Farmers Club study tour to Canada and USA to investigate farmer self help study groups.
Neil Ridley
Acknowledgements Thanks go to many people for letting me undertake this trip: my wife Annabel, my employer Otley College, Otley, Ipswich, Suffolk, England for letting me take time away from my work, the support of colleagues while I was away in North America. Not least, THE FARMERS CLUB CHARITABLE TRUST for their generous support through the bursary which made the trip possible. I cannot do justice in acknowledging the generosity of the many folk who gave up time and made me welcome while I was touring around. It was, without fail, most interesting meeting with these positive forward looking people, which has provided a memory etched in my somewhat dubious mind. Thank you
Neil Ridley Agricultural Commercial Co-ordinator Otley College Otley Ipswich Suffolk IP6 9EY Telephone 01473784165 Fax 01473 785353 Email nridley@otleycollege.ac.uk 2
24th November 2004
CONTENTS
Executive Summary
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1.
Introduction 1.1 Why undertake this tour 1.2 What I undertook to do 1.3 Methods and scene setting
7 7 7 8
II
A few Background Ruminations
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III
3.1 Iowa 3.2 Practical Farmers for Iowa 3.2 Local Foods and Leopold Centre 3.4 Mainstream Production 3.5 Overview of Agriculture in Iowa
12 13 15 16 17
IV
4.1 Ontario 4.2 Environmental Farm Plan 4.3 Innovative Farmers of Ontario 4.4 An Overview of Agriculture in Ontario
19 21 24 25
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5.1 an overview of self-help 5.2 Agricultural education and extension 5.2.1 There is a view that promotion of knowledge 5.2.2 If there is a culture for enhancing training 5.2.3 If we consider the regulatory activity 5.3 Sustainable Agriculture 5.4 What are the strengths and opportunities for Britain 5.5 Some barriers and threats
27 29 30 30 31 33 32 33
VI
Study tour conclusion and thoughts
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The visit to Iowa, details of places and people The visit to Ontario, details of places and people
35 37
“The imaginations picturing the facts, lapping round them, like sea upon rocks upon the coast. The province of the intellect is to interpret the facts, reduce them to order, extract their significance.� Rowse
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The report is set out with the people or event in a preview box at the beginning of some sections.
Executive Summary 1.
Farmers from Iowa and Ontario analysis of the problems they face are very similar to our own farmers. The situation is ageing farmers, farming domination of the landscape with society questioning the industrial husbandry used to produce foodstuffs. A structural inability to be profitable due to the Gordian knot of contract farming, to quote “Present contract arrangements between farmers and packers or purchasers are eroding equity from the farm, leaving just enough to keep the farmer farming but stopping any entrepreneurial activity on farms.” From the same interview is the thought that we have created a food system which so far no one has been able to understand.
2. The bifurcation of farming sees the extension and education system at present unable to supply the needs of farmers as these institutions are mired in a middle ground no longer occupied by farmers or farming. 3. Education is seen as a valued resource in Iowa and Ontario farmers believe in self development through, think tanks, networking in their groups and network with wider society. Farmers do not consider themselves as either a special case or operating within a vacuum in the debate on agriculture. On the other hand much of the institutional support is seeped in the formal process of education and has a similar requirement to adapt. The whole essence of self-help education is ground in culture, and culture like farming is complex.
4. The work of the Practical Farmers for Iowa (PFI) and the Environmental Farm Plan (EFP) in Ontario presents opportunities for farmers to value their own expertise with scientists coming to them for information. In contrast to the top down approach in British science where farmer knowledge is not valued. Farmers have greater breath of knowledge but lesser depth of knowledge than scientists and the PFI and EFP address this issue by recognizing farmer knowledge.
5. Consideration of farmer position on self-help, is either determined by economic self-interest or a more altruistic attitude to the environment and market needs. Farmers are educating themselves not looking to society and Government for solutions. These groups realize that they have to seek their own solutions as the present research is not giving them what they require. The science and practice have become disconnected. • Farmers do not feel that they can influence or control landscape issues • Farmers often reject much of the science because they are unconvinced • Farmers for generations have been innovators at the heart of the rural community through pursuit of decision making with self-interest at its heart. This is no longer the case
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6. The success of these self-help groups is the presentation of all the facts in a practical on-farm situation. Farmers are able to take away ALL the facts, and then make up their own minds, not a hackneyed case study approach that sees a good news story or presentation of information that farmers can not relate too. Further, extremely important is the creditability of the trainer/facilitator with knowledge of the local area and local systems, who must know the subject, and be distanced from the Government
7. To often farmers lack confidence in their own ability to solve problems, they are great problem solvers, especially in a practical situation. The need is to come together in the face of declining numbers of farmers in developing formalized solutions, which society demands, for the ecological, environmental and market failures. Similar to the Ontario Environmental Farm Plan (EFP) the Voluntary Initiative can be further developed as such a tool. Farmers must look to awareness raising and adopting professional on-farm procedures such as LEAF. Why are there 27,000 farmers in Ontario who have undertaken training in the EFP and perhaps only 500 farmers who have done LEAF audit in Britain.
8. In Ontario it takes up to three years to generate a best (beneficial) practice manual, and it does not appear until it is well tested by farmers. These manuals serve a similar role to the Highway Code as all stakeholders agree the input, not a top down approach.
9. The future in industrial society for farmers will be development of local foods, providing for the needs of the slow foods movement. The economic paradigms of the 1960s for globalization and economic size are no longer the profile for farms. A new generation is coming along determined more around life style values and in the main this generation coming to farming is female. “You need a female strategy in the 21st Century.” 60% of the undergraduates at Iowa State University (ISU) are female, it is estimated that 60% of the land in Iowa is owned by women and that 90% of the management on farms is either influenced by or totally female. Technology has taken the grunt out of farm work, and lifestyles can be developed around farming with careful organization. Hard work is no longer the way forward. Computers will like the printing press before revolutionize work. And interestingly Asia is taking up computers; Europe took up the Asian technology of the printing press.
10. Professor Peter Stonehouse has used the EFP as a teaching aid, and comments on sustainable farming as working with nature and given the present status of British farming on sustainable farming believes that Britain can lead the world on this if it wants too. The muddled message going out from both UK and Ontario Governments towards their farm sector is demonstrating a lack of leadership which causes much heartache in rural communities. This has lead to the farmers saying” lets wait and see Government will change its mind.”
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11. The biggest barrier to farm development is the failure to integrate the younger generation who have different ideas, values and technology. Without the older generation giving up any sovereignty then the upshot is revolution or extinction.
Sitting by the River Speed contemplating
“I say to my farmer members’ yes if all you want to do is farm then you must be prepared for the consequences, which will always be low price commodity markets� Elbert Van Donkersgoed (Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario)
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I I sat by the River Speed in Guelph, in glorious sunlight on 27 th September, reflecting on my sojourn. It took me through Ontario, into Quebec on a coach tour with the Innovative Farmers of Ontario at the end of August, then on to Iowa for three weeks and back into Ontario for the final two weeks of my Farmers Club Bursary trip to investigate self-help groups in farming. I reckon I have spoken in one to one interviews to 23 people, been to 2 farm open days, 2 farm shows, 3 days of training events, 5 days of conferences and a 4 day coach tour. I also had meaningful conversations with over 100 different people. How can I do justice to all these kind people? It is, after all, people who matter; people eat food, use the environment and people are most important to farming. Then I saw the ducks upended, feeding in the river, the Cathedral looking down on us and the inevitable cars roaring along the enormous boulevards and I understood that the problems faced by farmers are the same the world over, all claiming the need for this level playing field. Through the crescendo came the words of John Benham, who recalled the information for his studies at Guelph in 1951, when he was told that the biggest competitor would be his fellow farmers and that a spirit of community would be undone by the march of tractors and chemicals. Why, we asked, do farmers seek to support the large input businesses within agriculture that can look after themselves and not support each other more?
1.1 Why undertake this tour? A reoccurring theme in the present debate on farming is centred on the concept of disconnection. For farmers the dysfunctional communication is improved through participation. At present it is other groups, in the main, that are entering into this debate as scientific organizations, market orientated institutions or single interest non Government organizations. It is the idea of self-help groups to encourage farmers to enter into the debate; farmers are a self-reliant group and this is especially true for production management. It is the problem for farming that things have moved on from simple production management; at issue are business, market, risk and ecological management processes on the farm now. 1. This tour sought to establish which ideas could be learnt from Ontario in the development of Environmental Farm Plans and what knowledge could be gained from the Practical farmers for Iowa. 2. In Canada and America there is evidence of collaborative learning groups helping farmers addressing the challenge of demands for change from society, in the way they farm? Farmer discussion groups established in Britain during the post war period, to tap into the farmer to farmer communication, are now in decline, but can be reinvigorated with guidance.
1.2 What I undertook to do Find the answers to the following questions: • What features should effective education and training programmes include? • How do farmers learn about management practices?
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• • •
Where do farmers obtain information about the opportunities and threats to their business? What sources are used in the learning process? What are the features which make some farms embrace and amplify the value of training?
1.3 Methods and scene setting A defined method in absolute terms was not prepared. The idea of reductionist science has never come easily to me; solutions are not always found in the laboratory. I prefer the idea of a more overall approach as suggested by the systems analysis; thus the idea was to do a “Sondeo” from the Spanish meaning a sounding. I would attend functions where farmers gathered, entering into conversations, listening to questions asked of speakers and take observations from various media, to glean facts from one to one interviews, conferences and attend training events and shows. There are a rich and fragmented number of self-help activities in farming with an increasing number of groups being spawned all the time in response to the earlier circumstances, which is the problematic event of poor returns down on the farm. There is an overload of information, but with less knowledge. Farmers are great problem solvers, especially by practical methods, and should have more confidence in their own ability. Indeed if I can accomplish an improvement in the self-confidence of farmers to solve their own problems, I will have mission accomplished. The idea of the study tour was to build on the work of the Voluntary Initiative, which has seen farmers at last join in the society debate on how food is produced. It is through my work on the Voluntary Initiative that I became aware of the Environmental farm plan in Ontario and thence the work of Nancy Grudens-Schuck of Iowa State University, which led me to investigate self help in Ontario and Iowa. Incidentally there is a 3% pesticide tax in Iowa which goes to the Leopold centre based at ISU. The Leopold centre, together with the University Extension service has very close ties to The Practical farmers for Iowa who are also a central plank of my observations. The background colour scheme which set the study tour is of industrial husbandry in agriculture being increasingly questioned, with the failing paradigm that increased size will mean success. This has seen farmers expelled from the land in droves in the two places visited, within the words of one interviewee: Farmers acting under contract to the big companies are having the equity of the farm sucked out and are making just enough to stay farming but not enough to invest in the future.
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II A few background ruminations There are, when we reflect through history, no generations where man’s social groups have not changed in status relative to other social groupings. Social change moves just as an underground river, following its own path, unlike the direction of political happenings that move on the surface of life. Politics are the outcome rather than the cause of change. We have not suddenly arrived at this situation whereby the progress of industrial husbandry has failed both the people inside and outside farming. The question is how to sever the Gordian knot that ties farming to unprofitable production. It is the very complexity of our present food system that is challenging many different countries. In Britain we have our own set of circumstances which are only marginally different from those faced by the farmers in Iowa and Ontario. Farmers in Britain have to face a changed policy situation with, the emphasis no longer on support for production, but now skewed to environmental benefits. The nation no longer has a publicly funded extension service, which may assist farmers adapt. The ministry responsible for farming and regulation seeks to find ways of achieving changes through grouping of farmers for knowledge transfer and use of self audits, such as being developed by the Farm Focus in DEFRA. LEAF of course has an excellent audit, but seems to fail in the capture of many farmers; why have only 500 farmers done LEAF when 27,000 farmers in Ontario have done the Environmental Farm Plan? Commentary is often around the economic aspect to farming. If that was the primary reason all farmers would have sold up years ago. Many farmers are existing on very low levels of drawings and low or non existent profitability. This is a thing that no one from Government support, which lives from a security of salary, understands. These people say what farmers need but have no understanding of what farmers want. An excellent starting point is to present some facts about recent agriculture; • Farming dominates the landscape (78% of land is farmed in Britain) • Massive reduction in the numbers of farmers, those remaining are getting older • 70% of farms are part-time holdings. • Enormous gains in productivity have slowed up significantly • The technology of mechanization leads to increased specialization with the consequence risk • Impact of chemical tools has been revolutionary but now are being questioned • Increased Government interest in effects of husbandry methods • Rise of environmental and ecological science and knowledge • The impact of Non Governmental organizations who are not interested in farmers or farming • Some top performing farmers are making money, these are farmers who are managers not simply production managers • A global food system that no one fully understands has developed • Consolidation of both input and output sides to farming. • Change to a slow food movement and quality production
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We must consider: What is farming? For me it is a payment of rent for land. Defining farmers is extremely difficult as farmers defy definition, farmers can be defined by what they are not, more importantly farmers define themselves as what they are not. They know that they want to farm; they diversify or whatever it takes to remain farming. Farms are defined by 1. size 2. type ( soil, climate and production system and enterprises) 3. family life cycle • Succession • Resources • Motivations • Age • Education The farm is further defined by the family, which often sees the crossing of two or three generations, and for the purpose of this report my thinking is of a generation born before 1940 (Veteran), a generation born about 1960 (baby boomers) and a generation born in about 1980 (the future). Managing the generations is integral the farm and selfhelp. The young are aware of other opportunities, farming has never been about money it is about lifestyle, and it is the failure of farming to present a lifestyle to the young. 60% of undergraduates at ISU reading agriculture are female. It is possible with machinery technology for women to do the work and develop their own lives. Agriculture is the husbandry of the soil and is a 10,000 year old success story of mankind producing foodstuffs in many different ways around the world, fundamental to all is the soil and productivity. Therefore we must ask ourselves are we productive? Agriculture has to provide a living and employment for people to be productive, this it is not doing. It has been reduced to an extractive activity fuelling the balance sheets of some mighty organizations. These past fifty years has seen the spread of industrial husbandry with the onset of machines and chemical tools. More problematic is the pedantry of economic definitions that are failing us with the simplistic view on valuations. As already stated, if farmers are motivated by a determination of profitability, then many would have packed up years ago. It is the strong tie to family, faith and the farm that keeps people farming, not the definitions of the dismal science, farming is a long term activity not defined by ‘rational’ decision making. Implicit in my mind then is the issue of land ownership which can never be divorced from any analysis of farming; however this is out of the determination of this tour. The role of Government has become all pervasive in farming, much more so since the end of the war in 1945. It is now up to the farmer to look to himself and his fellow farmers rather than Government for help. The debate, wherever you enter it, is now about issues permeated with ecological principles to land management rather than the pursuit of production. The technology for expansion of production has dried up; the paradigm of saving money through size has been wrung dry. The future identified is for a food system which returns more to the farmer through a value chain (NOT a supply chain).It is the failure of market economics that has brought us here; the puzzle is how we put a value on the environment for society, in the payments to many private landowners. In Britain this has been achieved through the de-coupling of payment from production and cross compliance.
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The rural struggle farming is about people not simplistic pedantry monetary definitions.
A statement from an interview with Robert Karp (Director PFI) “People don’t like to get their hands dirty but they like to shake hands with a man that does when it comes down to purchase of food.�
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III 3.1 Iowa Driving across Iowa I came to understand a farmer’s view of what a beautiful landscape is. The eye can cast over an oceanic view of green; this is a massive monolithic, monoculture of Corn (Maize) and Soya beans. The fields have no breaks accept for paths of cut grass, everything is cut and regimented. Time is made to trim these verges; as there is only 16 weeks work for the pure arable farm to do in a year. This was said at a conference in Carroll to a group of farmers and they did not disagree. Nearly all stock is kept in sacrifice or housed areas. 84% of the land area is farmed. No prairie remains, this was accomplished in only 5 generations after European settlement I visited people at ISU, went to an undergraduate class on sustainable agriculture. I also visited the Agricultural Ministry, the farm progress event, the Iowa Farm Bureau conference, a farmers market conference and a conference on livestock production. I have been overwhelmed by the generosity of these people. Indeed when I told the farmers in Carroll that I was from Britain, they looked at me and wondered where that was, but when the organizer introduced me their faces were an absolute picture as their jaws gradually opened in surprise. I won’t forget that one. I visited a restaurant in Waterloo with Laura Jackson, a Professor from North Iowa University in Conservation Biology, whom I had arranged to interview. Laura wants to reintroduce prairie into Iowa again and knows this can only be achieved with the market paying. Why don’t our conservationists have a similar view? I have been looking hard at the dualistic nature of food systems here. This restaurant is a place where local foods are used. Managed by a character called Berry he showed me some of his “local beers”, these were from St. Peters and Adnams in Suffolk! Environment and ecological science feeds in conflicting information to farms. This is a problem in Britain, Ontario and Iowa. With the words from a conversation at the Farm Progress show ringing in my ear. I spoke with Paula Chizek who is endeavouring to work with fragment groups of farmers to enable one stop work on the regulatory process. This group had undertaken an information gathering tour in Britain and had concluded among other things that: “The single agenda groups [In Britain] are helping to drive farmers out of business. What?” she asked “will be their end game as they obviously have no interest in farming and agriculture? We don’t want this happening here.” An undergraduate class was shown an experiment on perennial cropping. For many of the students, this was not farming, but there is always an island and one asked if the perennials would carry on cropping without any regeneration and nutrients added. After this class, I moved onto the Iowa Farm Bureau (IFB) conference. When I asked why these guys were at this conference they stated that “they had come for a positive fix with positive minded people in contrast to the moaners in the coffee shop who were so negative.” I asked another why there were not more farmers here and he just shook his head and said “I don’t know – they always say they are busy. It is better to get off the farm and learn. They are not interested in learning I guess they never have been.”
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It was at the IFB conference that a light sparked for me, in one of the presentations the speaker explained how a group of farmers are separating from the rest. The top 25% performers have the ability to invest in their business. A group of neither farmers defined by size, nor simply production managers who just want to farm, they are executive style managers of all their assets. I am aware of the better performing farmers in Britain who are just the same. The effects of technology, extension advice and low interest rates that have caused a cover up of poor farm management, are lifting exposing the less capable to the cold wind of competition. This movement happened in the late 1980s, after the shake out in the US, and the top performers began to steal a march on their lesser brethren in the 1990s and more especially in the later 1990s when the impact of marketing came home to roost. There is diffidence to the issue of risk and marketing as exemplified in my talk with Dan Greder, who stated that “the also-rans are more worried about selling their crop or stock and seeing the prices go up, than knowing their cost of production and selling at a profit.” I attended the two-day conference ‘Farmers markets in the American food system’ at Drakes University, and took much from the way in which there is a force in most states looking at pooling the various stakeholders together in health and welfare professions to back local food purchases, essentially a public procurement programme. It is fortunate that these farmers do not have a po-faced Ministry trapped by European state aid rules meaning they have to purchase beef from Brazil to feed the nations’ soldiers. It is the energy for local foods and the self-help mechanisms in Iowa, together with the interest of business, which demonstrated to me that there is a definite future in local foods, already established on main land Europe but only fledgling in Britain. Several speakers identified the poverty of economic development that is simply focused on singular solutions of many jobs provided in one hit. Regeneration is not only about many jobs, it is more complex than the 1960s thinking and short-termism. Little hope for change can be expected until the new generation of graduates come through into management positions. The seeds however are being sown by the more forward looking institutions; after all the system created took many years in gestation so similarly it will take time to turn the system as in any natural development process.
3.2 Practical Farmers for Iowa Robert Karp (Director of PFI) Angela Tredesco (Farmer), Tom Wahl (farmer), MOSES training day, Linda Grice (PFI farmer) Fred Iutzi (Farm extension for PFI) The many events and Conferences attended on this tour are closely allied to the work of the PFI. The thrust of the PFI work is on local foods, marketing and practical on-farm research to produce food that tells a story. Farmers belong to the organization because they are dissatisfied with conventional solutions of intensification and continued use of chemical tools. While not organic, they seek to work up husbandry systems which reduce the dependency on both agribusiness inputs and outputs seeing this as the source of problem for farm income. Founded in 1985, there are 1000 members with possibly their biggest attribute being the cooperation with many other stakeholders of society. In some ways similar to LEAF, the PFI enjoys practical Government support seeking more proof of their case through a research-based model rather than the market solution sought by LEAF. There are other partners to the sustainable solution who work with PFI as demonstrated in the work at Drakes University, Leopold Centre and ISU.
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It is an observation that the core industrial model of farming in Iowa is well served by support mechanism aimed at production management, but farmers are being driven from the land in droves by the power of big business. The contracts put in place by the big companies have reduced the farmer entrepreneurship levels; 25,000 pig farmers left pig farming in the past ten years with no displacement of production, which has simply been replaced by large or integrated operations. It is not the supermarkets or eco warriors who have done this; it is the commercial clout of the processors. The PFI and other partners are investigating the possible ability of niche marketing of pig meat through different systems. Industrialized farming is being challenged by grass root folk who want to stay farming or break into farming such as PFI and their partners. ISU provides an extension service to PFI, with two guys supporting the on farm research. Visiting Angela Tredesco, a PFI farmer, I found that the network support was not about meetings and face-to-face contact, but the fact that there were people there she could talk to and ask for help when she required it. Confident that she did not have to go through a big explanation about the problem, the help system was already onside “philosophically”. Also important was the fact that workshops and conferences were available, together with the role of PFI, to spread the word in helping to train others including students of agriculture. A measure of the learning curve mainstream extension is on, and exactly why the farmers in Iowa are seeking their own solutions was illustrated at one session on organic training on Linda Grice’s farm visit. In attended a director of the local agricultural extension centre asked “why can’t you grow continuous Soya in an organic situation.” It was at the same workshop that folk were shown grazing management and free range hens. This is where English farming will go if we lose these skills. A different way of thinking is required in sustainable management; a systems approach, with a voluntary approach to regulation. It is rational for farmers to adopt their present approach to the environment as this science is complex, with the farmer’s knowledge rejecting some environmental knowledge as it defies their notion of common sense and historical experience. At least the PFI presents an opportunity for farmers to value their own expertise with scientists coming to them for information, in contrast to the top-down approach in British science where farmer knowledge is not valued. Farmers have greater breadth but lesser depth of knowledge than scientists and the PFI in Iowa address this issue by recognizing farmer knowledge. Do the support systems to farms in Britain recognize farmer knowledge? A barrier is the failure of British farmers to join locally with other stakeholders on the scale that is seen in Iowa. Extension systems are not working; self-help in Iowa faces design and delivery issues imbued with conflict, anger, fear, and rapidly changing financial environment. Extension practices seek to achieve the involvement of farmers but fall short in addressing structural issues, group processes, farmer subculture, influence of rural elites and agronomy and so they fail. The PFI has its own self-help groups to support members and likewise, as shown below, there is a need for mainstream farming to develop their own training and advice. It is apparent from my tour that PFI farmers cluster together in the development of their knowledge from a base of credibility of knowledge and local enthusiasm, the whinging old men in the coffee shop are not associated with. Given the mind-boggling number of self-help groups PFI is innovative and active which attracts the farmers, it is not age, size, commodity; it is credibility, enthusiasm and energy which are the key.
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3.3 Local foods and Leopold Centre Rich Pirog (Leopold Centre), Fred Kirschenmann (Director Leopold Centre), “Farmers Markets in the American food system” conference Drakes University, Des Moines. Livestock conference on Hoop housing, Laura Jackson Assistant Professor Univ. of Northern Iowa. The Leopold centre has three main areas of work: food marketing, ecology and policy. These folk dare to challenge conventional wisdom with thoughts of sustainable agriculture (it is the Great J. K. Galbreith who used the expression to provide a withering comment on those who do not contradict the thought – ‘we have always done it this way’. Talking with Fred Kirschenmann, the Director of the Leopold Centre, I asked what sustainable agriculture is, (the desire of DEFRA and means so many things to so many people). Fred told me that agriculture must be productive and showed me a piece from Wendell Berry (“Nature as Measure” in What are people for? 1990 page 206 – 7)
“If agriculture is to remain productive, it must preserve the land; the land, that is, must be used well. A further requirement, therefore, is that if the land is to be used well, the people who use it must know it well, must be highly motivated to use it well, must know how to use it well, must have time to use it well, and must be able to afford to use it well. Nothing has happened in the agricultural revolution of the last fifty years has disproved or invalidated these requirements, though everything has ignored or defied them.” I dug further, as a believer in the pattern of history, asking Fred, who farms 3,500 acres about his motivations in farming. He explained about the impact of the dust bowl on his Father, who realized that it was the awful farming system and not the weather that was responsible for the dust bowl and he vowed never again. It is this very longterm thinking, which is so basic to farming, and is the very weakness of any economic definition. Further thoughts were about the impact of ecological science coming later to the party than agricultural science. The world-wide experiment of monoculture provides concrete evidence that Darwin is correct, there are resistant species of grass weeds to chemicals, failure of fungicides and resistant parasitic worms. Evolutionary biology reminds us also that population explosions of any species can transform that species into a “plague species” which crashes and returns an order in the ecological balance; the question I ask is have the large corporations and large farms devoted to production of one crop or species defined themselves as such? And why do farmers continue to defend these large input suppliers and purchasers, as they are acting against the farmer interest? These things cannot be ignored. But change does not happen at the core, it happens at the periphery. The new people coming to farming or the youngsters will bring new ideas. There is much talk about value chains and the provision for local foods to local markets challenging the present food system. The present food system is so complex no one understands it, having developed under the industrial husbandry encouraged since 1945. Now there is a new order. Thus the Americans are endeavouring to find a market solution to the conundrum of getting more money back onto the farm. This is a new policy and no one knows if it will work, but there are plenty who are prepared to give it a try. A major area of this debate centres on people, as sustainability is a social construct,
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with the observation in both Iowa and Ontario that people are required in rural areas. As people are no longer working in rural areas therefore present system isn’t working. The pressures to leave the land are great, with young farmers unable to get a foot hold. The baby boomers and older generation own the land base. This ageing process is vividly illustrated in some research from the Leopold centre where it is possible to see the baby boomer generation moving through. How different to the time of their birth when there was a shortage of food and it was difficult to find people to farm the land. To examine this further I interviewed Rich Pirog who is both part of The Leopold Centre and PFI. Rich has done much work on the food system in Iowa endeavouring to provide ways to increase farmer income from local foods. There is work being done with Sysco systems which supply the 600,000 restaurants in North America. Their desire is to put food on the plate which tells a story; the thrust is to take Sysco from being a Chevrolet to being a Mercedes. Rich’s view is this means that the merging of entrepreneurial capacity with ecology has now moved from an extreme on the periphery to a more central position in production. Educational programmes are now including sustainability in business management programmes. The big push is to adopt value chains whereby farmers are partners, not an input supplier at the bottom of the chain. It is from Rich that I obtained one of the quotes of the tour: “Present contract arrangements between farmers and packers or purchasers are eroding equity from the farm, leaving just enough to keep the farmer farming but stopping any entrepreneurial activity on farms.”
3.4 Mainstream production Jim Penny (Heart of Iowa Co-op), Jen Holtkamp (Iowa Pork Producers Association) Joel Severinghaus (Iowa farm Bureau), Dan Greder (Sciota Trading). Agriculture in Iowa is geared to exports, with farmers looking to Asia as an opportunity, and casting a wary eye at Brazil as the competition. There is a belief that unfair trading is at the heart of the problem, with need to undo subsidies in Europe, but no need to change anything in America then the argument goes farming could get on with the job of feeding the world at fair prices. This from a nation that tried to hold the world to ransom over Soya beans in the 1970s, thus kick-starting Brazil as a farming exporter. The changes over the past generation have been to grow only corn and Soya mixed farming is out as a result of the collapse of land values which so very nearly broke the system in the mid 1980s. With the collapse of prices in 1985 being the last challenge to Iowa farming, Iowa has not had to confront a food safety scare as Britain or Canada. This created the fundamental change seen in both Britain and Ontario. In the words of Laura Jackson; we will continue to hammer the environment in Iowa. Most of the production in Iowa comes via mainstream husbandry with total support through the deficiency payment; the farming in Iowa is essentially 100% reliant on Government payments for income. This will be the case again this year for Iowanian farms with another record harvest. The corn goes into livestock and increasingly ethanol production, with the Heart of Iowa co-op targeting an ethanol plant by 2006, an $83m investment.
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All the groups interviewed provide training and help to their members. The IFB has provided a management training programme for the past ten years with over 5000 farmers taking the 5 day programme at their own expense. It was noticeable that farmers liked to join with similar positive forward looking farmers. I asked why farmers should not have a formalized plan for use of drugs and chemicals: they agreed that this was the way forward. They were mystified by the views held by the “backwoodsmen” and simply did not understand why these farmers did not come out, why they said they were too busy? It was summed up by a farmer who said; “they are not interested in farming and have no enthusiasm for it and are leaving the industry. It is gradual and will take some time, and then we will have a new mindset established with a bunch of farmers who want to farm and not worry about things beyond their control. Farming is about using your head; these guys think it is about hard work and work harder.” I had an interview a group of Pork Producers which has been under pressure for many years but have seen prices resurge and consequently are happier. They sold 28 tons of pork at the State fair and believe that education is a central plank of the marketing, underpinned by the idea that consumerism is more about a conversation with your customer, than a blanket message for consumers through mass media. There is also a thrust to educate farmers, with all farms having to undertake quality management training in association with their vet, through a self-assessment process. Funds for this are provided through a “check off” scheme where farmers contribute a % payment at slaughter and programmes of quality management are undertaken by all farms in collaboration with their vets, with updating happening every three years. This mandatory activity is at the behest of the packers.
3.5 Overview of Agriculture in Iowa Maury Wills, Harold Hommes and Mike Bevans (Ministry of Agriculture), Pat Paustian (Iowa Innovation centre) Iowa was settled in 1850s with farmers integral to the process of land settlement. The process continues to be played out now through the dynamics of land use and ownership. Landowners rent out and do not sell, as they can make more money elsewhere, while paradoxically farmers who are making no money bid up the rent of land against each other. When I asked someone about this and the way policy supports the decline of farmers and the rise of corporate businesses he said: How do you unpick the mess with the threat of litigation from the big businesses? The major reason for going to Iowa was to observe an industrial agricultural heartland where Anglo-Saxon mentality rules. Anglo-Saxon is taken to mean independent, individualism, free market and corporatism. Of the 34 million acres under farming in Iowa, 12 million are down to corn and 10 million to Soya bean production and yes the vast majority is GM. There is no countryside access, and there is neither wilderness nor original prairie. There was a most illuminating article on this issue, which discussed the outcome of a vote in Burke County California, where GM has been banned against the opposition of the big corporations. The answer is to litigate and overthrow the people’s decision as unlawful, nothing like a democracy in the land of the free, corporations act as a separate entity.
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Much is made of the visible changes of decline in farm numbers and economic influence of farmers; little is made of other changes seen over the last generation. This has been in the ownership of land; with tenant farmers becoming more populous in Iowa over 50% of the land is rented now, with 60% of the land owned by women in their 70s. Many farmers have become landlords; nothing imposes a more risk adverse conservatism to change as land ownership, except perhaps monarchy and religion. The biggest danger, as in Britain, is the continued march to contract farming: there is a conviction the 1960s paradigm of size matters – this is simply no longer the case. The consumer is more sophisticated up and computerization is changing production. 84% of the land in the State is in farm production -Total farm receipts are about $12bn There are 90,000 farmers in Iowa -2.9 million People live in Iowa 70% of farms turnover less than $100,000 (£55,000) 70% or more farms operate as part-time there was an example of a farm with 8 different income streams. Over 60% of the land is owned by women from a generation born around the 1920s. What will happen as this succession shakes out? 25 million finished pigs are produced per year Beef cows total 1,029,129 with 28,881,122 cattle sold per year, which demonstrates the large importation of cattle for feeding 180 farmers markets in Iowa mean there are more farmers markets per head of population of any State.
There is no problem attracting young people to sustainable farming practices.
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IV 4.1 Ontario There are 12 million people in Ontario, crowded into the Southern and especially the south western tip between Toronto and the border with the USA (referred to as the Golden Horseshoe.). It has the best land and most favourable climate. Farming has to compete with incomers from urban areas moving into rural locations with their own view as to what farming really is. Farmers in Ontario perceive that Government has a policy agenda against their interests. They are wary of Government-funded services – and particularly of services delivered by government agencies. This view shares more in common with Britain than Iowa. Ontario’s approach is more reliant on self-regulation than Iowa or Britain. Ontario shares the same environmental risks as British farming - the rapidly intensifying and industrializing of farming, to conflicts with intensive use of land. Farmers in Ontario must now answer to a wide range of stakeholders and critics many farmers are illequipped for this challenge and see it as someone else’s job, so that they can just get on with the job of farming. Visiting Ontario contrasted with Iowa in that there is not the singular pursuit of Corn and Soya cropping, there is more of an English feel, with a more diverse landscape and impact of more people. I visited people in the Guelph area, home to the top agricultural University, with many associated organizations in the town. Professor Peter Stonehouse had used the Environmental Farm Plan (EFP) as a teaching aid and I was interested in his views on EFP and sustainable farming. He felt that sustainable farming was about working with nature. The attitude with modern husbandry is that you can find a tool that will combat the effects of nature. This has to change and given the present status of British farming, it is his view that British farming could lead the world, if it wants too. Elbert van Donkersgoed of the Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario (CFFO) is a highly respected farm leader which has a membership of 3,400 farmers. The CFFO, benefits from the impact of the 1994 decision that all farmers needed to be a member of a recognized farmer’s organization to access Government funding. Elbert writes up discussion papers and then facilitates brainstorm sessions with CFFO committees to find solutions to the problems. Presently their minds are focused on the retention of family farms through the promotion of value chains, technology that helps farmers when we discussed this, I challenged Elbert about the high cross bar on this and he agreed with a wry laugh and said yes but you do have to aim high, and finally the encouragement of environmental payments. In contrast is Andrew Graham of Ontario Soil and Crop Improvement Association, who is unsure that farmers are ready for environmental payment. I spoke about why farmers thought that they did not have to provide written evidence and proof of good practice and Elbert is very much of the view that they should. We discussed the concept of ‘I am a farmer and I want to just farm why won’t they leave me alone?’ Elbert said that he tells his farmers that if all they want is commodity prices and the slow and painful exit from the business then this is OK – they don’t have to do these things; however the consumer demands the assurance, especially after Walkerton and the onset of source water protection.
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I interviewed Jackie Fraser of Agcare. This group’s concern is education of the public and the farmers. There is a programme of pesticide training similar to the UK. The value of the EFP is the awareness rising in farmers of the issues. Jackie asked me about the UK and LEAF. It was apparent that AGcare was thinking about the use of demonstration farms for the public and farmers. At issue are the farmers not coming forward and I asked about why farmers did not want to formalize, prove and plan like the chemical industry? She is firmly of the opinion that this is a generational thing and we will have to wait. Farmers know that there is a problem and many are simply clinging on and will exit the industry as the regulation and market pressure challenge their management ability, the land will continue to be farmed less by farmers and more by part-timers. I attended a 2-day course on the Nutrient Management Plans being introduced to Ontario. These are more comprehensive than anything in Britain, with farms of over 300 animal units having to do a plan. This involves comprehensive calculation of how nutrients will be applied to the land, and unlike Britain, the farm has to supply total details of land and animals together with analysis of where the nutrients will be applied. The plan is checked by the ministry before acceptance. There are apparently conflicts between various departments and also a less than direct lead from Government. There is a conviction among farmers that they will not have to do one as things will move on and this issue will go away - nothing new there then. One of my final interviews was with Kate Stiefelmeyer at the George Morris Centre in Guelph. This is another farmer led think tank institution, with provision of a training programme. However it is more focused on support for large size, commodity and industrial farming. It is this difference to the other groups I have spoken, which enables a more round view. For example this group identifies the regulatory burden as making farming uncompetitive, and is more focused on policy. I have explored where the focus is on farming; marketing, management and production down on the farm, not a political aspect up at the capital. George Morris shares more in common with our situation where self-help is focused on policy, not actions on the farm to improve profit. I attended the Carolinian Canada conference with about 150 other delegates. Carolinian Canada is a group interested in land use with respect to landscape and wildlife. At the conference we heard how farmers and environmentalists needed to work together, but were left with the distinct impression that too many people in the rural areas are the problem. A farmer, Larry McGill spoke about introduction of wild areas on his farm. He explained how the areas needed to fit machinery band widths to enable field operations. He said the folk who ask for things on the farm should get behind the tractor wheel and understand farmer’s problems. New techniques are adopted in a stepwise fashion on farms, and need to be compatible with farm practice. Is the environmental innovation compatible? This is something that scientists and environmentalist do not understand. Working with 30 other farmers, Larry established over ten years of yield monitoring with GIS that certain areas could be confidently taken out of production and returned to some type of alternative land use. Interestingly, delegates were told to work with farmers and in Larry’s breakout session we had 16 people. I had attended two other breakout groups where over 40 people were in the room. Environmentalists in Canada like to stick with their own. NGO and research groups persist with the condescending view that recalcitrant farmers fail to do what is best for the environment. The challenge is to overcome the ideological thinking in the debate on environmental concerns with the landscape and wildlife. Farmer knowledge is credited in the EFP.
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4.2 Environmental farm plan Andrew Graham Ontario soil and Crop Improvement association (OSCIA), Jackie Fraser (Agcare), Cindy Bradley –Mitchell Ontario Ministry of Agriculture (OMAF), Elbert van Donkersgoed Christian Federation Farmers of Ontario (CFFO) Professor Peter Stonehouse (Univ. of Guelph). Dr Charlotte McCallam (Univ. of Guelph). John Benham (OSCIA). Margaret May (OSCIA) My investigations into the EFP started with my work on the Voluntary Initiative as there appeared to be similarities. It remains to be seen whether we can move the Voluntary Initiative forward. I liked the look of the peer group assessment and good uptake from a distance, but now having undertaken a closer look I am still very impressed by the EFP as a tool for education of farmers in environmental risk management. The question asked to many farmers was; why are you so resistant to formalized planning for use of chemicals and drugs? All other professions that handle these dangerous tools have to undertake training and Continuous Profession Development. The answers in the main fell into two categories, with farmers saying that they cannot pass these costs on to the market and if they were paid to do them, they would. The other school of thought was that these are a good thing to do. Thus we have the common strand increasingly found in farming; on the one hand an altruistic type of management attitude, or the more numbing economic self-interest of the second school. Why the economic argument is used so often when farmers know that planting crops and growing animals for slaughter is always doubtful economic gain, is intriguing. Ontario agriculture has been dabbling with green payments for about 15 years. There was a radical change in Ontario in 1990 with the election of a Socialist party, the NDP. This caused a reflection on many things, but for agriculture in the province the upshot was the arrival of the “Environmental Agenda� for farmers, it resulted in wide consultation by the Minister for Agriculture. This led to the farm stakeholders presenting their agenda for debate. This included various commitments, with the central plank being the fact that farmers would undertake a risk assessment process, to raise their game, called an Environmental Farm Plan (EFP). This plan would be assessed by a peer group and agreed actions would be undertaken to mitigate environmental risks associated with the individual farm. To achieve this, 35 member groups formed a coalition: the Ontario Farm Environmental coalition (OFEC). This group worked up the plan of 23 separate sheets looking at all aspects of the farm for the environmental impacts on the farmstead, farm yard and farmed land. There was a risk rating indicating where improvement could and should be made. The coalition partners all agreed the content of the plan, written up by Ministry and University experts. However, the issue of confidentiality raised its head in this voluntary farmer lead process. This was pertinent as the Ministry were closely involved in the programme. In the end total confidentiality was provided and agreed by the Government and partners. This is more of a stumbling block in Ontario where all land is privately owned and farmers are not being paid by society to deliver environmental goods as with the new single farm payment in Britain. Farmers believe, for some reason, society benefits from the applications of chemicals to crops rather than themselves. The sheets are augmented with Best Practice Manuals which enable all parties to come to a similar conclusion on how to manage their relevant resources. There was the
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example of on-farm petroleum storage, which was the regulation of a separate ministry and there was no guidance given to farmers. The Ministry of Agriculture set out a procedure through extension advice – this caused ripples. Why do Government departments regard the best way to implement some laws as a cat and mouse game, wait to sue and so set law, rather than give guidance beforehand. Most businesses are law abiding, all they want is a little direction. The plan was launched to resistant farmers at grass roots level in 1993. The institution that had the role of delivering this educational and awareness raising programme was the Ontario Soil and Crop Improvement Association (OSCIA). This group has good, provincial wide, committee structures with facilitators to undertake training, as OSCIA was set up originally as a farmer educational group in 1939. They were supported by four main farmer groups to spread the word. But as all things with farmers they are never supportive of their own organizations, this was explained by one person “Who agrees these things up in the City, without us knowing about it.” After a slow start in 1994, farmers gradually picked up on the idea and found that they could get benefits from it and later there was a $1,500 grant attached to the action plan. The plan received a major leg up with the E. coli outbreak at Walkerton, where a farm which was at the centre of the case had undertaken a plan and was managed by a vet. As he had completed a plan he was able to demonstrate due diligence. However the upshot of this incident has seen the enquiry recommending source water regulations be introduced, and so the EFP may be superseded by events. The widening awareness among farmers of activity gave the programme energy. The Plan programme has a 2-day workshop to help farmers understand the rating process and develop an action plan, which is then assessed in a peer group appraisal; the procedure of peer group assessment involved a hard and slow process of learning for the peer assessors in the beginning, however after ten years it is down to a fine procedure. It took several years to work out the best method. The system varies around the province, with this committee in effect setting the tone for their county. The lack of on ground support for monitoring and evaluation will be addressed in EFP II. I met 2 facilitators and one peer group to understand the activity thoroughly. Facilitation is a skill that is developed and though both are farmers, they have developed other skills away from the farm, and consequently have a more worldly view than some of the also-rans I met. Margaret May (farmer and EFP facilitator) does not wholly believe in the touchy feely process of participation, using the 2-day workshop over a period of a week for farms to do their workbook in the intervening time, and return with a book to go to Peer Group almost immediately. In doing the EFP for farms, it is a case of doing the job and not making it any more complex than necessary. There is no need for long explanation as adult people are perfectly capable of making up their own mind through the process of self-assessment. Margaret is concerned that what is essentially an educational and awareness tool is going to be used to gain entry to other things. The EFP does not stand alone, it is a part of the management process on a farm and this could all detract from the message. “Fill out this and you can access some money over there type of thing, sends the wrong message and consequently not total commitment from the farmer to EFP, therefore the EFP is compromised” she said. Margaret has noticed that the action plans have changed, with many of the later coming farms already having done the easy things, and are now stepping up a gear. Margaret goes to shows to
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promote the EFP and finds the public do not understand the EFP it is too complex. They do not realize the complexity of farming. They are still wed to the idea of old MacDonald. Even though the organizations in farming have gone out to promote the EFP, there is a large grassroots opinion holding out against it. I was told of a farmer who simply says: “I will be getting out of farming next year and do not need to do it.” This has been going on for 10 years. The overwhelming majority of farmers I spoke too had done an EFP and saw it only as good, with the view that it is better for farmers to undertake a farmer led initiative dealing with the environment than face regulation. John Benham (EFP facilitator) is a retired farmer and talked through how a workshop would run over the 2-days. It is his job to recruit and put them through the work book. “It is better to have farmer-to-farmer improvement in the environment than to have regulations.” He does not encourage the filling out of the workbook in the same style as Margaret, leaving this responsibility more in the hands of the farmer. He prefers to provide more reasons why and explanations for the work book. He has grave concerns that farms do not cut corners and short change this risk assessment process. A farmer had written down how “valuable the workshop had been and well handled, I learned a lot and look forward to ‘actioning’ the plan, sometimes engrossing, sometimes painful.” On reading this I asked John about the painful and he said it was to do with the fact that the farmer did not realize that some of things being done were bad for the environment and was shaken by the experience. I asked about how things were changing in response to the EFP, and John spoke of improvement in wells, plugged wells, improved soil management and more that can be observed as you drive out into the area being farmed. He is aware of the view in some quarters that the EFP is not delivering improvements, and asks how these judgements can be made with out getting out and having a look. This type of monitoring is from the 1960’s school of thought ‘if you can’t measure it then you can’t manage it’. This type of thing takes time and can not be observed from a desk in Toronto. There are not the knowledgeable people in the desk positions. I did manage to track down a recalcitrant type, who was adamant that farmers could not pass on the expenses involved and so should be paid to do the improvement. This made me consider the English situation, where we now have the de-coupled payment paying for environmental work, and we discussed that at length. But I was still left with the conclusion that even if he received the money he was simply focused on production and disposed to working harder this bringing more money. This does not consider the wider possibility of income generation on the farm. In true style he stated that if the worst came, he would simply sell up and do something else. He concluded that all the people want is cheap food. He had a point, I felt; as I had become aware of the selling of Dasni water. Why does a nation that owns 20% or more of the world’s fresh water want CocaColas specially filtered water? The knowing public of Britain rejected this product in under a week. It was here that I realized the English farmer now has a consumer that is thinking about what they are buying and the soon-to-be accomplished cluster of 20% or more of the purchasing public will move the food debate onto another level in Britain. There is, at present, the proposal of EFP mark II. This is waiting for Ministerial signature, but as with any Government in a democracy, there is the small issue of money and commitment from the Ministry. The muddled message going out from both Ontario and UK Governments towards their farm sector is demonstrating a lack of leadership, which causes much heartache in rural communities. This has led to farmers saying “let’s wait to see if the Government will change its mind and will come up with new regulations.”
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The new plan has an increased communications budget, data collection for monitoring activity, more financial assistance for farms, and development of the workbook. There will also be tighter quality control of the action plans and peer group assessment. The EFP will remain as an educational tool and will have to take great care that this remains so, as events are looking as if they may intervene, in the form of Nutrient Management regulation and source water protection. Many visitors from around the world have cast an eye over the plan; Australia unsurprisingly shows the major interest (Why is Australia a world leader in the area of farm management?). According to Andrew Graham, the OSCIA manager with responsibility for the EFP, there was a deputation from DEFRA, but it was not a memorable experience, as Andrew has many visitors and can soon weigh up if their interest is genuine or simply a fact-finding junket. There has been much research into the plan, with Nancy Grudens-Schuck undertaking a PhD research on the programme. Much is made of the farmer to farmer approach of the EFP, but on closer analysis it is some farmers to some farmers, there being deep seated resistance at grassroots level. The truth is of a group of active farmers seeking to engage with society at large, and solve the problems associated with present husbandry systems; this group it would be fair to say covered a larger % of the land under cultivation. But as already stated it is people that matter and there is a larger % of farmers who do not want to do this work. Why don’t farmers support their own organizations? Mistrust by Ontario’s farmers of agencies and their personnel involved in Ontario programmes has emerged as one of the key barriers to participation; this is similar to British farming.
4.3 Innovative Farmers of Ontario Coach trip to Quebec This group of farmers came together to develop the husbandry technique of minimum tillage and associated problems of soil erosion. Formed as there was not the expertise in University or Government, these farmers taught themselves by field experiment and sharing the knowledge through field trips and conference. They are larger farmers who in the main grow cash crops (Corn and Soya.) The trip we went on was to look at the problem of nutrient management, as this is something now coming into legislation for units over 300 livestock units and for new build units. There is conflict in land use between Townships, Municipal areas and the Province with different bylaws across the province. By going up to Quebec, it was possible to see the problems encountered there. Interestingly Quebec has a more unified farm organization and has put in place expertise to help the farmers write up their nutrient management plans through a $1,500 payment per plan with a 1/3 rd split between farmer; Provincial Government and Federal Government on the cost. Quebec shares similarities with France in their views to governance, while Ontario adopts a more unreconstructed Anglo-Saxon mentality, which is even more visible in Iowa. If you want to see market and corporate evolutionary development, then Iowa can show you how this is played out. Competition without rules (nature has rules) sees a vast transfer of wealth and knowledge out of rural areas to banks, corporate balance sheets and large cities.
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The farmers on the coach trip all recognized the value of the EFP and had done one. There was a deep worry about the changes facing farming, with the lack of young people coming into the industry and a sense of foreboding concerning the continued lack of profitability. I was somewhat surprised at seeing the organic farm pressing and selling their sunflower oil in Quebec as the most interesting farm visit, as the rest did not see it this way. I did observe that all the women bought some oil and a couple of the men, and as I was told in Iowa “you have to have a female strategy in the 21 st century, if you don’t have a female strategy then you will not survive. Over 60% of farms in Iowa are managed by women now either directly or indirectly. Women go off-farm and work and therefore have a big say with the money that is coming on the farm with regard to investment decisions.”
4.4 An overview of Agriculture in Ontario Nutrient Management plan workshop (OMAF), Carolinian Canada Conference, George Morris Centre Ontario is an economic source of power within Canadian agriculture, with total receipts of $9.1bn. The agriculture is much more diverse than Iowa, likewise the farm in Iowa is more connected to the corporation and less connected to the rural economy. Success is measured in terms of cost per unit of production and still holds to the paradigm of increased scale of production, this is in the face of the cost price squeeze which just means more of the same. Land is overwhelmingly in private hands, with other values attributed to the land which is greater than farming can return, so in Ontario the future will be similar to the English experience of people moving to purchase a farm as a statement of a social arrival. • • • • • •
• • • • • • • •
59,728 farms in Ontario declining in numbers rapidly Middle farms in a pincer with many retaining land but getting out in favour of neighbours who can pay cash rent 70% of these farms in Ontario turnover less than $100,000 (£40,000) Average farm size is 226 acres in 2001 up 9.7% from 1996 Livestock receipts account for almost 50% of total production 13.5 million acres in Production, much on poor soils o 1.9 million in corn o 1.4 million in Soya The average age of farmers is 56 The basic rotation is Wheat/Soya/Corn Dairy, Poultry Production are supply managed through quota and are highly profitable Beef is in a serious situation due to BSE Sheep is small Pigs increasingly into large operations blamed by both other farmers and society for poor image of farming Walkerton water pollution incident resulting in a changed regulatory outlook for farms Little evidence of local food market culture or farmer innovation in this area
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Top man this is the farmer from Quebec who has gone organic and presses his sunflowers into oil for sale.
A taste of farm show at Meaford
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V 5.1 An overview of self- help From this trip I found that farmers from Ontario or Iowa can be transposed to Britain and the words used to describe the problems are verbatim. This made me really think. • The people need educating • We need a level playing field • Regulation is destroying our competitiveness • People just want cheap food. • We can not pass these costs on • People move in and then complain about the smell or noise. In Ontario and Iowa there are self-help farmer groups dealing with these problems, both in theoretical think tanks and practical on-farm discussion, creating dialogue between farming, science and Government. This is found on a Germanic culture of philosophy as exampled through Leopold Centre in Iowa, Practical farmers for Iowa, the George Morris centre and Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario. These organizations indulge in boardroom retreats, and publish discussion documents. The success is based on brilliant facilitation of the groups with excellent feedback to members, who share an enthusiastic interest for the work. High
R &D Develop new knowledge
Results And Costs Per user
Technical specialist support Service to specific problem solving Education Services for building knowledge and skills Information and Advice Focus on answering enquiries Awareness building Wide reach low impact
Low Fewest most Numbers of farmers/business reached
The illustration presented is to show the levels of knowledge transfer in farming and ways of learning. These self-help groups can cut across the segmentation. The issue for colleges and government funding is the cost. Farmers like/want one to one farmer support, but it is expensive at around £350 per farm visit. This is a problem for the Government that seeks to give value for taxpayers. Individual farmers do not arrive at a cost of learning. It is value through the improved business performance achieved from the learning. It is necessary to evaluate the impact of self-help in spreading improved management practice on farms.
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Self-help is about networking – networking benefits those who actively pursue and maintain their own networks. Agriculture in Iowa and Ontario, as in Britain, has more organizations of a diverse nature than any other sector. These organizations can be a base for networks, but farmers must be active in establishing their own networks. Simple attendance at a meeting is not networking or self-help, the farmer must seek out people that can help develop his business through the beneficial knowledge and information that the person holds, and maintain contact with these people. Those providing services work at improving and maintaining credibility. What is clear, however, is that the credibility of trainers and providers of information, in the eyes of farmers, is based on perceived expertise, independence and knowledge of the local area and land use systems. This, in the end, determines whether farmers see conflicts of interest as a real issue. The majority of self-help activity sits outside the Government arena, as far as the farmer is concerned. The intermediaries are either distanced from Government or are completely independent. A few thoughts for a self-help group. 1. Rules of engagement. • Members accept other people’s feelings • Differences of opinion are OK • Group members have a care for each other • Groups can be small three or four or larger, but over 10 people are impractical for dynamics and good flow. 2. The largest determinant is confidentiality • What is said in the group stays in the group. If members believe that what is said in the group is going to be said outside then this will inhibit group activity. Trust is needed. 3. Members take turns to lead the group 4. Everyone has a chance to talk • Everyone is different when it comes to making a contribution and so time has to be made to have everyone involved. 5. Group organizer must be excellent facilitator • Preparation before hand with a defined brief to stimulate discussions and provision of a “worksheet” so that people are able to have clarity of what will be discussed. Therefore reading and discussion statement are necessary precursors to the event. • Good location • Good communication with group members 6. The event • Time limited about 1 to 2 hours. • Refreshments or discuss over a meal • Feedback is part of the process, immediate feedback.
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5 2.Agricultural Education and Extension Nancy Grudens-Schuck Iowa state University Nancy had done a PhD on the EFP in Ontario, and spent time with me talking about the theory and importance of participation for Sustainable agriculture. For Nancy, whole farm planning and EFP work has either reached a point where it will be built on into on farm practice, or gather dust on a shelf for another day. It is my view that adult education is going to be fundamental to the process of change on farms that we are going through. Also, the need for farms to undertake whole farm plans is implicit in the new single farm payment to meet with cross compliance and access grant funds in Agrienvironment and diversification schemes. The process needs awareness training in a room, not electronic style to guide farmers through the procedure. The LEAF audit is a step too quick from nothing to a full audit for most farmers. The method for adult learning explored in Iowa and Ontario is based around the theories from early 20th century developments in psychology, sociology and philosophy. This has grown into an integration of group dynamics, with distinct views on identity knowledge and understanding. This is separate from the lecturing and memorizing, with the new way requiring the successful facilitation to include these attributes • Oral presentation skills • Clearly articulated speech • Ability to plan logically • Accurate technical presentation ( similar to lecture) Efficiency and compactness are valued in presentations with content of knowledge. Margaret May’s view is adults don’t need explanations as to why: they can work this out from the self-assessment process and presentation of all the information and facts. Educators must know their participants training needs. Principles are based on: • Prior Knowledge • Correct knowledge • Incorrect knowledge • Incomplete knowledge Prior knowledge is full bodied and resistant to change. It is necessary to unlearn and present situations that cause a disorientation dilemma and thus confusion; this creates doubt in prior knowledge. Prior knowledge is intrinsically linked to cultural belief systems. Culture is highly valued and the educator MUST know the audience and set forth critical reflection and discussion in the group. This was the case with the facilitators I met on the tour. They have this ability, which is not found in everyone and takes time and effort to develop. There is a view that you can take farmers and put them in this situation; you cannot. It is a specialist skill the non-recognition of this will lead to failure, which farmers will remember for a whole generation. A summary; 1. Learning is influenced strongly through emotion and aesthetics 2. The range of normal cognition is wide • Reflection • Abstraction • Experimentation 3. Shared and active learning improves the experience 4. Transfer of knowledge to the workplace requires preparation and an understanding of how it will be implemented in work
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5.2.1 There is a view that promotion of knowledge and transfer of new technology is not working. This is essentially because the new technology is unavailable to many farms, and the larger farms in Iowa are seeking to provide this for themselves by taking on specialist advice not available in the mainstream. The PFI equally is seeking to provide for their members as the questions and problems they have are not being supported by policy makers. Equally in Ontario the EFP is a farmer participatory activity derived from position that farmers felt they needed to take the initiative on environmental matters, in such a way that farmers could benefit from the programme. It is fair to say there is more support for the mainstream husbandry, but the Government system fails them as demonstrated by the work that the Pork producers in Iowa are doing in training and helping their members. Different knowledge is given by different sources. For example, the vet or University specialist can deliver information on animal husbandry, and initial information on change can be put out in the media. Decisions require information and the quality of information varies through its relevance and accessibility. For PFI the method is on-farm trial work and dissemination at seminars, conference and on farm workshops. Research has examined the adoption of change, and much energy has been expanded on the diffusion theory that assumes technology is adopted by all farmers. Adoption is fogged up by the technology treadmill, with the early adopters achieving best reward and laggards achieving little financial advantage. While theory is of interest, practical solutions are more beneficial for farmers. Why did it take so long to adopt the herringbone parlour? Society seeks to change farmer behaviour the methods to facilitate change at our disposal are1) Peer group pressure 2) Adult learning. Farmers seek to make a living. At the heart of the debate is the use of land and the question, is do farmers view a more ecologically sound use of land a valid use of land? I believe that some do, but many do not, as the second group have failed to connect any economic value to this husbandry. There is, however, much that is complicated on how farmers make decisions. Either Intuitive where the farmer makes a decision based on an expected future outcome; that is updated by what happens on the farm and from other farmer’s experience? Or Analytical where the farmer identifies the options, and calculates the consequences with the decision based around that calculation. This process is affected by further issues associated with the technology, farm and decision maker. The problem associated with this is that researchers assume all innovation will be adopted, which is not the case. • Farmers do not feel that they can influence or control landscape issues • Farmers often reject much of the science as they are unconvinced • Farmers have for generations been innovators at the heart of the rural community through pursuit of decision making with self interest at its heart. This is no longer the case
5.2.2 If there is a culture for enhancing training what is it? A farm has a culture that amplifies the value of training and learning through its networks. The most effective way of communication with farmers is personal inter-action. There is a noticeable move away from case study work as exemplified by the real farm situations of both PFI and EFP activity. Case study is not an effective communication tool any more. People will make up their own minds what they take from other people’s experience if that experience is presented fully.
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Value is amplified by farmers in Iowa and Ontario: • Where people talk together about what they have learnt and use of the peer group in EFP • Where people are prepared to share their knowledge and expertise, through Government sponsored programmes linked to intermediaries that act as unaffiliated honest brokers with sound credibility (street credibility.) • Skills, knowledge and information are applied in the workplace as exampled through the initial easy fixes in EFP and then later more difficult fixes being grant assisted • Many different sources of learning are used • Everyone is accorded respect, though there is still a big danger of farmers talking too much among themselves and not enough with external folk • There is a can-do mentality • There is a culture of support for people to push at frontiers from some of the commodity boards and larger organizations • There is a genuine curiosity about solving problems, notably through the brainstorming activities at the Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario, George Morris Centre and the Leopold centre These factors are neither surprising nor new, but there are some businesses that have a culture of training and others that are not believers. What is culture? Culture is one of the most complicated words in the English language. Culture appears in many contexts. Culture is deeply ‘embedded’ even hidden. • What people say and what people do. It is the deeper assumptions that people hold which determines what they do. Thus it is necessary to dig down. • Culture is about interpersonal relationships, how people relate to others, network, manage risks, share knowledge and how inclusive these networks are. • Culture can be changed. Culture is what people feel not what farmers say. • Conservation work presupposes that farmers consider conservation as a legitimate use of land resources. Farmer surveys and uptake of environmental schemes indicate that there is a solid and significant number who do, but there is a majority of farmers who are resistant. Conservation has not entered the farmer sub-culture yet. 5.2.3 If we consider the regulatory activity into farming, regulation can be voluntary market activity or legislative. It is a thing a farmer does not like. What exactly is the message? There is an imbalance in the availability of information for regulation. Availability of information lies at the heart of effective and equitable decision making. What was the context, in which the information was originally collected? As this is the key to its strengths and weakness. Information must be shared and so building confidence and trust between users and providers, information is fragmented across groups. To promote sound use of information within a decision making environment you need:1. A shared understanding 2. Moderation of conflict 3. A supportive environment. The George Morris Centre in Ontario argues that regulation is making farming uncompetitive. On the other hand PFI and EFP seek to engage in the policy debate by provision of solutions to the problems through action and not talk. The concept is to do
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something on the farm, and present it as a possibility of a way to deal with the wide ranging problem of environmental regulation. There is still a grain of trust in science and Government agencies, unlike the English situation, where there has been a breakdown in trust between science, Government and farming through the BSE affair. This was referred to twice at separate conferences I attended. Different groups of farmers have different ideas about the most appropriate way to farm. Thus, how does the provision of information, advice, skills and financial support impact on the adoption of new ideas? Government and NGO support to instigate change in farming is limited by the nature of the origin of the information. It is for this reason that different self-help groups seek answers for their cluster of interested farmers. It is not possible to be all things to all people.
5.3 Sustainable Agriculture After the drive for production in agriculture had successfully achieved its goal of feeding the nations, various societies challenged the way this had been achieved. The present issues around hunger are in the main a distribution system problem. Society has to grapple with a food system that sees farmers making no money; farmers see this as an economic issue. Fundamental to the new paradigm are people joining food to the landscape through purchase of local foods. No people then no foods are needed. Sustainability is an enormously complex thing to handle meaning different things to different people. Too many organizations have jumped on the sustainability band wagon, and subverted the agenda to a self-serving end. Sustainability is a social construct that puts people at the centre of things, not technology or money. The biggest problem that farmers face is a decline in numbers, and a singular perception problem that sees the consumer baffled with a picture of a cow in a lovely grass field, juxtaposed to the reality of battery house or feedlot. Agribusiness is held to be more culpable in this than the family farm. This is all beyond consumer comprehension. Has this insidious change into an industrialized system helped farmers? There has been, up till now, a generation of farmers, who say that science will cure a production problem. This is no longer the case. It is now the farmer who takes an overall systems approach to his management, and executive attitude to asset management, that is storming forward. It is no longer possible to be a production manager in the industrial husbandry process. To say I just want to farm and be left alone was alright when it was old MacDonald’s farm, but today we have a system which ranges wider on the landscape than a farm. The words of Elbert van Donkersgoed “I say to my farmer members’ yes if all you want to do is farm then you must be prepared for the consequences, which will always be a low price commodity market.”
5.4 What are the strengths of the groups observed and opportunities for Britain? • • •
Farmer groups are respected in society due to their actions, not their desires to continually challenge policy – they just do it - walk the walk. These groups are forward looking at the market place not the policy environment. These groups are supported by their membership; these farmers are educating themselves not looking to society and Government for solutions.
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•
•
•
These groups realize that they have to seek their own solutions as the present research is not giving them what they require. The science and practice have become disconnected .Farmers have always been innovators, but need to know warts and all the risks involved in change, not the motherhood approach of UK that says this is good practice. In Ontario it takes up to 3 years to generate a best practice manual, and it does not appear until it is well tested by farmers. These manuals serve a similar role to the Highway Code as all stakeholders agree the input, not a top down approach Farmers in Iowa and Ontario realize the importance of working with people, not seeing themselves as a special case.
5.5 Some barriers and threats • • • •
•
The continual promotion of the 1960’s model of size will give you success A lack of understanding of what sustainable farming is. The people have a mental picture of farming that contrasts with reality, and expect farms to have quality assurance in place, like any other business. A large barrier is the lack of young minds coming to farming with a changed view of what farming is there is no longer the acceptance of a hierarchical view of family. The sons are leaving, and daughters remain as the farm work can be juggled around family commitments. For example, it is possible to drill and till while the children are at school. It is not for the new generation to work hard and long hours; technology is about reducing graft and toil. Computers can provide easy answers to the barrier of red tape and traceability. The biggest barrier to farm development is the failure to integrate the younger generation who have different values to life and technology. Without the older generation giving up any sovereignty then the upshot is either revolution or extinction.
Definition of Facilitate To render easier; To promote, help forward From the French facile
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VI 6.1 study tour conclusions and thoughts Reflection of this tour causes me to consider: Who owns the means of production? Many farmers think they do, do they? Seeds, chemical tools are owned by private companies, machinery technology is owned by finance houses and machinery companies, livestock are owned by packers and processors. What do farmers own? Labour and land? Increasingly, the land is rented out and labour leaves the industry. This can only continue with the blind adherence to the industrial husbandry that will ensure rural poverty and serfdom of farming. This view that bigger is always better is encouraged by the large input businesses to farms and academics – not by farmers. Reporting can be said to be a “motherhood”- from the expression motherhood and apple pie, we have heard and been told the things to do so often, at issue is a necessity to accept the reporting as a good for you. The institutional support view is that they know what is best for farms, this is palpably wrong. There are things farmers should do, but have to work out in their own time, from the presentation of all the facts. Why don’t farmers take on board the messages? It is because they cannot see the benefits of the knowledge, as the expectation is a simple economic one; no one agrees from the plethora of management figures how to measure performance. It is the farmers who demand to see the whole story warts and all from on farm research, who are stealing a march on their less capable peers. The successful self-help groups observed have evolved out of the failure in education and extension advice to provide solutions for the present, as they are mired in a middle ground no longer occupied by farmers Environmental practice and thinking has not entered the sub culture of farm production, most farmers see themselves as simply production managers in an industrial husbandry process. Farmers that adopt an executive management decision-making process have taken on board the environmental practices. These farmers are not defined by size or enterprise. These are farmers regenerating the farm sector through management that enables investment in their business. These farmers are characterised by getting off the farm, meeting with people and observing the world, not the reinforcement of tried and failing input advice from corporations. The best farm I saw was in Quebec, where three brothers have gone organic. They were asked what help they had from anyone, they said simply we buy nothing from these companies so they do not want us. We work with similar like minded farmers, and have the University people coming to us this also can be said for the Practical Farmers for Iowa and The EFP in Ontario. Formal procedures are more costly than informal training. From most of my conversations, I learnt that word of mouth is an important source of knowledge transfer in farming in Ontario and Iowa where a lot of informal training taking place. An outstanding feature is how important informal processes are to farmers. Formality of guidance can be as loose as a casual conversation walking in the car park at a farm show. Informal strategies for skill development and expanding the knowledge available to farmers are most important, the formal education sector needs to recognize this. To farmers in Iowa and Ontario it is apparent established providers are more interested in selling their own services, and not the development of farm business capacity through a
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range of approaches, thus the development and success of self-help groups. The commodity membership groups are large enough to have in house expertise in training, and can set a programme; however many of the farms that could benefit from this are ill equipped to do so, and are supported through their own organizations such as OSCIA in Ontario and The Practical Farmers for Iowa. If farmers behaved rationally in economic definition no environmental innovations would occur. The voluntary Initiative in the UK and EFP in Ontario, demonstrate a wide scale uptake by farmers of environmental innovation. In Iowa the thrust is a risk management approach and seeking market payment for local and slow food, with food that tells a story. As I was told, this is just the start of what is a long-term experiment and it remains to be seen if it will work. My view is that the English consumer is way ahead of the North American counterpart and to take the words of Professor Peter Stonehouse, Britain has just a chance of leading the world in this. Are the British farmers up to it? British farming has not lead the world farming since Jethro Tull When I departed I had several questions and answers to find. Now I have new questions: Why do farmers believe that they do not have to formalize their use of chemicals in plans and written protocols? All other professions that use such products have to and invariably undertake Continuous Professional Development. Why has the extension service in America failed? To the first question I was told of the independence of old people in the industry something that is played out slowly at first, until such time that a new generation not so resistant to change is farming. The question on extension is down to an inability to adapt to the new regime of local foods, or high technology farming, which is the bifurcation of farming. The family farm has evolved, and evolution teaches us that populations occupy a place in the system where resources for survival are available. The population of farmers is dwindling and their survival and ability to thrive will be found on adapting to new activity. The failure of farming is demonstrated by people leaving, this requires farmers to work together in self-help. Farmers are not the bedrock of wealth creation this position is occupied by the others providing inputs and outputs for farms. Recommendations 1.) Farmers are great problem solvers and should have more confidence in their own abilities. They either set up their own groups with excellent facilitators who can ensure the credibility of the information provided, or work with partners that provide the new knowledge for introduction of ecological, market, risk and environmental management techniques on the farm.
Visit to Iowa Date
Place
Overnight
August 29 Fly to Des Moines Ames 2.) Selection of facilitators training of new facilitators is critical as much help to August 30 Meet withorRobert Karp Ames Ames farms is presently PFI mired in a middle ground not occupied by farming. August 31 Fred Iutzi PFI ISU Ames
3.) The undoubted way forward is on self-help through recognition of farmer knowledge, to work up more formal procedures expected of professionals. Farmers Nancy Grudens-Schuck ISU must recognize that we are in a new era as well, to often there is someone else saying this is good for you. Production is still key but to local markets of quality and traceable September 1 Maury Wills Des Moines Ames foodstuffs.
Harold Hommes Bevans of excellent facilitators to connect farms, science 4.) To succeed theMike identification and society is most important to enable amplification of new found knowledge.
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Iowa Min of agric dept
September 2 September 3
Pat Paustian Innovation Centre Progressive farmer show Laura Jackson University of Northern Iowa
Alleman
Ames
Cedar Falls
Waterloo
Waterloo
September 4 September 5 September 6
Berry Eastman Restaurateur Local foods Local library research Sunday Labor Day
September 7
Meet with Jason Ellis
ISU
Undergrad class on sustainable cropping Joel Severinghaus Iowa Farm Bureau Federation conference Farmers Market/Local foods conference Farmers Market/Local foods conference Tom Wahl PFI farm open day Sunday Rich Pirog
ISU
Angela Tedesco PFI farmer Conference on Livestock Production
Granger
Frederick Kirschenmann Jim Penny heart of Iowa co-op
Leopold Centre
Ames
September 16
Dan Greder Sciota Trading MOSES training day
September 17
Linda Grice PFI day Jen Holstberg
September 8 September 9 September 10 September 11 September 12 September 13
September 14
September 15
Waterloo Waterloo Waterloo Carroll
Carroll
Des Moines
Des Moines
Des Moines
Des Moines
Des Moines
Wapello
Mount Pleasant
Leopold Centre
Ames Ames
Ames
Navada
Ames
Amana Colonies
Webster/South English
Amana Colonies
Des Moines
Des Moines
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Iowa Pork Producers Association September 18
Fly back to Toronto
Kitchener
A classic view, not as common now as ethanol is the developing action
Visit to Ontario Date August 20 August 21 August 22 August 23
Fly to Toronto Hire car and orientate Visit farmers Market Sunday Innovative farmers Coach trip into Quebec
Place
Overnight
Milton Milton
Milton Milton
Milton
Milton Cornwall
Kemptville college and farm use of bio solids
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August 24 August 25
August 26
August 27
Fergusson Farms Crop trials Visit Quebec City Visit large pig operation 1,200 sows and manure management 3,500 hectare cash cropping operation 600 ha organic farm large egg producing operation Andrew Graham OSCIA
August 28 August 29
Charlotte McCallum University of Guelph Fly to Milwaukee Meet supermarket manager Fly to Des Moines
September 18 September 19 September 20
Fly back to Toronto Sunday Andrew Graham
September 21 September 22 September 23
September 24 September 25 September 26 September 27
Cindy Bradley-Mitchell OMAFl Prof. Peter Stonehouse Use of EFP as a teaching aid John Benham Facilitator for EFP Jackie Fraser from AGcare Elbert Van Donkersgoed Christian Farmers Library based research and report writing International Ploughing match Sunday Margaret May EFP facilitator and two peer
Quebec Quebec
Quebec City Valley Inn the fields
Milton
Milton
Guelph
Milton
Milwaukee
Milwaukee Ames
Guelph
Kitchener Kitchener Guelph
Guelph
Guelph
Elora
Guelph
Guelph
Guelph
Guelph Meaford
Guelph
London
London Kitchener
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September 28 September 29 September 30 October 1 October 2
group farmers for EFP Nutrient management workshop Nutrient management workshop Kate Steifemeyer Gordon Morris Centre Conference Carolinian Canada Fly back to London
Guelph
Kitchener
Guelph
Kitchener
Guelph
Kitchener
Lambton
Kitchener
Room with a view.
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