AgriPost April 29 2016

The Agri Post

April 29, 2016

Beef Profits Sink

First Crop of the Year is in the Tank

By Les Kletke

harvest, at least one already has the 2016 crop in the tank.

Glenda and Rory Hart operate the Canadian Birch ComWhile most of Manitoba’s food producers are thinking pany at Grand Beach and began collecting sap in late March. about putting a crop in the ground and 3 months away from The exact date of the start of collection depends on the weather but that is a typical time to begin collecting sap.

While the industry has similarities to the maple syrup industry, there are differences. The Hart’s have 2,000 trees that they tap which typically yield 3/4 of a litre each, which is .7 to 1% sugar. Glenda estimates that they have another 5,000 in their Birch Forest. “We lose some every year,” she said. “But we replace them and keep adding a few more.”

The idea of tapping the resources of their birch forest came about from an internet search. “It was an internet search,” she says with a smile. “We were looking for something to do with our forest that didn’t involve cutting down the trees.”

This is their fifth season of collecting sap from their own forest and both agree it has been a learning journey.

Not only does the weather come into play but also the type of tree since not all birch trees are created equally when it comes to giving up their sap. Not only does the amount of sap vary but the viscosity as well. “Some trees have a watery sap,” said Glenda.

Also gone are the days of the romantic sugaring off that most people think of when they hear of maple syrup production and the transition from sap to syrup. The Harts use a system that utilizes reverse osmosis similar to what is used in water purification to remove the sugar from the syrup. The syrup is boiled and depending on the time and temperature, the resultant liquid varies in colour from golden to a dark brown. “It is a personal preference,” said Glenda. “But we use the different colours of syrup in different products. It is more than the colour they also have a distinct flavour.”

Some of the syrup ends up in their Birch BBQ Sauce, which is their flagship product, but the couple have expanded the line to include Birch Baron, an onion jam.

The processing is done at a kitchen in Little Britain that meets required health standards. “It is an incredible kitchen and is available whenever I need it,” said Glenda. The rent from her enterprise also helps the local community maintain the hall that houses the kitchen.

The couple has had a demand for the product from the US Glenda and Rory Hart have collected their 2016 crop of birch and is working on getting the required nutritional ingredisyrup and it awaits processing to be turned in sauces like these. ents listed for proper labelling.

Photo by Les Kletke

“...we thought that we would get a couple of years to recover and maybe put something away for the next storm but prices have come down already.”

By Les Kletke Ben Krahn acknowledged he had a good crop but the markets are down from last year, and that has him concerned.

Krahn has 200 cows on his farm near Beausejour and said that while the weather was good for calving and he is pleased with the results of his breeding program the market is causing him concern. “We had a decade of low prices for one reason and another, then prices came back and we thought that we would get a couple of years to recover and maybe put something away for the next storm but prices have come down already.”

He has commercial Charolais cows that he breeds to Angus bulls and said the combination has worked well for him. “I am a commercial cattle man,” he said. “I don’t get caught in the breed arguments but I know that I can work with these breeds and I try to buy the best bulls I can from purebred cattlemen but I am not in the business of producing breeding stock, I raise beef,” he said.

He does keep some of his heifer calves for replacement stock but has no plans to expand. “This is the amount of cows I can handle and if I expand I would have to invest more money in equipment. I don’t want to go to the next level, I want to stay at this number and make a decent living,” said Krahn who has enough land to raise his own feed.

“I look at the cattle as a way of adding value to the grain I produce and that is about all I can do,” he said.

“I don’t have a big enough land base to concentrate on crop production, so I market my crops as beef, and return the manure to the land as fertilizer.

This year he fed round bales on the paddocks near his yard and was satisfied with the result. “It is not perfect but it does mean that much of my manure is already spread and that reduces the cost of cleaning the pens on the yard. There is an advantage to that.”

He is not hopeful that beef prices will return to the high of two years ago but would like to see some strengthening in the market. “We spent a long time at those low prices it would be nice to have had the good times for a while longer, but the good operators are still profitable at these levels.”

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April 29, 2016

The Agri Post

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April 29, 2016

The Agri Post

Tile Drainage Solves Water Issue and Restores Productivity

By Harry Siemens Keith Loewen of Altona started K&S Tiling 16 years ago as the first Manitoba based tiling company, after studying at the University of Guelph completing the advanced Tile Drainage courses and completing his apprenticeship.

Today, Loewen still runs the tile plow insuring that his valued customer gets the best possible installation that will last for decades to come.

Scott Brandt, a farmer at Woodmore, is one such happy valued customer. In October 2014, K&S installed tile drainage on Brandt’s 142-acre field because he was losing far too much crop due to water.

On April 16, 2016, Keith tweeted a video showing water pouring out of the end of a pipe that was draining from the field that was tiled in 2014.

With the tile going down in the fall of 2014, Brandt used it for the first time in 2015.

The drainage tile on that field starts with the first tile 25 feet from the edge of the field and then 50 feet apart across the field. There is a catchment area, a 36-inch in diameter culvert 12 feet down that was installed vertically and closed at the bottom. From there a 4-inch variable speed electric pump moves the water into a municipal drain and eventually finds its way into the Red River. “K&S installed that culvert because there is not enough drop in the municipal ditch to take the water by gravity, so we have to lift it and put it into the municipal ditch,” said Brandt.

“The tile drainage takes the water to that catch culvert, a five feet lift.”

When he started using the drainage system after the wet fall, he never turned it off until freeze up. “We let it pump, but didn’t want the

tile full of water when it froze in winter time,” said Brandt. “It kept pumping until the ground froze up and it quit running and we shut the power off so it wouldn’t try and run during the winter. It ran well into December.”

Brandt said the drainage turned that field around from a mediocre producing field to a good producing field. He gave several reasons for going the tiling route on a very good producing field when it is dry enough, but it is only dry enough 50 to 60 percent of the years. He was able to grow any crop on the field before but fought with the moisture far too frequently. “Then there were wet spots in the field that we could only get 20 percent of the years, only two years out of ten that we even got a crop in some of the wet spots,” said Brandt.

“But we know the fertility is there because when it’s dry

enough, we could get awesome crops because the land is decent, but it was a water issue.”

In the first year’s test, he planted corn silage, but right off the bat a few issues in spring because of the cold soil temperatures including quite a bit of compaction from tiling since the tile was put in late into the season and he did not work the field very well. “Our corn population wasn’t perfect, but we still got a very good silage yield, despite four inches [100 mm] of rain the week before we harvested it,” said Brandt. “We could go everywhere in the field with our silage truck. The only places we got stuck is when we would hit the trenches with a loaded truck, where the tiles went down, still very soft especially with all that moisture.”

Above: After installing drainage tile on Scott Brandt’s field near Ridgeville, a year later the water flowed into the catchment basin and a four inch electric pump lifted the water flow up and over into the municipal drain.

Right: Keith Loewen, owner and operator of K&S Tiling is always at the controls when the tile drainage is going in.

When the Brandt farm decided to start with tile drainage, they chose their worst field. Once they knew how consistent the drainage tile works it sounds like they will do more. “We’ll see what the results are and we’ll go from there,” he said. “I would say, what it looks like, we will do more tiling in the future. It takes that land and brings it up to speed and puts a new value on it.”

Brandt said that is the other major reason for choosing this route. “When you could buy more land for $300, $400, $1,000 dollars an acre, it was hardly worth the cost of tiling,” he said. “But now when land is trading for $3,000 an acre, we can afford to put some tile in and improve what we have. It cost just shy of $1,000 an acre with the pump included. That is cheap land.”

The Agri Post

April 29, 2016

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New Rules Deter Access to an Ancient Grain Crop

By Les Kletke Ironically, one of the oldest grains produced in the province is being regulated by one of the newest laws and that makes it more difficult for producers to grow the crop.

While quinoa is not technically a grain, it is often classified as an ancient grain.

Percy Phillips of Portage la Prairie said that when he began to look for a variety of the crop that can be produced in Manitoba he ran into some

challenges from the owner of the variety. “It is a Saskatchewan company that owns the variety and they would only let me have seed if I was growing under contract for them,” said Phillips.

Phillips went to the source in Peru and found a variety

that he believes is suited to production in Manitoba and is at the stage of multiplying it to commercial production.

Some of the crop is available in specialty stores in the province but he said that he is far from the point of being any competition to the Saskatchewan processor who has the lion’s share of the market in western Canada.

The variety he has pinned his hopes on is Amber and choosing the right one was no small task. “There are 3,000 varieties of the crop in Bolivia and 2,400 in Peru,” said Phillips, who is a devotee of the crop and believes that it has a quality that makes it healthier that the traditional grains produced in Manitoba.

He is confident that he can increase the production of the crop from what were large test plots in 2015 to commercial production in a few years.

While he did go through the import regulations and obtain CFIA import licences he does not have plans to corner the market of Amber Quinoa, hopIowa pork producer Bill Tentinger tells hog producers it is time to ing instead to grow the acre-

Now is the Time to Reach South Says American Hog Producer

By Harry Siemens At the recent annual meeting of the Manitoba Pork Council (MPC), four men representing the hog industry in the mid-western US told Manitoba hog producers it’s time to step up pig movement between the two countries.

Although beneficial to hog producers in Manitoba to ship weanlings south and finished product north, it does nothing for the two processing plants in Manitoba already begging for finished pigs.

While the Hylife Foods plant at Neepawa is running near capacity sourcing pigs from their own barns, that infrastructure is aging quicker than new barns coming on stream. The Maple Leaf Foods plant at Brandon is running about three quarters full, with very few extra hogs planned for the hog-finishing horizon.

One hog industry observer said, first the dilemma has to do with the fact if a Manitoba producer builds a new sow barn, there is currently no new finisher space available here and the best option is heading south. Putting the shoe on the other foot, if a producer does get a permit to build a new finisher barn in Manitoba, the US dollar and new slaughter space in the US assures that those hogs go south.

Bill Tentinger, a pork producer in Iowa and past president of Iowa Pork Producers said with the additional slaughter space coming online in the US it is an opportune time to bring us all together, meaning hog producers on both sides of the border.

Tentinger said that ten years ago, the Canadian producers proposed they farrow the pigs and then Canadian producers finish them in the Midwest near the grain. That did not work out too well because just when it started, along came

re-establish relationships between hog producers in Canada and the US. Photo by Harry Siemens

M-COOL. It did not ruin the whole business plan, but certainly curtailed it. “I continued to source pigs out of Canada and was able to get shackle space, but it added a little bit of hassle to marketing; we were able to do it,” he said. “Now with M-COOL rescinded and gone, it opens up that possibility again. Now we have packing plants, hopefully coming on stream increasing our shackle space so why wouldn’t it be opportune to getting that plan back together. Let’s start creating new business relationships across the border that would facilitate those extra shackle spaces.”

According to Tentinger, with the new plants coming on stream, the smaller ones like the Windom, Minnesota Prime Pork plant could harvest more than 4,000 hogs daily, or about 1.5 million hogs annually when in full production. Some of the largest packing plants, such as the JBS facility in Worthington, can process up to 20,000 hogs each day.

He said the one in Missouri is 3,000 hogs a day, but both that plant is mostly tied into an independent producer agreement that helps the organization of independents expand their slaughter capacity.

The one at Sioux City, Iowa would have the capacity to slaughter 10,000 to 12,000 hogs per day, or 3 million per year. He said that this plant will only be able to fill 30 to 35 percent from local producers and the rest will have to be bought from the open market.

This will create a demand for live animals, which was not there before. “They’re looking at 10,000 per day and they maybe looking at 5,000 to 6,000 head per day, sourcing someplace on the open market,” said Tentinger.

At Mason City, Iowa, the family-owned Prestage Farms of North Carolina is proposing a $240 million pork processing plant that initially would process up to 10,000 pigs a day and eventually employ as many as 2,000 workers.

Tentinger said they too will need to source on the open market at least 25 to 30 percent for production to fill that plant and are actively campaigning to fill those spaces.

“We may see some older plants shut down but not that many will go offline and it will depend on how the economics work out for these packers. If they’re losing money in a plant, they will pull the plant off line, but if the hogs are there, they will keep it up.”

Percy Phillips has found a variety of quinoa suited to Manitoba and hopes to multiply it this year.

Photo by Les Kletke

age and promote the healthy benefits of the crop. He acknowledged that commercial production could be a ways off.

Phillips has found a local plant that will clean his crop to seed and food standard

and has some of it in specialty stores already. He is hoping to get a larger acreage of the crop in the ground for 2016 and said there is interest in the crop, “From Morden to Swan River,” and will have some contract growers.

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The Agri Post

April 29, 2016

The Nonsense of Do-it-Yourself?

Protectionist trade policies have always been politically appealing, but what is their logical conclusion? It basically comes down to doing everything – by ourselves.

That’s what Walter Block, an American economist, explained in his 1975 book Defending the Undefendable. His analysis was a masterful use of the technique called reductio ad absurdum – demolishing an argument by showing that it ultimately leads to absurd conclusions. He pointed out how nonsensical the positions of free trade opponents turn out to be.

Block’s arguments are as relevant today as ever.

South of the 49th parallel, we’ve seen Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders and, to a lesser extent, Hillary Clinton all try to make hay out of anti-free

trade and protectionist rhetoric in their campaigns to get into the White House.

To be fair, we have plenty of Canadians who agree with these notions as well. Critics of agreements like NAFTA, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) or the Canada-EU free trade deal like to say that they cost us jobs.

They result in outsourcing, or as Trump might say, they’re just a big rip-off.

On the surface, it looks like they may have a point. After all, we can produce all sorts of things domestically that we choose to buy from foreign sources. The list is endless, T-shirts, iPhones, tomatoes, tractors, combines, etc.

But the same premise, which justifies protectionism and opposes trade on the national level, can also be used to argue for it at the provincial level.

This actually does happen, just not to the same extent. So instead of a “Buy Canadian” campaign, think of a “Buy Manitoba” one.

Why should we buy our pick-up trucks from anywhere outside of Manitoba? The job of building them should belong to Manitobans; the factories should be in Manitoba, and the owners of those factories should be Manitobans.

Block would go further by pointing out that this doesn’t just end at the provincial level. With equal justification, it can be applied to cities as well. Winnipeg and Brandon should be building and supplying pick-up trucks for their own populations, too.

After all, those are jobs that should belong to the people of Winnipeg and Brandon. The city fathers could argue that this is why they need astronomi-

cally high tariffs on trucks built outside of their areas. If that doesn’t work, then maybe outright moratoriums are needed to protect the good citizens of Winnipeg and Brandon from the predatory practices of these unscrupulous businesses from outside their cities.

Of course, this argument works for towns as well.

Morris, Rivers, Beausejour and all of our other Manitoba towns could make similar claims.

The anti-trade thesis can logically be extended to all of them as well.

While we’re at it, how about neighbourhoods?

People in Transcona could complain about how they’ve been exporting their jobs to the people in St. Boniface.

How’s about a “Buy Transcona” campaign!

Heck, why not go street to street? We have to be

Penners Points

by Rolf fair in all of this.

But the argument Penner doesn’t even stop rolfpenner@agripost.ca there. We’d have to conclude that it words, “If the argument applies to every indifor the prohibition or vidual as well. Think restrictions of trade at the about it. Every time national level is accepted, someone buys something there is no logical from someone else they’re stopping place at the level forgoing the opportunity of the state, the city, the to manufacture that thing neighbourhood, the themselves. Hockey street, or the block. The sticks, welders, frying only stopping place is the pans and, yes, even pickindividual, because the up trucks are all employindividual is the smallest ment opportunities that possible unit. Premises are being outsourced to which lead ineluctably to other people. an absurd conclusion are In Walter Block’s words, themselves absurd.”

“Thus the internal logic of No matter how convincthe protectionist arguing anti-trade arguments ment leads to an insismight seem, there is tence upon absolute selfsomething very wrong sufficiency, to a total with them. Our civilization economic interest in and standard of living rest forgoing trade with all upon mutual support, other people, and selfcooperation, and trade manufacture of all items between people. Arguing necessary for well-being.” that this should stop is Clearly, this is nuts. nonsense.

Again, in Block’s own

Who Will Feed Us in the Future?

Manitobans put a priority on eating local food, and that means we need local farmers to produce that food. But alarmingly, we’re losing them in droves.

The average age of a farmer in Manitoba is 55, so retirement for many is on the horizon. On the other hand, the high cost of buying and running a farm busi-

ness has resulted in a 73 per cent drop over 20 years in the number of farmers younger than 35.

Young farmers are telling me that securing farmland has become just too costprohibitive. Land in southwestern Manitoba, for example, has been selling at up to $2,000 an acre more than it did five or six years ago – so an average-sized

farm could cost $3 million for the land alone. It’s very difficult for young people to carry this debt load as they begin their careers.

Even if a young farmer chooses to rent land instead of buying, the costs to operate the farm can also be prohibitive. Sixteen years ago, it cost just under $250,000 in annual expenses to run an average-

Helping FFarmers armers to Adopt Sustainable Technologies and PPractices ractices The Federal government is providing $27 million to help producers find ways to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from their farming operations.

The Agricultural Greenhouse Gases Program (AGGP) that was completed March 31, 2016 will be extended to continue its support for research into greenhouse gas mitigation practices and technologies that can be adopted on the farm.

A recommendation from the previous program was that for the next generation of AGGP, applicants should be asked to include in their proposals, among other things, a plan to facilitate farmer uptake of the Beneficial Management Practices to be developed under the proposed projects.

This new five-year commitment (2016-2021) extends Canada’s existing support of the objectives of the Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases.

sized farm in Manitoba.

Currently, that same farm requires almost $500,000 to keep it running for a year, based on inputs, land and machinery costs, depreciation, storage and labour.

With these expenses, one bad season could wipe a young farmer out. Not having equity in the farm business means one flood, one drought, one early frost, a decline in livestock prices – and they would not be able to pay what they borrowed for operating expenses.

Young farmers entering agriculture or those having recently entered need back-up in the form of solid and meaningful programs that will help them to lower their risk. Only then will we see more farmers under the age of 35 entering the business.

There are existing programs to manage risk for all farmers, but these have been significantly watered

By Dan Mazier down to the point that many wonder whether buying into them is worth it. Not only does the next government need to return these programs back to pre-2013 levels, but it must also make special concessions within them for young farmers.

I would also like to see new and innovative programs that encourage, support and assist young farmers so they can continue the agricultural tradition in Manitoba of producing food for local families.

By providing this assistance, the next government will ensure Manitobans can continue to access safe and affordable local food.

Dan Mazier is President of Keystone Agricultural Producers, Manitoba’s largest farm policy organization. He farms grains and oilseeds near Justice, Manitoba.

The Agri Post

Careful What You Ask For and Who You Ask Let’s get one thing straight from the outset; I believe Keystone Agricultural Producers (KAP) does a good job of representing farmers. I believe Dan Mazier is a good president and has the interest of Manitoba farmers at heart; why else would any individual give so much time and effort to a group that represents the farmers of this province.

But…. And an election backgrounder that came out from the KAP office with Mr. Mazier’s name on it has me shaking my head. I am trying really hard not to throw the baby out with the bathwater on this and focus on all the good things KAP has done, but this one requires me to work really hard.

The document is titled “Who will feed us in the future?”

It then tells us we are losing farmers at an alarming rate, in droves no less. I don’t get out as much as I used to but I have not seen a lot of land that is not being farmed because of a lack of farmers. Yes, we have fewer farmers but we have also increased the production in this province. Fewer farmers does not relate to lower production, the trend would show the opposite in fact.

The next paragraph is what really made me wonder if they hit send without thinking this one through. The document blames the high cost of buying a farm with a 73% drop in the number of farmers under 35 in the last 20 years.

The last time I checked (this week) farmers set the price of land in the open market system. Land goes to the highest bidder or whomever the seller chooses and in most cases rented land works the same way.

Sorry Dan, you will have to explain this to me. Farmers are the ones that determine the price of land in how high they bid for it combined with their need and you are saying that the cost is keeping them from business? Is it not farmers that drove the prices to this point?

At the risk of offending, land prices are the only input cost that farmers themselves determine, they cannot blame oil companies, chemical companies or seed companies, and they do it to themselves. Now KAP is asking for the government to help out with this, something that we as farmers and landowners have created ourselves?

Be careful what you ask for because you might get it. I don’t think too many farmers would want help from the government deciding what or whom they can sell their land to. I don’t need to do the research on that one, I am sure.

The document also says alarmingly that the average age of farmers is 55 and retirement is on the horizon.

Really? Check the numbers, when I started in this business 30 years ago the average age of farmers was 57, so I could make the argument that it has been decreasing in this generation. Are you asking for mandatory retirement age? Again, I know farmers would not want that, and again be careful what you ask for because you might get it.

Farmers and farming families may have to start thinking about succession plans earlier and in a different way, prices may have reached a point that the next generation may not be able to buy the entire operation but businesses have been in that situation for years.

The next generation of Fords did not have to buy the entire company from Henry, and farms are now approaching larger valuations. (See earlier paragraph about determination of land costs).

Asking the government to help out with flooding makes sense, asking them to help out with how land is transferred to the next generation is a dangerous road indeed, because you might just get what you asked for.

April 29, 2016

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More PPeas eas and Lentils Forecasted

By Elmer Heinrichs A weak Canadian dollar will support prices, predicts Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) in its April crop outlook report.

AAFC sees a weaker Canadian dollar providing strong support to prices in Canada. Grain prices are expected to average slightly higher, with the exception of durum.

For lentils, and to a lesser extent, peas, prices have increased dramatically from last year due to a supply shortage in some of the major importing countries. This year and in the next crop year, beginning August 1, the outlook continues to be clouded by uncertainty regarding the price of oil and the Canada-US exchange rate.

In the current crop year 2016-17, the area seeded to grains is forecast to decrease slightly while the area seeded to both oilseeds and pulse crops increases. In western Canada, the area in summer fallow is forecast to continue its downward trend opening up some area for seeding with crops.

Manitoba farmers too are expected to grow a lot more peas and lentils this year in response to higher prices and a surge in demand for pulses in drought-stricken India.

In its outlook, the AAFC said winter wheat seeded in western Canada was similar to last year, noting that spring wheat will have competition from durum, but even more so from oilseeds and pulses. Seeded area for canola is forecast to increase by 4% to 8.4 million hectares (Mha) making it an attractive return compared to other field crops. Very little price change is foreseen.

Planted soybean area is also forecast to rise by 4% to 2.3 million hectares based on expected attractive returns compared to alternate crops. The price outlook is bearish as total supplies rise.

Seeded area in dry peas is forecast to rise to 1.7 Mha, up nearly 14% from 2015-16 due to anticipated higher returns and ongoing respect in the benefits of peas as part of a crop rotation plan.

It’s Time to Get Serious about Tracking Our Beef Canada’s beef industry may be on the verge of a significant upswing, but it will take concerted cooperation from producers.

After another export threatening, case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) was reported in Canada last year and, nine

months later, deemed an isolated incident, South Korea has reopened its borders to Canadian beef.

That’s great news for our multibillion-dollar beef industry.

Now, there could be even better news for exports on the horizon. That’s because

there are other, much bigger markets for beef, mostly notably China.

However, it will take some pretty significant industry collaboration to fully capitalize on this opportunity.

We’d all like to believe that international trade decisions are based on science and not emotion. But realistically, fear is a driving factor. This is why even the possibility of a new BSE case hastens the need to enhance our reputation at home and abroad.

A system for effectively tracking cattle through every stage of the food chain, from producer to feedlots, packers to retailers is critical for the reputation of the entire industry, its long-term sustainability and access to emerging markets.

It’s hard for Canadians to fathom the size of the Chinese market. There are more people in China learning English than English speakers in all of North America. Over the course of 10 days, during Chinese New Year, Chinese telephone companies generated nearly $750 million on SMS messages at pennies per text.

Canada enjoys a good reputation among the Chinese. Plus, they like the

By Hubert Lau taste of our beef, especially in comparison to Australian beef, a much more common import. But Australia can only produce so much and not nearly, enough to meet the growing demand for beef in China.

Affluent Chinese buy imported beef. They want to show their success and enjoy what the world has to offer and they’re willing to pay premium prices. One Canadian wine that sells for $55 at home goes for $900 USD a bottle in China.

Even, more than designer bags, fancy cars or nice wine, Chinese people want beef. If Canadian beef is marketed properly, producers can command those same premium prices.

Despite the massive opportunity the Chinese market represents, there is one problem; food safety is a

top priority for China. This means that any claims Canada’s beef industry makes for exports to China must be backed up with verifiable data. With at least 19 BSE, cases reported over 12 years, the Canadian beef industry has to do more to prove to the Chinese government that the quality of our beef can be trusted and that trust can be verified.

To build trust with governments like China’s the entire supply chain will have to collaborate to allow us to track our beef from farm to fork.

Until recently, parts of the supply chain have been more interested in domination than collaboration. But, by necessity, that’s changing, and rapidly. As consumers everywhere demand to know more about the history of care and quality of their beef, a coordinated response is the key to maintaining consumer trust and credibility that will sustain the industry and allow it to expand into bigger, more lucrative markets.

We’re not quite there, but through the Beef InfoXChange System (BIXS), an unprecedented number of industry leaders are beginning to work together to make the dream of industry-wide tracking a re-

ality. By working with different parts of the product chain as an independent value-added provider, BIXS is quickly becoming the backbone of Canada’s beef industry. Building a system that verifies the quality of Canadian beef is not only helping to unlock the value of data for everyone from producers to retailers, it’s building trust in the entire supply chain which is vital at home and in the rest of the world.

As an ancient Chinese proverb says, “Opportunity knocks at the door only once.” Twelve years after the BSE case, that devastated the Canadian beef industry, it’s time to get serious about tracking our beef. The information needed to open the door to emerging markets like China lies dormant in thousands of desktops and smartphones across the industry. Unlocking the value of that data is as easy as signing up to BIXS. What are you waiting for?

Hubert Lau is president and CEO of BIXSco Inc., the company that runs BIXS, a platform for selling data through the supply chain to improve competitiveness, verify the quality of Canadian beef and reflect the pride of the industry.

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April 29, 2016

The Agri Post

Doubling Birth Weight in Dairy Calves is Big Challenge When I tour a calf barn along with dairy producers, I often ask them as to what their main goal is in raising baby calves to weaning? Many people respond that they wish to double the newborn’s bodyweight by weaning. My first thought is that this objective is truly challenging from any angle.

To start, I calculate the average daily gain (ADG) that a typical neonate Holstein calf needs, to verify if such calf barn ambition is probable in the first place. Therefore, a 95 lb. calf needs to gain 1.7 lbs./head/dairy to achieve a 190 lb. weaning-weight, given an eight week (56 day) period. Now that I got my head wrapped this idea (which I believe is certainly achievable), I outline a successful accelerated plane of nutrition and management for these high performance calves.

As backup I refer to the dairy scientists of Iowa State University, which states that the traditional way of feeding milk/milk replacer at a rate of 1.25 – 1.5% of the calf’s bodyweight only supplies enough energy and protein to support neonate maintenance requirements with little left over to allow for modest growth rates. Whereas feeding milk/ milk replacer at 2.0 – 2.5% of their bodyweight allows identical calves to achieve “doubling birthweight” growth.

Their research provides evidence that dairy calves grown on 28% protein – 16% fat milk replacers fed at approximately 900 – 1000 grams per day can achieve desired daily growth rates of 1 kg per head, compared to 0.25 - 0.5 kg per day on a standard 20% protein – 20% fat milk replacer diet fed at about 600 - 700 grams per day. These scientists point out that most of this weight gain on test subjects is desirable skeleton and lean tissue growth, rather than fat deposition. Once these calves are weaned, they can easily be turned onto a conventional heifer ration.

To illustrate this point, here is a comparison of an Iowa State University 56-day trial, which compares the calf growth rates of a conventional and accelerated milk feeding programs: Conventional Accelerated Birthweight (lb.)

95 95 Weaning age (days) 56 56 ADG (g/d) 445 954 Weight at 56-day weaning 150 212 Milk replacer (kg.)

29 55 Calf starter (kg.)

34 20 Milk replacer cost $109 $233 Calf starter cost $ 34 $ 20 Total feed cost $143 $253 Source: (Iowa State University, 2005) In a similar fashion, I have attended literarily dozens of dairy presentations (including Western Canadian Dairy Seminar), which parallels these results, namely feeding more milk/milk replacer to baby calves yields better growth performance and doubles birthweight by weaning. Unfortunately, upon review of their data, I am concerned that many of these experimental calves are not consuming enough calf starter for good rumen development.

Other conventional science proves that dairy producers should introduce a nutritious and palatable grain-based calf starter to 4-day old calves. By 3 to 4 weeks of age, preweaned calves should be eating an appreciable amount (500 – 600 g), which yields fermentation nutrients such as butyrate, which stimulates rumen papillae growth and metabolic activity. As a result in a short period of time, there becomes enough rumen digestion to help the pre-weaned calf meet its own energy requirements from dry feed as well as facilitate weaning from milk or milk replacer.

In addition, it has been my concern that newborn calves of less than three weeks of age consuming a lot of milk/milk replacer in these “double birthweight” milk-feeding programs are very susceptible to nutritional scours.

When nutritional diarrhea strikes pre-weaned calves, it is seen as bright yellow, cream color or nearly white liquid; all signs that a recently consumed milk/milk replacer meal was poorly digested). Not only does such poor milk digestion lead to poor absorption of essential nutrients that the calf requires to live and grow, but also these unabsorbed nutrients in the calves’ gut tend to draw retained water from the calf’s tissues and into the gut lumen, which amplifies scouring.

Whether the accelerated dairy calves as illustrated in the above table consumed adequate amounts of calf starter or experienced loose stools is anybody’s guess. The acceptance of this program by many dairy producers is largely governed by its economics.

For example, I added my own price inputs in the above table as $75/20 kg bag of 20 – 20 – 20 standard milk replacer, $85/20 kg bag of accelerated 26 – 26 – 16 milk replacer and $20 per 20 kg bag of a 21% textured calf starter. I speculate that advocates of accelerated calf feeding programs might say that the respective $110 higher total cost to raise a preweaned dairy calf to weaning is offset by well-established economic benefits of future milking performance; first-lactation 305-d actual milk production is shown to be 5 – 15% higher compared to conventional-reared herd-mates.

Rather than be an advocate of “double birthweight” programs, I am more of assistant to dairy producers, who are interested. I recommend to first measure birth weight of newborn calves, measure milk/milk replacer and calf starter consumption. Finally, measure 56-day weaned weights. These are important numbers and should be tied to both present and future performance benefits and profit.

First Crop Out and Growing

By Les Kletke “Looks like the best crop of the year, so far,” said Jake Friesen of his winter wheat crop. “The way things look now we won’t get into the field early and that may hurt other crops.”

Friesen used the winter wheat to spread the workload on his farm in southeaster Manitoba but it also shows a good return.

“It works in the budget,” he said. “But most other crops are making it tough to pencil a return, so the winter wheat budget looks good in comparison.”

He had tried the crop a few years ago but removed it from his rotation because of late harvests a direct result of cool wet springs. “It seems strange but the weather we are having now will determine how much winter wheat we have to harvest next year,” said Friesen. “If spring is late and we don’t get on the field until into May then we will be seeding straight

through and that means harvest will be later and just as tight a schedule. That makes it more difficult to justify taking time to seed [wheat] during harvest.”

He acknowledged that the crop he first looked at to spread his workload does in fact make his harvest even busier because it requires seeding when he is typically harvesting his other cereal crops. “I like to get the winter wheat on canola stubble, and that means that you have to get the canola harvest done earlier enough, that might not be the case if we have a late spring, and the crop does not get into the ground until after in May,” said Friesen.

This year’s crop came through the winter in good condition and he is pleased with the stand that has greened up and begun to grow. “It is nice and green and we did not have any winter kill so it looks good,” he said. “We need to get some warmth to get it grow-

ing but at least the stand is there. If you don’t have that the potential has already been determined.”

Friesen has replaced some of his canola acres with soybeans in the last two years but says that does not lend itself to a fall seeded cereal. “The crop is later and there is no stubble to hold the snow,” he said.

“I really like to get it into canola stubble to hold the snow, and I stay away from seeding it on cereal stubble because of the disease issues.”

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Manitoba Farmland Values Increased in 2015 Manitoba producers should prepare for a possible easing of farmland values, although the latest Farm Credit Canada (FCC) Farmland Values Report indicates average values continued to increase in Canada in 2015.

In Manitoba, the average value of farmland increased 12.4% in 2015, which was the highest provincial increase. The province saw values increase by 12.2% in 2014 and 25.6% in 2013, continuing a trend of

climbing values since 1992.

The report shows that nationally and in many key agriculture regions, the average value of farmland increased at a slower pace last year.

Overall, there appears to be greater volatility with a higher number of locales where values decreased.

J.P. Gervais, FCC’s Chief Agricultural Economist, said a strong agriculture sector supported by healthy crop receipts and low interest rates continued to sustain increases

in farmland values in 2015.

But some of the key factors that influence farmland values are beginning to change.

“We’re now seeing lower commodity prices offset by low interest rates and a weak dollar. The weak loonie not only makes our exports more competitive, but helps producers receive a better price for their commodities that are mainly priced in US dollars,” Gervais said. “It becomes a real tug-of-war between competing factors that influence farmland values.”

Average farmland values in Canada showed a 10.1% increase in 2015, compared to a 14.3% increase in 2014 and a 22.1% increase in 2013. All provinces saw their average farmland values

increase and the rate of increase slowed in six provinces.

Gervais said strong commodity prices from 2010 to 2013 generated high profits for crop producers and contributed to record increases in the value of farmland. Profit margins and demand for agriculture commodities remain strong, mostly due to the low value of the Canadian dollar. “The best-case scenario would be for the average value of farmland to reach a point of longterm stability, where any future increases or decreases are modest and

incremental,” said Gervais.

Corinna MitchellBeaudin, FCC Executive Vice-President and Chief Risk Officer, recommends producers ensure they account for a possible “softening” of farmland values and future interest rate increases in their risk management plans.

“Despite a recent strong performance in the

agriculture sector, agriculture will always be cyclical so producers should be prepared for the ups and downs along the way,” said Mitchell-Beaudin.

“Producers are encouraged to identify key risks and available solutions to manage these risks should they emerge in their business.”

Fixing Grain Transportation – Finally?

We are in the midst of a great shipping year for the Canadian grains industry. Canadian grain and oilseed exports will be at near record levels. There have been no big winter hiccups with transportation. Customers are happy and farmers’ bins will be empty by the time the crop year ends.

Some might think that this is an odd time to be talking about the systemic problems in grain transportation.

“Some” would be wrong. This is exactly the right time to finally put the right fix in place to ensure that Canadian agriculture can meet the growing demands of our customers.

In the 2013-14 crop year the grain industry was hit with the transportation crisis impacting the entire value chain.

Not only were sales lost that year, but also the transportation failures damaged Canada’s brand and reputation.

Quite rightly there has been a great deal of focus on that year, what went wrong and how to fix it? What is sometimes lost in the discussion is the fact that this is not the first time the transportation system failed Canadian farmers and exporters.

A crisis led to the creation of the Grain Transportation Agency (GTA) in 1979. A crisis led to the dismantling of the GTA in 1996. Some of our best minds in the country have authored reports on fixing grain transportation. The Hon. Emmett Hall, Dr. Clay Gilson, Justice Willard Estey, and Arthur Kroeger are just a few examples. In fact, the books written on this subject could fill a library. The latest edition of the volume of work is contained in the review of the Canada Transportation Act by the Hon. David Emerson.

Grain transportation has been an unsolved intergenerational issue because the underlying problem of railway market power has never been addressed. Often

policy discussions begin on the wrong foot with the basic assumption that there is a competitive transportation environment.

We see that in the review of the Canada Transportation Act, an underlying assumption that competition exists where it does not. This assumption does not apply to western Canadian grains because most shippers are served by one carrier and are subject to monopolistic pricing and service strategies.

Because competition does not exist the government has a role to play in establishing a regulatory structure that mimics a truly competitive and accountable system.

A hallmark of any modern commercial relationship is that parties are held commercially accountable to each other for performance. Grain shippers are bound to performance standards with financial penalties through tariffs. But the accountability equation is currently one-sided. There is no mechanism for shippers to hold railways commercially accountable for their level of service. This needs to change.

Canada exports over 20 million tonnes of cereal grains every year, worth about $10 billion. Virtually all of this grain moves to export position by rail. Every commodity value chain is engaged in significant investments in innovation designed to drive production up. But this will be wasted investment if we don’t have the ability to move grain to market. The profitability of every part of the Canadian agriculture value chain depends on our critical rail link.

In the mandate letters given to both the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food and the Minister of Transport, Prime Minister Trudeau has directed a full review of grain transportation. The work is to follow the tabling of the Emerson report on the Canada Transportation Act. This is the opportunity to finally fix the underlying issues that have led to recurring logistics failures.

Canada needs appropriate, reasonably crafted legislation and regulation that increases railway accountability.

Without this, there is little that can be done to systematically address service failures. Mutual commercial accountability between shippers and railways, backstopped by legislation, is the prerequisite to preventing another grain transportation crisis.

History shows that if the underlying structural issues are not addressed, transportation failures will recur. Canadian agriculture and the Canadian economy cannot afford for this to happen again.

Cam Dahl is President of Cereals Canada.

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African Swine Fever and Canada’s Pig Code

By Harry Siemens Dr John Carr of Melbourne, Australia, a veterinarian and a worldwide consultant to the animal production industry highlighted several issues in a recent interview, just before catching a flight back to Ukraine in February.

While not yet in Canada, the African Swine Fever (ASF) in Eastern Europe could have some indirect effects as it continues to spread.

Carr consults to various hog farms around the world in eight or nine countries and was asked to investigate the disease in the Ukraine, where a couple of his farms are right on the edge of the area with African Swine Fever. “We have one farm under quarantine at the moment, because it was 5 km away from a positive case, but this is obviously very frightening,” he said. “From the Ukraine point of view, it is obviously quite serious because it limits Ukraine’s ability to export.”

On March 18, European media reported a small backyard farm having to slaughter pigs because of health officials detecting ASF disease, about 80 km from the Russian border.

While Ukraine is a player outside of the European Union, the bigger worry for Dr. Carr is the fact Poland and the Baltic states are within the EU, and they already have the

Dr. John Carr and his assistant Dr. Jerry Chang taking in the Manitoba Swine Seminar in Winnipeg last February.

ASF virus present.

“With Russia moving into the Baltic States and into Ukraine, on the western side, it’s moving ever so slowly, but ever so consistently throughout Russia, and Russia borders China,” he explained.

While admitting it will not be tomorrow, or anytime soon, he can see that in ten years, it could be over China’s borders and that will have a major impact on global economies.

“The thing that I’m particularly interested in, just with

the people I work with here, is the new Pigs Code of Practice which will have some fairly major new ideas put into force in July 2016,” said Dr. Carr.

“One of which is pain relief, boar castrations, and tail docking, and other constraints on euthanasia. The main concern with the euthanasia bit, I have no particular concern with blunt trauma when it’s done professionally, and the pig industry is full of professionals.”

When producers do it for little pigs, he thinks blunt

trauma is a perfectly acceptable, welfare oriented method of euthanasia meaning ‘good death’ in Greek. “If we’re going to use other methods, such as carbon dioxide, and have to sedate or anesthetise the pig before it goes in, I have a little concern,” he said. “An injection is still not the greatest thing for piglets. Is not the injection quite painful in itself? I have my own little moral problems with some of these issues.”

Carr said that in looking at the new pig code of practice, it would not cost less to raise pigs in Canada. “All of these things are nice ideas, as a veterinarian, obviously I’m concerned about costs, but not at the expense of welfare,” he said. “My duty is to give the pigs the best quality of life that I can for the six months or so while they are here with us, but it is not my responsibility, I think, to determine when the pig dies.”

He commends the concepts.

“It’s just at my age, I’ve raised pigs for so long, I haven’t necessarily perceived as some of these operations as being as painful, but would I like my tail chopped off, probably not,” said Carr. “A bit of antiseptic might not do any harm.

I want to make sure we don’t just do it for ourselves, so that we feel good. These things actually have to work. Five minutes of pain relief, that isn’t really answering the question to my mind.”

Stats Can Survey PPoints oints to More Acres in Barley and Corn

By Elmer Heinrichs Canadian farmers intend to plant more barley and corn for grain in 2016 than in 2015, with smaller areas of wheat, canola, soybeans and oats, according to its farm survey, conducted by Statistics Canada in March.

Each of the Prairie Provinces are expected to lower seeding areas for wheat compared with 2015, while farmers in the east anticipate seeding more wheat.

Manitoba farmers anticipate seeding 2.8 million acres of spring wheat in 2016, down 3.4% cent from last year.

While Canadian farmers report they intend to sow 19.3 million acres of canola in 2016, down 3.7% compared to last year, Manitoba farmers report no change in the size of the canola area, 3.1 million acres they intend to seed in 2016.

Farmers also plan to sow 5.3 million acres of soybeans in 2016, down a modest 1.9% from 2015. Ontario remains the province with the largest soybean planted area, as producers

plan to seed 2.7 million acres, but growers in Manitoba intend to sow 1.5 million acres, a robust 10% rise.

EUCanada EU-Canada Extend Organic Equivalency In a joint statement on the EU-Canada Organic Equivalence Arrangement the European Union Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development Phil Hogan and the Canadian Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, Lawrence MacAulay, announced an extension to EU-Canada Organic Equivalence Arrangement (EUCOEA).

“After 5 years of successful implementation of the EUCOEA, we have agreed to extend the scope of the products that can be traded under mutual recognition,” said the joint statement.

The extended scope includes equivalency arrangement for Canadian organic processed products certified to Canadian organic standards and imported into the EU can now contain organic ingredients from third countries. Accordingly, organic agricultural products produced and processed in the EU and certified to the European Organic System are accepted as organic in Canada without additional certification.

“The Government of Canada and the European Commission look forward to continue working together to improve mutual equivalence arrangement in order to foster trade in organic products between both markets for the benefit of European and Canadian farmers and producers,” concluded the joint statement.

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Manage Your Good Beef Bulls During the Breeding Season

By Peter Vitti Every year, I receive calls from a few people that wish to increase the plane of nutrition and personal care of their beef bulls just prior to the breeding season in order to assure good fertility on pasture.

On each of these calls, I find it difficult to tell them that this type of attention should have already been done during wintertime. When bulls are finally released into the cowherd, it becomes a matter of managing supplements on pasture, while watching out for their general well-being as well as helping them cope with summertime heat-stress. Such continuous bull management tends to keep the bulls in good shape, so as many cows and replacement heifers can be settled in a short breeding season, which contributes to ultimate financial success.

Once on pasture, one of the first rules of good breeding beef management dictates that an acceptable stocking bull-tocow ratio should be chosen for the breeding season.

Although an exact bull/cow ratio depends on many factors (re: bull age, condition, libido, fertility, and breed); a good rule of thumb follows “one cow per one month of age of the bull up to three years of age”.

For example, a 20-month old bull could be run with 20 cows, while a three-year old bull could mate with 36 cows, respectively.

When grouping bulls in a multi-sire herd, it is a good idea to run bulls of similar ages, body size, and breed within the same cowherd group to minimize problems associated with fighting or individual bulls getting overused. For those operations that rotate bulls during the breeding season, older/experienced bulls should be utilized for the first part of the breeding season, which is followed up with the release of yearling bulls during the last few weeks. The idea is that there is less breeding pressure upon young bulls because fewer open cows are available, which gives these yearlings more time to grow and mature.

Such optimum stocking rates usually parallels my expectation that active breeding bulls can lose between 100 – 150 kg of bodyweight. This loss equates 0.5 to 2.0 units of body condition score, despite good quality pasture (TDN = 62 – 65%, crude protein = 11 – 12%) that should provide much of the essential energy and protein that breeding bulls (and cows) require. If a bull gets too thin (re: BCS less than

2.0), I recommend that it should be pulled from pasture and substituted with a similar bull in better body condition.

Aside from providing good quality pasture, I am a big advocate for providing a wellbalanced mineral and vitamin program, which I believe is critical for maintaining good mineral status of breeding bulls (as well as cows), which contributes to good sperm production and libido. Consequently, I recommend feeding a “breeder-type” loose cattle mineral fed at 3 – 4 ounces, daily that contain complementary calcium and phosphorus levels to pasture grasses and has “chelated/organic” copper, manganese, zinc and selenium of high bio-available properties as well as high levels of A, D and E. In addition, make sure cattle have salt and a good source of clean water.

When putting out their minerals or other feed supplements, it is always a good idea to make daily observations about the general condition of each bull in the herd. I would watch out for all types of physical problems that range from eye injuries due to pinkeye to lameness caused by foot-rot. On a rare occasion, I also have heard from producers that complained good bulls have broken their penis while breeding cows. Other producers have removed injured bulls due to fighting with other bulls.

Aside from these concerns, heat-stress can be a big unseen problem, particularly for bulls released after the beginning of June. Temperatures above 27 °C with at least 60% humidity can literary sterilize bulls.

Fortunately, this type of sterility is temporary (re: sperm production and recovery takes about 60 days), yet I have seen poor conception rates in a few cowherds traced back to otherwise fertile but heat-stressed bulls.

In one particular case, a producer showed me a 20-month old bull that failed to breed a pot of 18 replacement heifers during a bout of 35 °C weather and only to later successfully breed them in a fall-calving herd. It showed me that aside from providing trees for shade and a good source of water, there was really little that the producer could do to combat such severe bull suffering.

Regardless of such heatstress, producers are never entirely helpless, even if their breeding season falls upon the hottest months of the year.

They can still implement an effective fly control program.

I often recommend the strategic use of treated fly ear-tags approved in Canada, as well as dust bags, and back rubbers filled with insecticide located in loafing areas on pasture.

Providing these tips for necessary management of good bulls is ongoing during the breeding season. It could mean controlling flies, providing a good breeding mineral or even reducing an unbalanced bull to cow ratio. Beef bulls make up only about 3 – 5% of the breeding herd population, but their well-being and fertility has a priceless impact on how many calves are born each year.

MacAulay Attends G7 Ag Ministers’ Meeting Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food Lawrence MacAulay participated in the G7 Niigata Agriculture Ministers’ meeting in Japan, April 23-24, where ministers supported the adoption of the G7 Niigata Agriculture Ministers’ Meeting Declaration. The Declaration focuses on work towards revitalizing rural areas and increasing farmers’ income; improving sustainable agricultural production and productivity; and reducing agriculture’s environmental footprint and adapting to climate change.

G7 Agriculture Ministers adopt declaration at the G7 Agriculture Ministers’ Meeting in Niigata, Japan.

The Agri Post

Choosing Contractors with Insurance You decide to do a renovation or addition project. You run your business in this building and you rent out a portion of it to another business. You hire a contractor or subtrades to do the work and while doing this, they start a fire or cause some other damage to the building.

Tenants or customers may be injured, your business could be shut down leaving you with loss of income, maybe you are fortunate enough to be able to re-locate temporarily with added expenses and therefore you are able to reduce your income loss. Your tenants may also have to do business elsewhere, which may leave them with loss of revenue as well. Your contents and your tenant’s contents are damaged. The buildings on either side could also be damaged.

If the contractor is adequately insured, their insurance policy may respond to all of these losses. If this contractor does not carry insurance and has no other resources, you may be held responsible for all of the losses. Your insurance policy may cover these but you would still be responsible for your deductibles and there is the risk of your renewal premium increasing. If you did not buy adequate insurance, you would have to cover the uninsured losses on your own and you could suffer the poor PR with your clients, tenants and neighbouring businesses. For example, a lack of service or a customer is injured. All of this is irrespective of whether or not you are the negligent party.

The above scenario could put you into a serious financial situation.

What can you do?

- Only hire contractors or sub-trades that have insurance.

- Request Certificates of Insurance to confirm insurance coverage and limit.

- Implement a system to track and verify these certificates.

- Set minimum standards for coverage and limits carried by the certificate providers.

Hiring capable people and having your own insurance in place and having appropriate processes in place to obtain and verify insurance certificates is your best defense.

Be sure to seek advice and purchase insurance from those who understand your business!

Andy Anderson is an Associate Insurance Broker specializing in General, Life and Group Benefits for Farm and Business, P 204-746-5589, F 866-765-3351, andya@rempelinsurance.com / rempelinsurance.com / valleyfinancial.ca.

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Manitoba’s Equine Sector Expands

By Les Kletke After years of decline, Manitoba’s equine ranching industry is experiencing a turn around. The industry will add 4 new operators to its roster this year. It is not nearly what the industry was a decade ago but after years of cuts, even a small increase is a welcome turn of events.

The Executive Director of North American Equine Ranching Information Council (NAERIC), Norm Luba said there are several reasons for the turnaround. “We are seeing an increased demand for our product and we are anticipating that it will continue,” said Luba as he visited the Royal Manitoba Winter Fair in Brandon earlier this month.

Luba was on hand for the Draft Horse Classic Sale and Futurity, which is held at the Royal Winter Fair. The event puts nearly $34,000 into the hands of horse owners. Horses are the product of NAERIC members and the event will payBrenda Hunter of Birtle gets ready to go into the out nearly $39,000 to its members in 2017. ring at the NAERIC Futurity at the Royal Manitoba There are currently 19 members in Winter Fair. The equine industry is expanding its numbers after several years of decline.

Manitoba, which has been the centre of Photo by Les Kletke the industry for years and will be increased by four. There are currently four members in Saskatchewan.

The expansion by four members will not mean a boom in the construction business he noted. Luba said that some of the new production would be housed in existing barns. “The expansion is going to families already in the business and we will have some families that have space in their barn to accommodate the expansion in horse numbers,” said Luba.

“Some may require the construction of new barns.”

Luba said that the interest in draft horses is coming back. “We saw a real drop after 2008 but that is coming back,” he said. “People are back in the show horse business and we see a stronger demand for show horses.”

While the demand for show horses is not the determining factor for expansion in the equine ranching industry it does contribute to the bottom line of many ranchers who produce high quality colts for sale. Luba said the demand for high quality horses for show hitches trickles down through the entire industry. “An event like this one in Brandon does a lot for the industry,” said Luba. “It raises the profile of breeders and helps to put some money in the pockets of people who invest in good young horses which are a product of our industry.”

While he would not put a number on further expansion possibilities, he voiced confidence that the industry would continue to expand in 2017.

Just One Warm Week is All it Takes

By Les Kletke Craig McDonald hesitated when he said there is no panic yet about seeding and added, “But if we don’t get going in the next two weeks things will get pretty crazy.”

McDonald farms at Wawanesa and knows that not being able to seed in April is a regular occurrence. As of April 24, he had not seeded any of the 3,000 acres he farms. “We have not started seeding and it doesn’t look like we are going to get on the land in April,” he said. “What started out to be an early spring is now gone and while we aren’t late yet we could make that turn very quickly. We have been on the field in April the last couple of years and it really helps.”

He does not have any fall seeded crops to help spread the workload either. “We looked at winter wheat and decided that it was not really a good fit for our operation though with some of the yields on newer varieties and the market system we might reconsider it.”

He said that decision would be based on, “A consideration of growing for a protein premium or looking at the lower quality but higher volume of soft wheat’s.”

He has also considered growing crops for the refinery at Minnedosa. “Right now we have a fairly set rotation with canola, spring wheat, and some barley,” he said. “We have tried some soybeans and are learning about the crop before we bet to heavy on a large acreage.” He noted that soybean acreage has exploded across the province and in the southwest as well. “We are set up for canola and are familiar with the crop, so we tend to stay with what we know,” said McDonald. “It is not only producing the crop but marketing as well.”

“I think that proper marketing makes as much or more than good production practices, so we have to pay attention to what the market does and that has been another reason to keep our number of crops to a minimum,” he explained. “We pay attention to the marketing and I think that is easier than trying to squeeze more bushels off the field with increase inputs.

Though I am not always sure I get it right, I keep trying.”

McDonald said that a week of warm weather would turn things around and he would have many acres planted. “With today’s equipment we can get a lot done in a week if we can keep going, but we need the warm weather first.”

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Aurora Farm Diversified into a Successful Business

By Joan Airey The owner of Aurora farms loves to share her skills in self-sufficiency and natural living. Louise May purchased a quarter section but at first rented most of the land back to the farmer she bought it from.

Gradually she started expanding her hobby until she was reducing her workweek at her job and putting together a business plan for her business.

“Over four years I slowly left my other job and have grown our business to hire seven part-time staff, two year-round full-time staff and four summer full-time employees. I have returned to my job ten hours a week, which seems to be a good balance. My daughter trained young horses all the way through her university and coached young riders.

She graduated two years ago and is a teacher now at Carberry. During her summer holidays she runs our Summer Youth Horse

Camps while riding, trains and competes with her students at Jumper competitions,” said May. Aurora Farm’s motto is “Aurora Farm a place for learning, sharing, and growing” and with that in mind, they produce over twelve thousand bars of soap a year, which can be purchased at their farm store on weekends, on-line store, St. Norbert Farmer’s Market, craft sales or from numerous stores in Winnipeg. This year they had a booth at the Royal Manitoba Winter Fair.

“We make fine quality handmade soaps with our goat’s milk, local oils and organic essential oils. Our Cinnamon toothpaste and Rose Night Cream have become as popular as our soaps. We also make shampoos, gel-soap, moisturizers, deodorant, healing salve, baby cream and lip balm. We teach a workshop so you can learn how to make all the products yourself,” said May.

Besides using the goat’s milk in the products they sell, they make cheese, butter, yogurt and ice cream for their own use. They have helped a few families set up their own small dairies now and sell their goats to folks who want to become more self-sufficient.

“We always welcome visitors to the farm especially for events, workshops and lessons. Zona holds several Youth Horse Camps over the summer plus Beginner Horseback Riding Lessons. I hold several hands on workshops such as a Three-Day Backyard Dairy Goat School that includes three days of hand milking Aurora goats with practical training in skills like trimming hooves, administering needles and basic first aid is taught. We go over everything from planning a shelter to fencing your existing spaces so participants can leave with a set-up plan. We spend the afternoons in the kitchen making several varieties of

cheese, yogurt, cream, butter and ice-cream,” said May. Another workshop held at Aurora Farms is “Everything Aurora” which includes the basics to homesteading as the Mays have learned how to do it by starting the day with milking goats then making cheeses. Lunches and snacks come right out of their garden and chicken coops. Then in the afternoon, a small group has horse riding lessons. Each day has a top focus from soap-making, bread-making, canning and medicinal herbs. Everyone gets samples to take home. You can check out their website at aurorafarm.ca.

“We have a colourful herd of fine quality alpacas.

We shear our herd once a year and make yarns in the natural colour of the animals. I love to knit, crochet, weave and felt. We sell the yarns along with hand knit, crocheted and woven warm wear at our farm store and

Year of the Pulse Highlights a Healthy Diet

By Les Kletke This calendar has been designated the Year of the Pulse, and may have many producers of pulse crops and others wondering, “So what?”

Many agricultural experts see pulse crops as a healthy diet choice, they are a sustainable crop in food production and they contribute to overall food security. Cara Isaak is in the same opinion as many of these experts and said it is a year that will allow organizations to highlight pulse crops and the part they can play in a healthy diet.

Isaak was part of a demonstration at the Forks in downtown Winnipeg displaying the agriculture production available in the province and how these crops play a role in a healthy diet. “This is an opportunity to raise the awareness of certain crops and the value they can have in a person’s diet,” she said.

Isaak said that many of the people stopping by her display were aware of pulse crops and what they were.

“In recent years we have seen a much greater interest in a healthy diet,” she noted. “People want to know more about their food, what is in it and what

they can do to improve their diet. People are also concerned about their budget and that is where pulses can have a real impact.”

“One of the things about pulses is the satiety,” she said smiling. “That means you don’t get hungry as fast since they are more satisfying.”

Isaac said that the Year of the Pulse has helped to concentrate the interest in the industry and research is going on that is being shared with the University of Manitoba, the Federal Government through Agriculture Canada and the St. Boniface Hospital Research. “The industry is focusing on research and with collaborative efforts we are making progress that will show how important pulses can be in the overall diet,” said Isaak.

The variety of pulses also aid in the marketability when the crops are proven to be a healthy additions to the diet. “There are so many pulses and each has a different flavour or texture that there is something for most palates,” she said.

“There are mixtures of different crops that can be used for soup mixes and they are popular with consumers.”

She knows that just be-

Louise May’s niece Ayda Loewen-Clark displays the diverse products from Aurora Farm at the Royal Manitoba Winter Fair.

Photo by Joan Airey

at markets. Alpaca yarns are hypo-allergenic, durable and known for their softness,” said May. They have a large garden and sell the extra produce at St. Norbert Farmers Market and they especially love to grow potatoes and garlic.

“We have a solar dehydrator that we use throughout the hot months to dry

many herbs for teas and to add to our soaps. We have a flock of Heritage hens to provide us with eggs and sell some to our customers.

We grow our hay crop to feed all our livestock on our quarter section farm now.

We have cows, ducks, quails, cats, dogs and even a bunny. My Australian Shepherd dog is my right hand while working with the livestock,” said May.

Wet Pastures Need Heat

By Les Kletke

2016 is the Year of Pulses and Kid Bean will be making appearances around the province telling consumers about pulses in their diet.

Photo by Les Kletke

ing a healthy food will not ensure commercial success or inclusion in the daily diet. “There are a number of different crops, and even different types of beans that have different applications in food, and that means there is something for everyone,” said Isaak.

Clinical trials are underway for the testing of peas as disease treatments.

“Some of these things are a ways from commercialization, but they are going on and collaboration in the industry is helping,” she said.

Currently two active clinical trials conducted by the

Canadian Centre for AgriFood Research in Health and Medicine are testing the effect of peas on blood sugar levels after a meal while another is looking at the absorption, metabolism and excretion of compounds, blood vessel function and satiety after ingestion of 4 different bean varieties (pinto, navy, red kidney, black) compared to lentils and rice. Planned future studies will look at the effects of beans, peas and lentils in obesity and cognition and another will use lentils to study the role in obesity and cholesterol.

The provinces pastures need some heat, to get growing commented one farmer north of Winnipeg. “It is not late but as soon as the snow is gone we expect things to turn green,” said Jon Falk. “We want to get the cows out there, but at this point they would do a lot of damage and not get much feed value anyway.”

Falk operates a dairy and is thankful he has a good supply of feed on hand. “We know that realistically we are not going to get the cows on pasture in April, but when the snow is gone we start to look at it and think maybe,” he said. “That is not a good idea; the long term damage would hurt production all summer.”

Falk was fortunate to get a good supply of feed put up last year and is comfortable with it lasting until his pasture greens up. “We like to have a year’s supply of feed on hand as insurance and we were able to rebuild that stock pile last year.”

He said the long cold winter the previous year and poor conditions for haying in 2014 had taken their toll running down inventories. “Then with the high prices for hay early last year and what we were hearing from Alberta it was tempting to think about selling some hay,” said Falk. “We didn’t do that, as tempting as it was, it was more important to replenish the stock in my yard.”

The rumours of incredible hay prices did not materialize into record prices over the summer making his decision even easier. “Last year we were fortunate to have a window to put up quality feed and restore that stock pile. I did not want to jeopardize that selling feed and then having my herd suffer,” said Falk.

To Falk the choice is clear, he is a dairyman and other people are hay producers. “I have a priority to put up quality feed for my cows and had enough feed on hand so that I can weather a storm, there are other fellows who are in the business of making hay and marketing it. They do a good job of that and that is there business.”

While he is not short of feed, he would like to see some warm weather to stimulate the growth of his pasture. “Now things are very wet and we have not had the heat that we need to get things growing, it will come, and it always does,” he added.

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The Agri Post

April 29, 2016

Therapy Horses Improve Humans Mental Health

ee S o t ” y o R “Big er t f A s e i r i a r the P Restoration

By Joan Airey Recently Tara Reimer and Karen Price were at the Royal Winter Fair to show the public through demonstrations how the EAL equine assisted learning part of the therapy worked. The response to their demonstrations was excellent.

“Karen Price is my Mental Health Worker and we work as a team with our clients. Karen watches the people and I as the Equine Specialist watches the horses. We look for SPUD’S, which is an acronym for Shifts, Patterns, Uniqueness and Discrepancies that we may see in the horses.

The apostrophe S is for stuff that may get in the way of the process,” said Tara Reimer.

Tara and her husband own Cloud 9 ranch where they offer equine assisted learning and psychotherapy in addition to therapeutic horse riding, vaulting and riding lessons. They are currently a service provider of Métis Child and Family Services, and are working to be added to other service provider lists so more people have access to their programs.

“Equine Assisted Programs are being recognized as a valuable alternative or addition to traditional therapy. Our mental health therapy program, Recovery on Cloud 9 follows the EAGALA, model that requires a team approach, which includes at least two facilitators, one Equine Professional and one Mental Health professional, as well as the horses. All work is done on the ground, there’s no riding. We adhere to a strict code of ethics and provide a participant- centred approach to therapy,” said Reimer.

Reimer teachers over ninety students a week, and has made contact with many people who realize the difference horses make to improving mental health and wellbeing. She is also recognized as a wellknown horse expert.

“I have Semellia Lamont an experienced equine

These participants work to get a horse to move into a position marked by poles without touching the horse as part of a workshop demonstration of therapy horses at the Royal Manitoba Winter Fair.

Photos by Joan Airey

professional and coach at Cloud 9 Ranch and she has experience doing respite and support work for families of children with special needs. Karen Price is a RSW in child protection. She has worked many years as a Clinical Case Manager with children with high needs and their foster families. She has experience working with children who have attachment disorders and those with FASD. Working as a team we are able to help many people,” said Reimer.

“Horses are very sensitive animals. They respond to the actions of the participant and that creates the basis of conversations between participants and facilitators. Participants are encouraged to see how their interaction with horses relates to their life experiences and to take that knowledge out into their daily lives. Society has moved away from traditional roots, and time at the ranch with the horses offers a chance to reconnect with the past and appreciate nature,” said Reimer.

Horses are naturally

intimidating to many people because they are large and powerful. Thus, the horse creates an opportunity for people to overcome fear and develop confidence and insight when dealing with other intimidating and challenging situations in life.

“Horses have distinct personalities, attitudes and moods which provide distinct personalities, attitudes and moods.

Horses then provide vast opportunities for metaphorical learning, an effective technique when working with the most challenging individuals or groups. Horses require people to be engaged in physical and mental work to be successful, a valuable lesson in all aspects of life. Most horses mirror human body language. People complain ‘the horse is stubborn or it doesn’t like them’. The participate then learns the lesson that if they change themselves the horses will respond differently.

Horses are honest which makes them especially powerful messengers to those in therapy,” said Reimer.

No matter whether you are interested in these types of programs or not there is a video worth watch as it shows what horses can do for people. It is unbelievable but I’ve seen horses work wonders for some young and old people. To see the video go to youtube.com/watch?v=YAFUhPCxCmk.

The most recognizable artefact in the Manitoba Agricultural Museum’s collection is the prototype Versatile Model 1080 tractor, better known as “Big Roy”.

According to Georgette Hutlet, Executive Director of the Manitoba Agricultural Museum, “Big Roy is one of our biggest attractions; people from around the world come to see it.

We are proud to have a Canadian-made tractor as one of our cornerstones.”

A chance encounter between Versatile and the person entrusted by the Museum to operate “Big Roy”, led Versatile to consider offering to restore “Big Roy” for the Museum in return for use of the tractor in the summer and fall of 2016 in order to take part in Versatile’s 50th anniversary celebrations taking place in 2016. An agreement was soon struck and “Big Roy” departed the Museum grounds in the late fall of 2015 for Versatile’s factory in Winnipeg.

The tractor was taken into the Research and Development shop at the plant for mechanical repairs, new components, new cab interior, a fresh coat of paint and new decals. To do the work “Big Roy” was almost stripped down to the frame. Since the tractor is a prototype,

many parts on the machine are particular to Big Roy however; there are some parts that are standard components on other tractors produced

by Versatile in 1977.

The Versatile 1080 is laid out opposite to the traditional four-wheel drive tractor layout with a 19-litre, 600 horsepower Cummins engine mounted on the back half of the tractor. The cab was mounted on the front half with a 550-gallon fuel tank located ahead of the cab.

“Big Roy” also featured an operator environment that was ahead of its time.

The air-conditioned cab, accessed through sliding doors on either side of the cab, was built with seating for three full-sized adults. The rear-mounted engine virtually eliminated rearward visibility and the solution was a closed circuit television system with a 9” monitor in the cab connected to a dustproof 120-degree camera in the rear.

The really unique feature of this tractor is the four axles, which were powered through a six speed manual transmission. It articulates between the second and third axle. The articulation joint, as well as allowing movement from side to side which is necessary for steering, also allows for vertical movement of 10 degree plus or minus.

This movement is necessary to allow the tires to remain in contact with the ground as the tractor moved over an

uneven field. The tractor will steer 40 degrees to one side or the other.

While the innovative four-axle design allows enough rubber on the ground to use the engine’s 600 horsepower it allows the tractor to remain fairly narrow as well. The result was that all four tires on either side run in the same track and cause soil compaction problems within the track.

Versatile’s Model 1150, which appeared after the Model 1080 and featured 475 horsepower, reverted to the standard four-wheel drive tractor design layout. The 1150 either used very wide tires installed as duals on all axles or mounted triple tires on all axles.

“Big Roy” came to the Manitoba Agricultural Museum when the company was purchased by Ford.

The Manitoba Agricultural Museum’s members, directors and staff are very pleased with Versatile’s involvement with the restoration and excited with the planned road trip to various farm shows that “Big Roy” will undertake this summer for Versatile.

This innovative example of Versatile’s capacity and of Manitoba’s manufacturing capabilities will get a well-deserved bow on the Prairie farm show circuit.

“Big Roy” and a 2012 Versatile, 500 tractor, nose to nose at the 2012 Versatile Expo held at the annual Threshermen’s Reunion and Stampede at the Museum.

The Agri Post

April 29, 2016

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Smak Dab Cuts into the Mustard Market

By Les Kletke If you have ever wondered where all the field crops in Manitoba end up or how many canaries it takes to eat just one 1/4 section of canary seed and where does the mustard seed go or how many hot dogs it would take to use it all then you are not alone.

Carly Minish is doing her best to see that some of that mustard stays in Manitoba by transforming it into marinades and glaze right here.

Minish is from Swan River and came back to her home province after train-

ing as a chef in Alberta. As a red seal chef, she has worked in several fine dining establishments before taking the leap to start her own company. Today Smak Dab makes a variety of mustards and glazes.

She sources the mustard seed from Bestco in Brunkild and then turns it into an assortment of products using a mustard base.

She credits her interest in food to her grandmother who was a nutritionist and her mom who she describes as a life long foodie.

She credits her formal training and work experience to

what could be described as an obsession with mustard.

“You can add a spoonful of it to a dish and change the meal entirely,” she said.

“You can use a spoonful of mustard to enhance the flavour of an entire meal.”

She has expanded her product line from the traditional mustard to include a Beer Chipotle flavour and one that has some Port influence. She is also pursuing the option of taking her products outside of Canada and has some interest from firms that would promote her products internationally.

Mentoring and Farming in the Chaco of Paraguay

By Harry Siemens In the Chaco, of Paraguay the Menno Colony, the largest of three colonies that settled in the area the Cooperativa Chortitzer, is an economic engine that drives the people in the colony, doing 750 million dollars in business in 2014.

The coordinator and host of the cultural exchange is Adolf Harder, who has taught for 18 years in the Menno Colony, spent two and half years in Canada, and works in the education department for the members of Cooperativa Chortitzer.

Harder, a very gracious and informed host works with the village mayor and the administration while farming. His mentoring encompasses the Menno Colony, the Cooperativa Chortitzer and the Association of Health, hospitals, schools, and road maintenance. “I work with mentors that help farmers who are struggling and move alongside of them and try to give them the help they need, but also support in a few cases where the struggling individual may need to change what he or she is doing,” said Harder. “Farmers, some grain farmers, but more dairy farmers, cattle ranchers who raise beef for processing.”

The Menno Colony has six regions and each district has one member on the administrative board touching every area of the Menno Colony, over 100 km long representing the producers.

For the most part, farmers grow and produce what the Cooperativa can process, and sell. “We have some that like to work with

Adolf and Harry during their final interview for the series of agricultural co-op life in Paraguay.

other companies, but here in the Chaco and that is why the Cooperativa got so strong initially because it is 600 km away from Asuncion via a detour over a river and is now 400 km,” he said.

When the first people left Manitoba in 1925-27, there were no roads, no hospitals and no schools. The migrants had to work together to survive and stay alive.

“Now most of the members depend and work within the Cooperativa, in part because the prices they get are good and there are those who work with other companies,” said Harder.

“The key thing however, is that participating within the co-op is voluntary, and they can also work outside, it is not forbidden by the Cooperativa Chortitzer.” He noted that the co-op pays healthy dividends and pension is dependant on what the members have paid in, mostly through selling their produce to them.

Harder is a small producer, operating the farm alongside his job, but said he is small because he started late, teaching first for 18 years and then living for the two years in Canada.

“My father was a large cattle producer with more than 1,000 hectares of land, and planned on making arrangement so his children would also each get some land,” he said.

In his free time, he spends it on his ranch raising cattle with his son, working with 90 cows in a cow and calf operation. He sells the 9 to 10-month-old calves, building up his investment, because a pension plan is not available to them.

He loves working with cattle and driving to the ranch some distance away explaining that a day spent on the ranch is his therapy and it almost feels like a vacation.

From 2004 through 2007, he worked at Loewen Windows in Steinbach and said he really enjoyed that too.

When he first began at the window factory, he asked to not always stay in position, as he wanted to move around the entire plant, which he did.

Harder said he appreciated the child benefits in Canada, especially the schools his children were able to attend during that time.

Minish said that her Honey Horseradish mustard has been proving popular even though it is two flavours that might not be thought of as well paired. “They are both ingredients that are available in Manitoba,” said Minish.

“I want to work with as many Manitoba products as possible.”

Currently the production of her mustards is done in Swan River in a rented commercial kitchen. “It is home and it is where I started out, so I have people there that help with the production and the facility is able to handle the capacity that I need,” said Minish. “We will see what happens down the road. ”She knows that her business will not be impacted as drastically as the traditional mustard business was by the Major League Baseball strike which seriously affected the amount of mustard used in the US and drove the price of the crop into the tank. Her’s is a more specialty market than the average baseball fan.

Carly Minish is the Queen of Mustard and her company uses Manitoba product for its mustards.

Photo by Les Kletke

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The Agri Post

April 29, 2016

MB Dairy Set to Meet Challenges Head On

By Harry Siemens Dairy Farmers of Manitoba (DFM) held a district spring meeting in Winkler recently with board and management

updating dairy farmers about production and politics.

David Wiens, a dairy farmer near Grunthal, Chair of DFM and Vice-Chair of the Dairy Farmers of

Canada said a key issue has to do with processing milk capacity in Manitoba. “Processing is pretty much running flat out for the most part, particularly the butter powder processing,” said

Brothers Go with the Milk Flow

Dairy cows on the C and D Penner Dairy Farm near Altona.

By Harry Siemens In January 2001, two Altona area dairy farmers who are brothers took over from their father and built an expandable dairy barn in case the World Trade Organisation messed with Canada’s supply management system. So far, that is not the case, but they keep doing what they do best, produce as much milk as they can from their 65 cows.

Cornie and Dennis Penner, of C and D Penner Farms moved into their free-stall dairy barn, milking 35 cows in an L-shaped building expandable in every direction. Today they are milking 60-65 cows, producing 75 pounds of milk per cow per day. “We continue to have confidence in the dairy industry,” said Dennis at a recent Dairy Farmers of Manitoba Altona area dairy farmer say they keep meeting in Winkler. “Some things stay the same doing what is best for dairy producand some things change. You appreciate the things tion, consumers and the cows. that are stable, practice them, and stay with them.

The dairy industry is just that, it’s stable, it is here to stay. Yes, there will be some changes, low spots, some high tides, but we stay with what we do best.”

The number of cows they milk regularly may change in the future because they are in the midst of determining whether the next generation has an interest in the dairy business.

When their children became of age to help, they all spent some time working in the barn with their respective fathers. However, it is entirely up to them whether they choose to enter the business of dairy farming or not. If they so choose, then the process starts as to how to actually make this happen, explained Dennis.

Dairy Farmers of Manitoba (DFM) Chair David Wiens said there is not enough processing capacity in Manitoba to use up all the potential production and national quota allocation. Manitoba may have reached the limit in processing capacity.

Dennis agrees that the province has reached full capacity and it does affect the business. “Yes, we can’t use some of the increases in production out there,” said Dennis. “But we’ll need to be a little patient. We have a good board of directors, working hard doing what they can and working together with processors to hopefully work things out.”

Canadian milk is produced according to standards that are among the highest in the world for safety and quality. Currently dairy farmers in Canada are implementing a food safety program on their farms called the Canadian Quality Milk (CQM) program. The program keeps track of a dairy farmer’s actions to prevent and minimize the risk of exposing food to safety hazards by effectively cooling and storing milk, safely shipping dairy animals, closely monitoring and recording the use of medicines and chemicals to prevent residues in milk and meat, and sanitizing the milking equipment and making sure the wash water is clean.

This program requires all milk produced on Canadian dairy farms tested for antibiotic residues before it is unloaded at the processing plant. Any milk that tests positive for antibiotic residues is rejected and properly discarded, not sold to the public. Because milk samples are taken at each farm, the farm responsible is easily identified and must pay a penalty as well as all related costs for the proper disposal of the milk.

Being proactive in this way is a real positive said Penner because knowing that the milk is safe with actual proof in consistent records will only help sell more milk.

While taking on a little more work, it means a little more record keeping. “We’re right on track. We’ve done the traceability and the animal care and are right on target with it,” he said. “The consumer is more and more interested in where their food is coming from, how farmers produce it, and it’s inevitable that we must and we can provide and prove it to them. It will be a good selling tool.”

Wiens. “These are older plants that have come to the point where it is hard for them physically to put enough milk through to meet the demands of the Canadian marketplace. Yes, those companies have plants throughout Canada, doing some milk in varying amounts. Let’s say for Manitoba’s part of the national production, our plants can no longer handle the full capacity.”

Wiens did his homework and provided the details. Production capacity varies somewhat, especially at the expanded Saputo plant in Brandon where they process to meet the demand for the more current products like fluid milk, cottage cheese, and sour cream.

“There you get more of a give and go.

They will simply produce enough for the immediate market,” he said. “Obviously that isn’t the kind of product we can store like cheese and butter.”

He said the biggest concerns are the industrial plants, particularly the butter powder side where the capacity is no longer enough with the growing demands in Manitoba. “We’re seeing some of that in other provinces too.

Ontario is affected by it and some of these plants definitely need to be upgraded or rebuilt,” Wiens said. “Today we have the Parmalat fluid milk plant they’re building in Winnipeg. A brand new plant and will be an excellent addition to what we do. At the same time, an old plant will close down.

Certainly this provides the opportunity for Parmalat to increase their throughput in their Manitoba facilities.”

The key factor he said is attracting more industrial processing because as with the old plants, the skim milk powder is not where the industry is at anymore, but a more refinable product like the heavier milk protein concentrates

David Wiens Chair of Dairy Farmers of Manitoba.

and ingredients. “That’s where the demands of the marketplace are today and so the processing lines and capacity need to shift, and that reinvestment needs to happen sooner than later,” Wiens said. “If we can provide that market with what it wants in that particular area, well that is a demand we can fulfil.”

With supply management, if the situation arises where processors simply cannot meet the demand, the Dairy Farmers of Manitoba, and Dairy Farmers of Canada can through quota adjustments, make the processing changes. “Currently, our quota in this province is under issued. Then what should happen is that the province receives its share of the national allocation. We have not been able to put out all of Manitoba’s share to our producers because we don’t have the processing capacity,” he said.

“If you have no one else to receive the milk in another province, there is very little we can do about it at this point. There is no point in producing the milk if you can’t find a home for it.”

While facing some challenges in the industry the market is still growing. “If we went to the production we had a year ago, or even two years ago, we wouldn’t been in such a tight position,” he said. “The point is, the market is growing and we want to be in the market.”

In Canada, milk consumption is as more people drink more milk; eat more butter, cheese and yogurt. “So they aren’t problems, but good challenges we need to face. So then the question becomes - how do we position ourselves so we can continue to meet the demands of the Canadian marketplace. Because there are all kinds of opportunities within those challenges,” added Wiens.

Royal Manitoba Winter FFair air Offered FFun un and Learning

Tuesday evening twenty 4-H’ers competed in the Canexus calf scramble trying to get a halter off one of ten calves. The ten able to get a halter off a calf received two hundred dollars those who did not received one hundred dollars.

By Joan Airey At this year’s Royal Manitoba Winter Fair agricultural fun and learning experiences was possible for everyone.

Monday night was the P. Quintaine Calf Scramble and Tuesday night was the Canexus Calf Scramble for 4-H members to participate while other young people could take part in the Sperling Industries Pig Scramble or the ACC and Behlen Miss Piggy Pen Scramble.

“What a great week with an absolute amazing group of exhibitors to work with. I’d like to thank them for coming to be part of our small but very important piece of the Royal Manitoba Winter Fair. I know how hard it is to get chores organized at home and get the kids to the cattle show. The Jackpot entries were one of the biggest yet. I feel the cattle industry is in good hands with the youth we have promoting it today,” said Shannon Carvey Livestock Director.

The Agri Post

Success Built on Ingenuity Proves You Don’t Have to be Big

By Les Kletke It is a cry often heard on farms. “I have to do everything; I am the production staff, the engineer and the marketer.” The same is true for Kim Bialkoski who operates Flora and Farmer. She is a one-woman show that does everything from processing to marketing and a few things in-between, and she would not have it another way.

Bialkoski’s business has grown past the point of using her own kitchen and she now rents space in a commercial kitchen to produce the more than 50 jams and pickles that she has in her product line. She has been in the business for three years and says it grew out of her love for food and her grandmother. “I have always loved food and I had all these recipes from great things that my grandmother made but I was afraid of them being lost so I decided to take them commercial,” she said.

Bialkoski is a regular at several Farmer’s Markets and has a dozen specialty shops that retail her products.

While she started out with her grandmother’s Kim Bialkoski uses her grandmother’s recipes recipes she has added a bit of flair herself, and the but adds a few ingredients to modernize the selection of products could just as well be called, art of pickle making. not your Grandmothers Jam. While grandmother Photo by Les Kletke got creative, she did not have access to the same variety of fruits available today and Bialkoski takes full advantage of fusing them with her grandmother’s base of fruits grown in Manitoba. She also has a line that she laughingly calls the adult line that carries flavouring from liquors.

While she looks after the processing and marketing of her products, she does not have the space for a garden large enough to produce the vegetables and fruits she needs. For her raw ingredients, she relies on a market garden at Melita. “It has worked well for me,” she said. “It is important to have as much Manitoba product as possible and as fresh as possible. This has worked well and I have a supply of the product I need.” She quickly added that she hopes 2016 is a good year for cucumbers because they are the base of her multiple pickle recipes that again carry a bit more edge than grandmother’s did.

Kim Bialkoski is an example of Manitoba ingenuity and dedication proving that you do not have to be big to be good or for that matter to make a living. She is doing that all by herself with a myriad of products based on her grandmothers recipes.

Preserving Heritage Livestock

By Les Kletke Pam Heath wants more Manitobans to go to Nova Scotia this year. No, she is not with the Nova Scotia Chamber of Commerce or Tourist Bureau. Heath is a member of the Rare Breeds Canada organization, which commercializes and preserves heritage livestock and its diverse gene pools for future use. She would like to see more Manitoban’s attend the organization’s annual meeting in Halifax in June and eventually get involved in the preservation of rare breeds.

“We have a line up for the Convention that is unbelievable,” said the normally staid Heath. “The organizing committee went after some big names and told them we could not afford to pay them and they all agreed to present without charging us. So the program is very strong.”

She highlights Chefs Mandy Da Costa and Stephane Levac both celebrity chefs known for preparing meals for the county’s dignitaries.

When asked if it is ironic that chefs would be on the program of a convention about saving rare breeds she said, “Not at all. The best way to preserve a breed is to use it, to have a demand for its meat or fibre. When there is a demand

Pam Heath would like to see more Berkshire hogs on Manitoba farms and revitalize breeds that are fading from commercial production. She had this giant on display at the Royal Manitoba Winter Fair.

Photo by Les Kletke

for the meat, people will produce it and then it becomes no longer rare.”

Her display at the Royal Winter Fair in Brandon featured a Berkshire pig. “There are not a lot of Berkshires on commercial farms; there were some produced for the Japanese market, but if we could build the demand we could have them on more farms and the breed would increase in numbers.”

She said the same of sheep with wool that is different from the norm. Her booth at the Fair featured a basket full of scenes of wool of different colours. “Some has obviously been dyed,” she said of the bright red and green wool. “But the others are much more popular with fibre enthusiasts as they are from a breed pro-

duced in southern Ontario and are not dyed. People love the variation in colour and that it is natural, the fact that it is a little heavier makes it great for mittens or slippers.”

Heath, who was raised in the United Kingdom, immigrated to Manitoba with her family in 1980. She is no stranger to the less familiar breeds having grown up on a dairy farm that milked 200 head of Channel Island cattle and raised Gritstone ewes.

She brought the enthusiasm for rare breeds with her and has worked to promote the expansion in Manitoba. “The event in Nova Scotia in June will be a great time to meet with likeminded people and save some of these breeds by making them commercially viable.”

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April 29, 2016

The Agri Post