September 2009 Archives

In her column for the October 19 Grainews, Elaine Froese talks about a New Zealand Nuffield Scholar who came a spent a week at the Froese farm during this fall's harvest. In my Manitoba Co-operator days, Les Kletke, also a Nuffield Scholar, wrote a few times about his studies in New Zealand. It got me thinking that I should put reports from Nuffield Scholars into Grainews.

I don't know much about Nuffield scholarships, so I went to the website.

Details

The objective of the Nuffield Canada Farming Scholarship is to develop leadership from within Canada's rural industries, communities and from the practices of agriculture. To be eligible, you must be between 25 and 45 and be working in agriculture. "We look for people with very special qualities," the website says. "Since there is no prior academic level of achievement required, a scholarship is far more achievable than you may think. The rewards are tremendous for those who are selected and the industry within which each one will work benefits greatly."

The Canadian Selection Committee grants one or two scholarships per year. The study program last 10 weeks and is usually in another country. I don't know the exact size of the scholarships, but it doesn't sound like they're very big. You have to foot a lot of the travel bill yourself, or get a sponsor.

Nuffield Canada was a project originally introduced and financed by the Nuffield Foundation in England. This Foundation was created by Lord Nuffield, the British manufacturer of Morris cars. In 1943, Lord Nuffield created the Nuffield Foundation for the "advancement of health and social well-being and the care and comfort of the aged poor," as the website says.   Advancement of agriculture was added to the mandate in 1947. Nuffield Canada became its own entity in 1976.

Scholars, please email me

If you're a recent (past three years) Nuffield scholar who'd be interested in writing about your research, please email me. I'd like to focus on findings that would be of interest to grain farmers in Western Canada.

Claas has been selling its Xerion tractor in Europe for a few years now and had an official launch in North America a year or two ago. I got an email recently with this photo, taken at the Farm Progress Show in Decatur, Illinois earlier this month. The email writer included this short text: "The cab completely separates from the frame and spins to face the other direction. It has PTO shafts on both ends. Thought my farmer friends would appreciate this."

I dug up a few more details at the Claas website. Claas built Xerion to "do precisely those jobs that pose a serious problem for standard 300 hp machines without additional ballasting and dual tires."

Xerion 3300 and 3800 TRAC models have a mounting area behind the cab, for a fertilizer spreader perhaps. On VC models, the cab rotates 180 degrees. It isn't articulated, but has all-wheel steering for a 20-foot turning radius.

If I can find a farmer in Canada who has one of these machines, I'll do a feature on the tractor and the farmer in Grainews. Do you know anyone who has one? If yes, please email me. I've asked the folks at Claas to help me out, too.

Farmers in the U.K. who cater to school groups and other "agritourism" visitors are hurting this week after three children got sick from E.Coli O157 after a recent visit to Godstone Farm in Surrey, England.

BBC's Farming Today dedicated its September 19 program to the topic. One speaker, Chris Low, an E.coli researcher with the Scottish Agricultural College, made some important farm-safety comments about E.coli. This was new information for me and, according to the program, an eye-opener for many farmers.

Low says there's a common misconception that people in general are more susceptible to E.coli because we live cleaner lifestyles. Kids just aren't exposed to microbes the way they used to be. If kids get a little dirtier, they'll build up their immunity to such things. The logical extension to this thinking is that farm kids are more immune to microbes because they are more exposed it.. "With this organism (0157), that's not true," Low says. It's a relative new and very dangerous organism, he says. In Scotland, they're seeing more cases of E.coli infection coming from exposure to cattle dung in farm settings than from exposure through food, he says.

"Children under 10, especially children under five, are very susceptible to this infection," he says.

The biggest issue is fresh dung. One farmer interviewed for the program says he has separate rubber boots and clothes for his kids to wear around the yard. These boots and clothes don't go into the house. He also insists that his kids wash their hands thoroughly after being out in the farm yard. Warm water and anti-bacterial soap is enough to do the trick.

Cooking ground beef is good general advice, but for anyone living on a farm with cattle, sheep, goats or deer, E.coli prevention requires good bouts of handwashing, too.

You may remember my August 20 blog entry showing photos of bales that were blown for miles in Alberta. The photos are making the email rounds (Lee Hart posted them yesterday, not realizing that I had posted them earlier) but they're actually from last year. Many of you emailed to let me know, so thank you.

Scott Nelson, whose Bow Island farm was in the heart of the storm, sent more photos of damage in his area. Scott says wind speeds were 240 km/h, and the path of destruction was about five miles wide and something like 150 to 200 km long.

The wind is called a "plow wind," which has the force of a tornado but works in a straight line. "It did millions of dollars in damage," he says. Three hundred pivots were blown over and thousands of grain bins were demolished. "It took grain bins that were half full of wheat, blew the bin away and left the wheat." It destroyed the last remaining wooden elevator in the area.

The house is a neighbour's about six miles from Scott's place.

Amazing weather photos from 2009

With big rains and baseball sizes hail being themes from the past week or so across the Prairies, maybe you have some weather photos from 2009 that you'd like to share. Email them to me and I'll share them.

I wanted to include one of these photos with my previous entry on "producer car" loading. My brother Jon, who farms near Hartney, Man., took these photos. I can understand why graffiti artists love rail cars. First, the cars are usually stopped in out of the way places in the bowels of cities for hours or even days at a time. Artists have lots of time, away from peering eyes, to create their work. And then the cars go out and travel the country, displaying the art for everyone to see.

Do you have photos of rail car art that you'd like to share? I'm sure there's some pretty wacky stuff — like the top photo here. Send your photos to me and I'll post them.

“The trend in producer car loading is coming back again,” says Don McLean, who farms near Manitou, Man. McLean is president of Boundary Loading Group Inc., a new producer-car loading facility at Darlingford, and a director with Boundary Trails Railroad, which runs the 26-mile short line from Morden to Manitou.

Numbers from the Canadian Wheat Board confirm McLean’s comment. The board says about 2,800 producers loaded 12,447 cars to move their wheat and barley to port in the 2008-09 crop year. The previous record was 12,124 cars in 1990-91. These numbers account for almost all the producer cars filled. The CWB is a big fan of producer cars, so it goes a long way to facilitate the process. That said, McLean is in talks with Quaker to load oats in producer cars destined for U.S. processing plants. And in talking with Gerald Onerheim, who farms near Frontier, Sask., he tells me their local producer-car loading facility has handled peas, mustard and lentils.

The CWB says shipping grain by producer cars can save farmers $800 to $1,200 per car in elevation fees. In McLean’s experience selling to Mission Terminal in Thunder Bay, he also gets better grades (higher protein and lower dockage) for wheat delivered through producer cars than his local elevators offered for the same samples.

For details on how to load a car, including applications, paperwork and tips, go to this CWB website page. At the CN and CP websites, you'll also find the list of sidings available for producer cars drops. Between the two companies, there are 250 to  300 sites across the Prairies. The few dozen producer car loading facilities across the Prairies can, for a few hundred dollars per car, help with paperwork and provide temporary track-side bin space to speed up your loading process.

I'd like to hear about your experiences — good and bad — in loading producer cars. Did you have to load in a rain storm or blizzard? Were you late and got an unpleasant demurrage charge? Did it work smoothly and you look forward to delivering all your wheat by producer car? Please comment on this blog or email me. I'd like to share your experiences with other Grainews readers.

MacDon and AGCO both made annoucements recently about new draper headers for combines. MacDon has a new 45-foot version of its FD70 FlexDraper, with "harvesting capacity greater than most Class 9 combines,” the company says. 

AGCO has a new DynaFlex draper header for Gleaner, Massey Ferguson and Challenger combines. It comes in 30-, 35- and 40-foot widths.

Draper headers don’t have augers that twist and bunch the crop. Instead, they have drapers — like a swather — to convey cut crop to the feederhouse. "Draper headers are proven to increase harvesting rates by 25 per cent or more because they provide a smooth, steady flow of material moving head first into the feeder house," says Kevin Bien, combine marketing manager at AGCO.

For all the benefits of draper header, from what I've heard, they are heavy and expensive. Is that extra expense worth it? Can all combines handle that extra weight and hydraulic draw?

If you have any comments that could help other farmers make the choice between draper and auger headers, please send me an email or comment on this blog.

What impresses me most about Ron Hamilton is how hard he works at marketing. Ron and his wife, Sheila, operate Sunworks Farm, an organic chicken, egg, turkey and beef operation at Armena, Alta., southeast of Edmonton. Sunworks Farms was a tour stop on day one of the Canadian Farm Writers’ Federation annual conference, which I attended.

Ron and Sheila were not farmers when they bought this acreage in 1992. Ron worked in the oil patch for 25 years as a surveyor and he was looking to settle down a little more — or at least not be away as much. The couple decided they should probably do something to make use of the space they had, so they bought some chickens. Around that same time, a friend encouraged them to take a holistic farming course. The project snowballed, and by 1997 they had an organic designation for a growing egg-laying operation. By leasing chicken and egg quota through special organic provisions from each supply-management board and by buying designated organic turkey quota, Ron and Sheila now have sizable flocks of chickens for meat (“broilers”), chicken for eggs (“layers”) and turkeys. And without hardly noticing, as Ron says, they also amassed an organic beef herd of 180 animals or so.

It was a beautiful September day when we visited, with bright sun and temperatures around 20°C. The birds were all outside in these free-range mini-barns, which Sunworks staff advance across the pasture a few feet per day. We visited the laying hens first. They use birds that lay brown eggs because, as Ron says, “people see brown eggs and farm eggs” and white eggs as supermarket eggs — even though there’s no difference on the inside. He says they hand pick and hand wash one million eggs per year. The turkeys and broiler chickens are on another pasture a short walk away in the same style of free-range barn. Birds are outside for about six months of the year. As long as the water stays thawed, the birds can stay out. In the winter, they’re moved inside — still with freedom to move around. 

Interesting sidebar: Ron has an electric mesh-style fence around the free-range barns. (See the bottom photo.) That’s to keep out skunks, foxes, coyotes and wolves. Before he put up the fence, he had bought two llamas with a guarantee that they’d keep away predators. Well, they kept away coyotes and wolves, but not foxes and skunks. When Ron told the llama-seller than the llamas weren’t working as promised, the guy gave Ron his money back but didn’t take the llamas. (They’re almost worthless these days.) So Ron has two llamas out in his pastures that stand there and do nothing but stare. He says the fence is effective and “predator friendly.” Sure, the wild dogs and skunks get a shock, but they get the message and move on without Ron having to shoot them.

I’m close to my point about marketing

Three key factors make organic poultry more expensive than conventional. First, you need organic feed — which is about double the price. Second, to comply with organic standard, birds need more space. So you have the same barns, more or less, but can only put half the birds inside. Plus Ron also has the free-range mini-barns out in the pasture, so he has two facilities. Third, marketing is not as simple as taking birds for slaughter, taking a cheque, and letting them go into mainstream supply chains. 

Ron and Sheila bust their asses marketing. They get $5 per dozen eggs, which is roughly double the conventional price, and $4.75 a pound for chicken meat, which isn’t much higher than the supermarket price. They sell to friends and around the neighbourhood, and they sell through some specialty shops, but most of their sales — 90 per cent — are through the year-round farmers’ markets in Calgary and Edmonton. Ron and Sheila go down to Calgary every Thursday with their five-ton refrigerated truck full of eggs and meat. Sheila stays and manages with Calgary booth, with eight or so young salespeople hired to help. Ron comes back to Armena the next day to get ready for Edmonton, which is a one-day market. He takes care of Edmonton, with six or so sales staff, then goes back to Calgary on Sunday to wrap up and bring everything back. He drives the truck 1,500 km per week, week in, week out. He’s hardly had a break since 1997. This is no rinky-dink operation.

Whatever impression you might have of organic farmers, it will change with a visit to Sunworks Farm. Yes, producing a quality product is the basis for the operation. Clearly this is important to Ron and Sheila. But they put just as much effort into selling their product and connecting with their customers. Ron’s goal is to connect with five new people every day at the markets. That’s 1,000 people a year. “And once we get them as customers, we’ll have them for life, and we’ll probably have their kids, too,” he says. 

Interesting sidebar: Almost all of their sales staff — the people who help them at the markets — are young women. “Women sell better than men,” Ron says. Their eggs and meat do sell themselves, to a point, but good staff really helps move product. 

Farmers talking to farmers is one of Grainews's original mandates. This is the still the purpose behind the "farmer panel" Lee Hart puts together for us each issue. But we want to make this panel bigger and better and encourage more farmers to participate.

If you're interested in taking part in the panel — in which Lee asks farmers like you some question about seed choices, machinery set ups, or crop production practices — please send Lee an email. This won't take much of your time. Lee might call you only one or two or three times a year, and the call will only take 10 minutes or so. 

In your email to Lee, please include your hometown, your home phone number and your cell phone number, if you have one. Also, I'd like a digital photo. If we can add some of your bright, shining faces to the page, that'll make it even better.

Thanks in advance. 

Big rains in Manitoba

I talked to a few Manitoba farmers today. My brother got two to three inches on his farm at Hartney on Monday night, so his harvest has been on hold the past couple days. Most of the province got some rain in that system, but it varied widely. Grainews columnist Andrew DeRuyck got only four tenths. (They've been having some phenomenal yields around Swan Lake, by the way.) Tom Kieper at Russell heard on the news that Alonsa, which is on the west side of Lake Manitoba, got 11 inches! If you know anyone in that area, please ask them to email me. I'd like to know what 11 inches in three hours looks and feels like. I hope their crops are OK, but it's hard to imagine they could be.

I’m working on an article about Scott Sigvaldason and his hulless oat product he’s marketing as “Rice of the Prairies.” Sigvaldason’s company, Wedge Farms Nutrition, based in Arborg, Man., has the rights to AC Gehl hulless oats, a variety he instinctively knew had potential in the human food market. It’s catching on. He says 42 Winnipeg hotels and restaurants are using it, and it’s available in numerous Manitoba stores, including Sobey’s. Recently, the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team contacted him asking to get some. They had heard about it through the grape vine, Sigvaldason says, and now the team nutritionist is keen on making “Rice of the Prairies” — or Cavena Nuda — a part of the players’ diet. If they make the playoffs this year, they can thank Scott.

Closer to home, my father-in-law is a big fan. He serves a combination of brown rice and Cavena Nuda with his fresh-caught walleye (pickerel). “I actually prefer the oats over the rice,” he says.

Besides a pleasant taste and texture, Cavena Nuda has 12 grams of dietary fibre and 4.4 grams of soluble fibre per 100 grams. White rice has 1.3 grams of dietary fibre and zero soluble fibre in the same volume.

Cavena Nuda has 17.2 grams of protein per 100 grams. White rice has 7.1 grams.

It has 5.7 milligrams of iron per 100 grams, compared to 0.8 mg for white rice. A quarter-cup serving of Cavena Nuda provides 20 per cent of your daily recommended iron intake.

Granted, it also has way more total fat than white rice: 8.8 grams per 100 grams compared to 0.66 for white rice.

I called Scott this week. He was taking in the first delivery of harvested hulless oats for the year. It has been a tough year in Manitoba Interlake, with many acres not even seeded because of the wet spring. And the wet continued all summer. Finally they’re seeing some hot and dry weather to mature the crop and dry out the fields.

See Scott on Dragon’s Den

Scott will pitch “Rice of the Prairies” to the panel of investors on the CBC TV program Dragon’s Den. His segment airs October 14. Taping has already been done, but Scott has sworn to secrecy. He can’t tell me if tough panel of venture capitalists decided to invest in his company. I’ll find out October 14 like everyone else.

Hellmann's mayonnaise, owned by food giant Unilever, has started a campaign in Canada called "eat real eat local." It encourages Canadians to ask for Canadian-grown food at grocery stores and be more conscious of where our food comes from. Thanks to Andrew Douglas, my old Country Guide colleague, for telling me about the campaign.

The "eat real eat local" website has a stat-filled video that makes it clear that consumers are concerned more with price than with Canadian-grown food. While food imports have gone up 160 per cent in the past 15 years, the Canadian population has gone up 15 per cent. Maybe the Hellmann's video will do something to change that view.

We import 53 per cent of our vegetables and 95 per cent of our fruit, the video says. These numbers could simply mean that countries are becoming more specialized in what they produce. We produce wheat, malting barley, canola and pork for export, as a few examples, and Mexico produces tomatoes and peppers, New Zealand produces lamb. We do somethings better and cheaper, and leave the rest to countries that can export apples to us cheaper than we can grow them ourselves. Seasonality is one factor, but not the only factor. The Safeway I shop at just got a new shipment of Pink Lady apples from New Zealand just when fresh new Canadian apples are coming off the trees.

And if every country did an "eat local" campaign, what we gain in local sales, we may lose in exports. Sure food might not travel as much, which one can argue is a good thing, but we will lose the ability to bring in fresh food for 12 months of the year and we won't have as much choice. Many fruits and veggies will become more expensive if we need hot houses to keep them Canadian AND provide enough supply. Are consumers willing to support farmers on this? We'll see. The Hellmann's campaign is a start.

Why Hellmann's

         That's the question I asked as I watched the video. Turns out they've got a section on the website with that very title. Click on "Why Hellmann's" and you find this explanation, which I lifted verbatim off the website:

We believe in real food.

And when it comes to Hellmann’s Real Mayonnaise, that means local food. Canadian food.

Hellmann’s Real Mayonnaise uses  Canadian eggs and canola oil from the prairies. And we’re working on new ways to make the ingredients of many Hellmann’s products as real and natural as possible.

Can a big brand be a leader of the real food movement? We think so.  We started with Urban Gardens two years ago, promoting the enjoyment of more real, fresh foods in Canada’s cities. We gave out gardening gloves, seeds, loads of tips and recipes, along with free  garden plots. Last year Hellmann’s worked with Evergreen and local community groups to create a network of community food gardens across Canada. We encouraged all Canadians to choose more real foods whether from the garden or the grocery shelf.

Eating local is good for both the people who eat it and the people who produce it. Our commitment to championing real food is only going to grow from here. We have to lead by example, and hope you’ll come on the journey to with us.