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STAN JEEVES
GO TO
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BUILDING A PLAN
THAT WORKS PG. 26
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CONTENTS
SEPTEMBER 2014
BUSINESS
10
THE OTHER SIDE
12
THE OLD WORLD GOES NEW
16
WICKED PROBLEM
20
LOOKING FOR A SAFE BET
22
MAKE THE MOST FROM THE 2014 MARKET
30
WHEN GOOD DEEDS ARE GOOD BUSINESS
33
THE CONSUMER CONNECTION
35
GUIDE HR — MAKE A BETTER IMPRESSION
36
SUCCESSION SHOCK
38
GETTING THERE FROM HERE
42
IT’S ALL DIFFERENT NOW
44
SWEDE HAWK
46
GUIDE LEGAL — FIRING AN EMPLOYEE
62
GUIDE LIFE — TOO YOUNG, TOO OLD
Uh, maybe you’re too competitive, says new biz book.
In Germany, this man’s farm really is his (subsidized) castle.
There’s a reason farming’s problems are so hard to solve.
With grain markets down, where are the opportunities?
Our Errol Anderson tells us how to score on grain sales.
For farm groups, the hot new trend is giving to food charities.
Maybe the gap between consumers and farmers isn’t so big.
Use this science to make the people around you like you more.
64
66
More and more farmers like Saskatchewan’s Stan Jeeves
(above) and Manitoba’s Dale Gryba are bypassing the
textbooks to create their own marketing plans, with an
emphasis on practicality and dependability.
Succession is a journey, but don’t we still need a road map?
High land prices are driving innovation in land transfers.
Here’s why Väderstad builds corn planters in Saskatchewan.
Know the law before you tell that employee to take a hike.
Watch out! The generation gap is back with a vengeance.
PRODUCTION
47
JOIN THE CLUB
52
2014 HARVEST QUALITY
54
CUT CANOLA LATER, AND COMBINE SLOWER
GUIDE HEALTH
56
FARM DOLLARS MAKE THE DIFFERENCE
HANSON ACRES
Who’s going to fill in for Grandpa Ed? Hey, I know…
58
MORE VALUE FROM SHELTERBELTS
EVERY ISSUE
8
PG. 26 CHARTING A PROFIT
So you think your neighbours have already signed their plan?
MACHINERY GUIDE
Those tractors aren’t just bigger. They’re better too.
Nobody wants to talk about warts, but these cures work.
Alberta is winning its clubroot fight. Will Saskatchewan?
Cigi’s crop quality reports help keep wheat flowing.
Field losses can be managed. Jay Whetter tells us how.
WGRF funding ensures better cereal varieties.
That old shelterbelt does much more than break the wind.
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SEPTEMBER 2014
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Editor: Tom Button
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Tom Button is editor of Country Guide magazine
There will be a winner
If you take Canada’s inventory of
farm machinery and multiply its working
capacity times an average number of days
for seeding, spraying or harvesting, how
many acres will you top out at?
Can the average farm cover 20 per cent
more acres than it is actually farming? Or
50 per cent?
Certainly it’s more than five years ago.
This isn’t to say that excess capacity is
always bad. But even the machinery industry must agree that at some point, you
cross the line into overspend.
Of course, as I have complained in
past, our universities and our governments
really aren’t much help. As a farmer, you
can pretty easily leverage your checkoffs
to breed higher-yielding or more diseaseresistant crop varieties, but you can’t get a
publicly paid economist to work on issues
that actually matter to commerical farms.
Anyway, given the scarcity of meaningful economic research in Canada, take a
look at what you do know. Sit down for
a half-hour, either with pen and paper or
your notebook, and add up not only your
own capacity, but also the capacity of the
farms you know within, say, 15 or 20
miles of your home place.
Then compare that not only to the
number of acres that are being farmed
within that same radius, but also the
amount of land that is coming up for sale,
or that is available to new renters.
I keep coming back to the reporting
that associate editor Maggie Van Camp
6 country-guide.ca did just over a year ago into what happened to U.S. farmland prices the last time
commodity prices went through such a
steep dive as we’ve seen in 2014.
It was the 1980s, and of course, interest rates that were far higher than today.
Nevertheless, what Maggie found is that
farmland prices didn’t collapse with the
downturn in commodity prices.
In fact, U.S. researchers later documented a six-year lag between the drop in
grain values and any significant response
in land markets.
We’ll likely see the same in Canada this
time around. Who would rush now to cut
prices on large amounts of farmland? The
number of sales may go down, but not the
prices.
From the outside, you’d think it would
create stagnation. But the U.S. evidence
is that somehow the long-term trendlines
continued for agriculture overall. America’s farm sector evolved. There were winners. There were losers. And farm size
kept notching up.
The point is that there is a lot more
evolution going on than we can actually
see. Some farms are increasing their competitiveness. Others aren’t.
But the question I really don’t know
the answer to is, are the winners going to
be the farmers with equipment that will
cover 150 per cent of their current holdings, or those with 110 per cent?
Let me know what you think. I’m at
[email protected].
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Business Communications assume no responsibility for any actions or
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information provided.
September 2014
Machinery
By Ralph Pearce, CG Production Editor
The high-powered parade in tractor technology continues. With each year, more
manufacturers are rolling out more entries for this growing tractor segment. These
machines are bigger and more powerful, and they are more capable than ever before.
They work larger tracts of land, haul heavier loads and deliver on a longer list of heavyweight tasks all around the farm. Below we showcase three of the latest series and
models in the 325-horsepower and up category.
Whether you’re putting crop in the ground in the spring, or hauling it out of the field in
the fall, the tendency on farms all across Canada is “Go Big — so you can Go Home!”
8 country-guide.ca September 2014
Challenger MT800E Series Track Tractors 
Four models, four levels of engine horsepower and the company’s determination to provide unmatched power, performance and productivity
are the source of Challenger’s new MT800E series track tractors. With models ranging from 450 to 590 engine horsepower, the MT800E series
combines rugged performance with reliability. Challenger engineers custom designed these tractors for farm and field applications, including the
AGCO Power 16.8-litre diesel engines, featuring a compact design with two-stage turbochargers. Avoid downshifting or pulling an implement out
of the ground by generating more torque rise across a wider range of r.p.m.s. That means you can lug more through your fields and maximize
productivity. The Mobil-trac system and the patented oscillating mid-wheel undercarriage design means there’s superior ground contact yet less
compaction, plus a smoother ride and improved fuel efficiency. And when the workday becomes a “work-night,” the MT800E models provide
360-degree visibility, for clear sight lines and enhanced comfort.
www.challenger-ag.us
 Case IH Steiger 370 – 620 Tractors
Deutz-Fahr 1100 Series
There are a lot of words and terms to describe high horsepower
and superior performance. For Case IH, the only word you need to
know is Steiger. Awarded Machine of the Year, 2014 at Agrictechnica in Germany, the updated Steiger series provides efficient power,
unmatched four-wheel-drive adaptability, and loads of heavy-duty
capability. Together, they translate into increased productivity, so you
get more done with less. For four-wheel power, choose from 370-,
420- and 470-horsepower models. For heavy-duty action, the Steiger
580 HD and 620 HD tractors provide that added power to the ground
for those tough spots in the field, or when there’s a need for added
speed on the road. There’s even the choice of what the company calls
the industry’s largest available row-crop tires, or Case IH’s Quadtracstyle tracks, to spread the operating weight and reduce compaction.
The company also says it is the first to offer a suspended cab, stabilized from front to back and side to side, allowing you to work smarter
and in comfort, no matter the conditions.
Deutz-Fahr is working hard to establish itself in this higher-powered tractor class. The 1100 series is the biggest and most powerful
tractor Deutz-Fahr has ever built. There are three different models
in this series, but only the 11440 TTV fits into this large-scale class,
with maximum power of 300 to 408 hp. The 11440 comes with the
TTV continuously variable transmission, which offers infinitely variable speed from zero to 60 km/h. When it comes to operator comfort,
Deutz-Fahr provides the latest in ergonomics and easy operations.
There’s also a new console, new air conditioning system and a multifunctional MaxCom armrest, with an integrated infotainment system.
For improved traction in the field, the 11440 is also outfitted with a
new tire combination, including 2.3 metre-diameter size for the tops
in traction.
www.deutz-fahr.com/en-US/
www.caseih.com/en_us
September 2014
country-guide.ca 9
reviews
The other side
Competition isn’t everything, argues an
American author who is a ruthless competitor
in the race to get attention
By Andrew Allentuck
A Bigger Prize: How We Can Do Better Than The Competition
(Doubleday Canada, 2014, 391 pp.)
$32.95. t’s the bedrock of economics, and
it’s all about how you compete in
markets to sell at the best price
you can get, and to buy at the
lowest price you can pay.
Two centuries ago, Adam Smith
proved how this kind of self-interest creates advantages for entire economies.
It’s the subject of his The Wealth of
Nations, and we’ve trusted and relied on
Smith’s Invisible Hand ever since.
But, did Smith get it wrong?
That’s the breathtaking assertion of Margaret Heffernan’s A Bigger Prize: How We
Can Do Better Than the Competition.
On the surface, Heffernan’s book is a
collection of anti-capitalist slogans from
the occupy movement.
At that level, Heffernan’s rant seems
outlandish, but her book has a provocative foundation.
After all, robber baron capitalism
is controlled or illegal, thank heavens.
Stealing from the poor to support the
rich is out of fashion. It’s not allowed,
save for unprosecuted misdeeds on Wall
Street. The question is therefore — what
lessons can we, and especially farmers, get from a book that takes a stand
against the concept of competition?
Heffernan’s pitch is that we should
co-operate instead.
If that sounds simplistic, maybe you
should give her a chance to make her case.
Heffernan is a columnist for the Huffington Post and she is also a relentless
self-promoter, but she musters evidence to
support her plea for co-operation. It isn’t
all that difficult, it turns out, to cite some
stunning flops as examples of worst-case
outcomes of competition.
For instance, a major global management consultancy advocated forcing
employees already hired and working
10 country-guide.ca By Margaret Heffernan
within companies to compete for their
jobs once a year.
As a way of injecting competition
into a company, it made perfect sense.
But of the companies that implemented
the idea, one-third went up in smoke, 18
per cent turned in disappointing results,
and 16 per cent underperformed by
some measures.
So, is the idea then that you need
competition between farms, but co-operation within the farm itself?
Maybe. But haven’t generations
of farmers kindled a bit of competition between their children or between
employees to see who will rise to the top?
Heffernan’s argument for trashing
competition is too brief and broad, but
her basic idea is that co-operation is not
the only opposite of competition. So is
non-competition.
Let’s see what Heffernan’s core idea
of co-operation offers agriculture. She
mentions the cranberry business in
Maine and says that they are grown only
in the U.S. In fact, Canada is the world’s
second-largest producer of the bitter
fruit. She likes the idea that the cranberry folks in Maine support common
research and marketing. What does that
imply for other business?
Charges of anti-competitive marketing practices are often levelled against
Canada’s marketing boards. But are
those boards also co-operative in the
best meaning of that phrase?
Canadian cheese producers’ business,
which is ringfenced by high tariffs against
foreign cheese, would shrivel if they had
to compete directly against the world’s big
cheese makers. Now look at the opposite
case. Canada has no tariffs against foreign
grapefruit because we have no citrus industry. So an orange or a lemon in Toronto
often costs less than those in Cleveland.
The free market works in the lemon biz in
Canada because government price controls
are absent.
On the other hand, when players in
an industry collaborate to jack up or to
maintain prices, to limit who can sell their
goods, who can work and to set retail
prices, then entities like the U.S. Federal
Trade Commission and Canada’s Competition Bureau go to work. Price fixing (called Resale Price Maintenance in
Canada) and refusal to deal is illegal in
almost every established market except
those protected by marketing boards or
for products sheltered by tariffs.
A Bigger Prize is valuable for provocation. It makes you think about what
should be regulated, what not.
In the end, the co-operative model
works for undifferentiated products
like fruit, which indeed does have a
lot of grower co-operatives, and fails
for branded goods like cars and other
manufactured or value-added products.
It comes down to differentiation. If a
grower can produce premium sausages,
they have a good chance of getting more
than market price for their pork.
There are many attempts in agriculture to add value in specialty grains like
spelts, heritage tomatoes and apples, and
even milk-based products that are not
directly board regulated.
And it’s true. When I shop, I want
choice and difference. That takes
competition. CG
September 2014
Runs on results not theory
The New 9R/9RT Series Tractors are ready for anything
Power and effciency are what defne the new 9R/9RT Series. Start with a
new 620-engine hp 9R model and a 10-engine horsepower increase across
all models. Then add the FT4 engine technology, and regardless of which
of the 16 models you choose, you have plenty of get-up-and-go with less
fuid consumption. The new industry-exclusive HydraCushion Suspension,
available on wheeled models, helps mitigate power hop and road lope. The
9 family also has the new CommandView™ III Cab which has more space,
visibility, and convenience than our previous cab. It also features the new
CommandARM™ and CommandCenter Display designed to improve effciency
and give real-time insight into daily operations and machine performance.
We’re still not done. The new e18™ Transmission, increased hydraulic capacity
(up to 115 gpm), and an LED lighting package add to the list of impressive
features. Visit your John Deere dealer today and sit behind the wheel of the
new 9R/9RT Series because Nothing Runs Like A Deere™.
JohnDeere.ca
business
new
any Canadian family farms
proudly display a “century farm”
plaque at their front gates, signifying at least 100 years of uninterrupted family ownership. But
as impressive as that may be, 100 years hardly registers on the European scale. The Graf family of North
Rhine-Westphalia, a province in northern Germany,
can trace its ownership back to 1340.
Nor is that their biggest difference from just
about any farm in Canada.
Behind the farm’s castle (yes, a real castle), a
phalanx of 350-plus-year-old buildings encloses a
square, paved courtyard. The buildings include the
current manager’s residence, which once housed the
many labourers required to keep a non-mechanized
farm operating. “The buildings are from 1746,” says
Farm manager
Maximilian von Laer
(l) and assistant
manager
Björn Wiggen spend
nearly as much time
managing the
farm’s heritage
buildings as working
on its crops.
12 country-guide.ca In Germany, this man’s
farm really is his castle,
bristling with electronics
and shrouded in subsidies
and regulations
By Scott Garvey, CG Machinery Editor
farm manager Maximilian von Laer through a translator, as he stands near his front door.
Taking care of those old buildings is a job in
itself. “One-third of my time is spent on building
management,” von Laer says.
On the outside, all the buildings retain much of
their original appearance and look like they could
be a movie set, if it wasn’t for the modern equipment
parked in front of them. Most of the structures on
the farm are designated historical buildings, with
strict regulations in place governing their use.
That means changes can only be made to them
with prior government approval. “You have to ask
them and it takes a lot of time,” von Laer explains.
But time isn’t the only cost. While about five per cent
of historical building maintenance expenses are paid
by the German government, when you consider the
property has 12.5 acres of roofs alone (some of them
thatched), the overall costs are significant.
Working within a framework of strict regulations
is nothing new for von Laer — or other farmers in
Germany. Signing on to accept EU government agricultural subsidies means agreeing to comply with a
long list of standards for such things as chemical and
fuel storage, which are subject to periodic inspections.
The Graf farm is the largest operation in North
Rhine-Westphalia, with about 3,700 acres of cropland under its control. (Of that, 95 per cent of it is
directly owned.) The farm also manages about 8,600
acres of woodlot.
It takes some travelling to get to all that real estate.
Fields are spread out over what used to be five separate
farms, four of which have been added to the Graf holdings during the last 20 years. The farthest is 54 kilometres away from the castle. In all, there are 130 individual
fields with an average size of about 30 acres each.
September 2014
Photos: Scott Garvey
The old
world goes
business
Buildings in the
farm’s courtyard,
date back to
1746 and are
designated historical
structures.
The family has also invested in a 4,900-acre
farm in the former East Germany, which von Laer
sees as almost an exact opposite to the one under
his mangement and much more like a Canadian
farm. “It has a small house, big machines and big
fields,” he says with a smile. It has its own manager, too, and is run independently of the Westphalia operation.
To keep his farm running smoothly, von Laer has
an assistant and three full-time tractor drivers on
staff. In the summer, the farm also takes on seasonal
workers. That has even included hiring groups of
schoolkids on their summer breaks to hand pick the
small, jagged stones that litter many of the farm’s
fields and cause a lot of tire damage.
The woodlots keep the farm’s regular workers
busy during the winter, where trees are selectively
felled and sold for timber or provided to the Graf
family’s small furniture-making business, which is
located only a short walk from the farm’s gate in the
surrounding village of Fürstenberg.
A few decades ago, that shop would have provided all the village’s furniture, von Laer explains,
and a large percentage of the people living there
would have earned their living chopping wood in
the forest that runs to its edge.
The farm also operates a large-scale chicken
September 2014
operation that cycles through production of 160,000
birds every 44 days. All the manure they produce
is fed into an on-farm biogas production system.
Methane fuel created from processing the manure
and farm-produced wood chips is used in an electrical power generation system recently installed in one
of the farmyard’s historical buildings.
The wood chips come from fields planted with
fast-growing tree varieties, not the higher-quality
hardwood timber in the woodlots. The recently
installed biogas-powered generator produces 500
kilovolts of electricity, with any excess sold to the
main power grid. “We want to be energy independent,” says von Laer.
A large furnace near the generator uses the same
wood chips as its fuel source for heating the chicken
barns and other farm buildings. The heat created by
the generator engine is also recycled to supplement
the main heating system.
In the field, the farm’s six MFWD tractors ranging from 200 to 380 horsepower and its two combines are used to produce and harvest mainly winter
wheat, barley, sugar beets and winter rapeseed crops,
all non-GMO of course. Six hundred acres of wheat
are set aside for feed in the poultry operation.
Continued on page 14
country-guide.ca 13
business
The farm’s workshop (through the open entrance) in one of the
historic buildings that looks like it was originally a stable.
Contractors work
on installing
ducting for a
new centralized
heating system
located inside one
of the heritage
buildings. It uses
wood chips
harvested on farm
as a fuel source.
Continued from page 13
To maintain its agricultural tax rate advantages,
the operation does not do custom work, unlike many
other large-scale European operations. It would pay
a higher tax bill if the total off-farm income exceeded
50,000 euros (C$75,000). But it does co-operate
with a group of other local sugar beet growers, using
its equipment to harvest the group’s combined 1,500
acres of that crop each year.
Yields for dry grain corn in that region typically
run about 10 tonnes per hectare, (160 bu./ac.), 55
tonnes for silage corn (22 tonnes/ac.), 4.2 tonnes for
winter rapeseed (74 bu./ac.) and 10 tonnes for wheat
(150 bu./ac.).
Most of the farm’s crops are contracted directly
to domestic processors. While there are brokers who
purchase grain and route some of it for export, von
Laer believes the farm can net better prices by dealing directly with end-users.
Just as farmers in Canada suffered through the
long period of low commodity prices that ended in
2008, that period took its toll on the Graf farm as
well. However, von Laer is optimistic that prices will
remain profitable well into the future.“I hope so,” he
says. “Ten years ago, it wasn’t good. Wheat was selling for 120 euros a tonne (C$180).”
Now his focus is on efficient management to
maintain high production levels. “Today, production costs are at 150 euros (C$225) per tonne for
wheat,” he adds.
Variable-rate seeding and fertilizer application are
14 country-guide.ca a key part of that strategy. And unlike North American growers who often look for a one-pass seeding
solution, seeding and fertilizing are done in separate
operations. Broadcast spreaders are the method of
choice for applying fertilizer. And the farm uses
NDVI (normalized difference vegetative index) technology to vary application rates during multiple
passes over fields throughout the growing season.
That creates more uniform stands and saves the farm
about 15 euros per hectare in nitrogen costs.
Relatively intensive tillage is still the production
method of choice. But the farm, like many others,
has moved away from using plows. “Produktion
hier ist pfluglos,” von Laer says in German. Pfluglos,
roughly translated, means “without the plow.”
To help mitigate problems of soil erosion in 2001,
the German government offered farmers a 100-eurosper-hectare subsidy for five years if they stopped
plowing and looked to other, better tillage implements. “There is a lot of straw that has to be incorporated into the fields,” he says through the interpreter.
So tillage is viewed as a necessary process.
But the cost benefits of pfluglos have been substantial. The high fuel usage and wear and tear on
equipment when plowing added up. And von Laer
likes the results he’s seen since parking the plows and
using newer tillage implements that leave the soil in
better, more stable condition.
As we walk a few steps into a young stand of
wheat, he digs up a clump of dirt with a spade and
holds up a handful of well-structured, moist soil. The
smile on his face says it all. CG
September 2014
Where there’s
there’s a
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business
Wicked problem
It’s the latest buzzphrase, and agriculture is in the crosshairs
By Gerald Pilger
y nature, farmers are problem solvers.
Farmers deal with production, mechanical, financial, marketing, and business
challenges on a daily basis, and the success of their farm operations depends
upon their ability to solve those problems quickly
and efficiently.
In fact, farmers are so adept at solving their
problems, the temptation is to think that every problem can be solved. Or to put it another way, there
aren’t any problems that can’t be fixed.
Unfortunately, in today’s shrinking world, that
attitude may actually be creating problems for farmers, and those problems may be bigger and more
numerous than in past.
Here’s why.
In the early 1970s, social scientist Dr. Horst Rittel formulated the concept of “wicked problems.”
He felt some problems are impossible to solve partly
(but only partly) because of incomplete or contradictory information about them, or because of changing circumstances.
Farmers have never been
as dependent on other
businesses, government,
and society in general
What’s worse, attempts to solve a wicked problem often result in the creation of other problems.
While the concept of wicked problems was developed to address social planning and policy issues,
it is very applicable to agriculture policy. In an
Ivey Business School agri-food blog dated April
20, 2012, Dr. Nicoleta Uzea wrote: “What struck
me the most from the event (Growing Our Future:
Making Sense of National Food Strategies conference) was that both the conference presenters and
the attendees referred extensively to key agri-food
issues such as biofuel production, sustainable farming, business risk management and underinvestment
in agri-food R&D as ‘wicked problems.’”
Uzea continued: “Unlike ordinary problems,
16 country-guide.ca wicked problems are characterized by a lack of
boundaries around the problem — e.g. a wicked
problem is entwined with other problems, or a solution to the problem creates a new problem somewhere else. Also, wicked problems involve complex
interactions and feedbacks among social, economic,
political, and biophysical elements, so that even if
there are solutions to the problem, they may be virtually impossible to determine or to implement. As a
result, wicked problems can never be solved (in the
sense that they can be eliminated), but rather they
become better or worse. In addition, wicked problems involve a lack of agreement among the people
affected by the problem as to what constitutes a
good or bad outcome. This may be because different
people are differentially affected, or it may be that
there is a lack of shared values.”
Professors Domenico Dentoni and Otto Hospes of
Wageningen University, Netherlands and Brent Ross,
Michigan State University collaborated on a paper
entitled “Managing Wicked Problems in Agribusiness: The Role of Multi-Stakeholder Engagements in
Value Creation,” and there are a number of points in
their paper which farmers need to consider:
“Wicked problems have cause-effect relationships
that are difficult or impossible to define, cannot be
framed and solved without creating controversies
among stakeholders, and require collective action
among societal groups with strongly held, conflicting beliefs and values.”
“They (wicked problems) result in outcomes that
are either uncertain or unknowable, and often affect
multiple stakeholders throughout the agri-food system and beyond.”
“Agribusiness managers do not always recognize
that these are wicked problems that require not
only the adoption of technological innovations but
also or primarily organizational change. In particular, addressing wicked problems requires firms to
engage in strategic dialogue and to take action with
a diverse set of stakeholders both inside and outside
the supply chain at levels that have been uncommon
in the agri-food sector”
Most importantly, Dentoni, Hospes and Ross
wrote: “Wicked problems cannot be resolved
through finding ‘right answers’ or ‘solutions’ but
rather, they must be managed.”
September 2014
business
Wicked problems in
Canadian agriculture
There are other wicked problems facing Canadian farmers and agriculture in this country beyond
the four that Uzea listed, and many of them have an
even greater and immediate impact on individual
farm operations.
Issues such as water usage, land drainage, use of
antibiotics in livestock production, and rail movement of grain can pit the individual farmer’s interests against those of other farmers, non-farmers,
other businesses and society in general.
No matter what policy or action is proposed to
address these problems, there will be winners and losers.
Attempts to “solve” other issues including GMO
and biotech, environmental degradation, biodiversity loss, and even climate change could lead to huge
impacts on farmers, depending upon the strategies
adopted to address these issues and whether they are
or aren’t in the best interest of farmers.
Solving a wicked problem
There are three textbook ways that wicked problems can be addressed: authoritatively, competitively, and collaboratively.
Most farm problems are solved authoritatively.
The farm manager decides what is to be done to
solve a problem and carries out that action. However this approach rarely works well when dealing
with wicked problems because it is doubtful that an
individual or small group charged with addressing
an issue will have considered all possible points of
view of the problem.
So, although the decision-making process is simplified in an authoritative environment, when policy
and decisions are left up to a single person or small
group, the views of some stakeholders can be easily
ignored. A perfect example of authoritative decisionmaking is how the government handled the wicked
problem of the Canadian Wheat Board. Without
question, there have been both winners and losers
from the action the government took to end the
monopoly. At the same time, other problems have
been created including unhealthy basis levels, shipping problems and a declining buyer confidence.
The jury is still out on how much the ending of
the monopoly has contributed to these new problems, but two things cannot be denied. First, the
ending of the monopoly has created problems, not
just solved them. And second, we will not have a full
understanding of the scale and cost of problems for
years, if ever.
September 2014
Opposing points of view
Most wicked problems are characterized by two
or more groups with opposing points of view. A typical approach by policy-makers to address wicked
problems is to pit the opposing groups against each
other.
Unfortunately, each side is typically so focused
on pushing their own position that they do not try
to find the best overall solution. Instead, they fight
for the solution that is simply best for their position.
This seems to be the way most wicked problems
in agriculture are handled. Issues such as GMO
and biotechnology have been made possible by
regulatory approval, but then problems that are
created by those approvals such as loss of markets
and contamination of conventional crops are left to
the opposing sides to fight over.
Rather than managing the problem, it continues
to grow as each side defends the position more rigorously and rhetorically.
Consider the Better Beef campaign of A&W.
While A&W is using the public’s negative perception of hormones and additives in food to market
its burgers, ranchers see this as A&W attacking the
quality of commercial beef.
A collaborative approach is the most desirable
way to address a wicked problem. This requires
engaging all shareholders in the decision-making
process, and no action is taken on an issue until
there is an agreed-upon strategy by all parties.
Unfortunately, this requires participants to be open
minded and to look at an issue from both sides. It
requires a lot of time, and sharing of knowledge.
Besides, the agricultural industry has become
so fragmented, commodity-specific farmers tend to
spend more time arguing among each other rather
than joining forces to address the concerns the public has about overall modern farm practices.
Most farmers think of themselves as independent
businessmen and women.
Instead, farmers have never been as dependent on
other businesses, government, and society in general
as they are now.
As a result, the problems farmers face are bigger and tougher to solve. Any solutions are likely to
impact not only other farmers, but other businesses
and the public.
It is critical that farmers work together in
addressing wicked problems. Most importantly,
farmers need to understand these problems are
unlikely to ever be solved. The best we can do is to
manage them! CG
country-guide.ca 17
Incorporating sustainable intensification
and climate-resilient systems into forages and grasslands
By Ron Pidskalny, Executive Director — Canadian Forage and Grassland Association
The World Congress on Conservation
Agriculture held in Winnipeg in June
promoted the practical application
of conservation practices to improve
agricultural sustainability. One Congress
theme included the concept of sustainable
intensification (SI). Assuming that the
world population continues to grow at
its current pace, it is expected to increase
from 7.2 billion today to 10.9 billion
by 2100. SI assumes that as the global
population grows, demand for food,
fuel and fibre will also grow. However,
conservation agriculture may allow
producers to intensify cropping systems
and increase production sustainably, and
without an excessive expansion in the land
area required for food production through:
• Improvements in soil quality
• An increase in the efficient use of inputs
such as labour, nutrients and water
• An increase in the diversity of
cropping systems
crop and livestock systems. This suggests
that forage crops have a unique capacity
to contribute to positive outcomes as
the world moves towards SI and CRS.
Currently, the onus is on the Canadian
producer to increase the efficient use of
inputs such as labour, nutrients and water
in a profitable and sustainable manner.
One way to learn about these complex
and interconnected farming practices is
from a peer who has successfully mastered
these systems.
The Congress also examined climateresilient systems (CRS) — well-designed
conservation agriculture systems with a
diversity of crop types and healthy soils.
CRS offer producers a range of choices
for adapting to changes in rainfall or
temperature during the growing
season and contribute to climate
change mitigation.
The latest of issue in L’Écho Fourrager,
published by the Québec Forage Council,
describes this type of peer-to-peer
interaction at a recent forage tour, where
a producer has implemented a dairy cow
feeding strategy based on the use of high
sugar content fodder. Results suggest
that cutting forage in late afternoon, and
leaving a 24- to 28-hour period between
cutting and bailing, produces forage with
higher sugar content and between 40
and 60 per cent dry matter. This concept
has also attracted considerable attention
throughout Canada from the beef
sector, and is one of the topics identified
as a priority candidate by CFGA as an
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s
forage development and technology
transfer project.
The scientific literature contains ample
support for the key role of forages in
improving soil quality, increasing the
diversity of cropping systems and in
mitigating the effects of climate change in
These are just a few examples of the
resources that are, and will be, at the
disposal of producers who strive to
incorporate SI and CSE in their forage and
grasslands operations.
CANADIAN FORAGE
& GRASSLAND
ASSOCIATION
www.canadianfga.ca
Ph: 780-430-3020
There will be further opportunities to
interact with forage and grassland peers at
CFGA’s Fifth Annual Canadian Forage and
Grassland Conference, ‘Closing the Forage
Gap’ — Addressing the Competitiveness
of Forages in the Agricultural Landscape,
November 17-19, 2014 in Bromont,
Québec. For CFGA, this is a significant
event as we bring together Canadian
and international forage and grasslands
stakeholders for our first ever FrenchEnglish bilingual conference featuring
simultaneous translation for our speaker
sessions. CFGA has lined up an impressive
list of speakers including:
• Dr. Gilles Bélanger, Laval University, and
recipient of CFGA’s 2013 Leadership
Award, who will provide an overview of
major achievements in forage research
and look into future challenges and
opportunities for forage production
• Dr. Bill Deen, associate professor,
University of Guelph, who will cover
the fit for forages in productive and
sustainable Canadian cropping systems
• Dr. Les Vough, forage crops extension
specialist emeritus, University of
Maryland, who will discuss the Eastern
U.S. hay market’s challenges and
opportunities for Canadian exporters
• Mr. Alan Gardner, Haydar Group, United
Kingdom who will bring us up-to-date
on the Irish and Middle Eastern
hay markets.
Please visit our website at
www.canadianfga.ca/events/currentevents for more information.
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at nhsmart.com/jordanK
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in the United States and many other countries, owned by or licensed to CNH Industrial N.V.,
its subsidiaries or affiliates. NHK04148906L
business
Looking for a safe bet
Grain and oilseed prices are down across the board,
but there soon could be some opportunities
By Richard Kamchen
rain farmers across Canada are facing a stagflation-like, worst-of-bothworlds scenario heading into the fall
of 2014 thanks to a badly timed combination of projected lower yields and
weak prices.
When Canadians were hit by stagflation in the late
1970s, they got both barrels with stagnant economic
growth and high inflation rates. This crop year,
farmers are the ones forced to duck a two-pronged
onslaught, which is coming from weather-related
domestic production losses and large world supplies.
“After last year’s high prices and massive crop, we’re
going to definitely see production down,” says Brian
Wittal, a 30-year grain veteran and a market adviser
with his company Pro Com Marketing in Alberta.
Significant Prairie area was lost this year — as
much as four million acres, according to the CWB
— either because it went unplanted through spring
or was washed out by July flooding in southeast Saskatchewan and southwest Manitoba.
But abundant production elsewhere in the world
is keeping grain and oilseed prices under pressure.
The USDA is predicting record U.S. corn and soybean production in 2014, with corn at 14 billion bushels and soybeans at 3.8 billion. It also expects a record
world wheat crop of 716.1 million tons, with large foreign increases in Russia of six million tons, China, two
million, and Ukraine, one million. With world wheat
supplies rising faster than use, USDA pegs global ending
stocks at a three-year high of nearly 193 million tons.
The Russia-Ukraine turmoil was initially bullish
for markets, but expectations for a good harvest in
those countries and the fact a lot of wheat is still
available there heading into North American harvests bodes negatively for prices.
“Traditionally that part of the world by now has
shipped itself out of wheat because they’re usually
aggressive early in the fall, (but) a lot of wheat is still
sitting in Ukraine and Russia because of the disruption,” says Wittal. “Buyers know all too well that
there’s still wheat out there and that if they need to
access it, they can.”
With the North American harvest right around the
corner, buyers are going to wait and see what’s produced in terms of quality and volume before even thinking about buying more aggressively, Wittal says. “Prices
are going to trend flat to lower until we see some issues
20 country-guide.ca either with our harvest and quality, but there’s still going
to be volume. There’s last year’s massive volume and
you put this crop on top of it, world stocks are not getting tight or any tighter than they were before.”
Canola may have some profit potential, depending
on crusher and exporter demand, and whether another
transportation log-jam can be avoided this winter.
“The fact that we’ve got a large crush capacity, that’s
always a supportive element,” says Chris Ferris, senior
grains analyst with Canada Informa Economics, who
adds export rumours suggest good foreign demand for
canola seed as well. “The railroads have been moving
grain fairly steadily the last little while, so the movement to export market should be broadly supportive for
(canola) and the grain complex.”
A return to more normal rail service would be a
boon for Wittal’s Alberta clients, among others: “If
we can stay away from another logistics problem this
winter, then the potential for prices to climb back up
into the $10- to $11-a-bushel range is there. And at
$10 to $11 a bushel when I pencil it out with any of
my producers, they’re making money,” he says.
But Ferris emphasizes soybeans are overwhelming other potentially bullish factors, and if average
canola yields end up reasonably good and other
areas of the Prairies make up for the lost flooded
acres, that’ll put further pressure on canola prices.
For Prairie farmers, lentils may offer the best
hope, with values supported by flood-related production issues and strong demand.
“Since springtime, we’ve seen prices in the market
go down from early forecasts, so you’ve got quite
a few of the crops that have come down. The only
ones that seem to be having a better gross margin
look to be the lentils,” says Ferris.
Ontario
Huge expected corn, soybean and wheat crops
outside of Canada have also proven bearish to
Ontario farmers.
Whereas Ontario grain producers might have
thought they could generate healthy gross revenues
earlier this spring, the reality has now shifted significantly to the downside.
Farmers are giving up serious revenue from where
the highs were set in early May on corn, soybeans and
wheat, says Don Kabbes, market development manager for Great Lakes Grain.
September 2014
business
“We really do need a production
problem somewhere in the world,”
Kabbes says.“We’re not having
that today — at least, we’re not perceiving that we’re having it.”
The Ukraine/Russia situation
inflated wheat prices in the spring, and
corn went along for the ride. Now with
the news being old in the market, the
focus is on supplies, and they are ample.
“Whether it’s North America or
the Black Sea, wherever you’re going
to go in the world to buy your wheat,
you can buy wheat somewhere,” says
Kabbes.
Corn’s potential is limited as well.
Not so long ago, prices were driven by
ethanol demand, but from a mandate
point of view, ethanol has hit the blend
wall. Then in 2012, the U.S. drought
September 2014
lifted values. But now, record production is forecast.
“It all feels pretty heavy on commodity prices, and there’s not much driving the demand side of things because
you’ve got pretty big crops elsewhere
in the world — no production problems anywhere that we’re seeing. So that
doesn’t paint a bullish story at all,” says
Kabbes. “We really do need a production
problem somewhere in the world, and
we’re just not having that today — at
least, we’re not perceiving that we’re
having it.”
Adding to the bearish tone are sput-
tering economies worldwide, which also
dampen demand prospects, Kabbes says.
“You don’t have a robust economy that’s
driving demand.”
Among the only factors that could
boost prices are a smaller corn crop in the
province and the possibility quality could
be down. Ontario’s corn acres fell 15 per
cent to 1.9 million acres, Statistics Canada reported last month, and a cool summer has slowed the crop’s development.
“And the crop is late to begin with, so
the possibility of low test weight corn is
very real,” says Philip Shaw, a market analyst and farmer near Dresden who grows
865 acres of corn, soybeans and wheat.
“The thing that’s helping the Ontario
farmer today in corn is Ontario only
planted less than two million acres of
corn and we now have to import corn out
of the U.S. to fill all our plants,” agrees
Kabbes. “So that has increased value
to the farmer today and that’s… maybe
masked the severe Chicago price drop.”
Negative for both corn and soybeans
could be the U.S. industry competing
with other commodities like oil, coal and
minerals for locomotives to move the
crops to export position.
“The U.S. produces a record corn
crop and a record soybean crop and has
to export 15 to 25 per cent of that product out of the U.S.,” says Kabbes. “We’re
going to see some depressed values from
a basis perspective in the interior of the
U.S.… if we can’t get rail cars to move it
and barges are tied up.”
A weaker loonie, though, could provide some support for eastern growers.
“If the loonie ever decides to go
down to 88 cents or 85 cents, that’ll
lessen the pain, whether that’s in
Ontario or Quebec,” says Shaw, who
points out the Canadian dollar was the
bullish story last year. “It’s what really
helped in 2013. Otherwise, if you had
a par dollar, where would prices be?
They’d be below futures prices and how
would you like that?”
Stronger price opportunities in
Ontario also come from larger premiums
for non-GMO soybeans, Shaw notes.
But the big picture remains the province’s harvest prospects. “The weather’s not done with us yet, and a frost
at the wrong time just wipes out this
whole analysis,” Shaw says. “Any type
of September frost will really change the
game.” CG
country-guide.ca 21
business
Make the most
from the 2014 market
Grain markets aren’t going to bounce back any time soon,
says Calgary-based market adviser Errol Anderson. But that
doesn’t mean there aren’t wins to be made
By Gord Gilmour, CG Associate Editor
Grain and oilseed prices are reeling from massive global crops, and the growing consensus is that we
may not see a bull run in the market at any time in the new crop year. In fact, the USDA’s latest long-range
forecasts have got some analysts predicting we may not see another bull for 10 years.
Country Guide associate editor Gord Gilmour sat down with market analyst and columnist Errol Anderson
in Calgary to talk about the market, what it’s been doing and what you should be looking for in the future.
Anderson sees tough markets ahead. But as you’ll read, he sees opportunities too… if you know where
to find them.
Country Guide: The market has changed. What can you tell us about
what’s been going on and where we might be heading?
Errol Anderson: In 2012, markets responded
to the U.S. drought situation by moving up, causing
many to talk about a new paradigm. But in reality
that new paradigm only lasted about eight months.
The following season bumper crops, especially in
Western Canada, brought prices back down to earth
as supply met demand. This shouldn’t have been
surprising to most people — we’ve seen this pattern
again and again in the agriculture industry. This
latest expression of the pattern was a particularly
strong one, but it was still the same pattern, so we
have a fairly good idea where we are in it.
Typically markets have four distinct phases. In
the first phase the market begins to heat up and
climbs. In the second stage the market peaks, often
in a frenzy of activity. After the market peaks, there’s
a period of hope, where people are waiting for it to
come back. We’re just exiting that period now and
entering the period of fear and panic, where people
rush to liquidate and cover long positions.
Only after this has happened will the market
stabilize, lick its wounds and recover from any overshoot. And only then will prices stabilize and begin
to recover. In my view, much of that process is still
ahead of us.
22 country-guide.ca Overlaying these cyclical concerns are unique
macroeconomic issues that I think really should be
watched closely. I am not a fan of quantitive easing
by central bankers. It’s money printing, pure and
simple, and it was designed to stoke inflation and
prevent something central bankers fear — deflation.
But there’s a lot of debate over whether that’s actually
worked, or has simply kicked the can down the road.
You can see that debate in the Fed (U.S. Federal
Reserve) Minutes and even in what’s been happening in the stock market the last while as it has been
dropping. It may still go higher, but the fact that it’s
moving up and down demonstrates there’s a debate
ongoing about the true value of this market. I think
there’s a very good chance that the U.S. is headed
down the same road Japan has been on since the
1980s — slow or no growth and in some cases even
outright deflation.
The other big issue I’m watching is the European
banking situation. Again, this is a hangover from the
2008 financial crisis, and again nothing has truly been
resolved. It’s been on the back burner, but it looks like
it’s beginning to heat up again. If these factors deliver a
macroeconomic shock, it’s difficult to see how agriculture doesn’t get swept along.
September 2014
business
Guide: Can you tell us a bit more about
that concept of shopping your buyers?
Why is that important?
EA: Think about it from a grain buyer’s perspec-
tive who has two potential suppliers. One farm
doesn’t want to tell anyone what they’ve got in their
bins, because they want to keep that information
to themselves, probably out of fear or of not wanting to reveal too much. Now contrast that with the
operation that brings samples of everything that’s on
the farm. It’s not even close. When those short-term
opportunities arise, that’s the farmer who’s going to
get the call first and have them offered. If they build
a relationship with buyers, farmers will find that
they’re better served and that opportunities appear. It
sounds simple but it’s a very powerful tool.
Guide: So you’re not forecasting a quick
return to higher prices?
EA:
No, I’m afraid not. I realize some farmers
won’t welcome that news, but I also don’t think
keeping it from ourselves is doing anyone any
favours in the long run. The truth is, grain markets
always spend more time in bear territory than bull
territory.
On average, grain markets are in bear territory
about two-thirds of the time. I don’t think anything has changed this time. Economics will always
assert themselves over time, which is exactly what
we’ve seen happen.
I think more than a few people in the market
got carried away during the 2012 U.S. drought
and really did come to believe it was different this
time, that we were into a new paradigm and that
soybeans really should be $17 a bushel. That led
to a lot of investments and a lot of non-traditional
money flowing into agriculture, which increased
productivity. Again, it’s a pattern we’ve seen again
and again. This was just the latest expression of it.
Now it’s not all doom and gloom. If you’re a
good marketer, there will still be opportunities to
lock in profitability. I think that’s a very important
point. But it’s not going to be like it was in a rising
market where finding those opportunities was easy
— you’re really going to have to look for them, to
shop your buyers, and to be ready to execute when
they arise, because they won’t last long.
For example, this week, there was a 50-centa-bushel premium for No. 1 CWRS 13.5 protein,
even in a falling market, because there was a buyer
who needed that product and that need caused
them to cry uncle and capitulate. But once that’s
gone, it’s gone.
September 2014
Guide: What else can you tell us about
what may happen as this plays out? It
sounds like you’re expecting some pain
to be felt down on the farm?
EA: Yes, unfortunately, I do expect that. What
I
don’t really know — and nobody knows — is how
much pain there will be. Some farms will be hurt
badly. Some farms will go out of business. Some will
survive and in the end do quite nicely. It’s all going
to come down to management, and there are some
really well-run farms out there.
In the end, I think the farmer who doesn’t understand markets — they don’t get that markets don’t
care about cost of production, that markets are
emotional, and that emotions are deadly in business — they’re the ones who are likely to be hurt
the worst. We’re back in a time where it’s going to
be very important to treat your bottom line with
respect, sharpen your pencils, cut your costs —
where you can — be very strategic about marketing.
We also could see some deflation in the sector.
We certainly saw inflation on the way up. Land
prices could fall. I certainly expect to see cash rents
come down as the new reality sets in. Equipment
prices, especially for used equipment, could also
fall. It could even affect the price of inputs such as
fertilizer.
Then there’s also the question of some of the
money that’s found its way into the sector in recent
years: corporate money, investor money, offshore
money — call it non-traditional sources.
I’m not sure how patient that money is, or how
willing these investors are going to be to ride out a
period of lower returns before they want to liquidate and find something with higher returns. Or it’s
possible that some of those macroeconomic shocks
could force them to liquidate. That’s an unknown.
Continued on page 24
country-guide.ca 23
business
Continued from page 23
Guide: Tell us a bit about how to get
emotions out of marketing. What would a
well-managed marketing plan in a bear
market look like?
EA: This strategy is a mix between utilizing cash
contracts and a commodity trading account. It starts
with pricing a portion of your crop using a production contract — say 10 or 15 bushels an acre
of canola. Going beyond that, of course, you risk
incuring production penalties if there’s a shortfall.
Basis levels also need to be monitored by the
grower. But should futures and local cash bids continue to rise on weather issues, it’s time to scale in
put options to take advantage of these higher prices.
Often basis levels weaken during a futures market
rally. In other words, the cash market doesn’t keep up
to the futures. The advantage of puts in this scenario
is that it doesn’t commit the grower to produce and
deliver the grain to a buyer and there is no margin
call risk. This helps keeps grower emotions in check.
It’s important for the grower to realize that the
best-case scenario is when these put options expire
worthless. This means the local cash price held up.
But markets seldom work that way. Rallies are often
short lived, but offer excellent pricing opportunities.
Bear markets characteristically don’t allow the bull
to run very long before selling pressure reappears.
I believe we are in that type of market right now.
“If you’re disciplined and keep
your emotions in check, over
time you will come out ahead.”
Guide: In your opinion, what’s the
best general tool for hedging at
the farm level?
EA: I’m not a huge fan of using futures outright,
because it takes a strong person to take a margin
call. I am a big fan of using options — calls and puts.
It’s not as strong a tool as, say, straight shorting the
futures market, but it keeps you disciplined and keeps
your emotion in check. The people who did well using
futures recently — and I had several clients who did
— were extremely disciplined and they had the guts to
take margin calls, stick by their position, and even add
some more positions while they were at it.
It got kind of ugly, but in the end, now that it’s
turned, we’re sending cheques home, and I love it. But
that’s not for everyone. Everyone’s appetite for risk and
their ability to weather those sorts of things is different, and we as market advisers need to respect that.
When we start working with a new client, we’re
24 country-guide.ca constantly trying to gauge their ability to weather risk
and we make recommendations accordingly. For a lot
of people, a put in a rising market, which gives you
the option to sell at a price but doesn’t have a delivery
attached to it, is a good tool. It’s more like an insurance premium, and it helps you remove a lot of the
emotion from the decision and gives you the chance to
lock in profitability now, but still gives you the opportunity to participate in the upside of the market.
Guide: Do farmers use these sorts of tools
enough? Or are they still too hung up on
holding the actual grain, rather than
moving the grain and buying the paper?
EA: I think they have been, but that might be
changing. I’ve been in this business a long time,
many years now, and last fall, for the first time, I had
a number of clients say to me “Why don’t we sell the
grain, instead of storing it, and just buy the paper
instead?” That was revolutionary.
Unlike other market advisers, I don’t favour storing
grain, which I know is not a particularly popular opinion. But to me, stored grain is nothing but a liability.
There’s just so much that can go wrong. If you move
that grain and buy the paper, you’re protected. You’ve
got the money in your hand, but you’ve still got the
chance to participate in any increase in markets.
Now, it’s still important to be patient when you
do this, even with options. It can feel like you’re
throwing good money after bad sometimes. But if
you’re disciplined and keep your emotions in check,
over time you will come out ahead.
Guide: At the risk of floating you a softball
question and letting you talk yourself up,
why should farmers use the services of
someone like yourself, and especially
during a time like this in markets?
EA: (chuckles) Well, it doesn’t actually have to be us,
there are a number of really good market advisers and
commodity brokers out there. But I do think it’s important to have someone like us in your corner, especially
during these most challenging times. There are a lot of
younger farmers out there now who probably haven’t
seen this kind of market. I think they’d benefit from
having someone with a bit more experience who’s seen
a bit more of what can happen in markets. For example,
I remember on 9/11, when the second tower went down
and all our screens went blank. That’s an extremely dramatic example, but you get the idea.
And for everyone, regardless of their personal
experience level, I think there’s a lot of value to be
found in having someone working on marketing
that’s like us — less emotionally involved, a paper
pusher, almost. I’ll say it outright just to emphasize
it: emotions are deadly in business. CG
September 2014
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business
26 country-guide.ca September 2014
business
Charting a profit
Theory is great for textbooks. In real life, farmers
like Stan Jeeves, need practical marketing
programs, which they’re building for themselves
By Lisa Guenther, CG Field Editor
tan Jeeves runs a mixed farm near
Wolseley, a southeastern Saskatchewan community once named one
of Canada’s prettiest towns by Harrowsmith Country Life Magazine.
Jeeves takes a common-sense approach
to selling grain. “I start with calculating my
cost of production,” Jeeves says. “And then I
know when I need cash flow.”
From there, Jeeves looks for delivery contracts that are above his cost of production
and within the time frame when he wants
the cash.
It all sounds simple and natural, and a sure
way for anyone to win in the markets every
year. But that can be deceiving, as you learn
the further you delve into Jeeves’ marketing
systems and his belief in the critical importance of charts.
Farther east, Dale Gryba also focuses on
a similarly practical approach. It isn’t that
Gryba doesn’t know the more sophisticated
lingo of marketing textbooks and the MBA
schools. But, says Gryba, he doesn’t actually
market his crop. He sells it.
“We are simply sellers above the cost
of production,” says the Manitoba farmer.
“Marketing,” he says, is done on behalf of
farmers by organizations such as the Canadian International Grains Institute that differentiates the Canadian crop for world buyers.
Farmers are selling a commodity, Gryba
says. They have few means of differentiating
their crop from that in the bin down the road.
But that doesn’t mean Gryba thinks he
always has to be a price-taker. In fact, avoiding
market troughs comes down to taking charge —
with a plan.
September 2014
Know, and control,
the critical numbers
Cost of production also underpins Gryba’s
plan, helping him to sell at a price that covers
costs and still gives him “a little bit of spare
beer money.”
When it comes to managing costs, Gryba
takes his cue from Ford Motor Company. “It
knows its cost of production. And it knows
what it can sell that car for. So it just makes it
cheaper.”
Gryba pre-prices inputs, buying fertilizer in
the fall, but acknowledges that takes cash. When
cash flows have slowed to a trickle, cutting seeding costs is another option, Gryba says. “If you
haven’t got much cash then you seed oats or the
grasses… And hope for a Hail Mary.”
Gryba farms near Gilbert Plains, in the
parkland of southwestern Manitoba, just a
stone’s throw from the rail line. Loading producer cars also lowers Gryba’s costs. “We can
get a dollar and a half more by putting wheat
in a rail car versus going to the elevator for
ourselves,” he says.
That discipline extends beyond controlling
costs and knowing the numbers. Both Jeeves
and Gryba put that self-control into action
when selling by using commodity pricing charts.
Gryba took courses over 20 years ago, in
the days when they had to handwrite their
charts, and says knowing how to use the
charts is magical. They take the guesswork
out of unpredictable world events such as war
or floods or droughts, he says.
Continued on page 28
country-guide.ca 27
business
Continued from page 27
“You can draw a line on a chart and
watch it hit it,” says Gryba.
Jeeves and Gryba both say commodity
charts take the emotion out of selling.
“People like to think this is all new
— the commodity funds influencing the
market and one thing and another — but
the market has traded on weather and
emotion forever and it always will as
far as I can see,” says Jeeves. “So that’s
where the charts come in.”
Jeeves also looks at commodity price
charts and daily newsletters to figure
out whether the price will climb or fall.
He says the money tends to enter and
leave the market at the same point. “So
if you’ve seen the recent highs have been
$450 in canola in the last three months,
then next time it’s at $450 it’s probably a
good idea to sell some,” he says.
Farmers need to avoid both fearbased selling and the temptation to try to
catch the top of the wave. Holding out
for the high point is essentially betting
against industry, says Gryba, which is a
losing strategy in the long run.
“If you did beat Cargill once or twice,
it’s like Vegas,” says Gryba.
Gryba says farmers don’t have to have
their entire crop priced out September 1,
but they should have a large portion figured
out at a price that will make them happy.
For example, if a farmer wants $10
for canola, “when canola hits $10, then
you sell some at $10. You don’t wait
until November when you and 40,000
other guys need money. Everybody
knows (about) November 1 payments,”
Gryba says.
“You’ve got 24 or 30 months to sell a
crop,” says Gryba, who adds “there’s an
old saying too that usually you have at
least two opportunities to make a profit,
even in a poor year.”
Dealing with the
transportation snarl-up
Gryba compares the transportation
issue to the dispute between hockey
players and team owners.
And farmers aren’t the billionaires in
this scenario, Gryba adds. “All I want
to do is play hockey. Just let me over the
bench, coach,” he says.
But it was pretty hard to play hockey
this year. Producer cars ordered in January didn’t arrive in the Gilbert Plains
“The market has traded
on weather and emotion
forever,” Jeeves says.
“That’s where the
charts come in.”
28 country-guide.ca area until August 5, Gryba says. March
cars weren’t expected until the end of
August or September. Farmers can’t
deliver on a contract if the train doesn’t
come, Gryba says.
Jeeves says the inability to move grain
when needed forced farmers to give up
the carry in the market.
“That’s been unfortunate and has
cost producers money,” says Jeeves.
For his part, Jeeves wasn’t always
able to sell crops when he needed cash
flow this year.
“Fortunately, by having cattle that
were very marketable, we were able to
move our cattle marketing up some to
cover off the lack of cash flow from
grain,” he says.
Gryba also had an ace or two up his
sleeve. He contracts high erucic acid
canola with Bunge, which gives him
peace of mind, he says.
“They give you a price in advance,
a year ahead. And they take all you can
grow,” says Gryba, adding the canola is
delivered to a crushing plant in Nipawin,
Sask. Bunge generally takes portions of the
crops throughout the year, and offers a cash
advance program, Gryba says. The contract
also includes an Act of God clause.
Gryba would like to see the industry
offer more Act of God clauses in delivery contracts. He points out big farms
with, for example, 10,000 acres can
risk pre-selling more of their contract
without such clauses because they know
they’ll likely get an average yield over
their entire farm. But farmers with less
dirt are reluctant to sign such contracts
because of hail and other weather risks.
Although big farms might have an
advantage when it comes to spreading
risk on pre-pricing contracts, bigger isn’t
automatically better, says Gryba. It still
comes down to management and having
a plan, he says.
“Forget about selling everything at
the highest — it isn’t going to happen.
It’s not getting caught in the bottom
third all the time,” says Gryba. “If you
have a plan, you won’t be in that bottom third.”
Jeeves jokes that staying in business
is perhaps a measure of success. “Selfevaluation is always a tough criteria to
meet,” he says.
Ultimately meeting targets, and
avoiding scrambling and illogical
decisions “because you’re in a corner
because of financial pressures” are signs
of a solid marketing plan, says Jeeves. CG
September 2014
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AS YIELD
business
When good deeds are
good business
More than a trend, projects where farm organizations
work with charities to feed hungry people are becoming
essential business practice. Here’s why
By Lois Harris
Beef producer
Bob Gordanier (l)
presents $40,000
cheque to the food
bank's Bill Laidlaw.
hen Bill Laidlaw was general
manager of the Chicken Farmers of Ontario, he had no more
insight than anyone else into
what food banks were, what they
did, or how they operated.
Now, as executive director of the Ontario Association of Food Banks (OAFB), he spends a lot of his
time lobbying the government, companies and organizations to help keep his charity running, providing
food to nearly 400,000 hungry people, many of them
women, children and seniors.
Laidlaw has been encouraged recently with commodity groups that have revitalized old donation
30 country-guide.ca programs or started new ones. They’re catching
on all across the country, and the Ontario example
shows how and why.
“Farm organizations recognize it’s the right thing
to do,” Laidlaw says. “It’s good public relations, it
shows they are good community citizens, and I think
they realize that many people who use food banks
come from rural areas.”
Having enjoyed a good relationship with the
Dairy Farmers of Ontario for years, the OAFB
recently reached new agreements with Ontario Pork,
the Egg Farmers of Ontario, and the Beef Farmers of
Ontario. Each organization approaches its contributions differently, but the results are clear. A lot of
September 2014
business
hungry people who need it are getting good wholesome protein in their diets.
Other commodity groups are engaged in other
partnerships to achieve similar ends. The Ontario
Fruit and Vegetable Growers’ Association, for
instance, is working directly with the province to
send wholesome snacks to school kids in the north.
Meanwhile, Ontario Pork wanted to revitalize the
Donate-a-Hog program started in 1998 by longtime
agricultural advocate and producer Paul Mistele.
Former board director Mary Ann Hendrikx and her
husband Lyle, along with staff from the organization
and the animal health company Elanco redesigned
the program so it would reach more people. With
the board’s approval, the program was piloted in the
summer of 2013.
Under the new program, Ontario Pork, representing 1,600 producers, encourages processors to
match, dollar for dollar, its $10,000 annual contribution. It provides funding to processors who then ship
one-pound packages of ground pork to food bank
distribution centres. Zoetis, Shur Gain, Elanco and
Bob and Wendy Fraser added their contributions for
last year’s successful pilot, which saw 10,000 pounds
of ground pork distributed out of centres in Windsor,
Sarnia, Chatham, London, Stratford, Guelph, Hamilton and Owen Sound.
The main reason Ontario Pork revived the program
was to give back to the community. “As farmers, we
all live in rural communities, and are supportive of
them,” says board chair Amy Cronin, who farms at
Bluevale, Ont. “We want to help people faced with difficult situations, because we can also relate.”
Another reason is to get more people eating
pork. The distributed packages come with tips on
how to safely cook the meat, plus recipes that are
both easy and tasty.
“With this program we are able to expose people
to a product that they may not have previously tried,
so we want them to have a good experience with it,”
Cronin says.
This year, the campaign got underway at the end of
July, and was expected to put 10,000 pounds of ground
pork into dozens of central Ontario food banks.
In March, the Egg Farmers of Ontario (EFO),
representing 460 producers, committed to donating
at least $250,000 worth of product this year to the
province’s food banks.
“We got involved because it’s a way of showing
our social responsibility,” says Scott Graham, chair
of the Egg Farmers of Ontario. “It’s the right thing
to do.”
Continued on page 32
Plan to attend the...
2014
5 Annual
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November 17-19, 2014
Hôtel Château-Bromont
Bromont, Québec
hosted by
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‘CLOSING THE FORAGE GAP’
ADDRESSING THE COMPETITIVENESS
OF FORAGES IN THE AGRICULTURAL LANDSCAPE
Call for Leadership Award Nominations
Deadline Oct 3, 2014
Canadian Forage & Grassland Association
Association Canadienne pour les Plantes Fourragères
For more information please contact:
Canadian Forage & Grassland Association
Ph: (204) 254-4192
www.canadianfga.ca
September 2014
country-guide.ca 31
business
Continued from page 31
Individual egg farmers had been donating to food
banks for a long time, but the board decided to take
a province-wide approach as part of its 50th anniversary celebrations. A presentation by Bill Laidlaw
to the board a couple of years ago in which he
described the need started the ball rolling.
Under this program, egg farmers and others are
encouraged to donate at least $50 to the EFO. The
sum is the cash equivalent of one hen’s production
for one year, or 25 dozen eggs. The organization
then provides $20,000 a month to the food bank
association and arranges for extra birds to be placed
in either the donor’s barns or those of another producer who is willing and has extra space.
The OAFB then buys the eggs from suppliers
Gray Ridge and Burnbrae, who donate the grading
and processing costs.
School kids in
isolated northern
Ontario communities
get fresh fruits and
vegetables, thanks
to a partnership
between growers
and the province.
Graham has taken the commitment to heart by
personally contributing $5,000 — the equivalent of
100 hens’ production. While total donations so far
are about $30,000 with 30 producers having contributed, he is confident that more will get on board
as they replace their birds, which they do once a year.
Meanwhile, in June the Beef Farmers of Ontario
(BFO) announced a $40,000 commitment to a new
partnership with the food banks association.
“The reason we got involved is that I think it’s
hard to believe that more than 375,000 Ontario
people including 131,000 children access food
banks every month,” says chair Bob Gordanier. “We
learned that from a presentation by the food banks
people last year, and also learned that protein is by
far the most needed item.”
32 country-guide.ca “They asked if we could help,” Gordanier says.
“We said we could.”
The BFO provides the funding to the OAFB,
which then buys the ground beef and distributes it
where it is needed the most. This year’s contribution
will buy 28,000 servings for hungry people.
Gordanier says that many individual beef farmers
and county associations have been donating for years,
but this is the first time the provincial organization
has contributed on behalf of its 19,000 membership.
“Our producers are proud of having the name
Beef Farmers of Ontario attached to something as
important as this,” Gordanier says.
Earlier this year, the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable
Growers’ Association (OFVGA), with 28 member
organizations representing more than 7,500 fruit and
vegetable farmers, expanded an eight-year program
that provides fresh snacks to schoolchildren in northern Ontario.
The Ministry of Health is providing the OFVGA
with about $1.1 million each year for the next three
to give 38,000 kids in 191 schools fruit and vegetable snacks twice a week. The program runs for 20
weeks starting in January.
All the logistical and procurement work is done
centrally through OFVGA program co-ordinator Alison Robertson. She says that the program
started nine years ago when her organization was
approached by the ministry to help deal with obesity
and other health problems that were showing up in
school-aged kids in the north.
“At the time, some people thought it wouldn’t work
— that the kids would just throw the snacks in the garbage,” Robertson says. “There was some waste in the
first month, but after that it went to zero, and eventually
teachers started to report that they were seeing fresh
fruits and veggies showing up in the kids’ lunch boxes.”
In the fall, Robertson starts lining up suppliers
and transportation and is ready to roll in January.
Each of 11 to 14 growers provides product two or
three times through the next five months, and each
receives fair market prices for their efforts.
“We realized that it wouldn’t last very long if we
kept asking people to just give their products away,”
Robertson says.
As a result of the volumes, Robertson pays
wholesale prices, and has refined her distribution
system over the years so that it now works very
smoothly and she can keep a close eye on both the
budget and food safety, including product handling
and traceability.
With the program’s expansion this year, a deal
with the North West Company retailer sees the
snacks hitch a ride on the company’s supply planes
to communities like Peawanuk and Attiwapiskat.
The goal of the program is not only to bolster the
children’s health, but to also encourage youngsters
to develop a lifelong habit of eating fresh produce.
The association knows too that it also provides the
OFVGA with leverage when the organization lobbies
the government on behalf of its grower members. CG
September 2014
business
The consumer connection
Meeting Lynn Ogryzlo in the heart of Toronto’s food
district, we wonder if maybe the chasm between
farmers and consumers isn’t as deep as we thought
By Steven Biggs, CG Conributing Editor
In Ontario alone,
Ogryzlo’s $10
challenge would
pump $2.4 billion
more to food
producers.
ag-toting shoppers amble past me on
either side as I snag a table near the bakery. It’s already 2 p.m., and the pickedthrough bakery racks confirm that it’s
too late to get the best-of-the-best fresh
food at Toronto’s St. Lawrence Market.
Even so, the place is still a hive of food lovers.
That’s because by midday, the shoppers change. The
hard-core grocery browsers give way to a hard-core,
hungry lunchtime crowd.
Either way, they love their food. They also know
a lot about it, and it looks like they want to know
more, although I wouldn’t take any bets on how
much they know about Canada’s farms.
Along with the lunchtime crowd and grocery
shoppers, though, some people just come to hang
out and chat — people like food writer Lynn Ogryzlo and me. As coffee spots go, the floor-mounted
melamine table with attached plastic chairs we sit
at isn’t pretentious — and neither is Ogryzlo. I’ve
barely shaken her hand before she apologizes about
the garlic smell from the pastry she’s brought to
munch on during our meeting.
I’ve been hoping to meet Ogryzlo because she’s
a food columnist who talks a lot about what many
food writers don’t: farmers.
In her 2011 bestselling book, T he O ntario
Table, Ogryzlo serves up recipes for Ontario-grown
food, pairing each recipe with a blurb about a
farmer. There are grower stories, recipes, and culinary destinations. A column on farmer Fred de Martines and his Tamworth pigs accompanies the recipe
for pork patties with nectarine relish, while the page
on simmering beef features the O’Brien Farms Simmental herd at Winchester, near Ottawa.
It’s more than just a cookbook, and Ogryzlo takes
a hard-to-define, sometimes disparaged concept —
local food — and boils it down into a clear, compelling message called the $10 Challenge. It’s nice
marketing: $10 each and a billion-dollar impact.
She explains in the book, “If every household in
Ontario spent just $10 of their grocery budget on
local foods each week, there would be a $2.4-billion
influx into the provincial economy each year!”
In a world where farmers complain they’re misunderstood and ignored by consumers, Ogryzlo
might be our best indication of what happens when
a person of good intentions, open mind, and an intelligent curiosity begins to look closely at their food.
The culinary activist
A self-described “culinary activist,” with a focus
on locally grown food, Ogryzlo is quick to make
the distinction between activism and extremism. She
recounts travelling to Chicago and making a social
media post about Chicago food. She was shocked to
get an indignant response from a follower who was
upset that the post hadn’t been about Ontario food.
She shakes her head, saying, “It’s not absolute.”
Another time, she met someone who hadn’t eaten
a mushroom for a year because he couldn’t find
Continued on page 34
September 2014
country-guide.ca 33
BUSINESS
Continued from page 33
locally grown ones. “It doesn’t matter,” she exclaims,
adding, “It’s not a diet, like the Atkins diet or Weight
Watchers diet! That’s not the point.”
The important point, she feels, is that shopping
with local food in mind has the power to make farming sustainable for farmers. It requires neither absolutes nor a black and white, 100-mile-diet dogma.
(Although she does like the book THE 100-MILE DIET
because it gets readers thinking about the food system.)
Food and community
Ogryzlo grew up in the community of Thorold in
the Niagara region of Ontario. The granddaughter of
Italian immigrants, she describes it as a community
with a heavy Italian presence where people hung out
on front porches to chat. She remembers the farm
truck picking up local women to work on nearby
farms, and, at the end of the day, the women being
driven home, legs hanging over the tailgate, balancing bushel baskets of seconds for their own use
between them.
“The people who worked on farms were the people who lived in our neighbourhood,” she recalls. It
was a community where food played a pivotal role.
If there was extra produce in those bushel baskets, it
was shared, with a jar of some sort of preserve given
in return at a later time. Food was used to celebrate,
to mourn, and to nurture the sick. “It made us a
really strong community,” she says.
It’s still that power to foster community that she sees
in food — and in people’s shopping habits — today.
Her own community — the Niagara region —
used to include 20 canning factories, she says. But
now there are none. Today, she sees more tourism.
That’s fine, but she feels there is an opportunity to
attract tourists for agriculture too. That was the idea
when she helped found the Niagara culinary trail, a
culinary tourism organization connecting
consumers to farmers.
THE ONTARIO TABLE
THE ONTARIO TABLE (www.ontariotable.
com) is Ogryzlo’s third book, following in
the footsteps of NIAGARA COOKS, FROM
FARM TO TABLE and N IAGARA C OOKS , A
SEASONAL APPROACH. For this book, she
explored beyond her home base of the
Niagara region, taking weekend trips
over two years to different parts of the
province to meet farmers and taste food.
Her regionally focused books and
local food have some parallels: both are
on the fringes of conventional marketing and distribution channels.
“In the publishing world, everyone
thought I was nuts!” she tells me with a laugh.
In the book, Ogryzlo tells readers not to worry
about following recipes to the letter. She hasn’t followed the standard publishing recipe to the letter
34 country-guide.ca
either, opting instead to self-publish her books. It has
worked out well, as all three have been bestsellers,
and she has won a number of international awards.
Without the distribution infrastructure that a
publisher would have, she built her own network,
selling books through on-farm stores, including
many of the farms featured in the book. “It’s the
largest margin item in their store,” she says. Eventually, the distribution channels came to her because of
consumer demand for her books.
$10 challenge magazine
While THE ONTARIO TABLE includes a section that
lists suppliers of things as diverse as soy sauce, salt,
flour, nuts, and cornmeal, Ogryzlo found that people
still had difficulty with the shopping side of eating
locally. In response, she did more travelling and then
put out an electronic magazine (now combined into
an e-book) called THE ONTARIO TABLE $10 CHALLENGE, A YEAR OF EATING LOCAL, in which she worked
with 25 agricultural commodity groups to get facts
for consumers about Ontario food.
Markets and farm gate stores are great, she says,
but they aren’t the only way to support local farmers. When it comes to shopping for local food, Ogryzlo tells me, “The grocery store is a good place to
find local food.” She laughs as she describes trips to
her local grocery store and people peering into her
cart to see what is in there. While some people connect the idea of local only with fresh produce and
meat, Ogryzlo includes all foods raised and produced
in Ontario. That can include common things such as
meat, tinned goods and dried beans.
Industry playing catch-up
Ogryzlo feels that consumer confusion about the
definition of local food is a result of the movement
being a consumer-driven — not industry — trend.
“The local food movement sweeping the country is
led by consumers and I think this is the very reason
we face challenges such as lack of distribution and an
agreed-upon definition of local food,” she says. It’s
a case of industry catching up to consumer demand.
In the meantime, Ogryzlo is gearing up for a new
audience. She and her husband have just moved from
the Niagara area to Toronto — and she’s looking forward to writing for a new slate of publications. She says
she has always wanted to live in a big city. “Toronto
was more doable than Paris,” she says with a chuckle.
She’s not at all worried about missing out on
farm-fresh produce in the city. “In the city, people
are more fortunate,” she says as she talks about
urban markets often attracting more farm vendors
than smaller centres.
When it came to picking a neighbourhood in
Toronto, food was important — so she’s not far from
the St. Lawrence Market. As we finish chatting, we
leave the table in the bakery aisle. We head our separate ways, each of us to shop.
I keep my eyes on all the consumers in this one
market, and I have $10 in mind. CG
SEPTEMBER 2014
hr
Make a better impression
If you think it doesn’t matter what impression you make,
you could hardly be more wrong
By Pierrette Desrosiers, psychologist and coach
want to talk about marketing… yourself. Usually, marketing is associated with products or
services. But what about self-marketing? For
decades, experts have studied how to use marketing to attract customers. They know that
they can sell you a product if they are able to make
you feel good about yourself, or if you think that the
product will prevent you from feeling bad.
Emotional Marketing, as it is called, is messaging
that builds your ego. It can make you feel smarter,
bolder, more sophisticated, or just about any other
emotion fundamental to your self-esteem. By making you feel better about yourself, the brand being
marketed is no longer just a product; it becomes a
friend and part of your identity. “I drive a BMW”
can lead to “I am a successful person.” You feel that
these brands share your values and priorities.
But how do you market yourself?
Let’s start by recognizing that you are already doing
it. Like it or not, we leave our mark. Our mere presence affects others; we leave an “emotional imprint.”
How do people feel when they are in your pres-
People will forget what
you said, people will
forget what you did, but
people will never forget
how you made them feel
— Maya Angelou
ence, and afterwards? Is their ego nourished? Do
they feel important, respected and understood? Do
they feel that you really care about them?
The way you interact, the words that you use or
don’t use, and your non-verbal communication all
contribute to your emotional imprint. Emotional
imprints can be so strong that just thinking about
someone has the power to make us feel good, comforted and happy. Or, alternatively, it can leave us
feeling upset, disgusted, afraid, or uncomfortable.
This imprint is built into your limbic system and
stays there forever — the stronger the emotions, the
stronger the imprint. The human being is above all
September 2014
an emotional being. The latest research in neuroscience shows that decisions are usually made through
our emotional brain before our rational brain, even
if we are totally unaware of it most of the time. We
feel first, and then we analyze.
Yet when I interview the staff and family members on farms, many tell me that they work harder,
more efficiently, and with a more positive attitude
when the boss is on vacation.
As a leader, your staff and suppliers will try to
give their best only if you make them feel good
about themselves. Think about your own experience. How do you react when others leave a negative emotional imprint on you?
So, in the future, when you interact, be aware of
yourself and take the time to ask a few questions:
What impact do I make on others?
Would I choose myself as a boss, partner, spouse,
or parent?
Do I interact with others, in tone and behaviour,
the way I would like them to interact with me?
How do others tend to react in my presence?
What would I like other people to say or think
about me?
Are my actions in line with my expectations, values, and goals?
What is the emotional impression that I wish to leave?
What would I like to be remembered for?
As emotional beings, we have far more impact on
one another than we often realize. Years later, someone may not remember what you said or did, but
they will remember the emotional impact you left.
As a farmer, you leave a footprint that you should
care about. But as a human being, you leave an even
greater impact.
So as you make your mark, why not try to make
it a positive one?
In your everyday life, be conscious. As a leader,
boss, parent, or spouse, you can make the difference.
Since you market yourself anyway, why not do so in
a kind and inspiring way? CG
Pierrette Desrosiers 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) Email: [email protected].
country-guide.ca 35
Succession
In agricultuRe
Succession shock
So, you think farmers are on top of
Canada’s succession challenge?
By Amy Petherick
uccession planning has become a pretty
sexy topic in agriculture. Every hip and
trendy professional office for farmers
is mailing out their own shiny leaflet to
everyone they know about it, and no selfrespecting event planner would even think of hosting
an agricultural conference without at least one workshop on transferring the farm to the next generation.
But hold the champagne, because farmers still
aren’t buying it.
The workshops may be full, but the work itself
isn’t moving off the “someday” list.
Debra Hauer of the Canadian Agricultural
Human Resources Council helped create a Human
Resources Tool Kit just last year which included, of
course, a succession module. “Succession planning
has been a hot topic for a while across the country,
and there are a number of good resources,” Hauer
says, and she begins to tick off the fact sheets contributed by various provincial governments and producer associations.
Most of those fact sheets and resources focus on
the traditional understanding of succession planning,
i.e. the intergenerational transfer of a business. But
Hauer’s kit also addresses the less familiar definition
of succession planning, where an employer creates
a plan to ensure there will be replacements ready to
step in for all key positions.
“Succession planning is a part of the general HR
function… to make sure that the people are in place
to ensure success,” Hauer explains.
Hauer tells me the kit has been well received,
especially by farmers whose businesses are really
growing, so they will have the right managers and
the right skill sets in place as their business continues
to get larger and more complex.
In fact, a number of organizations have bulk purchased the tool kit too, and one university has even
deemed it a required text for students. “In the summer
and fall last year, I contacted people who had purchased
the tool kit and the feedback was excellent,” Hauer says.
But when I ask her what farmers specifically said
about the succession section of the kit, she pauses
and then responds, “Quite honestly, there have been
no comments about the succession section.”
It isn’t an isolated case. When you look beyond
36 country-guide.ca the workshop attendance numbers and the book
sales figures, and when you try to find actual evidence that farmers are implementing enough succession plans to match the scale of impending
succession squeeze, the numbers just don’t add up.
When it comes to planning for the future of the
farm, it seems, the agricultural industry could use a
little less talk and a lot more action.
This isn’t unique to the farm community. A Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB)
study conducted in 2012 found that over half of all
small and medium enterprise owners in Canada had
no plan at all for what will happen to their business
when they’re done with it. Only nine per cent of
businesses had a formal succession plan.
To get a sense of how farmers compare, just one
year earlier, Ipsos Forward Research found 19 per
cent of a sample of farmers from Ontario did have
formal succession plans.
Daphne McGuffin, who creates succession programs for both farm and non-farm families at BDO
SuccessCare, agrees that farmers are usually better at
initiating succession than the average business owner.
“Farm families, generally speaking, do a better job
because it’s their legacy,” McGuffin says. When she
recalls all the studies she’s been reading in recent years,
she says the basic summary is that 80 per cent of all
business owners would like to see their business stay
in the family but 50 per cent don’t expect that to actually happen. “The sad thing about that,” she says, “is
they’re making the decision without really trying.”
McGuffin remembers that when she was first getting started in the succession business, back in 1996,
there was little awareness at any level about succession planning, and she believes business owners had
reasonable excuses for poor planning then.
A 1999 report by Deloitte & Touche after all was
the very first to offer insights into small business
succession in Canada. Their questionnaire revealed
that 43 per cent of Canadian business owners didn’t
even believe it was important to keep a business in
the family. As well, 70 per cent had not yet selected a
successor and 66 per cent of respondents had no process for selecting one, although 56 per cent planned
to retire within 10 years and another 22 per cent
within 15 years.
September 2014
business
Farmers might therefore be doing better than some
other sectors. But are they still doing too little?
A team of English and American researchers published data in the August 2010 Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development
comparing farmers’ relative expertise in succession
planning globally, and its 1997 survey of Ontario and
Quebec indicated that roughly 40 per cent of farmers
had already identified a successor at that time.
Yes, that’s right, about 40 per cent had identified
a successor already in 1997 and 15 years later, just
19 per cent of farmers had written a succession plan.
McGuffin says two CFIB surveys, administered first
in 2005 and then repeated in 2012, establish even
more disturbing trends.
“Back in 2005, 60 per cent of business owners
said ‘it’s too early’ to start their succession plan,” she
tells me. “In 2012, the response only went down to
52 per cent.”
McGuffin continues on to the next excuse, i.e. “no
time to deal with the issue.” Back in 2005, 28 per cent
gave that as an answer. In 2012, it was 29 per cent.
As an excuse, “Can’t find adequate advice and tools
to start,” becomes even more suspicious since 17 per
cent listed it in 2005, growing to 21 per cent in 2012
despite all the work that governments, farm organizations and advisory firms have put into the issue.
Other responses which increased included “the
process was too complex,” plus the number of farmers who simply didn’t want to think about leaving
(up from eight per cent to 13 per cent).
With numbers like that, McGuffin believes there
is a real problem in the succession-planning field.
The fault doesn’t only belong to farmers. “I don’t
think advisers are addressing three fears that business
owners have,” McGuffin says. “One is the fear of
loss of wealth, the second is a loss of control or identity, and the third is fear of conflict.”
Recently, loss of wealth has been more of a concern for other businesses impacted by the economic
downturn, but farmers are hardly immune to exterior
factors. The fact that a third of business owners with
succession plans had to revise their existing succession
plans, delaying or accelerating their exit date according
to CFIB, supports McGuffin’s point that succession
planners need to do a better job of incorporating contingency strategies for market fluctuations.
Meanwhile, the No. 1 reason for lack of farm
progress is farmers’ fear of losing their identity.
Yet experience shows that such fears can be
swiftly mitigated by post-transition-planning exercises that identify exciting opportunities for the exiting generation, McGuffin says.
Fear of conflict is more stubborn, yet it can be
managed too. “Choosing a successor means you’re
saying no to somebody else,” McGuffin agrees.
“When it’s your kid, that’s pretty hard to do.”
In order to help farmers overcome these hurdles,
September 2014
McGuffin says BDO SuccessCare teamed up with
the Agricultural Management Institute (AMI) to
produce interactive resources that will be harder for
farmers to leave unopened on a shelf. One of their
most comprehensive resources, the Choose your
own Succession online tutorial, is best described by
Ryan Koeslag, AMI’s executive director, as a quick
and dirty succession tool.
“Really what we’re trying to encourage is taking it to your adviser,” says Koeslag, “but we were
worried there are a number of accountants or succession-planning consultants that know one process
and one process only.”
Koeslag says they don’t want to encourage
farmers to eliminate professionals from their succession planning efforts because AMI baseline
research has found that farmers get greater satisfaction from outside succession training than from
any other strategy.
We hunted for evidence Canada
has enough succession plans.
The numbers just don’t add up
While there is no clear confirmation that farmers
are following through with their advisers, the interactive nature of the resource does provide immediate
feedback on user behaviour.
“We know it’s had a lot of really good hits,”
Koeslag tells me. “Even prior to launching the
program, promotions within BDO and just word
of mouth generated over 400 hits, which was phenomenal.”
As a farmer involved in two operations himself,
Koeslag knows first hand how difficult it can be to
get that plan written on paper. But AMI’s research
also shows that, of farmers retiring in the next five
to 10 years, 67 per cent believe succession planning
is a valuable practice.
Exactly how valuable was established by Pricewaterhouse Coopers last year. Companies that transition without a succession plan experience a 29 to
32 per cent drop in business in the first three years
post-transfer.
In other words, if all the farmers who say they
want to develop a succession plan actually got
around to getting the job done, the income hit on
agriculture would likely be slashed by billions.
Koeslag isn’t holding his breath.
“For the most part, succession planning is the
most supplied resource, but a fairly small percentage
of the industry — too small from our perspective —
seriously engage themselves in it in a constructive
way,” Koeslag says. “We want that succession conversation to start from Day 1.” CG
country-guide.ca 37
Succession
In agricultuRe
Getting there from here
The buzz these days says that succession is a
journey, not an event. But who has the map?
By Andrea Hilderman
n entire industry has built up to support farm succession planning. And
for good reason. With a typical farm
in Canada worth millions of dollars
and requiring numerous staff, and
with so many farms having related businesses and
supporting two or more families, transition of the
business to the next generation involves a lot more
than a handshake and a slap on the back.
Just don’t look for a lot of statistics or hard
numbers about how many farms are going through
succession, or how many billions of dollars’ worth of
assets they’re discussing.
This may be the biggest phenomenon that Canadian agriculture has ever witnessed, but neither the
federal government nor the ag universities nor anyone else really has a good handle on just how big it
is. And no one really has a good handle on how well
farmers are doing at meeting the challenge.
Anecdotal evidence, of course, is as common as
mailboxes all across rural Canada.
“Statistics Canada does have some good data on
farm operators,” says James Bryan, senior agricultural economist with Farm Credit Canada in Regina.
“As does the Canadian Federation of Agriculture.”
There are estimated to be over 140,000 farm
operators over the age of 55 still actively farming
in some way on something in the neighbourhood of
17,500 farms.
It’s thought they control something in excess
of $50 billion in farm assets, much of which will
change hands over the next 10 years.
It’s also recognized that the ability of the successor
to service the debt required to buy the farm is a real
issue, and that increasingly, it is an issue that can take
many decades to resolve, with serious implications
for both the retiring and the successor generation.
Just to state the obvious, servicing a large debt
can restrict the new farmer’s ability to make the best
business and production decisions for his or her particular situation.
The good news is that many farmers are stepping
up to the plate.
“My experience spans over 40 years, but in the
last decade I find more and more farm families are
realizing the importance of the succession plan process,” says Len Davies, principal of Davies Legacy
38 country-guide.ca Planning Group Inc. “They are focusing on issues
beyond just tax planning, but looking at tailoring a
business plan and strategy that takes into account
family dynamics as well as the business itself.”
They’re even coming to accept some of the hardest truths. “The failed farm succession,” Davies says,
“is not the fault of an accountant who made a mistake. Rather it usually is a result of some breakdown
in the family itself.”
More push, more pull
“Farming has become sexier,” says Lance Stockbrugger, a chartered accountant, consultant and
full-time farmer of 4,000 acres in east-central Saskatchewan. “In recent years, it has become a viable
and desirable option for the next generation, and it is
preparing itself accordingly.”
The next generation of farmers is pursuing a
rigorous education in agriculture combined with usually, but not always, off-farm employment to gain
independence, skills and a greater appreciation for
the industry before it makes the decision to come
back to the farm.
“The added difficulty with farming now being an
attractive job and lifestyle, is that not only does one
child want to farm, they may all want to,” Stockbrugger says. “How does the farm handle that? How can
Mom and Dad and the kids figure out who gets to
farm and who does not, and how to make that fair?”
There’s also more pressure for comprehensive
succession planning, Stockbrugger says. “This is
accomplished by thinking through how every major
decision they make is going to affect the succession
of their business.”
It also means looking reality in the eye. It may
be that not all the children who would like to
farm will be able to. “Try to make decisions that
will make it easier to transition farm assets later
on” says Stockbrugger. “As more family members
become involved in the operation, more income is
needed to provide for those families. This can be
accomplished by having less custom work done
such as trucking products to market, agronomy
services and so on. Income could also be created by
thinking outside the box entirely and starting new
ventures — purchasing equipment for custom work
September 2014
business
or finding work for existing equipment outside of
non-peak times.”
However, when Stockbrugger conducts succession seminars and planning sessions for Farm Credit
Canada, he still finds the audience is a “roomful of
grey hairs.”
“There should be 20- and 30-year-olds in the audience, especially if they themselves have families,” Stockbrugger says. “Like saving for retirement, planning for a
succession and having 30 to 40 years to do so gives you
much greater ability to get your ducks in a row.”
Another advantage of thinking about and planning for succession with decades left on the clock is
that more consideration can be given to farm business structures. “Corporations are the lowest-taxed
business structures,” says Stockbrugger. “But it is
very difficult to transition assets and land, especially
to more than one successor and especially if those
two are not going to be farming together.”
Stockbrugger usually likes to advise that the land
be kept out of the corporation and a family trust be
created to own the shares of the corporation. “While
this is more costly to set up, it really does pay off in
spades down the road with the flexibility it offers,”
he explains. “Ownership structure should get a lot of
attention very early on in the process.”
“How can Mom and Dad and
the kids figure out who gets to
farm, and who does not?”
— Lance Stockbrugger
Finding a way to talk
The message has gotten out that open and honest
communication within the family about goals and
aspirations is just as important — or even more important — than the financial aspects of the succession.
“Successors need to explore where they have
deficiencies, for instance in financial management
or human resource management,” says Davies.
“Once identified, these deficiencies can be worked on
through training, off-farm employment opportunities, or mentoring.”
Indeed, in today’s environment, continuous skill
development over the entire course of a farmer’s career
is vitally important. Technology is changing in farming at
an incredible rate, and if the farm doesn’t keep up with
advances in technology or agronomy or anything else, it
risks being left behind and becoming unprofitable.
“Failed successions, in my experience, have little
to do with the business structure or the transition of
September 2014
assets,” says Stockbrugger. “Failed successions are
often due to a lack of management training — the
young farmer who has never had to spend $400,000
on a new combine or $20,000 on a repair. It can be
overwhelming and despite their skills as an agronomist or operator, if they can’t manage the financials,
failure is certainly a risk.”
Another bigger change in the last number of
years as the business of farming has provided better,
more reliable returns is farmers realizing that they
need to work on the farm, not just at “farming.”
“Where is the farm business going to be in five
years, 20 years?” asks Davies. “What needs to
change when there are marriages, additions to the
families and, unfortunately, farmers are not immune
to divorce? These are all areas that should be considered and planned for.”
Another longtime practitioner and educator in
the field of farm succession is Terry Betker, president and CEO of Backswath Management. He also
lectures at the University of Manitoba and has
lived through two farm successions of his own.
“In the last four to five years, the biggest
change I’ve observed, for the first time maybe, is
the accumulation of wealth in farm families and
the impact that is having on succession,” says
Betker. “We’ve seen this accumulation of wealth
on the farm elsewhere in the EU and even eastern Canada, but now it is becoming the Western
Canadian experience.”
Transitioning ownership and management in this
environment and being fair and equal to everyone
requires a lot of thought, planning and time. “Farms
are also more complex these days,” notes Betker.
“The size of the business, the structure of the business and the human resources required to run the
business can be as involved as any non-farming business of equal capitalization.”
The leadership challenge
Betker believes a much greater understanding of
leadership is necessary to execute a successful transition.
“Farmers are realizing, whether they like it or not,
that they have to spend less time on a tractor and
more time at a desk,” says Betker. “This is a challenge
for a lot of folks who are in this business because
they truly love the work of farming, the outdoors, the
machinery, the crops and animals and so on.”
Back in the early ’90s, awareness of succession
planning was building. It really hit the radar later that
decade as the farming population aged. The 2001
census showed there was a larger percentage of farmers over 55 years of age that in previous censuses.
“Now people are more aware that they should
have some greater formality around the succession
question,” says Betker.
Continued on page 40
country-guide.ca 39
business
Continued from page 39
Now, however, the pendulum may in a way have
swung too far. “I think it may have gotten to the
point,” says Betker, “where there is now some mystique about succession, and maybe they overthink it.”
While there are no black and white answers to the
questions of succession, it’s also not rocket science.
The biggest question or conundrum to solve is how
the non-farming children are going to be treated.
“I am seeing more and more situations where the
non-farm children retain some ownership in the farm
business as shares, for instance,” says Betker. “There
can be buyouts or exchanges of cash over time, or right
away, as well. It really is for the family to determine
their best strategy to keep the family on the same page.”
Another common theme is the retiring generation
retaining or being advised to retain ownership in the
farm. “Their continued ownership is their best risk
mitigation strategy towards their own retirement
and the continued success of the farm,” says Betker.
Betker also agrees with Stockbrugger and Davies
that succession planning should be entrenched in
good farm business management.
“Every investment and every strategy should be
undertaken with a view to positioning the farm for
the next generation,” says Betker. “I am finding that
lenders are also moving in that direction. They are
very interested in the long term view because that is
just plain good business management.” CG
First steps
Are you getting more and more convinced that it’s time for a succession plan for your own farm? If so, here are some
thoughts from the experts on how to get started, beginning with the most important question of all:
What does our retirement look like?
“The retiring couple has to have a focused discussion on what retirement really means to them,” says Terry Betker of
Backswath Management. “This means the when, how and what of retirement... their vision of retirement.” Betker goes on
to say that most couples don’t actually have this sort of deep, detailed discussion and can sometimes find that when they
do, they have very different views of what their retirement years will look like. “An ironclad plan is not critical at this point,”
says Betker. “But this is an essential first step to take before involving the rest of the family in the process of succession.”
Bring the family together
Financial performance
Once Mom and Dad have talked about retirement and
are on the same page, it’s time to have a family meeting.
“What’s important with this meeting is the purpose and
the attendees,” says Betker. “All the children, and their
spouses, should be at this meeting so everyone hears
everything together. One-on-one meetings are not advisable at this stage of the process.”
“This first meeting is an exploration of what everyone’s goals are,” says Len Davies of Davies Legacy Planning Group. “By airing these aspirations to the group,
there is less likelihood of making assumptions and causing family arguments later on.”
At the end of this meeting, the goal is to have some
timelines, some expectations and some actions to follow
up for the next meeting date, which also should be an
outcome of this gathering.
At some point early on in the process, the family
needs to understand what succession is going to mean
for the financial performance of both the farm and the
retiring generation. This is another area where experienced professionals can play an important role in analysis and advice. “This is also the time to look critically at
the strengths and weaknesses of the business,” says
Davies. “It also will unearth challenges the farm faces
and what has to be done to prepare for the succession
to be successful.”
Introduce accountability into the process
At this point, the family should try to introduce some
accountability into its succession process. “There are
two easy ways to do this,” says Betker. “Either hire a
facilitator who can help the family drive the process and
keep it on track, or be rigorous about scheduling the
next meeting date after each meeting.” By doing this,
the process will be more likely to stay on track and on
the schedule that has been agreed to by the family.
40 country-guide.ca Seek out tools and resources
“Every provincial government ag website is loaded
with resources on farm succession,” says Betker. “So,
too, are organizations like Farm Credit Canada and
others.” While some may see these resources as overwhelming, they can be very helpful in enabling discussions through the use of the questionnaires and surveys
they contain.
“If I had only one thing to advise farm families about
succession, it would be the sooner the better,” says
Davies in conclusion. “By creating a road map to succession with as much lead time as possible, the family
can figure out how to service its debt, fund retirement
and still grow the business.”
September 2014
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®
Succession
In agricultuRe
It’s all different now
High land prices are driving innovation
in how to distribute your land
By Amy Petherick
arming without some startup help
from your family can definitely mean
an uphill climb. But getting the gift of
a farm inheritance isn’t always such a
blessing either.
Many farmers will tell you it would have been
impossible for them to get started in the business
if it hadn’t been for a “hometown discount” from
Dad or an early bequest from Mom. But examples
of self-made farmers aren’t unheard of either.
It helps explain the surprise when ag economist
Alfons Weersink at the University of Guelph studied
farmland values for the Canadian Agricultural Trade
Policy and Competitiveness Research Network in
2011, before the bull market of the last three years.
Weersink found Ontario land values had soared
from $500 per acre in 1961 to over $3,500 per
acre in 2009. But he also believes many, many
farmers never really paid these full prices for their
farms and he thinks at least one full generation of
farmers across Canada got started with a familial
gift of some kind.
“There was a wave of immigrants that came
over after the Second World War with very little
and started farming,” says Weersink. “But since
that time, it has been the next generation of the
family that has taken over land.”
Weersink doesn’t have hard numbers to prove
what price the land has actually sold for on these
farms, but it’s been his experience that some sort of
discount is generally involved in passing the farm
operation from one generation to the next, largely
because of the high asset prices relative to the
annual returns.
So the irony is that, while market prices for
Canada’s farmland have certainly increased, it may
only mean that the size of the gifted portion has
increased by nearly the same amount.
It isn’t exactly what our wannabe farmers who
don’t have a family property to inherit want to
hear, Weersink says.
Young farmers who get a start with discounted
land definitely have a competitive edge, Weersink
says. And as the size of the gift increases, so does
the edge. “It ends up improving their cash flow and
increasing the farm’s profitability.”
42 country-guide.ca John Wilkin, director of business development
for Allied Associates in London, Ont., agrees that
it is much more difficult for beginning farmers who
don’t have a spouse, parent, or grandparent to help
them get their hands on some family farm assets.
Even so, Wilkin thinks rising land values have
also made things a little less rosy for today’s farm
heir too.
“The land has easily doubled, or in some cases
tripled, just over a very short period of time so the
non-farming children suddenly have an interest in
what’s going on with the farm,” says Wilkin. “Back
30 years ago, Mom and Dad were eager to have
one of the family carry on the farm and the only
way that could be accomplished was to eliminate
the other children from whatever funds might be
left. The perspective is changing; there is a desire to
be closer to equal than before.”
Wilkin says he is seeing more families than ever
achieve this equalization through the use of insurance policies. Typically a “last to die” policy is
purchased to ensure that, upon the parents’ deaths,
there will be enough funds to buy out the nonfarming siblings.
This can work particularly well in conjunction
with a corporate business structure. But Adrian
Spitters, senior wealth adviser with Assante Capital Management Ltd. in Abbotsford, B.C., adds a
warning. He says that if the corporation buys such
a policy and if the proceeds go directly to the parents’ estate to be distributed to the children, these
funds could be subject to tax.
Spitters suggests his clients talk to their accountant and their insurance provider about the option
of making the farm corporation the policy’s beneficiary. “You want to take advantage of the capital
dividend account within the corporation,” he says.
“If the money goes into the corporation, you can
then disperse it so that the non-farming children get
their money tax free out of the dividend account.”
In a heartbeat, Spitters can rhyme off all sorts
of creative ideas for gifting the farm. Maybe it’s
because British Columbia boasts some of this country’s highest farmland prices. Or maybe it’s because
he has already lived through a generational farm
transfer in his own family. For whatever reason,
September 2014
BUSINESS
Spitters offers a unique lens on the blessings and the challenges involved in gifting the farm.
“I don’t think there’s a way of saying there is a fair or
equal way at today’s prices,” Spitters starts with. There are
simply too many complexities to consider, in his opinion. For
example, he points out that farm rollovers to family carry with
them a tax bill which parents often forget about. As long as
the children farm until their own children take the operation
over, and their children after them in perpetuity, the tax bill
just keeps getting passed on. But at some point, someone’s
estate is going to wind up paying that bill when you get to the
point where nobody in the family is willing or able to farm
any longer. “You’re not getting rid of the tax, you’re just passing it on,” Spitters says. “If you’re the one who’s going to sell
the farm because the kids aren’t going to take it over, you’re
going to have this tax bill to deal with, and you need to plan
for that somehow.”
“Non-farming children suddenly have
an interest in what’s going on with the
farm,” Wilkin says
Plus, there’s another little-known curse in disguise, this
time for the parents who bestow the farm blessing.
“When you roll over the farm tax free to the next generation, there is no attribution back to the parents if they hold on
to the farm for more than three years,” Spitters explains. “But,
if the kids decide they don’t like it or they run into financial
difficulty and they’re forced to sell the farm within those three
years, attribution rules will now make that tax bill payable
back to the parents.”
This is why parents need to be protected to the fullest
extent possible, says Wilkin. “When we had those high interest rates, there were many situations where Mom and Dad
transferred the property and there was no security taken,” he
recalls. “They could have easily put a second mortgage on (the
farm), and it would have protected them where there were
defaults, but instead Mom and Dad got nothing.” Wilkin says
this is why it is a good idea for parents and their kids to get
independent advice during succession planning. He realizes it
is tempting to save a little money up front by sharing lawyers
and accountants, but experience has taught him that succession is just one of those areas where an ounce of prevention is
really worth a pound of cure.
If it’s starting to seem like the simplest thing to do is just
to forget about gifting the farm to any family at all, especially
if no one seems to REALLY want it anyway, and if it seems
the best thing is just to bite the tax bullet that comes, Spitters offers one last fringe idea worth considering. “Farmers
are giving people,” he observes. “Why not give to help young
farmers who really, really want to farm?”
Spitters runs into young people who have what it takes to
become great farmers, but they need a little help in getting
started, and he suspects great alliances could form between
such up-and-comers and “heirless” established farmers look-
ing to retire. To his way of thinking, if these farmers could
donate to some sort of trust, with the trust responsible for setting up a low-cost loan or guaranteeing a bank loan to get the
new farmer started, you would create a win-win situation for
everyone involved, and you would also serve a public interest
by seeing the heritage of the family farm protected. “Unfortunately, there is no way right now to actually donate farmland
and get a deduction,” says Spitters.
Interestingly, Spitters’ idea is mirrored in an ongoing
Ontario Farmland Trust Agricultural Gifts campaign, which
is also being supported by such organizations as the Nature
Trust of New Brunswick and the Land Conservancy of British Columbia. Advocates are calling for the extension of the
Ecological Gifts Program, which offers income tax incentives
in exchange for voluntary donations of ecologically significant
land or conservation easements to designated conservation
agencies, to include donations of productive agricultural land.
Spitters believes such programs could solve some of the
cost issues that keep so many young farmers out of the industry by transferring land ownership out of the trust as a critical
component. It’s a pattern already set by the Maine Farmland
Trust. Since 2007, that trust has purchased five farms deemed
vulnerable to development, placed conservation easements on
them, and resold them to farmers. CG
> Empty Pesticide Container Recycling Program
There are many
reasons to rinse.
#1
Only rinsed containers can be recycled
#2
Helps keep collection sites clean
#3
Use all the chemicals you purchase
#4
Keeps collection sites safe for workers
#5
Maintain your farm’s good reputation
No excuse not to!
more information or to find a collection
{ For
site near you visit cleanfarms.ca
Now, take your empty fertilizer
containers along for the ride!
SEPTEMBER 2014
country-guide.ca 43
10901A-CFM-5Reasons-QRTPage-CountryGuide.indd 1
4/2/14 11:59 AM
business
Swede Hawk
Curiouser and curiouser… corn brings Swedish
equipment manufacturer Väderstad to rural
Saskatchewan to buy the Seed Hawk brand
he sign at Seed Hawk’s air drill manufacturing facility in rural Saskatchewan
says “Welcome.” Maybe, though, it
should now be “Välkommen,” seeing
that Väderstad, a global tillage and
seeding equipment brand founded and still headquartered in Sweden acquired a minority interest in
Seed Hawk in 2007, and earlier this year took over
its former Canadian partner.
“We have been part of Seed Hawk since 2007
and we know each other very well,” said Christina
Stark, CEO and managing director of Väderstad,
during an exclusive interview with Country Guide
earlier this summer. “So it was actually a very natural step when we bought the rest. We are both technically innovative, driven companies. And we are
always thinking of how we can develop products
that are best for farmers.”
It was that technical innovation that actually led
to tighter integration between the two brands, and
it’s ultimately what drove executives in their respective corner offices to realize that a Swedish takeover
made sense from both sides of the Atlantic.
“We know each other
very well,” says Christina Stark, CEO and managing director of Väderstad.
44 country-guide.ca “They were looking at how to get (the new
Väderstad Tempo high-speed corn planter) into the
North American market,” says Pat Beaujot, former
president of Seed Hawk and now its director of strategic market development.
“We started talking about how are we going to
do this. We’ve got a company that they own 49 per
cent of that wants to be a part of the U.S. corn market. For freight reasons they looked at whether they
should build the planter in Iowa in the heart of corn
country. We convinced them they have a good factory here. It can only be more efficient if we just get
bigger. I think in the end they decided we were probably right. It’s better to grow the plant where it is.”
Väderstad agreed, but didn’t feel comfortable
investing that much more in the plant without owning more of it, which was a point that made sense
with Seed Hawk’s Saskatchewan owners. But the
Saskatchewan team couldn’t see pumping in the dollars that the corn expansion would require.
“That required more investment than we were
ready for at our stage,” Beaujot says.
“When we launched the Tempo, which can work
at higher speeds, we saw the possibilities in North
America so we wanted to keep on investing here,”
confirms Stark. “We had a discussion, and after a
while we came to the conclusion that it was time for
us to take over the rest (of Seed Hawk). We saw a lot
of synergies between the companies, also with R&D
and sales development.”
Those synergies were the reason Väderstad management first decided to partner with the Canadian firm.
“We were looking for big air seeders for the market in Australia, Russia and Kazakhstan,” says Stark.
“Seed Hawk was mainly sold in Canada and we had
a big market in other parts of the world, so it fit very
well together and there were no competing products.”
That also made Seed Hawk drills part of a larger
line of products here. From Beaujot’s point of view,
expanding Seed Hawk’s offerings was important for
maintaining the long-term viability of that brand.
“I could see corn and soybeans were moving
north into our country, and that was going to reduce
the air seeder market a little bit, and I had been concerned about that for a number of years,” Beaujot
recalls. “There is an evolution of how people will
farm in Saskatchewan.”
September 2014
Photography: Scott Garvey
By Scott Garvey, CG Machinery Editor
business
Currently, the global market for tillage and seeding
equipment is a relatively crowded one, so technical
innovation and a good product line are front-andcentre priorities for the survival of any brand, whether
it has a regional or global focus.
“There are a lot of manufacturers,” says Stark.
“You have to keep on with development and keep on
being ahead of your competition.”
So with the official takeover announcement early in
2014, Seed Hawk became a Swedish-owned firm. But
its products won’t simply be absorbed into Väderstad’s
equipment line. Instead, its Canadian-built air drills will
retain their familiar name, and the firm will continue to
operate autonomously from its Saskatchewan home.
“We have made Väderstad and Seed Hawk what
we call sister companies,” Stark explains. “It means
there is no one at Väderstad in Sweden who will be
the boss of Seed Hawk. Our long-term ambition is to
keep on investing in Seed Hawk, where it is situated
in Langbank.”
There will, of course, be a new CEO at the helm,
yet Seed Hawk’s current principals, Beaujot and Brian
Dean, vice-president of research and development, will
remain with the company as senior executives for the
foreseeable future. “We’ve signed on for five years,”
says Beaujot. “We’ll see where things go after that.
They wanted us to stay on during the transition.”
Transitioning a previously independent company
into its fold is new territory for Väderstad management. Despite its global footprint, the firm has never
taken over another brand.
“It’s the first ever,” Stark says with a smile. “We
September 2014
have 12 subsidiaries, but only for sales, and we have
a small, small production facility in Russia. But this
is the first time we buy another company.”
Retaining the existing executive staff in Saskatchewan seems likely to not only ease the integration,
but also to help Swedish owners deal with the cultural differences that could be a stumbling block if
not handled correctly.
“Of course, there are cultural differences between
running a company in Canada and in Sweden,” Stark
acknowledges. “You make sure you travel here frequently and some Seed Hawk staff travel to Sweden to
get good co-operation between the companies, which
is most important, getting people to work together.”
The acquisition gives Väderstad an even stronger
foothold for growth in North America. It also means
the Langbank, Sask. plant will see faster expansion in
the near term. Beyond that, Stark isn’t ruling out further acquisitions as part of the brand’s global strategy.
“It could be part of it at least,” Stark says. “Maybe
in the future there will be something more coming.”
But it is unlikely executives will want to wander
outside their current manufacturing field by adding
additional equipment types. Instead, expansion into
previously untapped market regions is more likely.
“We think we should stay with seeding and tillage,” Stark says. But she does seem to have a neversay-never approach to business, and she pauses and
smiles at the question of expansion plans.
“There are always possibilities,” Stark says. “You
shouldn’t restrict yourself too much. We’ll see what
the opportunities are.” CG
Development of the
Tempo high-speed
corn planter was
the impetus for
Väderstad taking
over its Canadian
partner, allowing it to
further develop North
American markets.
country-guide.ca 45
Legal
Firing an employee
It’s best to understand not only the law, but its principles
By Naomi Loewith
he best “strategic business thinking” requires not
only knowing the law, but also understanding the
policies behind it. Many readers will have had to
terminate an employee. In this article, I discuss the
principles behind the rules for termination “without cause,” that is, where an employee has not done anything
that merits being fired, but the relationship simply no longer
works. I also note two areas where evolving policy is pushing
employment law to change.
When terminating any employee (except for those with a
fixed-term contract), an employer must give appropriate notice
that the employment is being terminated or give termination
pay “in lieu of notice.” The purpose is to give employees, who
depend on an income, a reasonable cushion to find alternative
employment. An employer can thus give the required notice and
the employee will keep working, or pay the employee a lump
sum for the notice period but the employee stops working.
The length of notice is determined by a number of factors,
including how long the employee has worked, his age and qualifications, and the availability of replacement employment. Each
province has a statute that sets out the minimum amount of
notice based on the length of employment, but the other factors
will usually increase the required time.
Severance pay, on the other hand, is intended to compensate
employees for their loss of seniority and their investment in
the employers’ business. Severance pay is an additional entitlement that some provinces require employers to pay to longtime
employees. In Ontario, for example, employees with more than
five years of service are entitled to severance pay if the employer
has a payroll of over $2.5 m, or is shutting down completely.
Duty to mitigate
A dismissed employee has a duty to mitigate his damages.
That is, he must make the best of the situation. He must take
reasonable steps to look for new work and to accept that work
if it is available. He is not required to take any available job
— he can look for a position with a comparable salary, similar
working conditions, and in an environment that is not acrimonious or demeaning.
The same principle applies whenever a harmed party seeks
compensation in court. For example, a landlord has a duty to
look for another tenant when a tenant breaches a lease and a
seller must try to resell his goods if a committed buyer fails to
purchase them. This is consistent with the long-standing social
policy to encourage people to find a solution before seeking
relief in the court, and to preserve (or create) economic value
where possible.
Aggravated damages
The manner in which an employee is terminated can also
affect his entitlements. In the course of a dismissal, an employer
46 country-guide.ca ought to be candid, reasonable, and forthright. If the employer
treats the employee in a way that is unfair, misleading or unduly
insensitive, the employee may be entitled to an extra level of
compensation called aggravated damages.
An employee might also get aggravated damages if an
employer tries to fire him “for cause” where there was no true
basis for doing so.
The courts set a high bar for aggravated damages. Employees take a job knowing that it might not last forever. Aggravated damages are only available where the employer’s conduct
in terminating exceeds what reasonable people would expect in
a professional relationship.
Two areas of development
As the business landscape in Canada changes, protections for
employees are increasing in two areas in particular.
First, employment law has long distinguished between
employees and independent contractors. Courts determine if
someone was an employee by looking for the indicia of a “master and servant” relationship, such as how the person is paid,
who directs the activity, and who owns the tools of the trade.
Employers have notice obligations to their employees, but not
to independent contractors who work for them.
However, in recent years the courts have expanded the idea
of “dependent contractors.” These self-employed contractors
are entitled to notice or payment in lieu where they have hallmarks of being employees, such as working exclusively for one
employer or being economically dependent on that employer.
Second, courts are expanding the extent to which employers
must accommodate employees with disabilities. The general rule
is that if an employee is no longer able to perform the tasks of
the job, the employment relationship has been “frustrated” and
can be terminated, subject to notice and severance entitlements.
However, if an employee cannot perform the tasks because
of a disability — and the courts apply a broad definition of
disability — termination is only permitted where it would create “undue hardship” to accommodate the disabled employee.
Employers may therefore have a duty to reallocate tasks, purchase special equipment, and adopt creative solutions to accommodate an employee. The guiding principle is that employment
provides not only income but a sense of identity and self-worth,
and courts increasingly require employers to facilitate employment.
An employer’s duties will always depend on the situation,
but it is helpful to understand the principles and policies that
inform these obligations. CG
Naomi Loewith is a lawyer at Lenczner Slaght in Toronto. As
a business litigator, Naomi advocates and manages risks for
clients in a variety of sectors, and has experience in actions
involving all levels of government.
september 2014
production
Join the club
With clubroot escaping beyond its Edmonton hot zone,
the rest of the Prairie region must get its response right
By Gord Gilmour, CG Associate Editor
s you drive throughout the region
surrounding Edmonton, canola is inescapable. It’s absolutely everywhere.
And looking at the crops, it’s easy to
understand why. With long days, cool
nights and adequate rainfall, this is canola country
pure and simple, and in most seasons, the crop flourishes under nearly ideal conditions.
Canola has also been a crop — the only one over
a long stretch from the early 1980s to early 2000s
— that has reliably paid the bills. Small wonder then
that farmers here and elsewhere have pushed their
canola rotations as tightly as they have.
Typical here is a two-year rotation that switches
back and forth between canola and either wheat or
perhaps another cereal. A few holdouts continue to
grow peas, but larger farm sizes make that toughto-harvest crop less attractive, and growing disease
pressure has made peas less economic.
The two-year rotation, however, has contributed to
the severity of clubroot, a pernicious soil-borne disease
that’s now wreaking havoc among canola growers
throughout the district.
Clubroot is a disease that’s never quite been seen
in the same way anywhere else around the globe.
And when it first appeared here, nobody could quite
believe it.
September 2014
The root of the problem
Back in 2003, Dan Orchard was a young man,
not many years out of university, working as an
agronomist for a retail outlet in Sturgeon County,
just north of Edmonton when he got a call from a
grower who had an unexplained near-total failure of
a canola crop. He asked Orchard to come see it.
After surveying the damage, Orchard pulled a
few plants and was stunned by what he saw — malformed roots with enormous growths on them.
“It was absolutely incredible,” recalls Orchard,
who now works as agronomist for the Canola
Council of Canada. “There were growths the size
of softballs and grapefruit on most of the roots, and
some even larger, almost the size of footballs.”
Neither Orchard nor the affected farmer had ever
before seen anything like it — but Orchard did have
an inkling of what it might be. Due to what he himself calls “dumb luck,” he had happened to write
a major paper in his final year at the University of
Alberta’s agriculture program on canola diseases.
“I had needed to look at canola diseases, and I
needed to discuss three,” Orchard explained. “The
problem was, there really only were two — scleroContinued on page 48
country-guide.ca 47
Production
Continued from page 47
Uniquely Canadian
tinia and blackleg. I picked a third one that had been a very
minor problem, in other places, just to have a third disease. I
picked clubroot.”
That fall in 2003, Orchard says he almost immediately began
to suspect clubroot, and he even went so far as to call the province to tell them — but they weren’t convinced. They suggested
he get a plant pathologist to look at it, causing Orchard to circle
back to his alma mater, the U of A.
“I actually called my old plant pathology professor and asked
him to look at it,” Orchard says. “He took one look at it and
said it was clubroot, put in under the microscope and immediately confirmed it.”
After a somewhat frustrating runaround, suddenly the problem was now being taken as seriously as a heart attack. The next
step was to show it to a pathologist, which was when the full
gravity of the situation really hit home to Orchard.
In most other regions of the world, clubroot is a minor
annoyance. It does hit a handful of relatively high-value vegetable crops, but there are soil amendments that can knock
it back. The trouble is, those treatments are expensive. They
make sense if you’re grossing a few thousand dollars an acre
with broccoli, but not a few hundred on canola.
In the few areas like the U.K., where the disease does exist and
where they grow canola, farmers typically have many more cropping options that provide economic returns. In short, when the
disease does pop up, the farmers have options.
Stephen Strelkov is a plant pathology professor at the University of Alberta, who had just joined the faculty less than two
months before the first case of clubroot made headlines. He says
like most Canadian plant pathologists, he had heard of clubroot
and read about it in a textbook, but it was hardly something he
was expecting to spend a large portion of his career on.
“It was the last thing in the world I ever expected to find
myself working on,” Strelkov tells Country Guide. “But just a
couple months after I started, the first sample of clubroot came
in, and we had to get up to speed on it really quickly.”
Part of getting up to speed included making contact with
people around the world who had already been looking at the disease. One of the first names he encountered was Geoff Dixon, a
professor at the U.K.’s University of Reading. Strelkov sent him an
email detailing the situation, only to receive a surprising response.
“He emailed me back and basically said, ‘I’ve been waiting
a generation for your message,’” Strelkov says. “Apparently,
back in the 1970s, people working on clubroot in Europe
would get together and one of the questions they always asked
was, ‘Why isn’t there clubroot in Canadian canola fields?’”
The answer starts with the unique biology of clubroot and
its relationship to its host plants. Clubroot had long infected
other crops — things like broccoli and cauliflower — that like
canola are in the cole family. In fact, that may be how it came
to be in the Edmonton region, carried along on saved seeds
from these crops by immigrant farmers.
If so, it had hung out in soil at low levels, until something
new came along in the 1970s — the canola industry. Suddenly there were susceptible crops everywhere, not just in little
pockets like home and market gardens. But clubroot couldn’t
run rampant just yet. It needed a few seasons to feel out this
new potential host and find a way to tap into it — a process
that’s known as developing affinity.
Whether this is how clubroot arrived, or if some other
mechanism brought it here, the table was soon set for the disease’s inexorable march through the region.
Country Guide contacted Dixon, one of the acknowledged
global experts on the disease, to talk about the Canadian situation. “You’re dealing with a global commodity crop with
a huge financial value, and where there are industry bodies
with real muscle,” Dixon says. “Stephen Strelkov and his colleagues have done a masterful job of identifying the size and
scale of the problem and those approaches that are agronomically feasible and those which are not.”
All in all, he says, it’s turned Canada into the global leader
on clubroot, Dixon says. The U of A’s Strelkov agrees, but
adds it’s something everyone involved could do without.
“It’s a bit of a dubious distinction,” Strelkov says, “but I would
say we’re at the forefront of this fight now.”
In 2003, Dan
Orchard got
Canada’s first
clubroot call.
It was, he says,
“something
from a horror
movie.”
“I showed it to him, and he wandered around the field like
a zombie for almost 20 minutes, not saying anything,” Orchard
says. “It was like he’d seen something from a horror movie, and
that’s when I realized just how serious this must really be, when I
saw how concerned these two plant pathologists were.”
At the end of the field inspection, the pathologist delivered a
sobering assessment to Orchard:
“He told me that I now needed to decide if I was going to go
public with this, or if I was going to shoot, shovel and shut up.”
It was a phrase made famous by former Alberta premier Ralph
Klein about his attitude to endangered wildlife legislation.
The ultimate decision was to go public, since the disease
threatened far more than just a single canola crop in a single
field; left unchecked, it could in fact threaten the entire canola
industry in an affected area.
A few days later, at a press conference, the disease was
revealed, and the modern era of clubroot control started for
growers in the Edmonton area. It hasn’t always been a pleasant
one. More than a little anger and animosity have spilled over,
especially over issues like enforcing longer canola rotations on
the hardest-hit fields. But it seems in hindsight that something
had to be done. Left unchecked, biology would ultimately trump
any hope of growing canola in tight rotations.
48 country-guide.ca September 2014
production
The response
Part of what’s made the fight against clubroot so
difficult is the complex nature of the disease and the
way it responds to traditional control strategies.
It can help to picture the situation as a GIS map.
A company that wants to sell home alarm systems
might start with a basic grid map, and then overlay
data on household demographics, income and crime
rates. By doing so, it could prioritize where to invest
its marketing effort.
Now imagine a map of the Edmonton area overlaid with the biology of clubroot, the economics of
agriculture, and local politics. Suddenly, it doesn’t
seem so simple.
Begin by getting a clear picture of the scope of
the problem. Strelkov says the spore count in the
soils is the key. A canola crop can probably survive
and do well if the spore levels are kept low — a few
thousand per gram, say. But the disease can ramp up
quickly with tight canola rotations, and measurements in the hundreds of thousands and even over
a million spores per gram aren’t uncommon in the
most heavily infested fields, Strelkov says.
“Say you have a half-million spores per gram,
and you need to get it down to a few thousand per
gram to produce canola economically,” Strelkov
says. “Now realize that the half-life of these spores
is about four years. So in four years you’re down to
250,000 spores, in eight years 125,000, in 12 years
62,500… a serious infestation can easily take a field
out of canola production for 20 years, assuming no
resistant varieties.”
It raises the question: is clubroot a potential
canola killer?
“Yes, absolutely,” Strelkov says. “Especially if
there are no resistant varieties, or if the resistance
breaks down quickly, which we’re already seeing
some evidence is the case.”
He’s referring to the introduction of the first clubroot varieties in 2009. Just a few seasons later, there
already seems to be some evidence the disease populations have shifted and new strains are sidestepping
that resistance. Geoff Dixon says he’s unsurprised by
the news, saying it’s pretty typical of what they’ve
seen elsewhere.
“The pathogen is very capable of evolving in order
to circumvent resistance,” Dixon says. “It’s the classic
‘boom and bust’ seen many times in other pathogens.”
To understand why resistance breaks down so
quickly, researchers think about it in similar terms
to how weeds develop chemical resistance. In that
Continued on page 50
Resistance is
crucial to Canada’s
clubroot plan. But is
it realistic?
Could clubroot destroy a
region’s ability to grow canola?
“Absolutely,” says the University
of Alberta’s Stephen Strelkov
September 2014
country-guide.ca 49
Production
Continued from page 49
Getting it right
case, the repeated application of a herbicide over many years “selects” for the
very few individuals which have natural
resistance to the chemical. All the vulnerable individuals die off, leaving only
the resistant plants to breed, resulting in
a turnover of the weed population and
what seems like the sudden emergence of
a full-blown resistance problem.
In the clubroot scenario, growers
with heavy disease pressure have little
choice but to plant resistant canola, yet
the sheer number of spores can quickly
overwhelm the resistance through the
same mechanism of selecting the small
handful that can survive. After four or
five seasons or so, their numbers creep
high enough to hurt the crop’s yield.
“Selection pressure is always a numbers game, and we’re dealing with big
numbers here,” Strelkov says.
In 2007, the Alberta provincial government declared clubroot a pest under the
Agricultural Pests Act, giving legal teeth to
efforts to contain the problem, and bringing politics and economics into the equation. (Saskatchewan followed in 2009.)
Inevitably this also kicked off some
serious controversy, since one of the tools
for reining in clubroot calls for enforcing
four-year or even longer canola rotations
in the hardest-hit fields. Telling their
neighbours what they can and cannot
grow isn’t the kind of job most rural
politicians thought they signed up for.
It also led to surprising divergences in
response throughout the area because of
a quirk in how local affairs are ordered.
In Alberta, a lot of responsibility for pest
issues falls to the local counties through
their agricultural fieldmen, who take
direction from the local government.
“Some counties took it very seriously,
right from the start, coming up with a
plan and periodically revisiting it,” says
Dan Orchard. “Others thought farmers
should be left to manage it themselves
and basically had no policy. Another
group set policies, then never revisited
them as the situation evolved.”
It made for a patchwork of solutions
with varying degrees of success, from draconian policies that alienated growers, to
a laissez-faire free-for-all, and everything in
between. If one thing has become apparent
in the Alberta experience, however, it’s that
good policies count for something.
Again and again during Country Guide’s visit to the affected area,
a variation of the same theme came up: “Want to see clubroot control
in action? Visit Leduc County, because they’re getting it right.”
We caught up to agricultural fieldman Aaron VanBeers one
morning at his office in the agricultural services building of the
Leduc County Centre. It was a bright sunny day, the canola was
all entering full bloom, and the crops were looking great — all this
despite being at the very epicentre of the clubroot zone, one of three
counties that show up on the Alberta government’s clubroot map in
bright red, indicating the heaviest infestations.
We begin a wide-ranging discussion about what’s worked in the
county, and VanBeers says it all boils down to taking clubroot seriously, getting on it right away, working closely with local farmers,
avoiding alienating them, and being willing to revisit and redesign
policies as the need and ability arise.
“My predecessor, who was also a
farmer, realized right away how serious this was,” VanBeers says. “The
local government and the agricultural
services board also understood quite
early what we were facing.”
They surveyed all the canola
fields in the county — a practice
that continues today — to determine the scale of the problem.
They imposed longer rotations on
the hardest-hit fields, after very
carefully communicating to growers why this was necessary. And
when more information about the
disease became available, and the
first resistant varieties appeared,
they relaxed rotation restrictions
on lower-risk fields.
What VanBeers describes is
good old-fashioned political leadership. A difficult situation was faced
up to square on. Policies based on
facts were developed, then periodically re-evaluated as new facts
emerge and the understanding of
the situation evolves over time. And
as a result, while nobody likes the
situation, everyone more or less
continues to work together to keep
the problem under control.
“I think most farmers in the
county understand what we’re
doing, why we’re doing it, and they
support it,” VanBeers said. “Of
course there’s always that two per
cent — actually it’s probably even
quite a bit lower than that — that
you’ll never get through to, that
think they should just be allowed to
50 country-guide.ca “Farmers in the
county understand
what we're doing,”
says Leduc’s Aaron
VanBeers
September 2014
production
The dos and don’ts of clubroot
By now it’s clear. Some control strategies work. Others, says Dan Orchard, just don’t.
do whatever they do, without considering
the impact it has.”
Essentially the approach in Leduc
County is much like one that public
health officials would use when dealing with a communicable disease, with
steps being taken to limit the ability of
infected individuals to spread it to new
victims. But of course, there’s another
dynamic at play too, of shame and
secrecy. A growing number of farmers
don’t want to talk about the disease, or
let anyone know it’s on their land.
In no small part that’s because frequently the disease has been portrayed
as something that’s linked to bad farming practices, ignoring the economic
necessity that farmers in the region have
laboured under for decades.
The situation is going to continue
to evolve, but one thing is beginning to
appear quite clear — it’s likely to become
an issue for more growers in more areas
as time rolls on. Orchard says there’s a
wealth of information to be found from
what’s happened in Alberta.
“I do think that other places that are
starting to grapple with this problem
can learn from what we did right and
the things that didn’t work out as well,”
Orchard says (see sidebar).
One thing Orchard is firm about is
the necessity to face up to the disease
and deal with it head on, drawing the
familiar analogy to a serious health challenge. Like many human diseases, early
diagnosis almost always equals a better
prognosis, as a doctor would say.
“If you catch it early, if you catch it
when the spore level isn’t too high, it’s
always going to be easier to deal with,”
Orchard says.
And while some say Orchard deserves
credit for spotting the disease, he quickly
downplays his own role, saying any
competent agronomist would have figured it out fairly quickly, if they’d seen
that first field.
“I guess finding it is my claim to fame
in the agriculture industry in Western
Canada,” Orchard says. “But really, it’s
not something I’m proud of. I should
have found it 10 years earlier, before
it was such a big problem, but it just
wasn’t the practice at the time to go out
and pull plants from small dead patches
in the field at harvest time.” CG
S epte m ber 2 0 1 4 • Pulling plants from dead patches at the end of the season and looking for the disease
certainly worked. But it would have worked even better if the recommendation right
from the start had been to pull plants and check the roots. By not stressing the importance of checking fields early and often, many a case was left undetected until inoculum levels rose and it was suddenly a crisis situation.
• Tillage certainly seems to be linked to occurrences in fields, says Orchard, who has
seen the same pattern again and again, where a field will be largely untouched, except
for the small portion that received some tillage. “Tillage appears to speed or promote
clubroot,” he says. Once it has a toehold, tillage also helps it spread.
• In peripheral areas, that either had very low-level infections or had none but were
adjacent to areas that did, a more vigorous approach probably would have helped in
the early days. “They weren’t looking until it was an obvious problem,”
Orchard said. “It was a reactive, not
proactive, response.”
• R esistance is our best option, and
should be used in areas outside the
clubroot hot zone to prevent spore
buildup and to keep the disease at
a low level. But growers should also
respect that the disease is highly
adaptable. If the resistant varieties are
simply seen as a way to go back to
business as usual, clubroot will likely
make short work of them.
• W hen a small patch of clubroot is
identified early in the infection process, growers should see it as a
chance to nip it in the bud. One strategy that has shown some success is
treating that portion of the field differently — say seeding it to a non-host
crop like grass for a few years. It might
cost you a few acres, but it could keep
the rest of the field in production.
Clubroot control strategies do work, but the
learning process is still underway.
• Equipment cleaning is one of the strategies that both worked and didn’t work, Orchard
says. A key error appears to have been going out early with the message that producers
needed to pressure wash and disinfect equipment. A better message might have been
concentrating on more practical things, like dramatically reducing risks by removing
visible dirt between fields, and leaving infected fields until last to ensure no transmission and adequate time to clean. “The power wash and disinfection message was not a
practical solution,” Orchard said. Given that the disease can also transmit via wind and
water erosion, minimizing risk was likely a better message. Still, most researchers say
farm machinery is the single most important cause of clubroot spread.
• Research has proven very important, though Orchard concedes to date the agronomic
research has been as much about what you can’t do as what you can. “That shouldn’t
discredit the research or make it appear any less important,” Orchard insists. “Often
finding out what doesn’t work is as important, if not more important, as finding out what
does work.”
• Talking with the oil industry has also worked very well, and while it might sometimes
still make a handy scapegoat, the other major land-using industry in Alberta does
appear to have taken heed, especially those working in areas with a long history of the
disease. “We do occasionally still have problems with companies that aren’t familiar
with the issue, but for the most part I think the oil and gas industry takes this very
seriously,” Orchard said. “At times I would say they take it more seriously than some
people in the agriculture industry.”
country-guide.ca 51
PRODUCTION
2014 harvest quality
Here’s how Cigi figures out if your
wheat will make good bread
By Trevor Hnatowich
elping customers make wise buying decisions is an important part
of customer service. This is especially true when buyers are purchasing significant quantities of
a commodity produced thousands of kilometres
away — like wheat grown in Western Canada for
example.
For over 10 years, Cigi (Canadian International
Grains Institute) has completed an annual harvest
assessment, providing farmers, grain handlers, and
customers of western Canadian wheat with information on the quality and characteristics of each year’s
new crop. This collaborative effort involving farmers, grain companies, and Cigi is Canadian customer
service at its best.
Cigi collects representative samples from the
major grain handlers from several regions across the
Prairies — defined mainly by transportation routes
as well as by climate and soil types — to determine
information such as protein content, milling and
flour properties, and the end-use suitability typical
for each wheat class.
“We ask the grain companies to compile the
samples together so that they are representative of
not necessarily just one producer’s farm, but rather,
what the quality in that region looks like,” says
Rex Newkirk, Cigi vice-president for research and
innovation. “It’s what allows us to provide quality
information that’s as relevant as we can get on what
the crop looks like from a commercial perspective.”
When Cigi receives the samples from the grain
companies, technical staff then create composite
52 country-guide.ca
samples to ensure the analysis is representative of
what will be shipped from each region.
“After a company from one of the regions has
submitted samples, we’ll take a portion of its wheat
samples and blend it with portions of other companies’
samples to make a composite sample,” says Elaine
Sopiwnyk, director of science and innovation at Cigi.
The composite samples then undergo extensive
testing to detail the characteristics of the crop.
“On the wheat, we measure protein, ash, falling
number, kernel hardness and milling yields,” Sopiwnyk says. The wheat is milled at Cigi and the flour
is analyzed for protein, wet gluten content, starch
damage, colour and rheological properties using the
farinograph, alveograph and extensograph.
Newkirk says that in addition to these tests, Cigi
uses its facilities in baking, noodle and pasta processing to develop end products with the composite samples. Cigi technical staff can simulate the
processes used in small- and large-scale commercial
facilities around the world to ensure that the information gained is as relevant as possible to potential
wheat buyers.
Cigi compiles information for the top classes of
Canadian wheat and for downgraded material as well,
adds Newkirk. “We look specifically at things like how
to use downgraded material. Not only do we want
quality information on the top grades, but we need to
understand the quality of the downgraded material so
that we can advise customers on how to best make use
of it should there be a significant amount.”
After the tests are complete and the information is analyzed, Cigi prepares presentations and
SEPTEMBER 2014
PRODUCTION
In photo at right, Cigi’s Juan Carlos Arriola (l), technical specialist in milling technology talks wheat
at a potential customer’s Chilean flour mill while on the Latin America New Crop Mission last winter.
brochures that are used to inform both
domestic and international audiences
about the new crop.
“Customers are trying to make wise
buying decisions, but without good data,
this is difficult,” says Newkirk. “So this
harvest assessment gives them as much
information as possible so that the cus-
tomer can make those buying decisions
and get that grain off the Prairies. Customers have many options. Why would
you buy from Canada if you aren’t
aware of the quality? Wheat buyers need
that information.”
In the fall, Cigi embarks on new
crop missions around the world, mak-
ing presentations on the results in order
to develop international markets for
Western Canadian wheat. With the information from this year’s crop, Cigi’s technical staff will be going to Asia, South
America, Europe, the Middle East and
North Africa.
“It’s a major undertaking for us,”
says Newkirk, “and it’s a really important service for farmers, for the industry
and for buyers.” CG
Lead by
Example
Scout Fields
for Weed Escapes
Now is a great time to inspect your fields for weed
escapes and take necessary action. Spot spraying,
tillage, or mowing can all be used where you find
decreases in weed control performance to help you
Start Clean and Stay Clean next season.
Visit www.rrwms.ca
Follow us @weedmgmt
Download the WEED ID APP
Go to iTunes today or visit weedidapp.ca
ALWAYS READ AND FOLLOW PESTICIDE LABEL DIRECTIONS. Monsanto and Vine Design ® and Roundup Ready ® are registered trademarks of Monsanto Technology LLC, Monsanto Canada, Inc. licensee. ©2014 Monsanto Canada Inc.
Production
Cut canola later,
and combine it slower
Canola harvest losses can be a lot worse than you think.
Swathing later is one way to boost yield. Refining your
combine ground speed and other settings is another
By Jay Whetter
anola growers are leaving a lot of
yield on the table. Or, more accurately,
they are leaving a lot of yield “off” the
table and on the ground. Estimates put
losses from the harvest process alone
at two to five bu./ac., on average. Early swathing
adds to that total.
Growers have two key ways to recoup some of
that yield. They can leave the crop standing longer,
which gives side branches longer to fill, thereby
increasing overall seed size and yield. And they can
take steps to reduce losses while combining.
Chris Holzapfel, researcher with Indian Head
Agricultural Research Foundation (IHARF) at Indian
Head, Sask., led a 2013 study into straight combining canola. The study compared two swathing times
and various straight cutting times. Early swathing
time — at 15 to 20 per cent seed-colour change for
this study — produced the lowest yields of all treatments. The other options, which were swathing at
40 to 50 per cent seed-colour change or straight
combining at various dates, produced a statistical
increase in canola yield over early swathing.
Based on previous research it had done showing
similar results to the IHARF study, the Canola Council
of Canada (CCC) recommends swathing at 60 to 70 per
cent seed-colour change for yield and quality.
“We know that not all canola can be swathed
at this ideal time, given the logistics of harvest, but
growers can expect an increase in yield if they can
hold off swathing their first crops until at least 30
to 40 per cent seed-colour change and aim to swath
the bulk of their canola at 60 to 70 per cent,” says
Angela Brackenreed, CCC agronomy specialist.
Seed-colour change is when seeds show any amount of yellow or brown to indicate they’re turning from green. This photo also
demonstrates how exterior pod colour is not an indicator of seed-colour change. Green pods can have brown seeds inside.
54 country-guide.ca September 2014
production
Combine losses
Once the crop is down, the next step is to combine it efficiently — which means finding a balance between timely harvest and not going so fast that you leave a lot of bushels behind.
“Harvest losses happen, and they’re probably a lot bigger than
many growers want to imagine,” Brackenreed says.
Rob Gulden, professor and researcher at the University
of Manitoba, led a recent canola harvest loss study, which
surveyed canola fields across the Prairies from 2010 to 2012.
Harvest losses ranged from 2.3 per cent to 11.2 per cent
across the 310 fields. The study included a questionnaire with
each grower to find management practices that correlated to
those harvest losses.
A key discovery was that higher plant density reduced harvest losses. “The study showed that harvest management starts
at planting, with the goal of achieving a high-density stand that
will mature evenly,” Gulden says. “Getting the harvest timing
right, which is a critical part of reducing losses, is linked to
stand densities. Cutting seeding rates is not the best idea from a
harvest management perspective.”
Higher combine ground speed was another factor that led to
increased harvest losses. There is no one ideal combine speed. It
varies by crop conditions and combine settings, and a grower’s
tolerance for losses.
The CCC ran a series of combine clinics a few year ago featuring Les Hill, program director of agriculture and bioresources at
Prairie Agriculture Machinery Institute (PAMI). Step one, Hill
says, is to measure losses. This requires some work with a drop
pan to see how much is thrown over the back of the combine. If
losses are unacceptable, then take steps to reduce them.
Combining slower is one of these steps that can reduce
losses. The loss curve tends to remain fairly flat until ground
speed reaches a critical point. “When a combine hits that wall,
a lot of the time it’ll start dumping grain out the back,” Hill
says. It may take just a small decrease in speed — say 0.2 or 0.3
mph — to provide a significant reduction in losses, he adds.
Other adjustments such as concave spacing, fan speed and
sieve settings can make a difference too. Try one variable at a
time and check losses between each adjustment. Ground speed
may be the last adjustment you want to make.
“In the end, the grower’s goal is to recognize where yield loss
is occurring — whether that’s as a result of swathing too early or
combining too fast or some other harvest factor. Windrows blowing in the wind is one of these other factors,” Brackenreed says.
“Increasing profit often comes down to a bunch of small incremental decisions that, on their own, don’t seem like a big deal,”
she adds. “These can include seeding a little heavier, swathing a
couple of days later and combining a fraction slower.” CG
Jay Whetter is communications manager with the Canola
Council of Canada. To read a summary of Rob Gulden’s
harvest loss study, see the C anola D igest S cience E dition
2013 here: http://www.canolacouncil.org/canola-digestpast-issues/. Look for study 4.1. For more tips from Les Hill
on how to check for losses and how to adjust combines, go
to www.canolawatch.org and search for the article “Reduce
costly harvest losses — tips.”
S e pt e m b e r 2 0 1 4 How to measure
seed-colour change
Seed-colour change (SCC) is considered any amount of
yellow or brown on the seed.
To measure SCC, start in an area of the field that best
represents the stand, stage and yield potential of the crop.
Pull a plant and isolate the main raceme, which is typically
the longest branch with the most pods and greatest percentage of yield. Take pods from the bottom, middle and top of
the main raceme.
For 60 per cent SCC, seeds from pods at bottom third
of the main raceme will be totally brown to purplish brown,
seeds from the middle third will be starting to turn, and seed
from the top are green but firm and will roll between your
thumb and forefinger without mushing.
Check five plants in this area, then repeat in another
couple of places in the field.
For a video on how to identify SCC, go to www.canolawatch.org and search for the article, “How to determine overall seed-colour change.”
Canada’s Annual
Ag Outlook Conference
February 23 & 24, 2015
The Fairmont Winnipeg
Farming has become a competitive business once again, as it usually
is. One way to do the best you can on your farm is to grow the crops
that the market will want.
Wild Oats Grainworld, Canada’s Annual Ag Outlook Conference, will
be held in Winnipeg on Feb 23 and 24, 2015. Traders of the crops
we grow in western Canada will give their outlooks for crops that
they trade.
Grainworld is a rewarding experience. You’ll mix with the Canadian
grain trade, other farmers who understand marketing and businesses
that serve our industry. You’ll hear from marketing experts who make
their living trading grain plus specialists from around the world with
their own insights into how markets are working.
Do yourself a favour. Mark your calendar for two days in February at
the Fairmont at the corner of Portage and Main.
Early-bird registration is $400 and includes all sessions and meals.
Register at wildoatsgrainworld.com or 1-800-567-5671.
country-guide.ca 55
PRODUCTION
Western Grains Research Foundation is a farmer-funded and -directed non-profit organization investing in agricultural research that
benefits western Canadian producers. For over 30 years the WGRF board has given producers a voice in agricultural research funding
decisions. WGRF manages an Endowment Fund and the wheat and barley variety development checkoff funds, investing over
$7 million annually into breeding and field crop research. WGRF brings the research spending power of all farmers in Western Canada
together, maximizing the returns they see in crop research.
Without WGRF funds,
research such as the
Durum Wheat Plots at
Kernen Crop Research
Farm in Saskatoon
would be limited.
Farm dollars make the difference
Producer investment at Saskatchewan’s Crop Development Centre
By Brian Cross
nother growing season is well underway at the
University of Saskatchewan’s Crop Development
Centre (CDC), thanks in large part to farmer
investments furnished through the Western Grains
Research Foundation (WGRF).
Wheat and barley breeders at Saskatchewan’s Crop Development Centre along with about 45 research technicians and field
workers plant, maintain, monitor and harvest about 150,000
experimental lines of spring wheat, durum and barley as part of
an ongoing effort to develop new and improved cereal varieties
for western Canadian farmers.
Each year, the most promising experimental lines of wheat
and barley are selected and carried forward for further development in hopes that they will one day become a registered seed
variety in Canada.
Last year, the Western Grain Research Foundation invested
over $1.4 million to the centre’s barley- and wheat-breeding programs in 2013.
In fact, the WGRF and the farmers it serves have been investing
in the development of new wheat and barley varieties at the CDC
since the early 1990s. This funding has helped facilitate the development of dozens of well-known cereal varieties, including CDC
56 country-guide.ca
Verona durum, CDC Utmost VB spring wheat, CDC Copeland
malting barley and CDC Austenson barley, to name just a few.
Financial contributions made by the WGRF provide CDC
wheat and barley plant-breeding programs with the stable, longterm funding that is needed to maintain successful programs and
ensure that Canadian farmers have access to the latest and most
promising cereal grain genetics.
“Developing new cereal varieties is a long-term process so
we have material that’s moving through the program at different stages,” explains CDC barley breeder Aaron Beattie. “In
a typical year, we’ll plant thousands of small plots… and then
as the material moves forward into the yield trial stage of the
program, we’re probably again talking about thousands of plots
or even into the low tens of thousands.” According to Beattie,
WGRF support has been critically important to the success of
the CDC’s cereal-breeding programs.
Operating a breeding program is costly and extremely labour
intensive. Managing data after the plots have been harvested is
equally onerous. Financial assistance provided by the WGRF not
only provides stable funding for core operations at the CDC, it
also allows the centre to attract additional support from other
organizations, including government and industry partners.
SEPTEMBER 2014
PRODUCTION
“They (the WGRF) have a very good understanding of that
long-term need for stability in a breeding program,” Beattie
says. “That’s really the nice thing about our relationship with
the WGRF, in that it gives us that stable funding that we need
and it also allows us to leverage a lot of funding from other
sources as well.”
Curtis Pozniak, who heads the CDC’s high-yielding wheatand durum-breeding program, agrees that funding stability is
extremely important. “The WGRF is a fantastic supporter of the
barley- and wheat-breeding programs here at CDC,” says Pozniak. “They provide what I think of as the foundation of funding for our breeding programs and that’s allowed us to leverage
additional dollars from different levels of government as well as
our industry partners.”
The foundation’s role also goes beyond funding for
core breeding activities, Pozniak says. The WGRF provides
feedback from the industry as well, serving as a direct link
between CDC researchers on one hand and producers of
Canadian cereal grains on the other. Feedback from the industry stakeholders — including farmers and end-users of western
Canadian grain — is extremely important because it ensures
that plant breeders are developing varieties that address the
needs of growers and processors.
“That’s the other nice thing about our relationship with the
WGRF. We meet on a yearly basis to discuss breeding targets,”
Pozniak says. “The WGRF Board consists of producers from all
across Western Canada who can provide input and guidance in
terms of setting breeding priorities, so that’s an important role
that the WGRF plays beyond the funding.”
The WGRF also provides financial funding for additional
projects that involve CDC researchers and that are considered
beneficial to western Canadian cereal growers. Those projects
involve research in areas such as plant pathology, gene sequencing and the development of new technologies that will allow
plant breeders to develop new and improved cereal varieties
more quickly and more efficiently.
In 2011, for example, the WGRF contributed more than
$1.1 million to the Canadian Triticum Advancement Through
Genomics project, or CTAG. CTAG is part of an ambitious
international effort aimed at mapping the wheat genome and
developing new molecular markers that can be used by wheat
breeders to develop new varieties.
Producer investments in the development of new technologies will pay dividends immediately but in the long run, they will
result in more new varieties and higher farm gate profits, says
Kofi Agblor, managing director at the CDC.
“For a farmers’ group to put money toward the sequencing
of the wheat genome is a fairly progressive thing,” Agblor says.
“At the end of the day, our objective at the CDC is to deliver
value to the farm and we are delivering value.
“For us, the relationship with the WGRF has been a very
good agreement because it is stable and highly predictable and
we can be assured that the funding will be there,” Agblor adds.
“For farmers, I think it has been a very good investment.” CG
Cultivating Growth
Increasing Endowment Fund expenditures for the
benefit of western Canadian crop producers
$15 million
in new funding to crop
research over four years
More than
100
new projects
Research
priorities
identified by
producers
Leveraged to
$30 million
by co-funding
New research
funding examples:
Weed Management
Blackleg & Clubroot in Canola
Improving Oat Nutrition
Pulse Disease Management
Graduate Student Scholarships
Fusarium Resistance in Cereals
WGRF is committed to utilizing the Endowment Fund for the benefit of western
Canadian crop producers by managing and investing the fund in order to
provide future long-term benefits to producers. To find out more, visit us online.
www.westerngrains.com
WGRF Endowment Fund Half-page Ad_final.indd 1
2013-09-12 8:34 AM
Production
More value
from shelterbelts
Even if ripping out an old shelterbelt could help you work
more acres per hour, you may still be worse off
By Gord Leathers
Shelterbelts are
contributing more
than we guessed to
high, sustainable
crop yields.
ack in the Dirty ’30s, farmers planted
shelterbelts in a desperate bid to slow
those drying winds and keep them from
blowing our precious topsoil east. Now,
at almost 100 years old, these windbreaks have grown into stands of mature trees that
continue to serve that purpose well.
Not only do these shelterbelts curb wind erosion,
they also reduce evaporation and help trap snow that
melts into the spring, adding soil moisture for that
season’s crop.
The current generation of farmers, however, is
looking at shelterbelts differently. Since conservation
tillage is already holding the topsoil down and trapping the snow, why not remove the trees and put the
otherwise unproductive land under crops?
This would also clear the way for machinery to run
unfettered from one side of a section to the other, and
make it easier for an aerial sprayer. Yet new thinking
from the biological control people suggests there may
still be good reasons to maintain those old tree belts.
“Shelterbelts and those kinds of perennial habitats
around crops provide resources for beneficial insects,
58 country-guide.ca including natural enemies and pollinators,” says University of Manitoba insect ecologist Alejandro Costamagna. “A lot of them can’t overwinter in fields that
harbour summer crops because it’s just bare ground.
They need to overwinter in perennial habitats.”
The key word here is “perennial,” a permanent and
stable refuge for insect predators during the off-season.
A field of wheat may be very productive for a short
period and predatory insects may have a fine time
in there for a few months. But it’s fleeting and, once
the crop is in the bin, the remaining stubble provides
almost nothing for the ground beetles and parasitoid
wasps that hunt there. They need a local refuge where
they can spend the winter and be ready to move into
the fields the next spring. Otherwise they could die off.
On the other hand, native prairie offers a cornucopia of different plants that provide shelter, nectar
and food year round. Although the populations of
predator and prey insects may fluctuate, there’s an
overall stability in the system. In this way the resident population of predators keeps a growing populace of plant-eating insects in check.
Those old shelterbelts are the last holdouts of stable
habitats in a surrounding ocean of ephemeral crop
fields, and research in other parts of the world suggests
those groves are even more valuable than we know.
“There are some examples from Australia where
they show that natural enemies from shelterbelts
move into cotton,” Costamagna says. “They marked
predatory beetles with rubidium and found that they
move from these shelterbelts into the cotton and
attack several pests.”
It’s a matter of timing. We’ve been farming for
several thousand years and one of the first things we
learned is how well pests can exploit a large stand
of virtually identical plants. Under the best of circumstances, a crop gives them a limitless supply of
high-quality food with no predatory enemies, so their
populations can boom completely unchecked. On the
other hand, if there’s a nearby pocket of generalist
predators such as lady beetles, spiders and assassin bugs, the initial invasion doesn’t get the chance
to boom and the numbers remain manageable. The
predators may not eradicate them completely, but at
least the pests are kept below the economic threshold.
september 2014
production
Costamagna says he found this in his graduate
studies on soybean aphid. The aphid isn’t native here
and it doesn’t survive the tough Canadian Prairie
winter very well. Its numbers bump up in the spring
however, when the southerly winds bring in a new
supply from the United States.
Once here, the aphid can do a lot of damage if
unchecked. “We didn’t think that natural enemies
were effectively controlling these aphids, which are
from Asia,” Costamagna says. “We assumed that
natural enemies here couldn’t control this pest.”
But their studies actually showed that when you
put the aphids in exclusion cages (a box that separated the aphids from predators) the aphid population took off and very quickly overwhelmed the
system. Under natural conditions, aphids are very
poor at escaping predators so they’re a ready source
of food for many of the more voracious types. Their
principal defence is rapid reproduction.
The exclusion cage experiments showed two
things. The first was how quickly those aphid numbers
increased when there were no natural enemies in there
with them. The second was the difference in aphid
populations in the surrounding environment. It turned
out that the native predators were effective at controlling aphid numbers as long as they got an early start.
“These aphids had always had the potential to
become a pest and really knock yield down. In any
experiment we did in any season and in any field,
if you excluded the predators, the aphids became a
pest,” Costamagna says. “But most of the time we
don’t actually see that, so we think these natural
enemies are controlling these aphids.”
We don’t know the environmental cue that triggers the aphids to boom out of control, but having the
predators in place and ready before the aphids blow in
may be the critical factor for keeping them in check.
That’s what makes these perennial habitats so
important. They provide that pocket of habitat where
the predators can live until they’re called into the fields
again. Nor is it only for overwintering. Shelterbelts are
also providing some relief from the summer heat.
“Insects can’t regulate their temperature well
so when it’s very warm, parasitoids will move into
wooded areas during the day and they will survive a
lot better in there,” Costamagna says. “If you have
areas like that near your crop, it’s more likely that
you’ll have higher populations of these parasitoid
wasps that can move when the conditions are better,
find their prey and kill them.”
Now, more then ever, farmers are pulled in several
different directions. They need productivity but they
must also consider sustainability. If maintaining shelterbelts can provide both, then farmers can save time and
inputs without hurting their profit margin. Those old
shelterbelts can do this by providing a frontline defence
against insect pests that requires no time investment.
Besides, those pests will never develop genetic
resistance to predators. Still, these are not simple systems and we need to know a lot more about them.
“The first step is for farmers to understand that
not all the insects are damaging, and I think the people working with farmers in that capacity are doing a
good job on that,” Costamagna says. “And the second is before you spray, make sure that you actually
have the pest you think you have, and that you have
it in high enough numbers that it’s damaging.” CG
Shelterbelts were
planted to save soil,
but new science
says they should be
kept for crop health.
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. Commercialized products have 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. Acceleron® seed treatment technology for canola contains the active ingredients difenoconazole,
metalaxyl (M and S isomers), fludioxonil, and thiamethoxam. Acceleron® seed treatment technology for soybeans (fungicides only) is a combination of three separate individually registered
products, which together contain the active ingredients fluxapyroxad, pyraclostrobin and metalaxyl. Acceleron® seed treatment technology for soybeans (fungicides and insecticide) is a combination
of four separate individually registered products, which together contain the active ingredients fluxapyroxad, pyraclostrobin, metalaxyl and imidacloprid. Acceleron® seed treatment technology for
corn (fungicides only) is a combination of three separate individually-registered products, which together contain the active ingredients metalaxyl, trifloxystrobin and ipconazole. Acceleron® seed
treatment technology for corn (fungicides and insecticide) is a combination of four separate individually-registered products, which together contain the active ingredients metalaxyl, trifloxystrobin,
ipconazole, and clothianidin. Acceleron® seed treatment technology for corn with Poncho®/VoTivo™ (fungicides, insecticide and nematicide) is a combination of five separate individually-registered
products, which together contain the active ingredients metalaxyl, trifloxystrobin, ipconazole, clothianidin and Bacillus firmus strain
I-5821. Acceleron®, Acceleron and Design®, DEKALB and Design®, DEKALB®, Genuity and Design®, Genuity®, RIB Complete and Design®,
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WeatherMAX®, Roundup®, SmartStax and Design®, SmartStax®, Transorb®, VT Double PRO® and VT Triple PRO® are trademarks of Monsanto
Technology LLC. Used under license. LibertyLink® and the Water Droplet Design are trademarks of Bayer. Used under license. Herculex® is
a registered trademark of Dow AgroSciences LLC. Used under license. Poncho® and Votivo™ are trademarks of Bayer. Used under license.
All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
september 2014
905.403.0055 > [email protected]
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Pub: CGW
country-guide.ca 59
w e at h e r
MILDER THAN NORMAL
C
ai Fro oo
n s l
/ s ty
no
w
R
MILDER THAN
NORMAL
NEAR- TO BELOWAVERAGE
PRECIPITATION
Warm
Some
rain
Co
Sno ol
Rai w
n
NEAR-NORMAL TEMPERATURES
AND PRECIPITATION
W
Sto et
spermy
lls
NEAR NORMAL
m
War ery
w
Sho ells
p
s
BRITISH COLUMBIA
September 14 to October 18, 2014
Sept. 14-20: Warm on most days although
some frost occurs at higher elevations
and north on a couple of nights. Isolated
shower or thundershower activity.
Sept. 21-27: Highs generally in the 20s
except teens in coastal areas. Frost at
higher levels. Scattered showers at a few
localities.
Sept. 28-Oct. 4: Fair skies most of the
week although scattered rain occurs and
brisk winds on a couple of occasions.
Frost pockets inland.
Oct. 5-11: Fair on several days in the
south with scattered rain. Unsettled in the
north with coastal rain except some snow
and frost in the mountains.
Oct. 12-18: Variable. Cooler outbreaks
and blustery winds bring occasional rain
on two or three days. Frost and occasional
snow and frost inland.
ALBERTA
Sept. 14-20: Several mild days although
some lows fall to around zero on a couple
of clear, cooler nights. Often dry apart
from scattered showers.
Sept. 21-27: Highs reach the teens on
most days with frost at many locations on
two or three nights. Some rain, blustery on
a couple of days.
Sept. 28-Oct. 4: Changeable and at times
windy. Fair, mild days alternate with cooler
days and occasional rain. Frosty on most
nights.
Oct. 5-11: Variable weather and temperatures as disturbances move through. Scattered rain, chance of snow in the north
and at higher elevations.
60 country-guide.ca Oct. 12-18: Cooler outbreaks and blustery
winds bring occasional rain to the south
and some rain or snow to the north.
SASKATCHEWAN
Sept. 14-20: Although sunny, warm days
dominate, rain falls on a couple of occasions. Frost in several areas on a couple
of nights.
Sept. 21-27: Seasonal temperatures with
highs in the teens and lows near zero on
many nights. Sunny skies interchange with
scattered rain.
Sept. 28-Oct. 4: Conditions vary as mild,
fair days interchange with cooler air and
occasional rain. Windy. Frosty on several
nights.
Oct. 5-11: Fair with seasonal temperatures but cooler outbreaks on two or three
days bring some rain, chance of snow in
the north. Windy at times.
Oct. 12-18: Fair, dry weather alternates
with wet, cool days. Blustery at times.
Cooler in the north with occasional rain
and snow.
MANITOBA
Sept. 14-20: Sunny, warm days will interchange with a few blustery, wet days and
cooler temperatures. Several lows dip to
around zero.
Sept. 21-27: Fair most days with highs
often in the teens. Frosty on a couple of
nights. Scattered rain in the south, possibly mixed with snow in the north.
Sept. 28-Oct. 4: Warm and seasonal days
alternate with cooler, wet days. Windy at
times. Cool in the north with occasional
rain, chance of wet snow.
Oct. 5-11: Cooler air advances south
bringing some rain south, wet snow in the
north on two or three days. Blustery. On
fair days highs peak in the teens.
Oct. 12-18: Expect variable conditions as
warm, dry days interchange with wet and
cooler air. Windy at times. Snow likely in
northern areas.
September 14
to October 18, 2014
NATIONAL HIGHLIGHTS
Most of the country east of Alberta will see
changeable weather conditions as shorter days
and lower temperatures take hold, with several
weeks mixed with warm and then cool, wet
spells. Following earlier trends, by contrast,
British Columbia and much of Alberta will see
pleasant, dry and relatively mild days. Most
of Canada will end up with near-normal temperatures and precipitation, although somewhat more unsettled conditions may affect
Atlantic Canada in this period due to passing
weather disturbances. Meantime in several
far-northern locations, snow will make its first
arrival in October. A developing El Niño is not
expected to influence the Canadian weather
pattern before late fall or perhaps early winter.
Prepared by meteorologist Larry Romaniuk
of Weatherite Services. Forecasts should
be 80 per cent accurate for your area;
expect variations by a day or two due to
changeable speed of weather systems.
September 2014
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LIFE
Too young, too old
The generation gap is coming back with a vengeance,
and farm families need to watch out
By Helen Lammers-Helps
he concept called the “generation gap”
might not have become a buzzphrase
until the ’60s, but undoubtedly there
have been generational differences as
long as there has been history. So why
should today be any different?
In fact, however, today may be exactly that — different. With the current speed of cultural and technological change, the generation gap may be wider and
more damaging than ever.
Or, it could be wider and better than ever,
depending on your perspective and your flexibility.
While we usually see these generational differences as a bad thing, that doesn’t have to be the case,
asserts Jim Soldan, a farm business adviser in Chilliwack, BC. “Generational differences within the family farm can be hugely positive or hugely negative. It
all depends on how you approach it,” says Soldan.
It helps to know what you’re looking for. Most
important, what are the trigger points for intergenerational conflict? Uncertainty is a huge issue, points
out Elaine Froese, a farm family coach in Boissevain,
Man. and co-author of the book: Farming’s In-Law
Factor — How to have more harmony and less
conflict on family farms.
If there is clarity about expectations, agreement as
to how things should unfold, and a commitment to
act, there will be a lot less conflict, says Froese.
There are other stumbling blocks that Froese sees
again and again on the farms where she’s been called
in to help sort things out.
Sometimes, the founder’s inability to let go of
the reins impedes the transfer of ownership to the
younger generation, says Froese. After spending a
lifetime building up the farm, the owner may be
afraid to retire, she explains.
Unfortunately this leaves the younger generation
hanging, wondering when they will get more responsibility and a chance to build up their equity.
Today’s young generation has been told essentially from birth that they need to get ahead, and if
they don’t feel they are making progress, Froese says,
they are going to go elsewhere.
“It can be very frustrating for young, educated
people joining a farm team if their education, offfarm work experience or training isn’t recognized or
valued by older members of the farm team,” Froese
explains.
62 country-guide.ca The younger generation really wants to put their
stamp on the farm operation, agrees Lynne Lancaster
author of The M-Factor: How the Millennial
Generation Is Rocking the Workplace. Too often
the older generation’s response is to balk at change.
It would be more productive to listen to the younger
generation’s ideas and try to find a way to incorporate some of them into the farm operation, she says.
Likewise, it can be equally frustrating for older
family members when their kids come back to farm
with them but don’t value the wisdom their elders
have gained from years of farming, says Froese.
Young people may not even recognize how
important this issue can become. Leaving a legacy is
really important for the older generation, agrees Lancaster. She advises the younger generation to talk to
the older generation about their vision and to really
listen to them.
Sometimes the senior generation is slow to transfer ownership out of the fear that if the succeeding
generation divorces, it will impact negatively on the
farm. While it’s important to consult a lawyer to
ensure that the proper legal paperwork is in place,
Froese encourages families to focus instead on ways
to help strengthen the marriages of farm owners.
This also applies to the marriage of the senior generation, which may also be at risk, she adds.
Other times, the senior generation may be waiting for the younger generation to marry, not recognizing a common-law relationship. “The senior
generation has no choice but to express their ‘displeasure’ in the only way they know how,” says
Soldan. “They are trying to protect family wealth as
best as they know how.”
His advice to the younger generation in this situation is to have an attitude change. “With marriage,
there is at least some confidence that the knot tied
may be more difficult to untie than if the relationship
is merely common law,” he says while also recognizing that formalized marriages come apart too.
Froese agrees that a wedding “speaks to the commitment in a relationship.” We have few norms or
rituals for acknowledging common-law relationships, which can make it awkward for others, she
continues. However, in her book, Froese quotes
Gloria Call Horsley who uses the term “unofficial inlaws” to describe one’s relationship to the parents of
one’s common-law partner.
September 2014
LIFE
Another area of conflict that springs up regularly
between the generations is work-life balance, says
Froese. Younger generations want time for family
and for personal renewal, she says. They may not be
as willing to sacrifice their personal lives for the sake
of the farm as the previous generations.
Lancaster agrees, but she adds that sometimes the
older generation is too quick to judge the younger
generation as lazy. The younger generation really
wants to find a way to be more efficient so they can
still have time for their families.
Lancaster believes it would be better for families
to sit down and discuss their goals and answer the
question, “Can we work smarter?”
Sometimes, too, the younger generation is perceived as being less loyal, hopping from job to job.
However, Candace Laing, a human resources professional in Saskatoon says that this generation has
learned to manage their own careers because organizations no longer offer lifetime security.
“They have had to look for growth opportunities
to develop their skills and ensure they are employable.” She continues, “Retention and loyalty are
possible, they just likely won’t be sustained by nonexistent job security and pension but rather by purposeful work and engagement.”
Things may be different on the farm. But remember, these are your sons’ and daughters’ friends, and
their attitudes help shape your children’s values.
Meanwhile, for the parents, it can be good to
recognize your opportunities to build bridges. For
instance, while generational differences often lead
to conflict, technology is one area where the senior
generation can take advantage of the expertise of the
younger generation.
“They’re used to being our coaches,” says Lancaster. “They’ve been doing it since they were kids.”
And while the younger generation seems to think
there’s an app to solve every problem, there may be
places where technology really can improve the bottom line of the farm operation.
So, in a nutshell, what’s the secret when it comes
to defusing generational conflict?
It’s communication, our experts all agree. Generational differences become a problem when there’s
been a lack of dialogue, say Soldan. Each person on
the farm team needs to share their needs, wants and
where they’re coming from.
He recommends the farm family team meet regularly and develop a Code of Conduct that governs how team members will interact. For example,
all members may agree to listen attentively, and
that there will be no “eye rolling.” Team members
should also maintain a positive attitude: “we’re in
this together and we need to help each other.”
If every farm put the same energy into the farm
team as they put into deciding what tractor to buy,
farm businesses and farm families would be in much
better shape, says Soldan. “People spend hours talking to the tractor salesman but not to other family
members.”
September 2014
Froese agrees. Farmers are spending a lot of
money on technology but are overlooking communication, she says.
Soldan advises farm families to seek professional
help if needed. He uses a toothache analogy. “If you
had a toothache you’d call a professional,” he points
out. This is no different, he says.
Unfortunately, too often our response to conflict
is to not have the difficult conversations. However,
avoiding talking about the issues only makes the
situation worse, stresses Froese. Problems do not go
away by themselves. CG
How to shoot yourself
in the foot when dealing
with in-law conflict
Eight Easy Steps
(From Elaine Froese, farm family coach and coauthor of Farming’s In-Law Factor)
Triangulate and Gossip: Refuse to speak to the
person or persons you’re in conflict with. Instead,
complain to everyone else in the community and
expect the key parts of the message to be magically leaked to the key players. Expect at least half
of the message to be lost or misconstrued in the
transfer of information.
Stonewall: Refuse to deal with the problem
and interfere with others’ attempts to do so. The
simplest way to do this is to hang up the phone
or get up and leave the room any time the topic is
mentioned.
Try to control others and their actions. If persuasion doesn’t work, look to various oppressive
dictators from around the world for other inspiring
methods.
Be judgmental about everything they do or
say. Nitpick at every little detail. Always attack the
person, their actions, their ideas, their morals,
their family, and even their choice of footwear and
hairstyle, if need be.
Hold firm to your position, no matter what anyone else says, no matter how ridiculous your position is.
Complain incessantly about the situation, but
do nothing to change it. Be insistent that it is ALL
someone else’s fault and that you are a completely
innocent bystander.
Hold a grudge. Forever. Even if it wasn’t a big
deal. Slip references to the incident into conversation occasionally just to keep the wound fresh, but
avoid having a serious conversation about what
happened (see #2 Stonewall).
Insist that everyone in the family do everything
your way or else pout, sulk, or throw child-like tantrums until they do.
country-guide.ca 63
h e a lt h
Warts — more than skin deep
By Marie Berry
f you’ve ever had a wart, you will know that
they are embarrassing and inconvenient, but
not usually harmful.
All warts are caused by viruses, specifically
the human papillomaviruses. There are many
different strains, and because these viruses are easily
transmitted from person to person, childhood warts
are a common result from contact when children play
with each other.
Warts are also often transmitted in public spaces
such as gyms, public showers, and the like.
Warts are skin lesions no larger than a half-centimetre in diameter. They can occur anywhere on the
skin, but most often on the hands. They can also be
flat or elevated, and they usually have a rough surface.
Applying tree sap under a
full moon may not work,
but what about duct tape?
The incubation period averages two to 18 months,
so you may not even remember being exposed by the
time that you notice the wart. About 50 per cent of people have “spontaneous cures” because the virus diminishes in numbers. However, recurrences are possible.
Few if any symptoms are associated with warts.
They can be esthetically unpleasant, however, and when
warts are visible or occur in groups over extensive skin
areas, you may curtail activities to avoid having people
see them. Sometimes too, there can be tenderness, and
if you scratch or “pick at” the wart, irritation can result.
Plantar warts affect the bottom of the feet. It is
the pressure on the weight-bearing surfaces of the
soles and/or heels that flattens them. The surface of
the plantar wart may reveal multiple tiny black dots
that tend to bleed when the surface is scraped. These
warts can become large and cause pain, discomfort,
and even affect mobility.
Non-prescription wart removers usually contain
keratolytics which remove keratin (the skin cells
that comprise the wart). Because these ingredients
can remove healthy skin, you will want to protect
the skin surrounding the wart. Applying adhesive
tape with a hole cut in it no larger than the wart
will protect your healthy skin. Stick it on your skin
before you apply the wart remover and leave it in
place until the remover dries. Some keratolytic wart
removers are available as medicated pads that you
can position over the wart.
Unfortunately, it can take weeks or months with
repeated applications to remove warts with keratolytics, and if you have numerous warts the process can
be impractical. You may be tempted to “cut off” the
wart, but you risk damaging your healthy skin and
you also risk infection. However, you can soak the
wart in warm water to soften it and rub the surface
gently with a pumice stone to remove upper layers.
Freezing the wart with liquid nitrogen can be done
by a health-care professional, but there also is a nonprescription product that you can use on your own
to freeze warts. Having a health-care professional do
this might be the better option, because if you miss
the wart you risk damaging your healthy skin. Scarring and infection are potential complications.
Other approaches include surgical removal and
laser therapy, both by health-care professionals.
Regardless of your treatment, repeated therapy is
usually needed over three to four months, and wart
recurrence is possible.
Numerous traditional methods exist for wart
removal and range from procedures done at a full
moon to application of specific types of tree sap,
but using duct tape does seem to help. Soak and
remove any dead skin, then apply a piece of duct
tape slightly larger than the wart. It needs to be
kept in place for about six days, then the process is
repeated again for about a month.
And you thought duct tape was only for repairs!
Marie Berry is a lawyer/pharmacist interested in
health and education.
Gout is sometimes considered an “old” disease because it has been around for centuries. However, if you do
have gout you will know that it can certainly be problematic. Next issue, we’ll look at gout and its treatment.
64 country-guide.ca September 2014
NOW AVAILABLE
Brilliant-red poppies sway in a breeze
that blows gently inland from the English Channel, and a three-wire fence separates the cemetery from a neighbouring
field of canola.
The poppies contrast with the cemetery lawn, where every blade of grass has
been manicured. These are no ordinary
poppies, and this is not an ordinary cemetery. Canadian symbols are everywhere but those buried here are far from their
Canadian birthplaces. A monument proclaims this ground has
been given to Canada by France, which remembers the sacrifice
of our sailors, soldiers and airmen in liberating their country
from the Nazi grip of the Second World War.
The commemoration of the 70th anniversary of D-Day
on June 6 attracted world leaders to the Normandy beaches.
My prayer is that their appeals for peace will be honoured.
Two weeks later my wife Jacqueline and I visited the area.
The Canadian War Cemetery at Beny-sur-Mer was peaceful
and tranquil. Photos and TV documentaries pay tribute to the
final resting place of the war dead but I was not prepared for
the surge of emotion that overcame me. Rows and rows of
perfectly arranged graves pay tribute to the 2,048 men buried
here. Their ages and hometowns are marked on the stones.
They were young and a long way from home. Their families in
Canada never saw them again.
I had two poppies in my pocket. Jacqueline placed one near a
headstone for a soldier named Phillipe Plante, her paternal family name. I placed mine on a stone marking the grave of “Rifleman George Kindrachuk of the Regina Rifles killed 9 June 1944
Age 25, son of Alex and Paraska Kindrachuk of Hafford Saskatchewan.” I cannot imagine what sadness must have engulfed
the Kindrachuk family and their town northwest of Saskatoon.
Earlier in the day we visited the War Cemetery at Ranville,
the first village liberated in France. A headstone with the name
Harry Andrews caught my attention. Could he have been a
relative? He belonged to a British Regiment and died in 1944
at the age of 22. The symbol on his headstone was the Star of
David indicating his Jewish faith. The engraving said “Formerly
Hans Arenstein born in Erfurt, Germany.” A similarly marked
headstone at Beny-sur-Mer for Corporal Israel Pavelow noted
he served as Ervin Povol with the Regina Rifles. He was born
in Kiev, Russia, son of Hyman Pavelow. What anguish and fear
dominated the lives of these men before their untimely deaths?
The cause was so important they changed their names and hid
their religion. Unfortunately, the battle for religious and political
freedom is still going on in many parts of the world.
Sometimes I reflect on the connections between my life
and what happened on the Normandy beaches. The people
who were significant in my formation were deeply affected by
the war. They were the people who guided my education and
formed my attitudes and values. They passed on standards and
principles which have guided my life.
We arrived home shortly before July 1. Canadian flags were
flying everywhere. My mind went back to Juno Beach where I said
a prayer of thanks and I gathered some sand. It will remind me
that the freedom and opportunity I have enjoyed, and continue to
enjoy, came at a huge cost.
Suggested Scripture: Micah 4:1-5, Luke 1:67-79
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Rod Andrews is a retired Anglican bishop. He lives in Saskatoon.
©2013 Farm Business Communications
September 2014
country-guide.ca 65
ACRES
By Leeann Minogue
Who’s that behind the wheel?
“Nobody better tell Grandpa about this.”
onna had done her best to pass her
position on the farm to her daughterin-law gracefully. First, she’d passed
on her role as bookkeeper to Elaine,
going so far as to move the filing cabinet from the spot in Donna and Dale’s house where
it had permanently crushed the carpet to Elaine and
Jeff’s new house across the yard.
Then Donna had passed on her role as coffee coordinator, making sure that her husband Dale and son
Jeff took breaks in Elaine’s house, rather than sitting in
their usual chairs around Donna’s dining room table.
Donna resisted the urge to pass on her muffin tins and recipes. “Only the worst of meddling
mother-in-laws would complain about store-bought
cookies now and then.”
At first, Donna made the most of her new-found
free time. She took up with a whole group of newly
retired women. For the first time since her kids were
born, Donna could actually go along when she was
invited to coffee get-togethers. These progressed
to shopping days in the city and soon Donna had
become part of a group of women who went on hiking and ski trips.
She’d been having such a good time, she didn’t
really notice how much she’d been away from the
farm until one evening in late July.
“Want to come along on a crop tour?” Dale had
asked.
“Sorry, I can’t. I promised Jen I’d meet her at the
lake to help her practice with her kayak before our
river trip.”
66 country-guide.ca
“River trip?” Dale said. “I didn’t know you were
going on a river trip. That’s too bad. You really
should see these soybeans. They look great.”
“Soybeans! You planted soybeans?” Donna said.
Donna had meant to pass on her role to give
Elaine a chance to get involved in the farm. She
hadn’t meant to get so far removed from the operation that she didn’t even know what they had in the
ground.
That very night, she’d called Jen to reschedule so
she could go out with Dale and look at the crops.
“This is really nice,” Donna said, grateful that
she’d taken time to spend the evening with her husband.
“Sure is! Best canola crop I’ve seen here in
years!” Dale answered. Then he laughed. “I’m just
kidding. I’m glad to spend some time out here with
you too. We need to find more for you to do around
here.”
But what? She couldn’t take back the jobs she’d
given up.
An answer came during harvest.
“I can’t be out in this field all day,” Donna’s
father-in-law Ed announced to his surprised son and
grandson one morning, not long before lunch. “I
have important phone calls to make. I don’t have a
whole day for this project. I’ll get my business done
and come back later.” Dale and Jeff were stunned.
But when they saw Ed limping heavily between the
combine cab and the truck, they understood the real
reason Ed needed a break, and also why he was so
miserable about it. He was exhausted, and in pain.
SEPTEMBER 2014
acres
“Guess we worked Grandpa too long yesterday,”
Jeff said.
“That hip must be giving him more trouble than
he wants us to know,” Dale said. “We should have
figured that out sooner.”
“We still wouldn’t have got him out of the cab
before he was ready. Not without the Jaws of Life,”
Jeff half-joked. “But now what do we do?”
Not wanting to offend Ed by implying that he
wasn’t up to a full-time job, Dale and Jeff hadn’t tried
very hard to find someone to work on the farm. One
of the neighbours had promised to help out the year
before, but when he’d sprained his ankle on the first
day, he’d never come back. Other years, Elaine had put
in some time helping during harvest, but with a fouryear old and a new baby, that wasn’t a great option.
With Dale swathing canola and Jeff running the
grain cart and moving augers, they were stuck for
someone to run the combine. Dale and Jeff put their
heads together and called a few potential prospects,
but they came up empty. Eventually Dale phoned
home. “Donna, you’ve been spending time in town.
Do you know someone who could help out?”
“Let me give it some thought,” she’d said.
But instead of thinking about it, Donna had
changed her clothes, packed a lunch and headed out
to the field. And that’s how she became the Hanson’s fill-in combine operator.
Dale and Jeff weren’t convinced at first.
“You don’t even like driving my one-ton truck!”
Dale had said.
“You know there’s a lot of computers in a combine cab, right Mom?” Jeff asked.
It wasn’t something she’d done before. She
had always been run off her feet with kids, meals
and paperwork. But after challenging herself on
snowshoes, in a kayak, with a photography class
and even on a snowboard over the past two years,
Donna was sure she was up to it.
“I’ve been running a computer since you went off
to kindergarten,” she told her son. “Now step aside
and let me into that cab.”
She had most of the controls figured out by
lunchtime and was getting used to listening to the
sound of the rotors. By one o’clock, she’d mastered
the yield monitor and was even managing not to
plug the combine when she was picking up the large
awkward piles of canola the swather had left behind
in spots around the field.
September 2014
With Dale swathing canola and Jeff
running the grain cart and moving
augers, they were stuck for someone
to run the combine. They put their
heads together, but eventually Dale
phoned home.“Donna?”
“We’ll have to get your dad to quit leaving beaver huts all over the field if he’s going to get good
help!” she told Jeff.
By two o’clock, Donna had already taught herself how to run the satellite radio, and Jeff left her
alone in the cab so he could haul canola to the bins.
At four-thirty, Donna was unloading canola on the
go, something Ed had never been comfortable doing.
“Nobody better tell Grandpa about this,” Jeff said.
But it was too late.
A well-rested Ed had just driven out from town.
He pulled up at the approach to the field where Dale
and Jeff were standing outside, watching Donna
turn at the end of a swath with finesse.
“Is that Donna in that cab?” Ed asked?
“Sure is,” Dale said, surprised at how proud he felt.
“She’s doing pretty well,” Jeff added, genuinely
impressed.
“Huh,” Ed said. “Step out of you chair for 10
minutes and look what happens.”
Jeff and Dale exchanged looks. Would Ed be
so offended he’d drive off into the sunset with his
new girlfriend, and refuse to help at all? Even with
Donna on board, could they get by without Ed?
Then Ed’s cell phone rang.
“Yep… Yep… I thought that would happen,” Ed
said into the phone. “Same time tomorrow would
work good. I’ll catch you at this end.” He put his
phone back in his pocket.
“Women. Donna wants to go out boating with
some girlfriend or some darn thing. Guess I have to
get back to work.”
With that, Ed got in his truck and drove to the
edge of the field, to wait for his turn. CG
Leeann Minogue is the editor of Grainews, a
playwright and part of a family grain farm in
southeastern Saskatchewan.
country-guide.ca 67
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