DETOUR OFF-FARM JOB FIRST, OR STRAIGHT HOME?

WESTERN EDITION
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March 31, 2014 $3.50
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CONTENTS
MARCH 31, 2014
BUSINESS
8
FUTURE FARM (2)
16
A NEW SPIN OF FARMING
20
THE NEW LAND BARONS
24
A JAM OF A BUSINESS
28
GUIDE HR — SEVEN DEADLY SINS OF THE ENTREPRENEUR
30
GET IT BUILT
FCC futurist Calvin Mulligan continues our exploration of how
farming will evolve, including “sustainable intensification.”
Business is booming for farmer Mark Devloo now that he’s
a manufacturer too. But that doesn’t mean life is easier.
The Canada Pension Plan’s purchase of 115,000 acres in
Saskatchewan ushers in a new era in Canadian agriculture.
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.
34
LOCAL FOOD CO-OPS GROW UP
36
LOCAL VICTORY
40
A FARMER’S RANT
44
FARMERS ARE FROM MARS…
62
GUIDE LIFE — FAST OR SLOW
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.
Many of the most sophisticated new farm co-ops are actually
in the local sector, where they’re driving total sales and growth.
Ten years later, the local food trend is still booming, as are
the business goals of the farmers who have signed on.
Our Gerald Pilger sees anger and disappointment in grain farmers
all around him. It’s time for a new direction, he argues.
And consumers are from Venus, says our Scott Garvey. How can
we communicate when we don’t speak the same language?
Choose the right appliance to make preparing
healthy farm meals a snap.
EVERY ISSUE
5
PG. 10 DETOUR TO THE FARM
A canola biofuel plant made perfect sense on paper. Getting it
off the drawing board, though, was a whole different job.
PRODUCTION
46
GRIM AND GRIMMER
50
WHEAT PIPELINE
52
INSECT OUTLOOK
54
PROFIT THIEVES
56
WHEAT MAP
58
DISEASE GEOMETRY
60
FIELD NOTES.
MACHINERY GUIDE
What’s new for 2014? Here are four last-minute entries.
64
GUIDE HEALTH
66
HANSON ACRES
Marie Berry helps us maintain mineral levels for health.
Elaine is in no mood to be forgiven for not getting the cheque.
Few market bright spots at annual GrainWorld conference.
KVD removal speeds new wheat and durum varieties.
With spring almost here, these insects are hungry.
Wireworms are proving insidious and resilient.
International wheat genome projects scores big.
Three sides of disease triangle spell trouble for 2014.
Farm lender offers relief against rail backlog.
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MARCH 31, 2014
country-guide.ca 3
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EDITORIAL STAFF
Editor: Tom Button
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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.
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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
S:7”
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BayerCropScience.ca/Tundra or 1 888-283-6847 or contact your Bayer CropScience representative.
Always read and follow label directions. Tundra® is a registered trademark of the Bayer Group. Bayer CropScience is a member of CropLife Canada.
C-59-01/14-10182733-E
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
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.
10 country-guide.ca 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 12
country-guide.ca 11
BUSINESS
Continued from page 11
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.
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.”
Continued on page 14
12 country-guide.ca
MARCH 31, 2014
BUSINESS
GET A JOB, OR STAY HOME?
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.
Succession isn't easy. “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. Bringing the needs of different generations together for a smooth
transfer 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 generation, 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.
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.
SPRAYING
OFF LABEL
COSTS
YIELD
Spraying herbicide on Genuity® Roundup Ready® canola,
above recommended rates or outside the application window,
can cost you 3 bushels per acre or more in yield.
ALWAYS FOLLOW GRAIN MARKETING AND ALL OTHER STEWARDSHIP AND PESTICIDE LABEL DIRECTIONS. Details of these
requirements can be found in the Trait Stewardship Responsibilities Notice to Farmers printed in this publication. Monsanto and
Vine Design® is a registered trademark of Monsanto Technology LLC, Monsanto Canada Inc. licensee. ©2013 Monsanto Canada Inc.
business
Continued from page 12
From the classroom
to the tractor
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.
14 country-guide.ca 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
business
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
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
Don’s big concern for son Gary is that the farm can be
socially isolated. “This is a hard life, that’s for sure.”
date is not something most young people
have to worry about, but it is an issue
for Gary. “In that respect, this is a hard
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March 31, 2014
LUD24218_CountryGuide_7x5.indd 1
country-guide.ca 15
3/3/14 1:55 PM
business
16 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 18
country-guide.ca 17
Continued from page 17
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
18 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 19
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
20 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 22
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 21
business
Continued from page 21
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
22 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
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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
24 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 26
country-guide.ca 25
business
Continued from page 25
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
something 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 know-ledge, 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 picking the fruit — creating each
batch and developing new recipes so
26 country-guide.ca March 31, 2014
business
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
MARCH 31, 2014
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.”
country-guide.ca 27
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
28 country-guide.ca 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
[email protected].
MARCH 31, 2014
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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.
30 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 32
March 31, 2014
country-guide.ca 31
business
Continued from page 31
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
Today, Milligan
Biofuels buys
60,000 tonnes
of unwanted
canola, producing
20 million litres
of biofuel.
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.
32 country-guide.ca 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.
Because there wasn’t a small enough crusher in Saskatchewan and because their needs were not the same
as the needs of a client working with No. 1 canola,
they ended up creating their own crushing technology,
tweaking traditional equipment to their particular needs.
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. “The petroleum industry found
that there was a good fit, but it’s not something they
can make. They would have to re-tool to be able to
make biodiesel. They didn’t want to do that. They
offered a lot of resistance. Petroleum companies are
pretty strong, but eventually it came to be.”
One of the challenges in those early days, Faye
March 31, 2014
business
says, was that they didn’t have any production. How
can you have a mandate if there is no product? That’s
why in the early years Milligan needed to have a coproduct, 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 executive manager, Zenneth Faye, no longer works at the plant but he’s still with the company
in an advisory capacity. And, he’s still fascinated with
the idea of 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
the present time, 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. You asked why would I
leave when everything was going so well. With my
B:8.625”
— what
I was given by God or whatever — that’s
the part
that intrigues me. I love dealing with the
T:8.125”
unknown.
S:7”That’s probably why I’m still farming.” CG
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C-78-02/14-10168062-E
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
34 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
business
“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
country-guide.ca 35
BUSINESS
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.
36 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
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 proMARCH 31, 2014
BUSINESS
duce 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 KitchenerWaterloo 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 farm-
ers. 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
Continued on page 38
If only you could bottle peace of mind.
Done.
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business
Continued from page 37
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 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
However you define it, Canadian chefs say local
will be the biggest food trend again in 2014
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 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.
38 country-guide.ca 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.
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 Waterloo-area
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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2014-01-08 4:39 PM
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 ser40 country-guide.ca vice. Just as you are limited by equipment, weather
and finances on the 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.
March 31, 2014
BUSINESS
Recognizing a problem is the first step to solving it
N
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.
— Sanya Friedman
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 farmers 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.
Continued on page 42
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DEERFOOT INN & CASINO • CALGARY, ALBERTA • MONDAY APRIL 28 , TUESDAY APRIL 29 , 2014
MARCH 31, 2014
country-guide.ca 41
business
Continued from page 41
We cannot solve our problems with the same
thinking we used when we created them
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
— Albert Einstein
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,”
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
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PERFORMANCE.
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42 country-guide.ca MARCH 31, 2014
business
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 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 co-operatively
rather than competitively. CG
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MARCH 31, 2014
country-guide.ca 43
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-
44 country-guide.ca 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
business
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 45
Production
grainworld
Grim and grimmer
Few bright spots to be seen during annual
GrainWorld market outlook conference
By Richard Kamchen
iminished returns will swing acres
to crops that haven’t received
nearly as much attention as wheat
and canola in recent years, experts
predicted at this year’s GrainWorld
market outlook conference in Winnipeg.
Pulses and special crops are especially likely to
benefit from anticipated swings. “Farmers are looking for alternatives to wheat right now,” said ProFarmer Canada analyst Mike Jubinville.
Jonathon Driedger, risk management portfolio
manager for FarmLink Marketing Solutions, forecast
2014 pea acres to reach 3.7 million acres versus 3.29
million a year ago; lentils at 2.7 million acres versus
2.4 million; chickpeas 205,000 acres versus 180,000;
and edible beans 325,000 acres versus 249,000.
Farmer and grain broker David Katernynch said
peas have been a success story for farmers, and noted
producers often make their crop decisions based on
the year before, not the year ahead. He added that
every day that fertilizer prices go up, peas look more
attractive.
Going into next fall, sales off of farmers’ combines won’t be as swift as they were a year ago since
elevators will likely remain full, Katernynch said.
He recommended selling new-crop peas now, unless
you’re betting on weather issues.
Greg Simpson, president and CEO of Simpson
Seeds, actually saw 2014 lentil area reaching 2.85
million acres, for a 2.18 million-tonne crop. But
even a three million-acre crop would be fine as the
demand is there, he said, predicting a low stocks-touse of ratio of 9.93 per cent.
Jubinville said there’s no shortage of supplies on
the Canadian chickpea market and he felt carryout
could prove mildly burdensome. He predicted a
longer-term soft trading environment for the crop.
For special crops, Driedger pegged 2014 area for
mustard at 375,000 acres versus 365,000 a year ago;
canary seed at 350,000 acres versus 210,000; and
sunflowers at 150,000 acres versus 70,000.
Jubinville said mustard is one of the more attractive options out there and he believed carryout could
tighten as the U.S. and Europe remain key buyers.
Demand is stable and stocks aren’t high, but he
still recommended being 50 to 75 per cent forward
priced to establish a guaranteed margin.
46 country-guide.ca Farmer and journalist Kevin Hursh worried about
too many farmers possibly growing canary seed,
pointing out that while it’s proven easier to move and
perhaps an attractive option for dissatisfied durum
producers, it’s a crop that’s easy to overproduce.
Driedger added summerfallow could rise 750,000
acres in 2014 to five million. He predicted a greater
proportion of marginal land may remain unplanted,
unlike last spring, since the profit incentive is no longer there to plant fencepost to fencepost.
Wheat takes a hit
What a difference a year can make. Farmers
couldn’t plant enough wheat last spring and ended
up with massive yields and bin-busting crops. But a
tough year has farmers rethinking their spring intentions this year.
Driedger pegged non-durum wheat acres in 2014
at 18.5 million, down from 21.05 million in 2013.
Dean O’Harris, commodities manager with Parrish & Heimbecker, expected Western Canadian
wheat production to drop to 29.7 million tonnes in
2014-15 from 37.53 million last year. Interestingly, he
estimated carryout wouldn’t fall by the same degree,
declining to only 9.6 million from 11.5 million. And
although the stocks-to-use ratio will fall seven percentage points to 30 per cent, that’s still high.
Harris felt the only way to get out from under
large Canadian carryout might be a drought. When
he’s asked by farmers why isn’t the problem solved
by exporting more wheat, he answers the rail transportation system has proven it can’t handle it, at
least for now. It could take two years to improve
the bearish trend in wheat markets, he added. Not
improving things are likely growing wheat exports
out of the Black Sea. The region will undercut world
markets. The region has a resistance to carrying
wheat, preferring instead to grow it and shove it into
the market to generate much-needed cash. Not only
is there no reason for this practice to change, but
Harris expected it to grow in the future.
Durum’s outlook is fairly depressing too.
Driedger put 2014 acreage at 4.8 million acres,
down from nearly 5.0 million in 2013, and Harris
anticipated 2014-15 durum production falling 1.5
million tonnes to 5.0 million. But carryout may only
decline 500,000 tonnes to 1.7 million, with stocksMarch 31, 2014
production
to-use down only nine percentage points to 31 per
cent, Harris added.
John Griffith, senior durum merchandiser with
CHS Inc., said the world is still living with burdensome world supplies, and even with output in
durum-growing countries projected to decline, closing global stocks will remain high at 6.8 million
tonnes. Without significant weather impacts, he
didn’t expect price spikes, but rather more of a flat
price trade.
Canola still a darling
Driedger is pegging 2014 canola area to rise
slightly to 21 million acres from 19.9 million a year
ago, and Tracy Lussier, manager of canola trading
for Louis Dreyfus Commodities, said acres could rise
at the expense of oats and barley. His estimate was
actually slightly higher at 21.5 million acres.
Despite a meltdown in canola futures, farmers will
still see canola has good value versus wheat, and producers respond to price signals, Lussier said. Canola
genetics continue to improve, creating better yields,
and giving producers more confidence to grow it. Using
five-year trend yields, Lussier predicted 2014-15 canola
production of 16.73 million tonnes, a decline from the
massively yielding crop of 18.31 million last year.
Demand remains very strong for Canadian
canola, but logistical constraints have limited selling
opportunities, Lussier said. That in turn will prevent
stocks from returning to trend levels. Lussier pointed
out the forecast 2013-14 exports of 8.32 million
tonnes is underwhelming, given record production,
and would be higher without the railway log-jam.
Logistics have also held back the crush, which might
have been 500,000 tonnes higher than the estimated
7.31 million in 2013-14 without those problems.
“Crush plants would be crushing at maximum
capacity if they could move product in a timely manner,” Lussier said, adding new capacity could see the
2015-16 crush potentially exceed 10 million tonnes,
assuming this year’s rail difficulties aren’t repeated.
Despite the declining projected output in 201415, Lussier anticipated canola stocks would grow to
19.74 million tonnes, up from nearly 18.87 million
in 2013-14.
Flax, soybeans, barley
Flaxseed might see a bump in acres this spring,
with Driedger anticipating 1.375 million planted
acres, versus 1.035 million a year ago.
Michelle Vandevoorde, commercial manager of
ADM North American Oilseed Processing, said she
expected strong growth in flaxseed consumption for
edible and feed use. While Eastern European production is a proven origin and likely will be maintained
for the foreseeable future, Vandevoorde said global
demand for Canadian flaxseed remains strong. She
added Canadian stocks-to-use continues to be very
low and she’s very bullish long-term.
March 31, 2014
“Farmers are
looking for
alternatives
to wheat right
now.”
— Mike Jubinville,
ProFarmer Canada
Soybeans are growing in popularity among farmers, and Driedger said Canadian acreage for the crop
could rise to 4.85 million acres from 4.52 million.
He forecast Manitoba soybean acreage to reach a
new record high of 1.3 million acres in 2014, up
from 1.05 million in 2013. Saskatchewan, too, will
see continued growth, with soy acreage there climbing to between 250,000 and 300,000 acres, versus
170,000 a year ago, Driedger said.
But the story is much different in barley. Driedger
saw barley area falling to 6.6 million acres from
about 7.1 million a year ago.
Jim Beusekom, owner of Market Place Commodities, believed logistics problems would likely
get worse during the spring thaw. He anticipated
periodic good demand for feed barley, and added
demand from the U.S. for feed barley and feed
wheat could ease the supply push, if logistics
allowed movement. He also expected growth in the
cow/calf business in Alberta, which in turn should
lead to growth in the feedlot business. Domestic
barley demand is strong, even though a lot of feed
usage is switching to wheat.
But longer-term, the bearish scenario in U.S. corn
will cap values. The lower Canadian dollar, however, at some point must become a bullish factor.
He advised farmers to either get paid to store their
crop or sell it. If weather market premiums pop up in
spring/summer 2014, sell it — don’t confuse it for a
price trend change.
“Weather markets are just around the corner
Continued on page 48
country-guide.ca 47
Production
Continued from page 47
and will create market opportunities,” Beusekom
said. Barley could be an interesting bet for some,
Beusekom added: “It’s not a bad idea to grow a crop
that no one really is excited about growing.”
Oats’ perfect storm
Oat acres could be on the rise this spring, possibly expanding to 3.5 million, up from nearly 3.17
million in 2013, according to Driedger. He said oats
interest is up among growers as it’s a cheaper cereal
to plant and is a hardy crop, and could end up taking away some wheat acres.
More oats is about the last thing oats guru
Randy Strychar wants to think about. A 10 per cent
increase, say, could make ending stocks unmanageable for three to five years, said the president of Ag
Commodity Research, who has watched the cash
trade grind down to a trickle.
Western Canada’s rail log-jam hit the oats
industry particularly hard this year, helping create
the most dysfunctional market Strychar has seen
in 35 years. A perfect storm befell the industry
thanks to a record Prairie grains and oilseeds crop
— including a surprisingly significant increase in
oats production — massive wheat sales from new
grain companies that emerged following the CWB’s
monopoly dismantling, record movement of crude
oil by rail, and a severe winter.
Everyone is scrambling for a solution to the
“Crush plants would
be crushing at
maximum capacity
if they could move
product in a timely
manner.”
— Tracy Lussier,
Louis Dreyfus
Commodities
48 country-guide.ca logistics catastrophe, but Strychar doubted the
railways’ assurances that they would ramp up
car availability to take grain to port until at least
December 2014 would help Prairie oat growers
much. He felt railcar priority will be on Vancouver,
not U.S. oat mills. Why? For one thing, elevation
to the West Coast provides grain companies double
the profits — two elevations — plus demurrage at
Vancouver is costing $10,000 a day. But he pointed
out that if a U.S. oat mill is shut down because it
can’t access Canadian oats, those fees will look like
small change by comparison.
“Unless there’s a secret supply of oats somewhere that I’m unaware of, there are no oats past
April for these (U.S.) millers to purchase from
Canada,” Strychar said.
The future isn’t any less troubling. The railways
are forecasting crude oil movement to double in
2015 and Agriculture Canada is forecasting grain
and oilseeds exports to jump from 41.7 million
tonnes to 44 million in 2013-14. Next crop year,
they’re seen reaching nearly 44.5 million tonnes.
“That’s a problem that’s going to be here for
a long, long time. And not just in the oat market,
for other commodities too. You’re jumping from
an ending stock for all principal field crops of 9.45
million to 23.5 million and 21 million. That’s a lot
of grain to be storing,” Strychar said.
Pressure on the system will only intensify as
food demand rises. The FAO claims world cereals
production needs to increase by 940 million tonnes
to three billion and oilcrops by 133 million tonnes
to 282 million by 2050 to meet anticipated global
good demand.
“If we want to maintain our market share right
now in grains and oilseeds exports, we’re going to
have to increase our exports by 18 million tonnes.
We’re doing about 44 million tonnes annually
(now). Somebody better start building rail lines…
We’ve got a lot of thinking to do down the road,
and I don’t hear a lot of that talk in the industry or
from the government.”
Even if the FAO is way off and those figures
only prove to be half as great, it’s still a lot of
grain. “We’re struggling right now,” he said. “We
can see the train wreck coming, it just hasn’t hit
yet,” said Strychar.
Strychar also wondered about the future of
CBOT oats futures, as the market has become too
dysfunctional. If it dies, that creates an unenviable
situation for farmers as oats perhaps become almost
exclusively contracted. Millers are infamously picky
about specs, which could leave farmers with severely
limited opportunities if they don’t meet those
demands given disappearing feed markets.
If there are any future bright spots, it’s free trade
in Europe, which would open a huge demand market for oats, a boon for the Prairies as “we’re really
good at growing oats.” CG
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.
June 22-25, 2014
•
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•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Winnipeg Convention Centre
Winnipeg, Manitoba
•
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WCCa6.org
Register today at www.wcca6.org.
•
•
•
Production
grainworld
Wheat pipeline
KVD removal generates new wheat and durum varieties
By Richard Kamchen
odd Hyra likes the future of
Prairie wheat and durum,
and thinks farmers can
thank Ottawa’s ending of
Kernel Visual Distinguishability for the new varieties that will
carry the traits they’re looking for.
“With the removal of KVD in 2008,
we saw a move forward for high-yielding,
general purpose products,” says SeCan’s
Western Canada business manager.
KVD was the requirement that varieties not only functionally meet a wheat
class’s parameters, but also have an
identifiable visual appearance to prevent surreptitious substitutions. It’s been
replaced by a system of farmer declarations that are legally binding.
Hyra told the annual GrainWorld
market outlook conference in Winnipeg
that farmers are telling breeders to worry
less about quality aspects, that they want
animal feed and feed stocks for ethanol plants. One of the responses to that
demand is SeCan’s Pasteur, a high-yielding, general purpose wheat that’s demonstrated very good lodging resistance and a
fair resistance to fusarium head blight as
well. SeCan represents about half of the
wheat acreage in Western Canada.
“Pasteur is one of the first products
to come through that, and without the
removal of KVD, that would not have
happened,” says Hyra. “This looks like
a Hard Red Spring wheat, but this one
yields anywhere from 20 to 40 per cent
higher than your typical CWRS. The
catch? It’s seven days later. So it’s not a
fit for everybody.”
It also offers very short, strong straw,
ideal for high-production agriculture.
Hyra said over a third of the acres
in Saskatchewan have shifted over to
midge-tolerant wheat, with solid-stem
varieties in southern Saskatchewan a
mainstay going back to 2006. AC Lillian, a CWRS variety from SeCan, is a
major player in that marketplace.
“But the products with short, strong
50 country-guide.ca straw have become the expectation
in other markets, like Manitoba and
Alberta,” Hyra says. “And we’re also
seeing the first really, really, high-yielding, game-changing products, from a
general purpose point of view, that were
bred for the feed and ethanol markets.”
He noted AC Carberry has been
the seed of choice for many Manitoba
growers because it’s a very short, very
strong straw and offers fast, efficient
harvest.
“The highest-yielding products in
our lineup are much further down the
list and represent less than one per cent
of the total market share,” Hyra says.
“So the highest-yielding products from
the SeCan lineup within seed Manitoba and Saskatchewan aren’t necessarily the ones growers are choosing.
They’re choosing fast, efficient harvest.
And that’s an important shift that we’ve
seen. We’ve seen it in canola, and we’re
going to see more of that in wheat as
we go forward.”
Harvest efficiency is becoming more
and more important to growers as acres
grow and equipment gets larger, he said.
The challenge for wheat breeders has
been to bring height down while trying
to put all the traits into one package, a
trend Hyra says will only accelerate.
Another CWRS, AC Brandon, was
bred by Agriculture Canada in Swift
Current, and will launch in 2015. It
offers a five per cent yield bump over
Carberry, but still offers the same short,
strong straw.
“What we want to do is try and
move some of the other traits like solid
stem and midge tolerance into these
types of products. That’s a ways off.
But AC Brandon is one of those first
ones that will continue to be a major
player in CWRS,” says Hyra.
The product that’s going to have a
shorter and stronger straw than that is
a CPS wheat, also bred in Swift Current,
which is now registered as AAC Penhold.
“With the removal
of KVD in 2008,
we saw a move
forward for highyielding, general
purpose products.”
— Todd Hyra,
SeCan
“This is one of those products that
I think will start to lead a shift in what
we’re growing across the Prairies from
a wheat perspective,” Hyra says. “This
is a milling wheat that’s registered as a
CPS. It’s a shorter, stronger straw than
something like Carberry, and has something like a 10 per cent yield bump over
Carberry.”
Compared to 5700 PR, which is
grown fairly widely across Alberta, Penhold showed about a six per cent yield
increase over that traditional CPS type.
The key that will make it move east is
its fusarium rating. It has an MR rating
to fusarium, which should expand the
March 31, 2014
production
market into Manitoba, “something we
really haven’t seen since the onslaught
of fusarium in the last 20 years.”
It will be released to customers of
certified seed in 2016.
HY1610 was supported for registration at the same time as AAC Penhold.
Bred by Agriculture Canada in Winnipeg, it’s a midge-tolerant CPS wheat.
And after three years of testing, it outyielded 5700 PR by 19 per cent.
“It’s taller, not quite as strong a
straw as AAC Penhold, but offers midge
tolerance,” Hyra says. “This one I see
moving out of Alberta and moving east,
into the heavy midge pressures of north
eastern Saskatchewan.”
It also has a fair rating for fusarium,
and improved lodging over many of
the CWRS options that are available in
the midge-tolerant category right now.
“So, another exciting opportunity to
make CPS a bigger piece of the puzzle
in Western Canada,” Hyra says.
Hyra also predicted a couple of additional “game-changers” for durum.
One is AAC Raymore, the first solidstem durum that will be available to
Canada. It yields about the same as
B:8.625” with protection
SeCan’s AC Strongfield,
against sawflies. T:8.125”
“For a grower in
S:7”southern Saskatchewan who has faced sawfly damage
in mid-to-late 2000s, this is a game
changer,” Hyra says. “We’re in a low
cycle of sawfly now, but as that turns
around, this’ll be an important product in the future of durum production
in the southern Prairies in terms of
protecting the yield from losses due to
sawfly.”
Another product is AAC Marchwell,
Western Canada’s first midge-tolerant
durum, which has similar agronomic
characteristics to Strongfield.
“We’ve got our first conventional
stack of insect-tolerance in Western Canada in durum. We’ve got a solid-stem
and we have a midge-tolerant variety put
together, and this will be available for
2016,” says Hyra. CG
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PRODUCTION
Insect outlook
Spring is just around the
corner, and Prairie farmers
will soon be battling hungry
pests again
By Richard Kamchen
he lingering snow outside your window
may suggest otherwise, but spring is
right around the corner, and with that
comes insect issues farmers should be
aware of.
The single biggest thing that will affect insect
populations is spring weather. Cool, wet conditions best slow those crop-munching pests, says
Saskatchewan’s provincial insect specialist Scott
Hartley.
While snow cover can have an effect on overwintering insects because it provides soil insulation,
Hartley says there’s rarely great reduction of insects
in the soil, and not even flea beetles in shelterbelts or
in vegetative debris take much of a hit in a typical
winter. Prairie insects have proven hardy and resilient even after harsher winters.
Looking ahead, Hartley suggests flea beetles may
cause Saskatchewan farmers varying levels of consternation: “We can say numbers were higher in the
fall, [which] gives us an indication that there could
be a higher risk for flea beetles.”
The news is a bit better for bertha armyworm,
and the province may be at the end of its latest outbreak. “Although there may be a few spots that still
experience economic threshold numbers for bertha
armyworms, we expect it to be on the decline in
2014,” says Hartley.
The risk from grasshoppers overall also appears
low. Last fall’s survey showed fairly low numbers
except for a few areas like farther north, which typi52 country-guide.ca
cally doesn’t have significant grasshopper populations.
Nevertheless, the extended fall would have benefitted
grasshoppers, and the survey revealed larger numbers
in southwestern Saskatchewan.
The forecast for the perennial pest wheat midge,
though, calls for high numbers in the east, central
and southeast areas of the province. Good moisture
conditions in the southwest also favour an upswing
in wheat midge populations there, although the biggest risk remains the eastern half of Saskatchewan.
Cabbage seedpod weevils could also prove to be
problematic and canola growers need to be aware.
More were found in 2013 than ever before, and
while the southwest Saskatchewan region is still
the highest risk area, south-central parts too will
likely be high-risk. There’s a growing presence in the
southeast, and the insect is moving into the north,
Hartley notes.
Alberta farmers will be coping with a number of
the same insects as Saskatchewan.
The province forecasts the wheat midge risk to
generally decrease in southern Alberta, but increase
significantly in the eastern Peace region.
“Midge is relatively new into the Peace, and it
just seems the population has exploded up there,”
says Scott Meers, Alberta Agriculture’s insect management specialist. “Part of it is driven by weather
and crop development time, so as the crop gets
delayed, the midge tends to cause more trouble with
it. That’s what we saw in the Peace area (last year),
they had a lot of moisture and it delayed the crop.”
MARCH 31, 2014
production
Once midge is established, it’s likely it won’t ever
completely disappear, Alberta Ag notes.
Areas that had high bertha armyworm numbers
for the first time in the current outbreak during
2013 will likely continue to have problems with
the insect this year. But given the amount of disease around, it’s possible, especially in favourable
weather conditions, we could see a complete collapse of the bertha armyworm population in central Alberta this year.
“There wasn’t as much spraying this past year,
so that’s an indication that the population has run
its course,” Meers says. “We’re seeing a lot of diseased and parasitized bertha armyworm as well, so
we expect it’s probably collapsing in north-central
and south-central Alberta. We may have another
year or so.”
The range of cabbage seedpod weevil economic
levels didn’t expand in 2013, but the insect was
observed pushing farther north, to the southern
boundaries of Red Deer, Stettler, Paintearth and
Provost counties. Whether or not the expansion
persists will be something to watch for, the department cautions.
“Generally, we always said south of Highway
One, but now those counties that touch Highway
One, we’ve been seeing them spraying,” says Meers.
“It’s a slow expansion into central Alberta, but
nothing extreme in the range expansion.”
The risk of grasshoppers will likely depend on
where you’re farming, with economically significant
population risks rising in some areas and remaining
stable in others.
Says Meers, “It’s very location-specific. We
do have some hot spots in the Peace and central
Alberta. Southern Alberta is generally fairly low,
but there are some signs of buildup too. It’s kind
of a hodgepodge across the province; no real areawide outbreaks.”
High populations also persist in northeastern
Alberta.
A potentially important insect for Alberta in
2014 could be the pea leaf weevil.
“The damage was lower in 2013, so it’s harder to
read, but it had made an inroad into south-central
Alberta. Really, though, south of Highway One is
where we’ve had some real trouble with it, and that
hasn’t changed much,” says Meers.
Spring weather has a major impact on the timing and severity of pea leaf weevil damage. When
temperatures persist above 20 C for more than a
few days in late April or May, the pea leaf weevils arrive in fields early, which typically results in
higher yield losses.
In Manitoba, grasshoppers, flea beetles, cutworms and bertha armyworms are the insects farmers should be aware of going into the 2014 growing
season, says the province’s extension entomologist
John Gavloski.
March 31, 2014
“Whether they’re going to be an issue (this) season or not depends partially on populations the
previous year, but also on weather conditions and
natural enemies.”
Manitoba’s grasshopper population was higher
last year than the previous one, and if the province
gets a very warm, dry spring and summer, that could
help their populations continue to build, provided
natural enemies don’t start taking them out, Gavloski says.
But, if by chance, heavy rains fall as the grasshopper egg hatchings occur, that could take the
numbers down substantially, he adds.
“It’s really the timing of the rains that can affect
their population,” Gavloski explains. “Heavy rain
“We can say numbers were higher in the fall, (which) gives us an indication that there could
be a higher risk for flea beetles.”
— Scott Hartley,
Saskatchewan Agriculture
in May before the eggs have hatched won’t really
do anything to the grasshopper population; they can
survive in flooded fields. But once the eggs hatch,
they’re very vulnerable to excessive moisture.”
Also, later in the season, if conditions are damp
for prolonged periods, there’s a fungus that can
build up in the population that could cut numbers
as well.
For flea beetles, high fall populations don’t necessarily mean high spring population, but there is a
higher risk of that happening, says Gavloski.
He notes cutworm populations are vulnerable
to heavy rain in May and June. Besides causing disease issues, very wet soil can force them out of the
ground or higher up in the soil, making them more
vulnerable to predation.
“Most of the insects we’re concerned about
don’t do well if there’s a lot of cool, wetter
weather. For some of them, like flea beetles, if we
have a cooler spring, it means they’ll be less active
— they won’t feed as aggressively.”
In the case of bertha armyworms, there have
been no outbreaks in recent years, although numbers have been higher in localized areas, which
required spraying. In their larval stage, they’re very
prone to disease, and very damp weather during
that period can make them more susceptible to
pathogenic fungi. Viruses can also decrease their
numbers. There are also a couple of parasites that
are very effective against bertha armyworms, and
these more or less regulate their populations. CG
country-guide.ca 53
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
Wireworm Control Brands
Active
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Imidacloprid
4
Seed
Cruiser 350 FS
Thiamethoxam
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Cruiser 5 FS
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Thiamethoxam
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Thiamethoxam
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Thiamethoxam
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Gaucho 480 FL
Imidacloprid
4
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Nipsit Inside 600 Insecticide
Clothianidin
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Poncho 1250 Seed Treatment
Clothianidin
4
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Clothianidin
4
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Clothianidin
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Goucho 600
Imidacloprid
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Clothianidin
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Orthene 75 Systemic Insecticide
Acephate
1B
Soil
Pyrifos 15G Granular Insecticide
Chlorpyrifos
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Pyrinex 480 EC Insecticide
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Thimet 15G Lock’n Load
Phorate
1B
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Force 3G Insecticide
Tefluthrin
3
Soil
54 country-guide.ca 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:
[email protected].
Grow informed.
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march 31, 2014
country-guide.ca 55
PRODUCTION
Western Grains Research Foundation (WGRF) is a farmer-funded and -directed non-profit organization investing primarily in wheat
and barley variety development for the benefit of western Canadian producers. Through investments of more than $57 million, WGRF has
assisted in the development and release of more than 100 new wheat and barley varieties over the past decade and a half, many of which
are today seeded to large portions of the cropland in Western Canada. WGRF also invests in research on other western Canadian crops
through the endowment fund. In fact, since 1981 the WGRF endowment fund has supported a wealth of innovation across Western Canada,
providing over $26 million in funding for over 230 diverse research projects.
Wheat map
By Clare Stanfield
here’s a saying about how two heads are better
than one and, in essence, that’s the driving principle behind the Canadian Triticum Advancement
through Genomics (CTAG) project.
CTAG began in 2011 and is Canada’s contribution to an international effort to sequence the wheat genome,
which, as it turns out, is a very complex and not so little thing,
requiring many heads to unravel.
“The concept was to bring together the key wheat research
institutions in Western Canada so they’re more interconnected and
information is more easily shared,” says Curtis Pozniak, CTAG
project co-leader, plant breeder and associate professor at the University of Saskatchewan crop development centre.
At first glance, genome sequencing may seem a million miles
from your wheat field, but it’s not. While you may have grown a
wheat variety that was, say, resistant to stem rust, breeding specifically for that trait is difficult because researchers don’t know
exactly which gene confers rust resistance to the plant.
A sequenced wheat genome will allow plant breeders to be
International genome
sequencing project will
boost the efficiency of
wheat breeding
far more specific and efficient when it comes to selecting new
cultivars for development, says Pozniak. And that can only be
good for farmers who are already starting to see more virulent
diseases and hard-to-manage insect pests in their wheat crops.
All for one…
What makes CTAG different is its collaborative structure
that ensures everyone along the research chain, from lab to
field, is working toward specific agronomic goals. “The breeders are driving the objectives,” says Pozniak. “Breeders are in
tune with the needs of farmers, and those needs then drive the
basic research to ensure their application.”
This means that genomic scientists are solving problems that
breeders (and by extension, farmers) need solved, like finding
out what genes control disease resistance, or straw height, or
leaf size, for example.
“Fundamental research is so important to what we do,”
says Pozniak. “CTAG will ensure that the genomic technologies
developed are moving forward for validation and, ultimately,
going into farmers’ fields.” In a nutshell, the CTAG project
structure breaks down research silos to make sure that information and results are shared for better overall outcomes.
And although genome sequencing is an exciting technology, it
is but one of many tools in a plant breeder’s toolbox. Too often,
says Pozniak, it’s talked about in isolation — as if it’s a supertechnology that will, in and of itself, lead to better wheat variet-
“Having access to the DNA
sequence of wheat is like
having access to a blueprint,
and once you understand
that blueprint, the hope is
to make better breeding
decisions.”
— Curtis Pozniak,
University of Saskatchewan
56 country-guide.ca
MARCH 31, 2014
WGRF E
PRODUCTION
ies. “But in reality, it’s just one tool of
many in an integrated toolbox,” he says.
“Having access to the DNA sequence
of wheat is like having access to a blueprint, and once you understand that blueprint, the hope is to make better breeding
decisions,” Pozniak explains. “Genome
sequencing is an unprecedented tool. With
it, we can see how the wheat blueprint is
organized and, in combination with other
technologies, like double haploidy, it can
lead to more efficient selection strategies.
So on its own, genome sequencing is very
valuable, but when you put it in the toolbox, it becomes very powerful.”
Thinking globally
Through CTAG, Canada is one of 20
countries that make up the International
Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium
(IWGSC). Pozniak says this international
component is key to CTAG’s overall success. “Being able to contribute to the
IWGSC, our research team benefits by
accessing the knowledge generated by
all other members of the international
effort,” he says.
CTAG’s main charge is to sequence
the 1A chromosome of wheat. To put
that in perspective, the wheat genome
is five times larger than the human
genome. “It’s no small task because it’s
so huge,” says Pozniak.
“From the chromosomal sequencing
standpoint, it’s been very exciting. We’ve
nearly completed half of our sequencing
and we are on track to finish by 2015,”
Pozniak says. “Once the sequencing is
complete, however, much more research
work will still need to be done. There
are a lot of useful genes residing on chromosome 1A, such as genes for gluten
strength and disease resistance.”
The good news is that a genome
doesn’t have to be entirely sequenced
to be put to good use. Already through
CTAG and the IWGSC network, the
Crop Development Centre at the U of S
has made use of genes found on other
chromosomes that are being tackled by
researchers in other countries.
“We’re developing markers for the
wheat stem saw fly and leaf rust resistance,” says Pozniak. It’s hard to exagger-
ate the significance of this. With genetic
markers, plant breeders can see so much
more quickly which cultivars have potential to carry the desired trait and which
don’t. “Plant breeding is a long process
so anything we can do to increase the efficiency of that process is good.”
One of the many funders of CTAG is
the Western Grains Research Foundation
(WGRF), and for Pozniak, this contribution from a farmer-driven organization is
about so much more than dollars.
“WGRF funding is absolutely critical
to the success of this project,” Pozniak
says. “Among the research community
internationally, there is more realization that there has to be translation to
farmers’ fields. When CTAG was being
considered for funding, one of the key
considerations was producer buy-in.
“And as a plant breeder, I see myself
as being close to the farm, to what farmers need, and when you see your variety growing in someone’s field… it’s a
remarkable feeling. It was very important to me, personally, that producers
saw the value of this project.” CG
Cultivating Growth
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2013-09-12 8:34 AM
Production
Disease geometry
If all three sides of the disease triangle are
present, you could have trouble on your hands
in the coming growing season
By Richard Kamchen
t’s pretty much impossible to say in advance
exactly what crop diseases are going to be present in your fields this coming season — but you
can still have a solid idea of what to look for
when the time comes.
That’s because crop diseases are greatly influenced
by weather and history, and when these factors start
lining up, it’s time to start looking.
When forecasting the potential for crop disease,
plant pathologists use what they refer to as a “disease
triangle.” Side number one: Is the pathogen expected
to be there? Was it there in recent years, or was it there
last time the crop was grown? Side number two: What
crop is the farmer growing? What variety is it? What
disease(s) is it susceptible to, and does it have any disease resistance?
The third and perhaps most important side is
what the weather is going to be like, says Faye Dokken-Bouchard, Saskatchewan Agriculture’s plant disease specialist. Most plant diseases favour moist
conditions, so when there’s a year with excess rainfall, particularly during the crop’s most susceptible
growing stage, it raises the likelihood of disease.
Dokken-Bouchard adds when it comes to the crop
itself, tight rotations are another consideration, as the
practice heightens disease outbreak risks.
“That’s why crop rotation is the cornerstone of integrated pest management strategy,” she says. “The choice
of what crop you grow is what will determine what host
you have present, and how frequently you grew it in the
past will determine how much disease inoculum will be
present. If you’ve grown a lot of the same crop a number
of years, either in a row or with short breaks in between
— especially if you had a lot of disease incidents that
you were aware of in those years — then you know
there’s more disease inoculum likely to be present.”
Even if disease issues weren’t present or were at
low levels, every time that same crop is grown, the
disease inoculum builds.
One relief for Saskatchewan farmers is that 2013
wasn’t a huge disease year, mostly because the moisture
received arrived in a timely fashion conducive for crop
growth, not disease development. Disease prevention
management also contributed to outbreak suppression.
While there may be a reduction in disease inoculum
contributed from 2013, there was quite a bit of disease
in 2012, which could still carry over. In 2012, 91 per
58 country-guide.ca cent of the canola crops surveyed had sclerotinia, and
sclerotinia can last in the soil for around five years,
says Dokken-Bouchard.
“It’s good news there wasn’t as much disease last
year, but it doesn’t totally preclude the opportunity for
having more disease issues,” Dokken-Bouchard says.
Blackleg is another disease to watch for in canola,
with levels rising in recent years.
Cereal producers are also well aware of fusarium
head blight (FHB), which is widespread and can become
problematic in years when wet conditions arrive during
flowering. Moisture during harvest can also become an
issue for seed quality: not head blight-damaged kernels,
but the growth of fusarium on the seed, which downgrades its quality, Dokken-Bouchard says.
Ergot has risen every year, mainly because zero and
no till mean the ergot bodies may not be getting buried
deep enough, so they’re closer to the surface and able
to produce spores.
If Saskatchewan farmers growing pulses have experienced ascochyta, anthracnose or sclerotinia in recent
years, they should allow for a longer rotation to allow
those diseases to break down before growing that crop
again, Dokken-Bouchard recommends.
In Alberta, there seems to be more potential for
disease. Residue-borne diseases on cereal crops, such
as leaf spot disease and FHB, have been significant
for three or more years in a row in some cases, and
disease pressure continues building, says provincial
plant pathologist Mike Harding. Ergot also is building and getting worse each year.
Many areas of Alberta have also experienced saturated spring conditions three years in a row, which has
been conducive for clubroot to get established, cause
infections and spread. The province had a record number of new confirmed cases of clubroot in 2013.
Sclerotinia is routinely observed in the province
and is almost exclusively weather-driven — and it’s
probably going to be a significant player again in
2014, Harding believes.
Blackleg in canola is another concern, especially with
crop rotations likely becoming tighter this year. “It’s
certainly a case where we’ve had probably higher-thannormal disease levels for a couple years, maybe even
three in a row in many parts of the province. That indicates if we have conducive weather in 2014, there could
again be lots of disease problems,” says Harding.
March 31, 2014
PRODUCTION
Farmers should be scouting and scouting early for any of the diseases that could
possibly show up. Harding, however, cautions against fungicide application unless
economically beneficial.
“Fungicides are definitely an important tool for a lot of these diseases, but
fungicides will only really provide an economic benefit when there’s yield potential
being threatened by a significant disease
potential,” Harding says.
Fungicide timing is also critical, and
spraying too early or late will undermine
any potential economic return.
“Scout your crops and watch for the
condition where you’ve got yield potential and disease potential, and then get
that fungicide on during the application
window that’s going to protect your crop
against the yield loss,” Harding says.
Rotation of fungicides is also important, as are the rotations of both crops
and crop genetics, says Manitoba Agriculture plant pathologist Vikram Bisht.
Manitoba disease pressure was below
normal in 2013 in most cases, but farmers
didn’t escape completely, and there may
be carry-over issues this spring.
Higher levels of ergot downgraded
wheat samples in southwest Manitoba,
which received 150 per cent of typical
rainfall levels. “And (ergot) seems to be
trending upwards,” says Bisht.
Ergot incidence this year will greatly
depend upon the mid-season rain distribution.
FHB wasn’t significant last year and in
some cases was lower than normal. But
with corn acres trending higher every year,
there’s a possibility of higher levels of FHB
showing up in small-grain cereals, as ear rot
in corn is caused by the same fusarium species that causes FHB in wheat.
“It can be basically a combination of
“It’s good news there wasn’t as much
disease last year, but it doesn’t totally
preclude the opportunity for having
more disease issues.”
— Faye Dokken-Bouchard,
Saskatchewan Agriculture
two crops increasing the disease,” says
Bisht, who believes FHB in wheat and other
cereals could become a more serious issue.
Besides scouting — an early warning
system Bisht urges farmers undertake for
all their crops — producers should make
use of Manitoba Ag’s forecast reports to
help monitor for FHB risk and prepare for
timely fungicide application.
Further on corn, Goss’s wilt and leaf
blight disease has been increasing. It’s a bacterial disease that can survive very well in
the soil and has spread rapidly in the prov-
ince. Only one field was found in 2009,
but by 2011, 83 per cent of fields surveyed
showed the disease. It’s even more widespread now: “It is now an endemic problem
for us,” says Bisht.
As a bacterial disease, no fungicide is
effective against it, but there are a few varieties that are tolerant.
Besides corn, another crop growing in
popularity is soybeans, and as the industry asks itself how to get to two million
Continued on page 60
Trait Stewardship Responsibilities Notice to Farmers
Monsanto Company is a member of Excellence Through Stewardship® (ETS). Monsanto products are commercialized in
accordance with ETS Product Launch Stewardship Guidance, and in compliance with Monsanto’s Policy for Commercialization of
Biotechnology-Derived Plant Products in Commodity Crops. This product has been approved for import into key export markets
with functioning regulatory systems. Any crop or material produced from this product can only be exported to, or used, processed
or sold in countries where all necessary regulatory approvals have been granted. It is a violation of national and international law
to move material containing biotech traits across boundaries into nations where import is not permitted. Growers should talk to
their grain handler or product purchaser to confirm their buying position for this product. Excellence Through Stewardship® is a
registered trademark of Excellence Through Stewardship.
ALWAYS READ AND FOLLOW PESTICIDE LABEL DIRECTIONS. Roundup Ready® crops contain genes that confer tolerance
to glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup® brand agricultural herbicides. Roundup® brand agricultural herbicides will kill
crops that are not tolerant to glyphosate. Genuity and Design®, Genuity®, Monsanto and Vine Design®, Roundup Ready® and
Roundup® are trademarks of Monsanto Technology LLC, Monsanto Canada, Inc. licensee.
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MARCH 31, 2014
country-guide.ca 59
Production
field notes
Continued from page 59
planted acres, crop rotation concerns
become heightened.
“The crop is probably not going to stay
a Cinderella crop anymore. It will get more
diseases,” says Bisht.
Even when soybeans are grown in
rotation with canola, sunflowers or
beans, sclerotinia disease/white mould
can still become an issue because sclerotinia can infect all those crops and produce sclerotinia for the following season.
Outside soybean seed can introduce disease too, as seeds can carry disease from
one region to another. Another issue is Phytophthora stem and root rot, which was
more prevalent in soybeans in 2013 than
2012 and will remain an ongoing concern.
Soybean cyst nematode isn’t problematic yet, but with the deregulation of
federal prevention controls of the pest,
Bisht wonders how long it’ll take before
the cysts appear in Manitoba crops. It’s
present south of the border, and there’s
a risk of water dispersal into Manitoba.
In canola, blackleg incidents have
been rising since 2007, in spite of many
resistant varieties, as the fungus changes
in response to high selection pressure
and very tight crop rotations.
Clubroot reared its head in 2013, with
infected plants found in two fields and six
fields testing positive for clubroot pathogen DNA. While extremely low compared
to Alberta, where over 400 new fields
with infected plants were identified, Bisht
urges farmers to be extremely vigilant in
preventing the disease from becoming
more widespread. The disease spreads
with soil-laden equipment moved from
one field to another.
Unexpectedly, wheat streak mosaic
also had an impact on canola. How? In
the past, some winter wheat growers who
experienced poor survival cultivated their
fields and planted spring wheat. But when
some of those winter wheat seedlings survived, mites were able to spread the disease
from infected winter wheat to spring. And
when the spring wheat didn’t do well, it
too was cultivated, and canola planted in
its place. And in some cases, that resulted
in back-to-back canola.
“And so some of the canola had various kinds of root maggots and very high
levels of blackleg disease, the combination
of which reduce production,” says Bisht,
adding other disease too can emerge in
such cases because of the consecutive
canola seedings. CG
60 country-guide.ca Farm lender offers relief on rail backlog
AgCanada.com
Nobody’s surprised to find Prairie farmers in conflict with railways yet
again — after all they’re one of the farm community’s traditional mortal
enemies.
What is a bit more surprising is finding another natural enemy — a
banker — trying to ease the load a bit.
BMO Bank of Montreal plans to offer Prairie farmers a “relief program” including options for loan payment deferrals and other breaks in
view of the ongoing grain handling backlog.
“We want to provide immediate support to any grain producers and
other related businesses that may be experiencing cash-flow disruptions
as a result of the backlog, which can hamper their ability to finance crop
expenses for the upcoming season,” Steve Murphy, BMO’s senior vicepresident for commercial banking, said in a recent media release.
The relief program, available for the bank’s eligible “commercial customers” across the four western provinces, offers deferral of loan payments
and “flexible terms” on existing and new lines of credit for 2014 to be set
up on a “case-by-case basis.”
BMO said it would also offer a waiver of a new loan application and
“concessions” on renewal fees where needed.
BMO’s announcement follows a written plea from Saskatchewan Agriculture Minister Lyle Stewart to all financial institutions operating in that
province, asking for flexibility in their dealings with farmers.
“Last year’s record crop production is testing the limits of the grain
handling and transportation system and causing cash-flow concerns for
farmers,” Stewart said in a release Wednesday. “I encourage financial institutions to work with producers regarding cash-flow requirements and be
flexible with loan repayments.”
In the wake of the province’s record 38.4 million-tonne crop in 2013,
as well as severe winter weather and other “factors beyond their control,”
Saskatchewan growers “have been unable to ship much of this crop and are
now facing historically wide basis levels,” the government said.
Financial institutions were also asked to “proactively work with producers to review all of their financial options.”
BMO’s move also follows an announcement in January from federal
ag lender Farm Credit Canada that it would contact over 16,000 customers potentially impacted by delays in grain delivery to discuss “options to
address their individual needs.”
At the time, FCC also encouraged farmers who hadn’t done so to
consider applying to the federal Advance Payments Program (APP), the
financial loan guarantee program which offers producers repayable cash
advances. 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.
62 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
1can (28 oz.) no-salt-added tomatoes
with juice, coarsely chopped
2 cups vegetable stock
1 cup coconut milk
salt
1long 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 63
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.
64 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 65
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!”
66 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 67
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