, until softened, about 3 minutes. Add garlic, ginger, coriander, cumin and peppercorns and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Add lentils, tomatoes with juice and vegetable stock and bring to a boil. Transfer to slow cooker stoneware.

2. Cover and cook on low for 6 hours or on high for 4 hours, until lentils are tender and mixture is bubbly. Stir in coconut milk, salt, to taste, and chili pepper, if using. Cover and cook for 20 to 30 minutes until heated through.

3. When ready to serve, ladle into soup bowls and top each serving with a poached egg.

Garnish with parsley

country-guide.ca 59

h e a lt h

Maintain your mineral levels

By Marie Berry veryone thinks of rocks and stones when minerals are mentioned, but you have minerals in your body too, and they are essential to your health. Calcium is the most abundant mineral in your body with the majority of it being in your bones, but there are numerous other minerals which are essential to overall good health. These other minerals — for example iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium and sodium — account for just under one per cent of your body weight, The term “minerals” when used to describe your dietary requirements refers to inorganic substances that are needed in small amounts to maintain overall health. Minerals are divided into essential ones that are, as the name implies, essential to health, and trace ones that are, also as their name implies, required only in trace amounts.

Healthy eating can keep mineral levels good. A poor diet, though, means trouble may be brewing Ideally, your diet should provide sufficient amounts because these sources are the most compatible with your body, but deficiencies can occur.

Iron in your body is part of the hemoglobin which transports oxygen through your circulatory system. It is also involved in several enzymes as well as in energy production and in the functioning of your immune system. Red meats and fortified foods are dietary sources and, interestingly, vitamin C can increase absorption from your diet. Anemia results when iron levels are low and a variety of iron supplements are available, with ferrous sulfate providing the greatest level of elemental iron at 20 per cent.

While calcium is the key mineral in bone forma-

tion, magnesium and phosphorus also play a role in healthy bone growth and maintenance. These minerals form the matrix of bones and teeth, and without sufficient levels osteoporosis occurs. Calcium supplements along with vitamin D are used to treat osteoporosis. Other minerals, including trace ones such manganese, copper and zinc, are not supplemented, however, because average diets usually contain sufficient quantities.

Potassium in your body is important for regular heart rhythm, stable blood pressure and a healthy nervous system. Along with sodium, potassium controls the water balance in your body.

Ideally, you want a diet high in potassium and low in sodium. Health Canada recommends 4,700 milligrams of potassium daily and no more than 1,500 milligrams of sodium daily for most adults.

Dietary sources of potassium are numerous, for example: bananas, orange juice and cranberry juice, and it is not difficult to ensure sufficient levels.

However, it is estimated that adult Canadians consume on average four times the recommended daily amount of sodium. Processed and convenience foods account for this excess of sodium, which means you should substitute a banana for that snack bar!

When you have a checkup or if you have a medical condition that is being followed, you may have lab work ordered to check for minerals. Blood tests are able to measure electrolytes including potassium and sodium. You may not have any symptoms, but the lab results can reveal cardiovascular and kidney risks. Routine blood tests are often recommended if you have conditions such as diabetes, or if there are other risk factors such as older age, family history or even pregnancy.

You probably take minerals for granted, but eating a varied diet including fruits, vegetables, and fibre will ensure you have all the minerals you need.

Marie Berry is a lawyer/pharmacist interested in health and education.

Bug repellants are often in the news. The stories vary: which are the best ones, which are the safest, and what ingredients are most effective. Next issue, we’ll look at the various options for keeping insects away from you and your family.

60 country-guide.ca

March 31, 2014

NOW AVAILABLE “I don’t care what people think…

I am just going to be myself.” Craig Barnes, a Presbyterian minister in the United States, heard a woman say, “From now on, I only care what God thinks of me. Well, and my husband. Just God and my husband. And well, my children, too, since I have to be a role model. Just God, my husband, and my children. And, of course, the folks at church. Just God, my husband, my children, and the folks at church. And also the members of my bridge club.” While making fun of herself, she admits that searching for personal freedom is complicated.

Modern technology and social change have brought more freedom than at any time in history. Are new freedoms giving more happiness? Freedom is not found by disregarding traditional patterns of living. True freedom comes from making choices that are meaningful in life.

Susan is driving home from her office after a long day. She looks over at the briefcase full of work she has to complete that night. This evening she will hear complaints from her husband and children who want more quality time with her. “Quality time?” she wonders. “How do you find that?” She has not been to the gym for two weeks. She is reluctant to admit that her clothes no longer fit. She needs to buy new clothes or lose weight — what a choice… She needs to call her parents who are not well. She has not been feeling well herself, but there is no time to sit in a doctor’s waiting room. The family expects a nourishing dinner. She forgot to take meat out of the freezer this morning. A mountain of laundry is piling up. People at work are talking about the latest movie. She has not had time to see it. Her book club meets next Saturday at her home and she hasn’t started the novel. Her husband cannot represent them at parent-teacher interviews because there is an auction sale that day. She had a tiff with him last night over who would take time from work to attend family matters. She has more unanswered emails at home than she can count. Some of her friends think she doesn’t care about them, but she is just too busy.

She uses hands-free calling to return a call from an old college friend. The friend is delighted to hear from her, and asks how she is doing. Susan launches into a litany of the pressures on her life. The well-meaning friend says, “Oh Sweetie, you just have to be yourself.” Susan thinks, “Yes, but who exactly is that?”

Does this sound familiar? Susan’s life has become an arena of competing expectations. All of them are valued. All are freely chosen. They struggle with each other to be the centre of her life. She wants nothing more than to “be herself” but the competition is tearing her soul apart.

Freedom is a wonderful gift, but trying to satisfy conflicting demands leads to chaos. A life spent reacting to multiple pressures does not feel like freedom. Trying to satisfy the demands of work, home, health, and friendship turns life into a spinning top.

Jesus gave advice for living. One of his methods was to ask questions. His questions probe deep into our being, asking what we truly value. In Mark’s Gospel he asks, “What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you?”

Suggested Scripture: Mark 8:34-38, 2 Corinthians 3:17-18

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Rod Andrews is a retired Anglican bishop. He lives in Saskatoon. ©2013 Farm Business Communications

March 31, 2014

country-guide.ca 61

ACRES

Leeann Minogue is the editor of GRAINEWS, a playwright and part of a family grain farm in southeastern Saskatchewan

Where’s that darn cheque?

Elaine opened her mouth, as if she might say something... he semi was on its way out of the driveway on Wednesday morning when Dale sprinted full speed across the yard. He was out of breath by the time he got to the cleaning plant.

“Did… did you get a… a cheque?” he panted, then coughed.

“No, but I sent an invoice with the trucker,” Dale’s daughter-in-law Elaine answered as she turned off the weigh scale.

“No!” Dale said. “You can’t let that guy take seed unless he gives you a cheque!” Cough. “A seed grower from Swift Current had to take him to small claims court to get money out of him.”

“Nobody told me anything about this!” Elaine said.

“Jeff knew,” Dale said.

“Knew what?” Elaine’s husband Jeff said, coming around the corner of the building. He was holding his son Conner’s hand, and had the new baby in a sling on his back.

“Knew better than to let that guy take home any durum without leaving a cheque!”

62 country-guide.ca

“Oh, yeah,” Jeff said. “I forgot to mention that to Elaine.”

“Wait,” Elaine said. “Why are we doing business with somebody we can’t trust?”

“Because he said he’d pay 10 per cent more than I thought we’d get,” Dale said.

“It’s not much of a bonus if we don’t get paid,” Elaine said.

“That’s why you were supposed to get a cheque,” Dale said, exasperated.

Elaine was fuming. “Come on Conner,” she said.

“Let’s go and play.”

She was still angry by lunchtime. Not angry enough to say anything to Jeff while they ate, but angry enough to be secretly pleased to watch his soup get cold while he went to the office to take a phone call. By the time he got back to the table, Elaine and Conner had finished their lunch and Conner had run off to the living room to play with his legos.

“Clay’s coming back after all,” Jeff said, putting his bowl in the microwave.

MARCH 31, 2014

acres

Clay Janson had farmed 20 miles south of the Hansons until he and his wife retired and moved into town last year. Clay was great with machinery, and the Hansons all liked having him around.

He’d planned to help during seeding and harvest last year, until he tripped on the tractor steps and sprained his back, putting himself out of commission for the season.

“Good,” Elaine said. The Hansons had a hard time finding farm help, since they only needed someone for a few busy months every year, and they had to compete with the oilfield for employees. But Clay’s wife had been trying to convince him to take their RV to Yellowstone in April and May, to beat the summer crowds.

“I’m glad he got Connie to let him stay home.

Did you two agree on a wage?” Elaine asked.

“That didn’t come up,” Jeff said. “But he’s reasonable. We’ll figure something out.”

Jeff didn’t notice Elaine looking at him with a mixture of annoyance and incredulity. Luckily he was saved by the ding of the microwave. Then the baby started crying, and Elaine went to get her while Jeff finished his lunch.

Before Elaine was done changing the baby, Jeff shouted from the hallway. “I’m off to town to pick up another load of fertilizer.” Elaine heard the door close behind him. She spent the rest of the afternoon thinking. By coffee time the next day, when Elaine, Jeff, Dale and Dale’s wife Donna were eating muffins in the backyard and Conner played in the sand box, Elaine knew exactly what she wanted to say.

“I think we should formalize things a bit around here,” Elaine said.

“Oh geez,” Jeff said. “This is a farm. If you want me to be clean all the time, there’s going to be a lot more laundry.”

“I don’t care how you dress,” Elaine said.

“You could take a lesson from that,” Dale told his wife. Donna rolled her eyes.

“What I meant,” Elaine said, “is that we need to be more formal about the way we do business.”

“Oh, that,” Dale said. “I got a little excited yesterday. But I’m not mad at you about not getting that cheque!”

Elaine opened her mouth, as if she might say something about that, but then went back to her planned script.

“Dale, I’m sure the way you do things worked really well when it was just you and Ed. But there’re more people here now. If we did things a little more formally, everyone would know what was happening.”

“Formally,” Dale said. “It just sounds so… formal.”

March 31, 2014

Elaine kept on. “Did you know Clay’s coming back to work, and we haven’t even talked about how much he’s getting paid?”

“Great!” Dale said. “I thought Connie was going to drag him off again.”

“He’s so nice to have around,” Donna said. “At least there’ll be someone who never complains about the food.”

“The point,” Elaine said, “is that Clay doesn’t know how much we’re going to pay him. And neither do we.”

“That’ll work itself out,” Dale said.

“Somebody push me,” Conner yelled, running over to the swing set.

Dale boosted his sandy grandson onto the swing seat and started pushing, as directed.

“Wheeee,” Conner yelled. “Higher!”

Jeff spoke up. “She’s not wrong. If we kept better lists, Elaine would’ve asked for a cheque yesterday.”

“You want to keep a list of deadbeats on our wall? The neighbours will get a kick out of that,” Dale said. “We’ll have guys driving all the way over here just to get a look at it.”

“We could put some sort of coded mark on the sales list,” Elaine said. “If we all agree that we should do business with people we can’t trust. And on Clay’s first day, we should get him to sign an employment agreement, so we all know what he’s getting paid.”

“I suppose we can talk about that,” Dale said.

“Look at the time! I’d better get back out to the shop.”

Elaine went home to put the baby down for her nap and spend some time in the office, looking on the Internet for some draft farm employment contracts she could download. Before long, Jeff came into the house.

“You’re right,” he said. “It’s going to take us a while to turn this ship, but you’re right. We’re running a business. We have to be more professional.

You get a contract ready. We’ll make sure Clay’s OK with it. And we’ll figure something out with Dad about what we’re going to do with those questionable seed customers.”

It was Monday before they got the call. “Sorry,” Clay said when Jeff answered his cell. “But Connie kept printing out photos of Old Faithful and leaving them around the house. I can’t win that war.”

“At least now we don’t have to worry about some sort of 10-page contract,” Dale said when he came home from the post office. Elaine held her tongue.

Dale was leafing through the mail. He held up one envelope and opened it. “That cheque came!” he said. “Elaine, you’re off the hook.”

Elaine looked at Jeff. Jeff smiled at her. “Don’t worry,” he said. “We’ll work it out.” CG

country-guide.ca 63

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Phaseolus vulgaris. Image source: Howard F. Schwartz, Colorado State University, Bugwood.org

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