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SERVING MANITOBA FARMERS SINCE 1925 | Vol. 73, No. 48 | $1.75

Year of pulses declared Legumes have agronomic and health benefits

BY SHANNON VANRAES Co-operator staff

M

ove over quinoa and look out soil, pulses have claimed the

podium.

Last week the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization announced that 2016 has been christened the International Year of Pulses, a title that will lead to co-ordinated efforts among growers, scientists, health experts and nations in an effort to encourage the consumption of dried legume crops.

“We are excited to be a part of this… pulses produced in our province are enjoyed locally and internationally, and we look forward to new opportunities to spread the message that pulses are good for people and good for the planet,” said Francois Labelle, executive director of the Manitoba Pulse and Soybean Growers association.

About $100 million worth of pulses — such as dry beans, dry peas, chickpeas and lentils — are grown in Manitoba each year.

In developing countries, pulse crops are considered especially important because of their high nutritional content and low input requirements.

The United Nations notes that more than 800 million people

FA R M I N G E X P E R I E N C E

November 26, 2015

manitobacooperator.ca

World conference an eye-opener for Graysville teen

Seeing the big picture has changed Bailey Gitzel’s path in life

See PULSES on page 6 »

Bailey Gitzel, 17, was a speaker at the ‘From the Ground Up’ themed Manitoba Farm Women’s Conference in Winkler last week. She lives on a farm near Graysville with her parents, Robyn and Glennis Gitzel, and her two younger brothers. PHOTO: LORRAINE STEVENSON

BY LORRAINE STEVENSON Co-operator staff/Winkler

Publication Mail Agreement 40069240

Y

ou learn a lot growing up on a farm.

Graysville farm girl Bailey Gitzel jokes she’s already starting to look back to when she was “a kid with too many chickens.”

“I’ve had some life-changing experiences between then and now,” says the 17-year-old Grade 12 student in Carman Collegiate.

Her foray into poultry just after she turned 13 became the catalyst for two other farm ventures, honey production and selling her baking as ‘The Farmer’s Daughter’ vendor at the Carman Dufferin Farmers’ Market.

Those experiences taught her a lot about the world of business, including supply and demand.

“I miscalculated how many chickens a family of five needed. We were overrun with eggs and giving them to anyone who wanted some,” she told the 29th annual Manitoba Farm

Women’s Conference in Winkler last week.

This ‘farmer’s daughter’ has had some more recent opportunities to take in prestigious national and international events that are helping to shape her future.

Last month, Gitzel took part in an international student delegation attending the World Food Prize’s Global Youth Institute in Des Moines, Iowa.

The October event was held durSee CONFERENCE on page 6 »

Neonics: Quebec introduces strict controls » PAGE 18

2

The Manitoba Co-operator | November 26, 2015

INSIDE

Did you know?

LIVESTOCK

Famine forecasts on a smartphone?

There’s an app for that

Poultry code of practice The public comment period closes Dec. 4

12

The free app combines satellite data with crowdsourced data about how often people eat

CROPS

BY MAGDALENA MIS London / Thomson Reuters Foundation

Insect pest roundup Insects were busy in 2015 but not as voracious

17

FEATURE Ode to the kiwi New Zealand’s signature fruit isn’t exclusive

33

CROSSROADS Homegrown success Farmers Edge has big expansion plans

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new mobile phone app designed to help aid workers predict where hunger may strike and provide help in good time was launched by Austrian scientists on Nov. 19.

The app, which is free to use, combines and analyses satellite data and information collected through crowdsourcing using mobile phones, and creates a map highlighting areas at risk of food shortages and malnutrition.

Useful information includes how often people in an area eat or whether there is civil unrest that might prevent people from farming.

“Today, smartphones are available even in developing countries, and so we decided to develop an app, which we called SATIDA COLLECT, to help us collect the necessary data,” Mathias Karner, app developer at the Austrian International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), said in a statement.

Obtaining information about vulnerable regions is essential for aid agencies to plan early intervention that could minimize the impact of a crisis, but other risk factors, such as civil unrest, are not always easy to foresee.

For years scientists used satellites to calculate whether areas were at risk of drought by scanning the Earth’s surface with microwave beams to measure the soil’s water content.

PHOTO: thinkstock

“This method works well and it provides us with very important information, but information about soil moisture deficits is not enough to estimate the danger of malnutrition,” IIASA researcher Linda See said in a statement.

“We also need information about other factors that can affect the local food supply.”

The app, which was developed by the Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien) and IIASA in co-operation with medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), has already been tested in Central African Republic.

36 READER’S PHOTO

4 5 9 10

Editorials Comments What’s Up Livestock Markets

Grain Markets Weather Vane Classifieds Sudoku

11 16 27 30

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3

The Manitoba Co-operator | November 26, 2015

Throne speech takes aim at nutrient loading Selinger also plans to move on taking rail lines out of Winnipeg’s core STAFF

“CP is satisfied with the current location and operation of our rail yard in Winnipeg.”

M

o re l e g i s l a t i o n t o cut nutrient loading into Lake Winnipeg and other water bodies is a m o n g t h e s h o r t e r- t e r m commitments in the Selinger government’s latest throne speech.

In the speech, delive re d Nov. 16 by Lt.-G ov.

Janice Filmon, Premier Greg Selinger pledges to “work with all partners to reduce nutrient loading” in Lake Winnipeg and work to prevent further spread of zebra mussels.

The province, in a related press release the same day, said the work to reduce nutrient loading would include “restor(ing) the health of Lake Winnipeg by requiring the reduction of nutrient loading in new legislation.”

That legislation is to be introduced this fall, and is expected to step up protection for Lake Winnipeg and other water bodies, but the p r ov i n c e d i d n’t p r ov i d e details, such as whether the new legislation would directly affect crop and/or livestock operations.

Pre v i o u s l e g i s l a t i o n i n Manitoba has put limits on farmers’ ability to fertilize fields — the province’s latest annual winter fertilizing ban came into effect Nov. 19 — and on hog operations’ ability to expand, and expanded buffer zones to pro-

martin cej CP assistant vice-president, public affairs

It’s not yet known whether the province’s next legislative steps to cut nutrient loading in Manitoba lakes will involve farming practices. file photo

tect waterways from fertilizer applications.

Among other throne speech pledges affecting the farming and agri-food sectors, the province said it will invest in the “social determinants of health,” such as access to healthier foods.

To that end, Filmon said, the province “will continue to invest in community-based strategies to expand local production of healthy foods across the North, and work

with producers and the agricultural sector to bring local foods to new markets.”

The province also said it will launch a new Growing Communities Infrastructure Fund, which Filmon said is meant “to help rural and northern communities build a n d re n e w ro a d s, s e we r, water and community centres that families use every day.”

One pledge to Winnipeg residents affecting Manitoba’s

Ritz, Raitt take new posts in Conservative caucus

Apply today for the Farmland School Tax Rebate

Former ministers all have different portfolios

The Manitoba government is offering a rebate of up to 80% of the school taxes levied on your farmland for 2015

BY ALEX BINKLEY Co-operator contributor

This rebate is part of the government’s ongoing commitment to help support the rural economy and provide tax relief to farm families.

A

fter eight years as agriculture minister, Gerry Ritz has become the opposition critic on international trade. Former transport minister Lisa Raitt has moved on to the post of finance critic.

Conservative interim leader Rona Ambrose announced a sweeping shuffle of the responsibilities of the Conservative MPs that seems to have left no one in the role they had before the party’s ouster from office in the Oct. 19 election.

Chris Warkentin from the Alberta Riding of Grand Prairie-Mackenzie is the new agriculture critic while Kelly Block from Carleton Trail-Eagle Creek in Saskatchewan takes over as health critic.

Kellie Leitch, the former labour minister, is now the health critic while Manitoba’s James Bezan is the national defence spokesman.

Bev Shipley, chairman of the Commons agriculture committee, will be the rural affairs critic.

A couple of prominent rural Conservative MPs — Larry Miller, former chairman of the agriculture and transport committees, and Randy Hoback — were not assigned spokesmen roles.

Among the deputy critic appointees are Ben Lobb from Huron-Bruce in Ontario for transport, Jacques Gourde in agriculture and Colin Carrie in health.

Ritz should have a relatively easy learning curve in international trade as he put a

rail service and certain agribusinesses in the city limits, calls for the province to “initiat(e) a plan to move rail lines out of Winnipeg, to provide new options to address aging infrastructure, help families save time on their daily commute and reimagine urban renewal in Manitoba’s capital city.”

Such a plan, however, is likely to take more time than the Selinger government has, ahead of the next provincial

election scheduled for April 19, 2016.

Pulling up rails in the city core would also affect rail access for agribusinesses such as ADM Milling on Higgins Avenue, which uses Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) track through the Point Douglas area, and fertilizer firm Border Chemical, which connects to CP track at its Gunn Road location in north Transcona.

CP assistant vice-president Martin Cej said Nov. 17 that the province hasn’t been in touch with the company since the throne speech, but said CP is “committed to working with the communities we operate in and we look forward to assisting in the proposed study.”

That said, he added, CP “is satisfied with the current location and operation of our rail yard in Winnipeg. It is a major yard for our operation, a major employer in the area, and plays a strategic and critical role within the region.”

How it works If you are a Manitoba resident who owns farmland in Manitoba and you paid your 2015 property taxes, you may be eligible for the rebate. Your farmland does not have to be in cultivation or used for grazing to be eligible for the rebate. The rebate applies only to the school taxes assessed on your farmland and does not apply to residences or buildings.

How to apply If you received a rebate for 2014, a 2015 application form was mailed to you. You can also download an application form from masc.mb.ca or pick one up from your local Manitoba Agricultural Services Corporation (MASC) office, Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Development Growing Opportunities (GO) Office or municipal office.

Gerry Ritz photo: allan dawson

lot of work into both the tentative CanadaEurope free trade deal and the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

The NDP has selected Ruth Ellen Brosseau as its agriculture critic. She’s a veteran member of the Commons agriculture committee.

Linda Duncan from Edmonton will be the transport spokeswoman while Don Davies has moved from international trade to health.

Newcomer Tracey Ramsey will be the international trade critic.

Your application must be received by MASC by the March 31, 2016 deadline.

For more information: Website: masc.mb.ca/fstr Email: fstr@masc.mb.ca Phone: 204.726.7068

Lending and Insurance Building a strong rural Manitoba

PO# 4500954676 Manitoba Co-operator Run Dates - Nov. 19, 26 and Dec. 3, 2015 4”w (2 col) x 7”d (98 lines)

MASC FSTR MB Co-Op_15.indd 1

2015-11-03 4:25 PM

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The Manitoba Co-operator | November 26, 2015

OPINION/EDITORIAL

What’s the futures market telling us?

L

“

isten to what the futures market is telling you.” That came up in our news feed again last week, and it’s one of those phrases for which you’d like to have a dollar for every time you’ve heard it. It ranks slightly below the frequency for which you’ve heard a grain market adviser tell you not to wait for the highest price. That may be good advice, but listening to John Morriss what the futures market tells you is Associate Publisher not, because it tells you nothing.

Or at least, nothing about the future.

In fact, the reason futures markets were invented is precisely because it’s impossible to predict the future. Nineteenthcentury grain traders found that they could buy grain in the country at a certain price, but by the time they delivered it to a customer at a mill or port, the price had often changed, meaning they could either make a profit or a loss. Not wanting to take such a risk, they established a system that would allow them to trade contracts that would fix the price for delivery at an agreed date in future. Therefore, the futures market tells you today’s price for delivery in the future, not the future price.

Maybe it’s nitpicking over terminology, but the misconception about futures has also led to the notion that farmers can “hedge.” A grain company can hedge because it makes two transactions — it buys from the farmer and sells the futures, and then sells to the customer and buys back the futures.

That’s a hedge — offsetting and alternating “short” and “long” positions.

Farmers only make one transaction — a sale. Therefore a farmer is always long. He or she can use a future, or a futures-related contract with a grain company, to lock in a price. That may be a sensible move, but it’s not a hedge — it’s speculating that you’re better off selling today rather than waiting.

Supply and demand?

Another standard line that we hear about futures markets is that they reflect supply and demand.

If that were true, every time a sale was made, that would mean there was slightly less grain available, and the price would go up. But if you follow market reports, you’ll often see the market go down because business was done — somewhere else other than the U.S., that is. The problem is that the futures markets used by grain and oilseed traders are still in the U.S., even though that the largest exporters are now in other countries. So if there’s a tender and the business goes to the Black Sea or South America, the market often goes down because the U.S. didn’t get it.

Large buyers have been known to take advantage of this effect, taking a short futures position and then disclosing a large non-U.S. purchase, which allows them to take a profit after the market drops on the news.

This power of large buyers in the futures markets is becoming especially unsettling in recent years. In earlier days, grain companies, exporters, importers and processors were all separate companies with separate futures positions.

All the trading was done in the pits by men with loud voices and loud jackets, making for an environment where information flowed and leaked pretty freely.

Today, single companies can own the whole elevator/terminal/exporter/processor chain. That means information is more tightly held by big players, and it makes for much less liquidity than in the past.

That’s especially true for smaller futures markets such as canola, where there are also fewer “locals” trading for their own account. In former times, reporters could drop by the Winnipeg Commodity Exchange and “talk to the guys on the floor.” No longer. Computer-based trading has meant less rather than more information flowing to producers.

There may soon be even more concern about concentration of power in the futures market, especially now that all or part of Viterra may be up for sale due to troubles at parent company Glencore. COFCO, which is China’s governmentcontrolled import agency, has recently spent $2.8 billion to purchase two agribusiness and trading companies. It has indicated that it’s interested in more, and plans a public offering to raise funds so that it can be a trader in the same league as the current “ABCD” companies that dominate world grain trade — ADM, Bunge, Cargill and Dreyfus.

Imagine the power the world’s largest importer also being one of the world’s largest exporters at the same time. In the stock market, regulators would be all over this. In the futures market you hear nothing.

The Canadian Wheat Board, founded in 1935 was often accused of being a relic of the past. The Chicago Board of Trade was founded in 1848.

So perhaps we should listen to what the futures market is telling us — it may not be working in the interests of all participants, especially farmers. It’s time for a review. john.morriss@fbcpublishing.com

U.S. growers launch plans to revitalize wheat industry Excepts from a Nov. 10 press release from the U.S. National Association of Wheat Growers

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oday, the leaders of the National Wheat Foundation (NWF) and National Association of Wheat Growers (NAWG) announced a joint effort to develop a comprehensive business plan to revitalize the U.S. wheat industry. The National Wheat Action Plan will be a collaborative effort developed with strategic input from key stakeholders across the industry.

This effort will serve as a catalyst to increase public and private research, and improve wheat productivity and farmer profitability.

“The wheat industry is not keeping pace with other crops. As a wheat grower-leader, I want to see the industry flourish not decline.

Reinvigorating the wheat industry will come from increased productivity and profitability,” said NAWG president Brett Blankenship, wheat grower from Washtucna, Wash. “This strategic plan will provide us with the insight and analysis we need to move the U.S. wheat industry forward in a stronger direction.”

The wheat industry is facing decreased profitability in comparison to other crops, a lack of significant productivity gains, increased global competition and negative consumer sentiment regarding the healthfulness of wheat-based products.

“Wheat has a lot of potential. We want to make sure that potential is fully achieved. We recognize that current efforts are insufficient to generate the turnaround the U.S. wheat industry needs, and we need to change that,” said NWF chairman Dusty Tallman, wheat grower from Brandon, Colo.

OUR HISTORY:

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The plan includes research to analyze producer attitudes, best practices and views of the future of the wheat industry, stakeholder input from across the industry and a review of existing funding models both in wheat and other commodities. Following the information gathering, NAWG and NWF will develop a comprehensive business plan that identifies the best revenue generation model for wheat, outlines the steps needed to develop that model and identifies specific uses for national funds and a process for application, distribution, reporting and accounting.

The effort has already attracted significant support from industry partners including: CropLife America, Monsanto, Syngenta and WinField.

“Monsanto is investing in wheat research and commercialization to bring value to our customers today and into the future,” said Dr. Jeff Koscelny, Wheat Commercial and WestBred brand lead. “But truly raising the bar on wheat productivity and profitability will require innovative technology transfer techniques and a collaborative approach from everyone in the industry.

With both of these at the heart of this initiative, we’re proud to be a part of it.”

“Syngenta is pleased to support the U.S. wheat industry as it develops the new National Wheat Action Plan. This is a true partnership where farmers and industry can have an open dialogue to develop the platform driving wheat’s profitability,” said Ryan Findlay, Syngenta North America industry relations lead. “Syngenta is committed to providing farmers with industryleading genetics, crop protection and innovative solutions such as hybrid wheat to transform how crops are grown.”

November 1950

These solid oak sleighs with your choice of steel thickness were offered in our Nov. 23, 1950 issue.

That was the year of the damaging flood in southern Manitoba, and the editorial that week suggested that it was “worthwhile to study” the text of an American Farm Bureau Federation resolution calling for more regulation on wetland drainage as a way of limiting flood damage.

Speaking to the annual meeting of Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, Agriculture Minister J.G. Gardiner addressed the wheat agreement with Great Britain, and the controversial “have regard to” clause under which U.K. prices would be set relative to the world price, which rose after the agreement was signed.

Prairie farmers protested that this had meant a considerable loss, and Gardiner said he hoped that some agreement could be reached that was satisfactory to both farmers and U.K. customers.

Gardiner also said Canadian farmers had failed to fill U.K. contracts for bacon and cheese, and he urged additional hog production to produce more “Wiltshire sides.”

We reported that the Supreme Court had ruled invalid the 1947 seizure of a U.S. grain trader’s barley stocks in Thunder Bay, using powers it had been granted during the Second World War. The board later appealed the case to the Privy Council in the U.K., which at that time was the final court of appeal. This was the last-ever Canadian case taken to the Privy Council, which overturned the Supreme Court decision and upheld the board’s case.

A classified ad that issue read: Wanted: Good stockman and wife, or single man and woman to help with chores and housework. Man $50 per month, woman $40 for winter. Permanent if satisfied.

Electric equipped.

5

The Manitoba Co-operator | November 26, 2015

COMMENT/FEEDBACK

Countries must each respond to climate change A new study shows trade may not help a warming planet fight its farming failures

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

W

Letters

arming temperatures will take a heavy toll on agricultural productivity, according to climate scientists. How will society adjust?

One possibility might be increased trade: If one country suffers a decline in, say, wheat production but can still grow as much rice as ever, then — in theory — it might grow more rice and trade for its usual amount of wheat instead.

But a new study co-authored by an MIT economist suggests that international trade will do little to alleviate climate-induced farming problems. Instead, the report indicates that countries will have to alter their own patterns of crop production to lessen farming problems — and even then, there will be significant net losses in production under the basic scenarios projected by climate scientists.

“The key is the response within a country, in terms of what those farmers produce, rather than between countries,” says Arnaud Costinot, a professor in the department of economics at MIT and expert on international trade issues, who is one of the authors of a paper detailing the study’s results.

To be sure, the study concludes that the overall impact of climate change on farming is expected to be large: Even with adjustments in both farming practices and trade, farming production would decline by roughly one-sixth, using the baseline scenario for climate change projected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and incorporating weather projections over a 30-year period.

The research uses an unusually detailed dataset that divides the Earth’s surface into 1.7 million grid zones and looks at agricultural output within them. It examines 10 crops, including wheat and rice, which represent about 1.8 per cent of global GDP. The damage to those crops alone would lower global GDP by about 0.3 per cent.

We welcome readers’ comments on issues that have been covered in the Manitoba Co-operator. In most cases we cannot accept “open” letters or copies of letters which have been sent to several publications. Letters are subject to editing for length or taste.

We suggest a maximum of about 300 words.

Please forward letters to Manitoba Co-operator, 1666 Dublin Ave., Winnipeg, R3H 0H1 or Fax: 204-954-1422 or email: news@fbcpublishing.com (subject: To the editor)

Even with adjustments in both farming practices and trade, farming production would decline by roughly one-sixth.

“ T h i s i s p re t t y s u b s t a n t i a l ,” Costinot says. He adds that because the 10 crops in the study represent only a portion of global farming, this predicted reduction in their share of global GDP means that when it comes to assessing the damage to agricultural productivity overall, the decrease of one-sixth “is really the right number to have in mind.”

Eleven scenarios, one common pattern The paper detailing the study has been published in the latest issue of the Journal of Political Economy. The co-authors of the study are Costinot; Dave Donaldson, an economist at Stanford University who helped conduct the research while at MIT; and Cory Smith, a doctoral student in economics at MIT. The study uses information from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), which compiles a dataset on “Global Agro-Ecological Zones.” The dataset looks at factors such as soil, topography, and elevation, in conjunction with climate conditions.

The researchers then built a model of agricultural production and international trade, involving 50 countries that comprise about 90 per cent of the world’s farming output. They applied the model’s results to 11 different climate scenarios described by the IPCC, the UN group that has published a series of consensus climate forecasts.

To get their final results, Costinot, Donaldson, and Smith modelled what would happen if farmers could not change the crops they produce, as well as what would happen if countries could not change their patterns of trade.

Hog production must not pollute

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egarding the Sept. 17 editorial by Laura Rance “Pork sector making progress,” it is my compulsion to speak out for the despair of Lake Winnipeg and our precious water sources.

On the website of Canadian Dimension magazine, of June 30, 2007, author, Cy Gonick tells us: “This kind of intensive hog production causes air pollutionnoxious odours, toxic gases and drug pollution. As well, antibiotics, growth-promoting chemicals and other veterinary drugs end up in the animals themselves and enter the environment through their manure and urine, contaminating the water, the soil and our food.

And also with this, more evidence has emerged connecting mega hog

The Eiffel Tower is seen at sunset in Paris, France, November 22, 2015. The capital will host the World Climate Change Conference 2015 (COP21) from November 30 to December 11. photo: REUTERS/Charles Platiau

Crucially, across all 11 of the climate scenarios, the researchers found that internal changes in the types of crops grown were always more important than using global trade as a way of compensating for farming failures.

When farmers in the model were unable to make crop changes, Costinot observes, “half the value of the output would have been gone, suggesting that that adjustment was pretty important. In contrast, when we turn to the international trade channel, we found something very close to the original effects (of climate change on farming), suggesting that that adjustment is far less important.”

As with many aspects of climate change, the effects on agriculture could vary widely by region and country. In the study’s model — under the baseline IPCC scenario, and given farming and trade adjustments — agricultural productivity declined by over 10 per cent in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, and Myanmar, and a whopping 49 per cent in Malawi. In other countries, including Germany and the United States, the expected effects in the model were very modest.

“It’s much, much larger for some countries, including the poorest countries in the world,” Costinot observes.

barns to increased damage to Lake Winnipeg.”

I will remind readers that when the NDP was in opposition, and prior to becoming government in 1999, it too expressed grave concerns of the factory hog industry attaining a foothold in Manitoba. It also voiced concerns about the vast quantities of manure, water contamination, the environment and implications of social sustainability.

Yet, basically nothing has evolved for the better in the past years of the NDP banner.

Recently, there has been a resurgence in Manitoba’s factory hog industry and plans to further increase animal production are being developed, using earthen storages for hog feces.

Studies carried out in Manitoba over the past several years, and reported by Manitoba Conservation have determined that earthen

storages seep and are a threat to groundwater.

Lake Winnipeg has recently been declared as the most polluted freshwater lake in the world. What a shameful cost we bear and conduct ourselves in the name of opportunistic development, that pollutes our most vital resource — water.

It is time for all governments to deal with water issues and address the sources of contaminates and pollution, otherwise Canada and particularly Manitoba, will be known as the land of Dying Lakes and Rivers.

Governments can no longer be in denial about water problems.

It is also time to recognize that there is a better way of raising hogs for meat export and to implement the necessary changes to have this accomplished.

John Fefchak Virden, Man.

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The Manitoba Co-operator | November 26, 2015

FROM PAGE ONE PULSES Continued from page 1 CONFERENCE Continued from page 1

ing the Borlaug Dialogue International Symposium, attracting 1,300 people from more than 60 countries to discuss global hunger and food security issues.

It opened her eyes to so many issues related to food security, says Gitzel, who was able to hear speakers and presentations from some of the world leaders in industry, science, and policy. She also presented a paper herself on the theme “Sustainably Feeding Nine Billion by 2050.”

“It was an amazing experience to meet leaders from around the world who are having an impact on global food security and to hear some of the stories how one person has had an impact on others’ lives,” said the young agricultural leader, who serves as president of her school’s student council and president of her 4-H Beef Club at La Riviere.

But the main highlight from Des Moines was a simple, symbolic meal that brought to life the reality of hunger and poverty, she said.

“That experience came

during the Oxfam Hunger Banquet. During the banquet participants were asked to step into someone else’s shoes for one meal. I was a part of the poorest of the poor.”

It meant sitting on the floor eating a single handful of rice from a shared bowl while others milled around eating a meal that was much more

“I realized how privileged I was to be able to say I haven’t gone hungry.”

Bailey Gitzel ON HER EXPERIENCE WITH THE OXFAM HUNGER BANQUET IN DES MOINES, IOWA

filling.

“Others had r ice and chicken,” she said. “The wealthiest people of the exercise got a three-course meal.”

That, more than anything else, made the hunger statistics come to life, she told her pindrop quiet audience in Winkler.

“I’ve read statistics about

hunger and they’ve had little meaning to me,” she said. “But as I sat there I had a new perspective. The hunger statistics weren’t just words to me anymore. I was able to see how, in other parts of the world, people struggle to even have food every day. I realized how privileged I was to be able to say I haven’t gone hungry.

“I’m just a farm girl from rural Manitoba but it’s my generation that will be feeding the people of the future,” she added. “I want to help.”

Gitzel is headed to university after high school next year, and has applied at both the universities of Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

“I plan to study plant biotechnology,” she said.

That decision was reached after another event that left a strong impression on her.

In 2014, she was chosen by the Canadian Seed Trade Association to attend the Grow Canada Conference in Ottawa where industry leaders from across Canada meet to discuss topics such as trade, technology and agricultural innovation.

She departed for that confer-

ence thinking she’d made up her mind to study medicine after high school. But the Grow Canada Conference opened her eyes to how diverse and wide the careers are in agriculture.

“I feel that nowadays not all young people are looking to agriculture for their future, and especially a lot of kids who see their families struggle and so they want to get away from the farm,” she said.

“I definitely didn’t realize that I could study science at such a high level and still be in agriculture.

“Agriculture today is so much more than just farming and there’s so many different areas in agriculture it’s easy for young people to find something they find interesting.”

She’s grateful to have those experiences, combined with a homegrown education as a young farm entrepreneur, Gitzel said at the conclusion of her speech.

“Growing up on the farm has allowed me to have some incredible opportunities,” she said. “I’m very proud that I come from a farm.” lorraine@fbcpublishing.com

Women’s 2015 conference focus on healthy soil The Winkler event was well attended November 15 to 17 Staff “Don’t treat soil like dirt.”

It is a living breathing organism and we must treat it well to sustain our future.

That was the closing message at last week’s Manitoba Farm Women’s Conference delivered by Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Development (MAFRD) land management specialist Marla Riekman.

This is the 29th year of a confer-

ence for women farmers. It was held for the first time in Winkler this year, attracting 118 women from across the province.

Riekman was one of several guest speakers at the three-day event, that also featured Co-operator editor Laura Rance, speaking on conservation agriculture from her travels in Africa earlier this year, plus other MAFRD staff including nutrient management specialist Mitchell Timmerman on protecting water quality and farm production adviser (crops) Ingrid Kristjanson

on the link between healthy soil and healthy crops.

It was a natural fit to theme their 2015 conference ‘From the Ground Up,’ says conference chair and Plum Coulee farmer Cindy Klassen, given this year’s United Nations declaration as International Year of Soils.

Conference organizers wanted to link that theme together with presentations that help participants better understand how important soil is, not only for good farm production, but for our entire well-being, Klassen said.

Speakers at the event were each presented with specially designed jewelry encased with Newdale Clay Loam, Manitoba’s provincial soil, made by Riekman, who took orders from many interested buyers following her presentation on soil health and quality. All proceeds from sales of this jewelry go toward the work of the Manitoba Soil Science Society.

“We’ve had very positive feedback about the event,” Klassen said. lorraine@fbcpublishing.com

Green and yellow pea prices moving in separate directions CNS Canada

C

anada’s green and yellow pea markets typically move together, as each pulls the other up or down, but they seem to have broken out of that cycle, a Victoria-based trader says.

Green pea pr ices have edged lower on a lack of demand, while yellow peas have gained ground. The last time yellow held a premium over green for an entire crop year was 2006-07, according to a government report.

“We usually get the green peas going and pulling the yellow peas with them, or the yellow peas going and pulling the green peas with them, but there seems to be no correlation between the

Green pea pricing has split from yellow peas. photo: canstock

two,” said David Newman of pulse trading and processing firm Commodious Trading.

Yellow pea prices are moving higher on short supply and strong demand from India, he said, adding that

his green pea sales have been moving behind last year’s pace.

“It seems like when things are really rolling China is buying green peas, and we just haven’t seen it this year.”

Agriculture and Agri-Food

“Pulses have great potential to help eradicate hunger, plus tackle many chronic health conditions, such as obesity and diabetes.”

Huseyin Arslan

Green pea sales are seen falling off their previous pace

BY JADE MARKUS

around the world suffer from acute or chronic undernourishment, which is linked to a growing number of health problems and enduring ailments, including diabetes and obesity. Issues that could be eased in part by an increase in the production and consumption of pulse crops.

“Pulses have great potential to help eradicate hunger, plus tackle many chronic health conditions, such as obesity and diabetes,” said Huseyin Arslan, president of the Global Pulse Confederation, a worldwide not-for-profit trade organization. “We congratulate the UN on its focus on pulses and their importance to global food security and nutrition.”

Pulses, which can also be made into flour, are high in fibre, protein and various vitamins as well — all properties linked to a decreased risk of stroke or heart attack.

Gordon Bacon, CEO of Pulse Canada, was in Rome, Italy for the official announcement and noted that Canada is the world’s largest exporter of dry peas and lentils.

“Canadians can be proud of the contribution we’re making to global food security as a major supplier to countries around the world,” said Bacon, adding that Canadian Pulses can be found in more than 150 countries. In 2014, Canadian Pulse exports were worth more than $3 billion.

Canada said in its most recent principal field crop report that pea exports will likely hit 2.9 million tonnes in the 2015-16 marketing year.

That compares with three million tonnes the year prior, but the data doesn’t distinguish green pea sales from yellow pea sales.

Newman called the current lack of demand for green peas shocking.

“With the rest of the prices of commodities being so soft, there’s no interest in that item with a fairly reasonable price.

It makes no sense,” he said.

“But it’s the way it is.”

Recent delivered elevator green pea prices are sitting at $8-$8.50 per bushel, and yellow peas are bringing producers $8.50-$10 per bushel, according to Prairie Ag Hotwire.

Turkey, China and India are Canada’s largest export markets.

In January 2016, the Manitoba Pulse and Soybean Growers will kick off a consumer awareness campaign encouraging more Manitobans to eat and enjoy pulses.

But already, the announcement that 2016 will be the International Year of Pulses has generated a trove of online resources, videos and information aimed at consumers, farmers, food processors and service providers.

“Pulses are considered the food of the future,” Labelle said.

“They provide excellent nutrition and require much less energy to produce than other crops. That sustainability is key in feeding our families and the world.” shannon.vanraes@fbcpublishing.com

7

The Manitoba Co-operator | November 26, 2015

High-stakes sweetener suit settled mid-trial Which side’s health claims were more accurate? We won’t know now

BY DAN LEVINE Reuters

M

ajor sugar companies and corn refiners, including Archer Daniels Midland, have settled high-stakes litigation that probed the health claims of each industr y amid falling demand for sweeteners.

Terms of the settlement, which was reached in the middle of trial, were not disclosed in a joint statement on Nov. 20.

“The parties had been trying to work on an agreement for a month before trial, and these things take time,” W. Mark Lanier, an attorney for the sugar processors, told Reuters.

A representative for corn refiners declined to comment.

Several sugar refiners including global leader ASR Group alleged in a 2011 laws u i t t h a t a Co r n Re f i n e r s Association advertising campaign describing highfructose corn syrup as “corn s u g a r” a n d “n a t u r a l ” w a s false. The corn refiners count e r s u e d , s a y i n g t h e Su g a r Association falsely said in its newsletter that corn syrup caused obesity and cancer.

Tr i a l b e g a n e a r l i e r i n Nov e m b e r, a n d h a d b e e n expected to be decided by jury in December. While the implications for the companies are unclear, the settlement means consumers will not receive an impartial verdict about which industry’s health claims are more accurate.

The case came amid an overall decline in sweetener demand, particularly of corn syrup. The U.S. slowdown is due in part to concerns about h i g h ra t e s o f o b e s i t y a n d diabetes.

Corn refiners argued that sugar processors were not damaged because they enjoyed record sales and profits during the ad campaign.

The sugar growers sought $1.1 billion in compensatory dam-

CORRECTION

Museums:

Researchers will report on a study of visitors to community museums at the 2016 Association of Manitoba Museums annual meeting, not the Association of Manitoba Municipalities as reported in the Nov. 12 issue.

“The parties had been trying to work on an agreement for a month before trial, and these things take time.” w. mark lanier sugar lawyer

ages over the campaign. The corn refiners asked for about $530 million in their countersuit (all figures US$).

The case involved voluminous scientific evidence and heated arguments from both sides, but a joint statement on Nov. 20 was neutral about which product is healthier.

Both industries “continue their commitments to practices that encourage safe and healthful use of their products, including moderation in the consumption of table s u g a r, h i g h - f r u c t o s e c o r n syrup and other sweeteners,” the parties said.

In 1999, the average American consumed 85.3 lbs. of corn sweeteners per year, compared with 66.4 lbs. of sugar, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data. However, by 2014 corn sweetener consumption had dropped to 60.7 lbs., while sugar consumption stood at 68.4 lbs.

Overall, the average Amer ican consumed 131.1 lbs. of sweetener in 2014, down from 153.2 lbs. in 1999.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2012 ruled t h a t c o r n s y r u p, u s e d t o sweeten foods including soda, could not be called sugar.

In duelling lawsuits, sugar refiners said that an ad campaign describing highfructose corn syrup as “corn sugar” and “natural” was false, while corn refiners said sugar industry claims about the health risks of HFCS were false, but both sides have now backed off their claims without a verdict. photo: thinkstock

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8

The Manitoba Co-operator | November 26, 2015

Assiniboine River Basin Initiative continues to make progress The Assiniboine River Basin Initiative holds its second annual conference to discuss cross-border water issues

BY JENNIFER PAIGE Co-operator staff / Brandon

I

llegal drainage in Saskatchewan topped the c o n c e r n s f o r Ma n i t o b a representatives at the recent second annual Assiniboine River Basin Initiative (ARBI) conference here.

The conference drew more than 100 representatives from Manitoba, Saskatchewan and North Dakota to discuss mutual water-management concerns.

The conference titled ‘Co - o rd i n a t e, Co l l a b o ra t e, Act: Leading the way to water solution with a basin-wide strategy,’ included a number of panel and breakout group sessions focusing on watermanagement issues for agriculture and industry in the region.

“The importance of (ARBI) filling a gap in the Assiniboine River Basin at a grassroots level cannot be overstated,” Minister of Municipal Government Drew Caldwell told the meeting.

“We all know from experience about the issues of flooding, of drought and water quality. These are issues that are vitally important to everyone living in the basin.”

Members are positive about progress and feel the collaboration will be the most effective way to handle watershed issues, said ARBI chair Dr. Allan Preston.

“As I look back over the past two years it is truly amazing how far we have come in such a short space of time,” Preston said. “The concept of the ARBI was to fill a gap that existed in the large Lake Winnipeg basin and now it is a reality. We have a united voice coming forward from this very large watershed that will be able to cover all water issues.”

“We have a united voice coming forward from this very large watershed that will be able to cover all water issues.”

Dr. Allan Preston

New Saskatchewan legislation Fo r m o s t M a n i t o b a p a r ticipants, illegal drainage in Saskatchewan was a major concern.

According to the Saskatchewan Water Security A g e n c y, a p p r o x i m a t e l y 100,000 to 150,000 quarter s e c t i o n s o f Sa s k a t c h e w a n farmland have illegal drainage.

Doug Johnson, director of regional ser vices with the Water Security Agency ( WSA) of Saskatchewan, described Saskatchewan’s new drainage legislation, which was implemented in September.

“Formerly any projects constructed prior to 1981 didn’t require approval and that is problematic because you have an old project that still causes the same impacts,” Johnson said. “We figure that at least 95 per cent of the drainage works that are in the province are not licensed or authorized.”

Johnson said the new legislation with heavier penalties and better enforcement will be phased in over the next few years with the goal of bringing the entire province into compliance within a decade.

“Our early focus will be in the high-risk basins. The l a r g e r- i m p a c t p r o j e c t s i n the higher-r isk basins are g o i n g t o h a ve m o re s c r u tiny and we are going to put more resources towards dealing with those particular approvals and projects first,” Johnson said.

New requirements Un d e r t h e n e w r e q u i r e ments all drainage activity is required to obtain approval o r w i l l b e c l o s e d . B e f o re approval is granted, the drainage must be assessed for impacts on flooding, water quality and habitat loss.

“This will be a risk-based s y s t e m a n d w e a re g o i n g to be considering things on a watershed scale and a project-type scale. In terms of that, we have to consider downstream flooding, what the damage is, neighbour to neighbour but also the cumulative impacts,” said Johnson.

“We feel this new approach will be fair for all concerned, for both those draining and the people impacted by the drainage.”

New projects or new approvals will also require mitigation measures in order to reduce impacts. “ We are going to expect people to put storage structures, gates, limited discharge capacity on the slough outlets, culverts and other things to slow down or store water on the landscape,” Johnson said.

Land control requirements have also been relaxed, allowing landowners to use agreements as evidence of land control, rather than use of easements.

Looking forward Attendees were also provided with a prediction of future conditions on the Prairies from keynote speaker Danny

Doug Johnson, director of regional services with the Water Security Agency of Saskatchewan, described the province’s new drainage regulations. Photo: Jennifer Paige

Blair, associate dean of the faculty of science at the University of Winnipeg.

Blair, whose main research interests are climate variability and change in Canada’s western interior, said models suggesting climate variability is likely to increase on the Prairies in the coming decades, causing both water surpluses and shortages to become even more problematic.

“There is a pretty good consensus among the models

about what is going to happen in the future,” said Blair.

“All of the models are sayi n g w a r m e r t e m p e ra t u re s ; none of the models are saying cooler for any season, but there is variance across the models in terms of precipitation. However, we know that whether drought or flooding, water issues are going to become more dramatic and pre-emptive attention is necessary.” jennifer.paige@fbcpublishing.com

ConAgra to spin off Lamb Weston potato unit The remaining ConAgra business will relaunch as ‘Conagra Brands’

BY ANJALI ATHAVALEY AND RAMKUMAR IYER Reuters

C

onAgra Foods said it will spin off its Lamb Weston frozen potato products business into a separate public company, the latest in a series of changes announced by the maker of Chef Boyardee pasta and Slim Jim jerky at a time when consumers are shifting to lessprocessed foods.

Lamb Weston will hold Co n A g ra’s f roze n p o t a t o, sweet potato, appetizers and other vegetable products businesses.

The remaining businesses,

“You don’t have each business competing for the same resources if you’re a stand-alone.” sean connolly, CEO Conagra Brands

to be renamed Conagra Brands Inc., will include brands such as Orville Redenbacher’s popcorn and Healthy Choice frozen dinners, in addition to several units that are currently a part of ConAgra’s commercial foods segment, which ser ves restaurants and grocers.

T h e t a x - f re e s p i n o f f i s

expected to be completed in autumn 2016, the company said.

ConAgra, which has reported flat or falling sales in four of the past six quarters, is struggling like others in the industry to increase sales and profit margins as consumers in search of healthier options shift from packaged products to fresh foods. The company

faced investor pressure this year from Jana Partners and agreed to a board settlement with the activist hedge fund in July.

Earlier this month, Co n A g ra s a i d i t w i l l s e l l its private-label unit to TreeHouse Foods for US$2.7 billion so that it could focus m o re o n i t s p o r t f o l i o o f branded products.

And in October, the company said it will cut about 1,500 jobs as part of a plan to save at least US$300 million in three years.

In an interview, the company’s CEO Sean Connolly, who will head Conagra Brands, said the company had explored various strate-

gic options for Lamb Weston before deciding on the spinoff. He said the move w o u l d g i ve t h e re s u l t i n g two companies more focus and individual management attention.

“You don’t have each business competing for the same resources if you’re a standalone,” he said.

J P Mo rg a n a n a l y s t Ke n Goldman said in a note that the spinoff may not be the end of the breakup process for ConAgra and that future divestitures could include the commercial foods segment or the company’s share in Ardent Mills, the flourmilling joint venture it has with Cargill and CHS Inc.

9

The Manitoba Co-operator | November 26, 2015

Prairies led increase in food bank use Alberta saw a 23 per cent increase in food bank use due to the economic downturn

BY ALEX BINKLEY Co-operator contributor

V

isits to food banks across Canada have increased again this year with Alberta recording the biggest increase because of job losses in the oil and gas industry, reports Food Banks Canada.

During March, 852,137 people, more than a third children, showed up at Canadian food banks, an increase of 1.3 per cent over the same month of 2014, Katharine Schmidt, executive director of Food Banks Canada, told a news conference. “That’s the equivalent of 6,000 school buses full of hungry kids.”

Promises by the Liberal government of increased social housing are encouraging, she added. “Every single person who comes to a food bank talks about the high cost of housing. Too many face the tough decision between paying rent and buying food.”

Alberta reported a 23 per cent increase in food bank use this past March compared to a year earlier. The Northwest Territories was next with a 9.1 per cent increase. Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and Ontario recorded small decreases in visits. Nationally, there were “175,000 more people each month seeking assistance, compared to 2008,” she said. That year was the low point in food bank dependence in the last 15 years.

“The underlying issue that has kept food bank use so high for so long is the fact that millions of Canadians are try-

ing to make ends meet with incomes that fall far below what is needed to afford the basic cost of living,” she said.

For that reason, Food Banks Canada wants Ottawa to expand affordable housing, replace inadequate provincial assistance programs with a basic national income, offer more skills training and deal with food insecurity in the North.

“We are pleased to see that Prime Minister Trudeau has a plan that closely mirrors the recommendations we have made in successive reports,” Schmidt added. “This gives us hope and a belief that there will be action at the federal level (that will) significantly reduce the need for food banks in Canada.”

About half the people visiting food banks are on provincial assistance programs, she noted. The reality is that “government-managed income benefits are inadequate to support individuals and families who have fallen on hard times; a job does not always guarantee food security; and safe, quality housing is too often unaffordable.”

She added that her organization will request the federal government implement a tax credit to farmers and food companies that donate safe food that would otherwise go to landfills because it has passed ‘best-before dates.’

Studies have estimated that as much as 40 per cent of the food produced in Canada is never consumed by people.

There are 4,349 organizations

across Canada that provide food or meals. About half are in Ontario and Quebec followed by Alberta and British Columbia.

“In addition to the assistance provided by food banks, Canadian meal programs also served 4,395,601 meals and snacks to a broad population via soup kitchens, shelters, school breakfast programs and other initiatives,” the Food Banks report said.

Almost 20 per cent of those seeking help live in small towns and rural areas, which was 6.3 per cent higher than in 2014; 57 per cent of rural food banks reported increases in the number of people accessing their services. That rose to three-quarters in Alberta and Saskatchewan.

Schmidt said single people need a basic income of $18,000 a year while a family of four needs at least $36,000 per year “to afford the most basic standard of living in Canada.”

Nearly two million seniors live on $17,000 per year while four million Canadians work in minimum wage sales and service occupations.

More than 780,000 people receive disability-related income supports through provincial social assistance programs — which provide an average income of $10,801 per year. More than one million people in Canada receive social assistance, which works out to an average of $8,035 per year for a single person and $23,783 per year for a family of four. “Millions of Canadians are trying to make ends meet with incomes that fall far below what is necessary to afford even the most basic cost of living.”

WHAT’S UP Please forward your agricultural events to dave@fbcpublishing.com or call 204-944-5762.

Nov. 26-28: National Farmers Union annual convention, Doubletree by Hilton, 300 King St., London, Ont. For more info visit www.nfu.ca.

Nov. 23-28: Canadian Western Agribition, Evraz Place, 1700 Elphinstone St., Regina. For more info visit www.agribition.com.

Dec. 1: Soil Conservation Council of Canada’s Summit on Canadian Soil Health, 11:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Hyatt Regency, 700 Centre St. SE, Calgary. For more info visit www.soilcc.ca.

Dec. 2: Hog Days Brandon, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Westman Communications Place, Keystone Centre, 1175-18th St., Brandon. For more info call 204-346-6080 or visit HogDaysBrandon. ca.

Dec. 2: Fields on Wheels conference, 8 a.m.

Delta Winnipeg, 350 St. Mary Ave., Winnipeg.

Theme: “Grain exports to 2035: Is Western Canada ready?” For more info or to register (deadline Dec. 1) visit umanitoba.ca/faculties/ management/ti/fields-on-wheels-2015.html.

Dec. 8-10: Western Canada Conference on Soil Health, Radisson Edmonton South, 4440 Gateway Blvd., Edmonton. For more info visit albertasoilhealth.ca/conference-registration.

2016 Jan. 11: Beef and Forage Day, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., Ukrainian National Home Hall, 106 Main St., Vita. For more info call MAFRD at 204-4255050.

Jan. 19-21: Red River Basin Land and Water International Summit Conference, Alerus Center, 1200 S. 42nd St., Grand Forks, N.D. For more info or to register visit RedRiverBasinCommission.org.

Jan. 26-28: Keystone Agricultural Producers annual meeting and Young Farmers Conference, Delta Winnipeg, 350 St. Mary Ave., Winnipeg. For more info visit kap.mb.ca or call 204-697-1140.

Feb. 4-5: Manitoba Beef Producers annual general meeting, Victoria Inn, 3550 Victoria Ave., Brandon. For more info or to register visit www.mbbeef.ca/annual-meeting/.

10

The Manitoba Co-operator | November 26, 2015

LIVESTOCK MARKETS

(Friday to Thursday) Winnipeg November 20, 2015 Slaughter Cattle Steers — Heifers — D1, 2 Cows 85.00 - 94.00 D3 Cows 77.00 - 85.00 Bulls 118.00 - 125.00 Feeder Cattle (Price ranges for feeders refer to top-quality animals only) Steers (901+ lbs.)

190.00 - 207.00 (801-900 lbs.)

205.00 - 229.00 (701-800 lbs.)

220.00 - 244.00 (601-700 lbs.)

225.00 - 258.00 (501-600 lbs.)

244.00 - 305.00 (401-500 lbs.)

285.00 - 344.00 Heifers (901+ lbs.)

— (801-900 lbs.)

200.00 - 215.00 (701-800 lbs.)

215.00 - 234.00 (601-700 lbs.)

225.00 - 245.00 (501-600 lbs.)

230.00 - 263.00 (401-500 lbs.)

250.00 - 298.00

Heifers

($/cwt) (1,000+ lbs.)

(850+ lbs.)

Alberta South — — 100.00 - 118.00 85.00 - 105.00 — $ 207.50 - 221.00 215.00 - 227.00 224.00 - 237.00 234.00 -252.00 256.00 - 285.00 293.00 - 332.00 $ 198.00 - 211.00 204.00 - 217.00 209.00 - 222.00 216.00 - 233.00 230.00 - 252.00 256.00 - 289.00

Ontario $ 140.49 - 163.56 142.92 - 162.40 69.85 - 95.21 69.85 - 95.21 111.58 - 131.22 $ 191.08 - 217.72 172.47 - 219.62 189.29 - 241.24 203.66 - 262.45 206.83 - 285.83 246.90 - 318.38 $ 170.68 - 202.19 176.61 -201.34 168.90 - 212.57 181.94 - 237.18 190.45 -251.25 208.28 -280.72

$

(901+ lbs.)

(801-900 lbs.)

(701-800 lbs.)

(601-700 lbs.)

(501-600 lbs.)

(401-500 lbs.)

(901+ lbs.)

(801-900 lbs.)

(701-800 lbs.)

(601-700 lbs.)

(501-600 lbs.)

(401-500 lbs.)

Futures (November 20 2015) in U.S. Fed Cattle Close Change December 2015 129.90 -3.25 February 2016 132.05 -3.17 April 2016 132.58 -2.38 June 2016 124.25 -1.68 August 2016 121.70 -1.45 October 2016 123.25 -1.78

Feeder Cattle November 2015 January 2016 March 2016 April 2016 May 2016 August 2016

Cattle Slaughter Canada East West Manitoba U.S.

Close 175.23 162.45 160.55 162.15 162.83 164.08

Change -0.15 -4.45 -3.50 -3.65 -3.38 -3.43

Cattle Grades (Canada)

Week Ending November 14, 2015 52,411 11,582 40,829 N/A 556,000

Previous Year­ 50,654 12,477 38,177 N/A 564,000

Week Ending November 14, 2015 1,132 26,813 14,419 858 827 7,715 318

Prime AAA AA A B D E

Previous Year 1,062 21,678 12,014 510 619 10,291 169

Hog Prices (Friday to Thursday) ($/100 kg)

Source: Manitoba Agriculture

E - Estimation MB. ($/hog) MB (All wts.) (Fri-Thurs.)

MB (Index 100) (Fri-Thurs.)

ON (Index 100) (Mon.-Thurs.)

PQ (Index 100) (Mon.-Fri.)

Current Week 146 E 135 E 134.50 139.66

Futures (November 20, 2015) in U.S. Hogs December 2015 February 2016 April 2016 May 2016 June 2016

Last Week 151.31 141.64 142.55 151.45

Close 55.40 56.73 62.03 68.88 72.55

Last Year (Index 100) 190.73 178.56 181.30 184.27

Change -0.70 -1.53 -1.55 -1.13 -1.35

Winnipeg Choice (110+ lb.)

(95 - 109 lb.)

(80 - 94 lb.)

(Under 80 lb.)

(New crop)

— — 155.00 - 170.00 165.00 - 175.00 170.00 - 185.00 —

Chickens Minimum broiler prices as of April 13, 2010 Under 1.2 kg..................................................$1.5130 1.2 - 1.65 kg....................................................$1.3230 1.65 - 2.1 kg....................................................$1.3830 2.1 - 2.6 kg.....................................................$1.3230

Turkeys Minimum prices as of November 22, 2015 Broiler Turkeys (6.2 kg or under, live weight truck load average) Grade A ................................................$1.965 Undergrade ........................................$1.875 Hen Turkeys (between 6.2 and 8.5 kg liveweight truck load average) Grade A ................................................$1.945 Undergrade ........................................$1.845 Light Tom/Heavy Hen Turkeys (between 8.5 and 10.8 kg liveweight truck load average) Grade A ................................................$1.945 Undergrade ........................................$1.845 Tom Turkeys (10.8 and 13.3 kg, live weight truck load average) Grade A..................................................$1.930 Undergrade..........................................$1.845 Prices are quoted f.o.b. producers premise.

Analysts see bearish cattle markets in search of a bottom

Toronto 90.52 - 126.33 184.85 - 205.43 191.85 - 209.40 201.73 - 229.36 208.39 - 265.58 —

SunGold Specialty Meats —

Eggs Minimum prices to producers for ungraded eggs, f.o.b. egg grading station, set by the Manitoba Egg Producers Marketing Board effective November 10, 2013.

New Previous A Extra Large $2.00 $2.05 A Large 2.00 2.05 A Medium 1.82 1.87 A Small 1.40 1.45 A Pee Wee 0.3775 0.3775 Nest Run 24 + 1.8910 1.9390 B 0.45 0.45 C 0.15 0.15

Goats Kids Billys Mature

Winnipeg (Hd Fats) — — —

Toronto ($/cwt) 113.98 - 298.77 — 106.14 - 230.28

Horses <1,000 lbs.

1,000 lbs.+

Winnipeg ($/cwt) — —

Toronto ($/cwt) 20.43 - 36.00 29.89 - 42.33

“I’d say quite a few of the local guys were getting some bought this week.”

Jade MarkuS CNSC

V

olatile cattle futures have caused lower prices and uncertainty among buyers in local auction marts — but two Canadian analysts say futures are trending lower and trying to find a bottom.

“Quality is crucial,” said Allan Munroe of Killarney Auction Mart. Cattle are still selling well, he said, but buyers are particular about not overpaying in a volatile and uncertain environment.

“They’re discounting them significantly because they don’t want to pay too much for those second- and third-cut cattle.”

Volatility in futures market also makes it tough for producers to know when to sell, he said.

“They’re not sure if this will trend lower, or if this is the bottom and we’re going to see this rebound.”

Alberta market analyst Anne Wasko of Gateway Livestock Marketing thinks futures are nearing a bottom.

Adjustment levels have been drastic, she said, but markets are trying to find enough support to move into a more static trading range.

Most commodity markets have experienced significant volatility, she added, but Canadian cattle markets are seeing a number of bearish factors.

Large supplies of competing meats and slower global demand are a couple of reasons why beef has been trending lower, Wasko said.

allan munroe Killarney Auction Mart

“There’s a lot of things weighing on North American markets right now, not just beef related, but certainly across commodities as we move into the next stage of the cycle, which will be lower prices.”

Canfax senior analyst Brian Perillat also said cattle futures are trending lower, but are trying to find a bottom.

“At the end of the day we’ve been under quite a bit of pressure for all cattle types,” he said.

“It’s tougher than many people expected, I guess.”

He attributed the depreciation to an anticipated increase in beef production and a stronger U.S. dollar.

“We’re seeing all of the cattle staying in Canada and the feedlots are going to fill up; plus, they’re losing money,” Perillat said.

Back at the local level, Munroe said his auction saw strong demand from within Manitoba.

“There weren’t as many that went east out of our place this week — there’s still some, but not as many as we’ve been seeing.

“I’d say quite a few of the local guys were getting some bought this week.”

Jade Markus writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Winnipeg company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting.

briefs

U.S. feedlot cattle placements hit nearly 20-year low Chicago/Reuters

Sheep and Lambs Wooled Fats

Cattle buyers discounting second- and third-cut cattle

BY THEOPOLIS WATERS

Other Market Prices $/cwt Ewes Lambs

$1 Cdn: $0.7497 U.S. $1 U.S: $1.3338 Cdn.

column

Cattle Prices

Slaughter Cattle Grade A Steers Grade A Heifers D1, 2 Cows D3 Cows Bulls Steers

EXCHANGES: november 20, 2015

The number of cattle placed into U.S. feedlots last month declined four per cent from a year ago to their lowest level for October since the government began tabulating the data in 1996, a U.S. Department of Agriculture report showed Nov. 20.

October’s placement results nearly matched forecasts by analysts, who cited burdensome supplies of heavier animals that weighed on cattle prices and eroded profit for feed yards.

Abundant grazing pasture and affordable feed also allowed ranchers to grow cattle outside of feeding pens longer as leverage against lower prices for their animals.

USDA’s data on Nov. 20 indicated the number of cattle

placed on feed by weight class continued to decline year over year for all categories except that above 800 lbs.

Cattle that were put in feedlots last month should begin showing up at packing plants in early spring 2016, which could exert modest price pressure at that time, the analysts said.

The USDA report showed October placements at 2.281 million head, down four per cent from 2.368 million last year, and close to analysts’ average forecast of 2.273 million.

USDA put the feedlot cattle supply as of Nov. 1 at 10.794 million head, up two per cent from 10.571 million a year ago.

Analysts, on average, had forecast a 2.2 per cent gain.

The government said the number of cattle sold to packers, or marketings, declined three per cent in October from a year ago, at 1.63 million head.

Analysts had projected a four per cent drop from 1.685 million last year.

Other than the marketing outcome that was slightly larger than expected, the results were generally neutral across the board, said Allendale Inc. chief strategist, Rich Nelson.

“This makes four months in a row of placements lower than last year, ensuring manageable supplies through the first-quarter slaughter period,” he said.

Jim Robb, director of the Colorado-based Livestock Marketing Information Center, said the continued trend of yearly increases in the 800-lb. category suggests an ongoing trend as the industry builds the overall cattle inventory.

“There is plenty of forage and increasing wheat pasture in most of the country to hold animals and to continue this pattern of placing heavierweight cattle,” he said.

USDA’s generally neutral report was expected to have little influence the week of Nov. 23 on Chicago Mercantile Exchange live cattle investors, analysts said.

Looking for results? Check out the market reports from livestock auctions around the province. » PaGe 14

11

The Manitoba Co-operator | November 26, 2015

GRAIN MARKETS column

Manitoba Elevator Prices

No post-harvest bounce in sight for canola values

Average quotes as of November 23, 2015 ($/tonne) Future

Basis

Net

Red spring wheat

187.37

39.62

226.99

3.01

Red winter wheat

171.26

9.21

180.46

-3.45

171.31

9.04

180.35

2.91

458.69

-25.59

433.11

-9.74

Prairie spring wheat Canola

Weekly Change

Wheat and soybean values slip on timely rains elsewhere DAVE SIMS CNSC

I

CE Futures Canada canola contracts spent much of the week ended Nov. 20 fighting to stay above their technical support levels. However, values posted losses for four straight days, with the nearby January contract ending at a two-month low of $464.40 per tonne.

Canola started the week off feeling pressure amid bearish chart signals. However, a weaker tone in the Canadian dollar and steady buying in CBOT (Chicago Board of Trade) soyoil managed to steady the picture somewhat.

As the week progressed, light speculative selling and farmer hedges entered the fray, counterbalancing some support canola was enjoying from end-user demand. Farmers were also hanging on to supplies in search of a better price which further helped to underpin the market. The January/March spread also raised some eyebrows at midweek, when its volume rose to an extremely active 8,900 contracts.

However, values plunged to a two-month low Thursday, as a stronger Canadian dollar discouraged foreign buying, along with bearish chart signals which had traders adding to net-short positions. Canola also hasn’t benefited from a post-harvest bounce,

according to some industry watchers, who feel it is still somewhat expensive compared to other vegetable oils.

The next factor that could potentially move the market is the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s December crop report, along with any weather events in South America.

Recent suggestions that the U.S. Federal Reserve will hike the main interest rate have also raised speculation about its impact on canola.

Soybeans remained caught in rangebound trade. Weekly U.S. sales surprised some watchers, with figures showing 1.8 million tonnes were sold to buyers. Improving offshore interest was a feature of the activity. Rain is expected to fall on previously dry soybean fields, which could drive the market lower.

Wheat futures ebbed mostly lower for the week, as rain eased dryness concerns in the Black Sea region and the U.S. On Thursday, values staged a slight rally, due to weekly U.S. export sales data that came in much higher than expected.

Corn stayed slightly above its technical support level of US$3.60 a bushel for the week. A 1.4-million-tonne order from Mexico underpinned the market on its opening day, while China was reportedly bargain hunting throughout the week. Weekly export sales data was also robust, which added to the gains.

Dave Sims writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Winnipeg company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting.

Port Prices As of Friday, November 20 2015 ($/tonne) Last Week

U.S. hard red winter 12% Houston U.S. spring wheat 14% Portland

Weekly Change

n/a

n/a

234.97

2.84

Canola Thunder Bay

475.30

-7.80

Canola Vancouver

495.30

-5.80

Closing Futures Prices

As of Monday, November 23, 2015 ($/tonne) Last Week

Weekly Change

ICE canola

465.30

-7.80

ICE milling wheat

236.00

-1.00

ICE barley

188.50

0.00

Mpls. HRS wheat

186.94

1.29

Chicago SRW wheat

180.32

-2.66

Kansas City HRW wheat

169.94

-0.46

Corn

143.40

0.89

Oats

160,65

11.51

Soybeans

316.00

-1.10

Soymeal

315.83

-5.29

Soyoil

607.48

2.43

Cash Prices Winnipeg As of Monday, November 23, 2015 ($/tonne) Last Week

For three-times-daily market reports and more from Commodity News Service Canada, visit the Markets section at www.manitobacooperator.ca.

Weekly Change

Feed wheat

98.03

n/a

Feed barley

178.21

-2.76

Rye Flaxseed Feed peas

n/a

n/a

451.94

-1.18

n/a

n/a

Oats

199.06

6.48

Soybeans

357.89

2.94

Sunflower (NuSun) Fargo, ND ($U.S./CWT)

16.70

.10

Sunflower (Confection) Fargo, ND ($U.S./CWT)

Ask

Ask

Western Canadian spring wheat bids firm Basis levels varied depending on location but improved by an average of $2 per tonne

BY PHIL FRANZ-WARKENTIN Commodity News Service Canada

C

ash spring wheat bids across Western Canada generally saw some improvement during the week ended November 20, as basis levels saw some improvements at many locations.

Average Canada Western Red Spring (CWRS) wheat prices were steady to up by as much as $3 per tonne during the week, according to price quotes from a cross-section of delivery points across the Prairie provinces. Bids in Manitoba saw the largest increase, but average prices in the province are still the lowest in the Prairies at roughly $227 per tonne. Moving west, average CWRS prices topped out at $230 in Saskatchewan and $244 in Alberta.

Quoted basis levels varied from location to location, but improved by $2 on average to sit at $48 above the futures when using the grain company methodology of quoting the basis as the difference between the U.S. dollar-denominated futures and the Canadian dollar cash bids.

When accounting for the currency exchange rates by adjusting the Canadian prices to U.S. dollars ($1=US$0.7493 as of November 20) CWRS bids ranged from US$170 to US$183 per tonne. That would put the currency adjusted basis levels at about US$4 to US$17 below the futures.

Looking at it the other way around, if the Minneapolis futures are converted to Canadian dollars, CWRS basis levels across Western Canada range from $5 to $23 below the futures.

Average Canada Prairie Red Spring (CPRS) bids were steady to up by as much as $3 per tonne. Average CPRS prices came in at about $180 per tonne in Manitoba, $190 to $191 per tonne in Saskatchewan, and $199 to $204 per tonne in Alberta.

Soft white spring wheat prices were up by $1 per tonne, ranging from $211 to $213 per tonne in Alberta.

Winter wheat prices were mostly lower, losing $2 to $4 per tonne on the week. Prices ranged from roughly $175 to $181 per tonne across the Prairies.

Average durum prices held steady.

Bids in souther n Saskatchewan, where the bulk of the crop is grown, were unchanged at $295 per tonne.

The December spring wheat cont ra c t i n Mi n n e a p o l i s, o n w h i c h

most CWRS contracts in Canada are based, was quoted at US$5.0950 per bushel on November 20, down 5.25 U.S. cents from the week prior.

The Kansas City hard red winter wheat futures, which are now traded in Chicago, are more closely linked to CPRS in Canada. The December Kansas City wheat contract was quoted at US$4.5700 per bushel on November 20, down 8.50 U.S. cents from the week before.

The December Chicago Board of Trade soft wheat contract settled at US$4.9575 on November 20, which was 7.25 U.S. cents weaker compared to the week prior.

The Canadian dollar closed at 74.93 U.S. cents on November 20, which was down by about a fifth of a cent relative to its U.S. counterpart compared to the previous week.

12

The Manitoba Co-operator | November 26, 2015

LIVESTOCK detailed guidance

h u s b a n d r y — t h e s c i e n c e , S K I L L O R ART O F F AR M IN G

New poultry code of practice drafted The new code offers more specifics about raising birds

BY RON FRIESEN Co-operator contributor

A

proposed new code of practice for the Canadian feather industr y doesn’t contain many changes but it does get a lot more specific about how to raise poultry.

Besides offering guidance, the new code outlines detailed requirements and recommended practices for the care and handling of broiler chickens, turkeys, breeders and hatching eggs.

It goes into much greater depth than the current code about acceptable management practices, especially humane treatment.

For example, the current code says handling should be done humanely but the proposed new code gives detailed guidance about acceptable methods and how to perform them.

“I think it has taken a much more formalized approach. That’s really the biggest change,” said Phil Boyd, executive director for Turkey Farmers of Canada.

The draft poultry code is the latest revision by the National Farm Animal Care Council for its codes of practice covering the care and handling of farm animals. The pig code was recently revised. Codes for bison, layers, rabbits and veal calves are currently under revision. (Layers have a separate code from other poultry.)

A public comment period for the poultry code, launched October 5, ends December 4. The proposed revision is led by a 15-person committee, which includes producers, animal welfare representatives, processors, transporters, researchers, veterinarians and government.

The current code dates back to 2003.

Vern Froese, a Manitoba Chicken Producers director who sits on the committee, said the new code goes into much more detail than the previous one but it does not recommend huge changes in poultry production.

“I think producers are well prepared for the new code. It’s not that much different from the old one,” said Froese, who farms near Grunthal.

“I think it has taken a much more formalized approach.”

Phil Boyd TFC

One new change, if adopted, will require a four-hour dark period per day for broilers and turkeys. This helps them to sleep and develop 24-hour day/night rhythms which promote growth rates and general health.

Froese said many broiler producers are already doing that and the new practice will not require any great adjustment.

“I don’t think it will be difficult for producers at all.”

Unlike some other livestock sectors, poultry does not have hotbutton issues such as battery cages for layers and gestation stalls for pregnant sows, which arouse public concerns about animal welfare.

Broilers and turkeys in Canada are

Under the new guidelines, broilers and turkeys will get a four-hour dark period per day to help them sleep.

photo: thinkstock

raised almost exclusively in free-run environments.

Controversial practices in the United States, such as neutering roosters and controlled moulting of birds, are rare in Canada, although the code does refer to them.

As a result, poultry mostly tend to fly below the radar when it comes to matters involving humane practices.

But Steve Leech, national program manager for Chicken Farmers of Canada, said it’s important to have a code of practice to demonstrate standards the industry follows. Leech said the new code represents a “huge shift” in spelling out requirements and recommended practices for raising poultry.

“The code is what’s held up in a court of law, really. So when we have these requirements and recommended practices, it becomes that much more important and necessary to follow them because that’s what the industry will be judged against,” Leech said.

Codes of practice are reflected in both the turkey and broiler food safety and flock care programs.

13

The Manitoba Co-operator | November 26, 2015

Federal government reviews TPP compensation to dairy sector Will the new government follow through on Conservative promises to toughen border controls on milk substitutes and ban imports of milk from cows treated with the rBST? “It would be very inappropriate for us to commit to specific packages given that we’re actually reviewing the agreement overall.”

By Alex Binkley Co-operator contributor

T

rade Minister Chrystia Fre e l a n d’s s t a t e m e n t that the federal gove r n m e n t i s re v i e w i n g t h e $4.3-billion dairy compensation package announced by the former government as part of its Pacific trade deal doesn’t alarm Dairy Farmers of Canada.

A review “makes sense if the government is going to consult Canadians about the impact” of the Trans-Pacific Pa r t n e r s h i p, Yv e s Ru e l , a DFC spokesman, said in an interview.

The TPP deal was announced on Oct. 5 and like many other groups, DFC is still reviewing its technical details, Ruel said. That includes putting a dollar figure on the possible financial impact on Canadian farmers.

Speaking to Canadian reporters in Manila, Freeland said, “It would be very inappropriate for us to commit to specific packages given that we’re actually reviewing the agreement overall.”

Compensation for dairy and other affected sectors would be decided later. Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay has already said he had no objections to the TPP deal or the proposed compensation package for farmers.

The government has yet to say how it will consult with Canadians on the deal. It has yet to release the Canadian

Chrystia Freeland

PHOTO: metro creative

version of the proposed agreem e n t m e a n i n g Ca n a d i a n s have to use the New Zealand and American versions to evaluate its provisions.

In a d d i t i o n t o c o m p e n sation, Ruel said DFC wants to see whether the new government will follow through on Conser vative promises to toughen border controls on milk substitutes and ban imports of milk from cows

treated with the rBST, a production-increasing drug not permitted in Canada because it harms the cows.

The Harper government compensation package included $3.9 billion for farmers plus $15 million in marketing development funds and $450 million for dairy processors.

L a t e r, i t c a m e o u t t h a t import increases would continue for 18 years in the dairy

s e c t o r i n s t e a d o f t h e f i ve years originally announced.

The imports would rise from 8.3 million tonnes in the first year of the deal to 56.9 million tonnes after 18 years.

Independent Liberal Senator Celine Hervieux-Payette said that with the European and Pacific trade deals, farmers will have to cope with nearly a 20 per cent increase in dairy imports.

“Stephen Harper somehow

forgot to announce that $1.5 billion of the compensation will be used to compensate the banks for losses if the value of dairy quotas declines,” she said. “The remaining $2.8 billion, to be paid out over 15 years, does not seem to be nearly enough to compensate producers.”

The Europe trade deal is still waiting for final ratification by both sides more than a year after negotiations concluded.

It offered increased access for French cheese to Canadian markets. The Harper government said dairy farmers would be compensated for any financial losses that causes.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership may not be finally ratified until 2017, says Canada trade guru Peter Clark. Its crucial test will come with the American Congress where it faces numerous criticisms.

The Canadian compensation package would have to be approved by Parliament as part of legislation to implement the trade deal.

Genetically modified salmon cleared for human consumption The modified salmon grow faster but are equally nutritious, according to researchers

BY JULIE STEENHUYSEN Reuters

F

ederal regulators cleared the way for a genetically engi neered salmon to be farmed for human consumption in the firstever such approval for an animal whose DNA has been scientifically modified.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the salmon, developed by AquaBounty Technologies to grow faster than conventional, farmed salmon, followed years of deliberations. The regulator has now declared that the salmon is as nutritious as normally grown Atlantic salmon, which means the salmon will not require special labelling.

AquaBounty is majority owned by Intrexon Corp., whose shares were up 6.4 per cent at $37.55 in earlyafternoon trading Nov. 19.

Several genetics experts voiced

support for the FDA’s action, but some groups opposed to genetically modified foods voiced concern.

AquaBounty chief executive Ronald Stotish said the approval is “a game changer that brings healthy and nutritious food to consumers in an environmentally responsible manner without damaging the ocean and other marine habitats.”

The approval for the fish, to be sold under the AquAdvantage brand, comes with the condition that the salmon be raised only in two specific land-based, contained hatchery tanks in Canada and Panama, and not in the United States.

William Muir, a professor of genetics at Purdue University, called the announcement “a huge win-win for the environment, consumers, and the process.”

Muir said there is “no credible evidence” that these genetically modified fish are a risk to either human health or the environment. “In contrast, the current practice of using

wild caught salmon as a food source is not sustainable, our oceans are overfished,” Muir said.

Muir’s comments were echoed by a 2014 letter sent to President Barack Obama signed by 80 scientists and biotech industry executives asking for administration support for this approval.

Co n s u m e r a n d e n v i ro n m e n t a l groups have been working to get retailers to pledge that they will not sell GMO salmon in their stores.

Patty Lovera, assistant director for Food & Water Watch, which opposes GMO salmon, said the group is talking to members of Congress to see if they will roll back the FDA approval.

Lovera also said the group is considering a lawsuit to block GMO salmon from reaching the market.

According to the activist group Friends of the Earth, at least 35 other species of genetically engineered fish, along with chickens, pigs and cows, are under development, and the FDA’s decision on this geneti-

cally engineered salmon application sets a precedent.

FDA officials in a conference call would not comment on whether or how many applications the agency has received for other genetically m o d i f i e d a n i m a l s, b u t s a i d t h e agency considers all applications on a case-by-case basis.

The agency also issued draft guidelines on the voluntary labelling of genetically modified foods.

E r i c Ha l l e r m a n , p r o f e s s o r o f fish conservation at Virginia Tech University, said the approval is significant because it marks the first approval globally for production of genetically modified animals for food production and sale.

“While studies have shown that salmon products derived from the AquAdvantage salmon are no different from those derived from conventional production, some consumers have argued for a ‘right to know’ how food products were produced,” Hallerman said.

14

The Manitoba Co-operator | November 26, 2015

LIVESTOCK AUCTION RESULTS Weight Category

Ashern

Gladstone

Grunthal

Heartland

Heartland

Brandon

Virden

Killarney

Ste. Rose

Winnipeg

Feeder Steers

18-Nov

17-Nov

17-Nov

17-Nov

18-Nov

16-Nov

19-Nov

18-Nov

No. on offer

2,150

932*

159

1,963*

4,566*

1,116*

1,760*

180

Over 1,000 lbs.

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

900-1,000

n/s

n/a

n/a

190.00-210.00

210.00-218.00

n/a

n/a

185.00-212.00

800-900

n/a

190.00-214.50

195.00-210.00

205.00-220.00

210.00-222.00

n/a

205.00-228.00

190.00-223.00

700-800

212.00-238.00

190.00-219.50

200.00-220.00

218.00-232.00

219.00-233.00

220.00-235.50

220.00-242.00

200.00-232.00

600-700

240.00-275.00

225.00-264.00

215.00-250.00

225.00-247.00

233.00-259.00

230.00-254.00

230.00-273.00

215.00-248.00

500-600

260.00-321.00

250.00-280.00

240.00-290.00

255.00-285.00

250.00-290.00

255.00-280.00

275.00-308.00

245.00-285.00

400-500

280.00-327.00

290.00-326.00

275.00-332.00

275.00-320.00

284.00-319.00

295.00-330.00

295.00-330.00

285.00-317.00

300-400

n/a

310.00-361.00

300.00-360.00

295.00-340.00

315.00-365.00

335.00-370.00

320.00-365.00

300.00-348.00

n/a

n/a

n/a

175.00-195.00

190.00-205.00

n/a

n/a

180.00-207.00

Feeder heifers 900-1,000 lbs.

800-900

n/a

170.00-198.00

175.00-200.00

180.00-205.00

195.00-209.00

n/a

n/a

190.00-209.00

700-800

205.00-224.00

180.00-212.00

190.00-217.00

205.00-221.00

198.00-213.00

n/a

210.00-220.00

195.00-216.00

600-700

211.00-234.00

200.00-228.00

210.00-232.00

215.00-224.00

212.00-228.00

210.00-225.00

220.00-237.00

200.00-223.00

500-600

220.00-245.00

220.00-261.00

225.00-275.00

215.00-234.00

221.00-236.00

225.00-255.00

235.00-265.00

210.00-245.00

400-500

230.00-285.00

260.00-302.00

260.00-330.00

245.00-276.00

235.00-280.00

240.00-280.00

260.00-295.00

220.00-272.00

300-400

n/a

300.00-321.00

285.00-330.00

250.00-300.00

n/a

270.00-305.00

260.00-295.00

235.00-305.00

No. on offer

70

n/a

159

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

45

D1-D2 Cows

98.00-108.00

n/a

n/a

n/a

93.00-105.00

95.00-105.00

n/a

97.00-106.00

D3-D5 Cows

88.00-96.00

n/a

n/a

n/a

89.00-93.00

n/a

85.00-99.00

88.00-96.00

Slaughter Market

Age Verified

110.00-124.00

n/a

n/a

n/a

95.00-105.00

100.00-106.00

n/a

n/a

Good Bulls

121.00-126.00

n/a

n/a

n/a

125.00-133.00

120.00-135.00

120.00-133.00

115.00-123.00

Butcher Steers

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

Butcher Heifers

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

n.a

n/a

Feeder Cows

n/a

n/a

95.00-109.00

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

110.00-135.00

Fleshy Export Cows

n/a

n/a

88.00-94.50

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

Lean Export Cows

n/a

n/a

80.00-90.00

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

110.00-170.00

n/a

n/a

n/a

105.00-115.00

n/a

115.00-156.00

n/a

Heiferettes * includes slaughter market

(Note all prices in CDN$ per cwt. These prices also generally represent the top one-third of sales reported by the auction yard.)

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15

The Manitoba Co-operator | November 26, 2015

SHEEP & GOAT COLUMN

Steady prices at Nov. 18 sheep and goat sale There were 400 head delivered to the Winnipeg Livestock Auction sale

GOAT DOES

$ / lb.

meat

$1

98 lbs.

$122.84 - $136.95

$0.95

104 lbs.

$103.85 - $1,045.79

$0.98

105 lbs.

$0.97

115 lbs.

$0.95

120 lbs.

$0.59

131 lbs.

$1

98 lbs.

By Mark Elliot

Ewes

$153.75 - $159.25

T

here was no price differences between wool and hair ewes. The average price ranged from $0.66 to $0.83 per pound. Buyers showed little interest in the heavy wool ewes, which sold as culls.

There was buyer interest in rams, with an average price range from $0.60 to $0.78 per pound. The lighter-weight ram, at 178 pounds, brought $0.86 per pound.

The selection of the heavyweight lambs was limited.

A group of three 117-pound lambs brought $1.48 per pound. A 125-pound Suffolkcross lamb brought $1.34 per pound.

The lighter market lambs were of less interest. Market lambs needed to be at butcher weight. Market lambs had a bidding price from $1.63 to $1.79 per pound.

The bidding price for the feeder lambs was not as strong as the market lambs. The price ranged from $1.60 to $1.70 per pound.

The lightweight lambs, in the 70-pound-plus range, continued with similar prices as the feeder lambs. The price ranged from $1.54 to $1.79 per pound.

There was no price differences between wool and hair lambs.

$65.79 - $85.41 Lambs (lbs.) $167.50 / $173.16

95 - 110

$171.70 - $178.20

$0.86

100 lbs.

$147 / $155.60

$0.95

104 lbs.

$0.87 / $0.58

120 lbs.

$0.59

131 lbs.

$0.87

75 lbs.

meat

$0.95

105 lbs.

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$1

100 lbs.

$1.07

145 lbs.

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$1.29

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$1.17

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$1.17

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Six 63-pound Clun Forestcross lambs brought $1.81 per pound. Two 65-pound Cheviotcross lambs brought $1.79 per pound. A 60-pound Katahdincross ram lamb brought $1.37 per pound.

The lower-weight lambs, either wool or hair did not reach any major price range.

These lambs were small.

The quality and frame structure of the goat does were being judged, thus creating strong bidding from the buyers. The Alpine-cross goat does

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represented dairy goats at this sale.

The Alpine-cross goat bucks were slightly lower in weight.

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16

The Manitoba Co-operator | November 26, 2015

WEATHER VANE “Everyone talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it.” Mark Twain, 1897

Looks like a nice start to winter Issued: Monday, November 23, 2015 · Covering: November 25 – December 2, 2015 Daniel Bezte Weather Vane

L

ast week’s forecast played out pretty close to what the weather models predicted.

Winter arrived across southern and central Manitoba late last week, with the season’s first significant snowfall hitting central and eastern regions, while the southwest received just a dusting.

Temperatures then fell to around average or even a little colder than average over the weekend, making it feel like winter for the first time since early April.

For this forecast period, it looks like the weather models are starting to get a handle on the new winter pattern. At first the models were really going all out, predicting some very cold weather moving in to begin December. They now appear to have settled down and overall it looks like a pretty darned nice start to winter.

On Wednesday we’ll see clouds along with some lingering light snow or flurries as an area of low pressure tracks to our south. There is not a lot of confidence with the track of this low, so we could see anywhere from no snow to maybe

five cm, depending on the final track. Temperatures will be mild ahead of the low, with colder air moving in once it passes by.

This cold air is the result of a large area of high pressure that will dominate the rest of this forecast period. This arctic high will slowly drop southward through Alberta and Saskatchewan late in the week and will place us in a cool northerly flow. Temperatures will be running a little below average, with highs in the -8 to -10 C range and overnight lows around -15 C. Over the weekend the high will meander off to our southeast, allowing for our winds to become more westerly or even southwesterly. This will help our temperatures moderate, with daytime highs climbing into the -5 C range by late in the weekend. Along with these warming temperatures we should see plenty of sunshine as the high keeps any storm systems well away from our region.

Usual temperature range for this period: Highs, -13 to 1 C; lows, -24 to -5 C. Daniel Bezte is a teacher by profession with a BA (Hon.) in geography, specializing in climatology, from the U of W. He operates a computerized weather station near Birds Hill Park.

Contact him with your questions and comments at daniel@bezte.ca.

GLOBAL DEPARTURE OF TEMPERATURE FROM AVERAGE, JAN - OCT 1880 - 2015

This week’s weather graphic shows the trend in January to October global temperatures as a departure from average (1901-2000). Before the 1940s, global temperatures were consistently below average. Between 1940 and 1980 there were several flip-flops between below- and aboveaverage values. After 1980 there have only been above-average years, with a steady increase in those values.

A look back at a record-shattering October It’s now a foregone conclusion that 2015 will be the warmest year on record

The world’s warmest months

BY DANIEL BEZTE Co-operator contributor

(departure from 20th-century average)

I

0.98 C

October 2015

0.91 C

September 2015

0.89 C

March 2015

0.88 C

February 2015

0.88 C

January 2007

0.87 C

August 2015

0.87 C

June 2015

0.86 C

February 1998

0.85 C

May 2015

0.85 C

March 2010

know I promised to look at big snowfalls that have occurred in the past, then look at the probabilities of receiving different amounts of snow, but there are a couple of global weather stories that I thought should take precedence. Remember back a couple of weeks ago when I reported that, for the first time in a while, the University of Alabama in Huntsville reported a recordwarm month? October 2015, it said, was the warmest month ever recorded when compared to average. Well, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) numbers have now come out and they also report that October set an all-time record for planetary warmth.

According to NOAA, October’s mean global temperature was 0.98 C above the long-term average. This value comes on the heels of September’s record warmth and was significantly higher than what was recorded in that month.

It is pretty much a foregone conclusion that 2015 will beat out last year as the warmest year on record, and with El Niño expected to continue into the early spring of 2016, there’s a good chance that 2016 will beat out 2015. To get an idea of just how warm this year has been globally, check out the table here, which shows the top 10 warmest months globally as departures from the 20th-century average.

As you can see, seven of the top 10 months have happened this year. The question is whether this is just an El

Carbon dioxide readings at Hawaii’s Mauna Loa Observatory from 1960 through 2015. graphic: scrippsco2.ucsd.edu

Niño-driven warming — or is it a hint of things to come?

On that note, there was another global weather, or rather atmospheric story that kind of slipped by over the last couple of weeks that partially ties into the warm global temperatures.

According to Bob Henson at the Weather Underground, carbon dioxide readings taken at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii rose above the 400 parts per million (ppm) level on Nov. 12 — and this may mark the last time we’ll ever see a reading below 400 ppm.

Concentrations of CO2 rise and fall during each calendar year, based on the vegetation growth in the Northern Hemisphere, where most of the world’s

land mass is located. Atmospheric CO2 concentrations fall during the summer as growing plants take it in, with the lowest concentrations of the year typically occurring in November; CO2 levels then rise during the winter. For those of you who have never followed or seen the long-term trend in global CO2 levels, I’ve included a graph here to help show the steady increase the planet has seen since the 1950s, when levels were first recorded. You can see that in the 1950s, CO2 concentrations were in the 315ppm range and tend to increase by about five ppm in the winter, then decrease by about the same amount in the summer. Superimposed on top of this yearly increase and decrease is the continual

rise in CO2 levels. So, each year the winter high and summer low is about two ppm higher than the previous year.

This year’s minimum was right around 398 ppm, which means that next fall, there is a chance that values might not drop below 400 ppm. While there is no scientific meaning behind 400 ppm — besides being a number higher than any peaks in CO2 levels observed over at least the last 800,000 years — it is a significant psychological value.

Some people argue that Mauna Loa’s values can’t be trusted due to local volcanic activity, but the same overall general trend is found in the data from other sites around the world. For example, data from the South Pole stations have shown a steady increase in CO2 concentrations, which started around 310 ppm in the late 1950s and are currently in the 380- to 385-ppm range.

In the next issue, I promise we’ll take our look at snowfall amounts, unless…

17

The Manitoba Co-operator | November 26, 2015

Trim: 10.25”

CROPS Flea beetles, cutworms top list of insects bugging Manitoba farmers in 2015 Alfalfa weevils, army worms, corn borer, soybean aphids and lygus bugs showed up in some fields too

BY ALLAN DAWSON Co-operator staff

I

Corn borers turn to potatoes Borers were also found in the stalks of some potatoes, edible bean and hemp this year. It’s not unusual to find corn borers in crops other than corn when populations are high or when the corn isn’t at the right stage to attract the borer, Gavloski said in an interview.

“Quite a few potato fields in Manitoba had ECB (corn borer) infestations in 2015, beginning in mid- to late July,” the summary says. “Many plants, in patches, were damaged at various stages of plant growth. Damage on main stems appears to have affected the tuber enlargement, but the injury on sec-

Flea beetles in canola and cutworms in several crops were the main insect problems in Manitoba in 2015, but overall it wasn’t a terrible insect year for Manitoba farmers, says MAFRD entomologist John Gavloski. PHOTO: John Gavloski, MAFRD

ondary branches appeared to have no apparent deleterious impact.”

While most canola seed is treated to protect seedlings from flea beetles, some farmers had to apply a foliar insecticide because of high flea beetle populations, the summary says.

“So m e c a n o l a f i e l d s we re reseeded because of high levels of damage from flea beetles, or a combination of flea beetle feeding and other stresses on the plants.”

Cutworm populations were generally a concern in Manitoba in 2015. There were reports of corn crops in the Central and Eastern regions damaged by cutworms in early June.

They were also a problem in some canola and soybean fields resulting in some farmers spraying to control them. A field of soybeans in the Central Region was reseeded due to cutworm damage.

“Cutworm damage was evident in some fields of sunflowers, and there were reports of insecticides being applied for cutworms in some fields in the Central Region,” the summary says. “A field of sunflowers near Sperling was reseeded because of damage from cutworms.”

Cutworm feeding was a concern in some soybean fields in the

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Eastern and Central regions. A soybean field in the Central Region was reseeded because of cutworm injury.

Alfalfa weevil larvae Feeding injury caused by alfalfa weevil larvae was common in many alfalfa fields causing “quite severe damage” in some cases. That prompted some farmers to cut their alfalfa for hay early, the summary says. Insecticides were applied in many fields and there were reports of poor control.

Low levels of soybean aphids were noted in soybean fields in mid-July. Populations rose to economic levels in some soybean fields in the Eastern and Central regions in August, prompting some insecticide applications. However, high levels of soybean aphids’ natural enemies were found in some fields.

There were reports of lygus bug populations being high enough in some canola fields to cause economic damage in late July and August in the Northwest, Eastern and Interlake regions.

Raspberry losses Many home and commercial Manitoba raspberry growers were surprised and disappointed by a poor crop this year. The culprit was

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Drosophila Drosophila were identified in Junebearing strawberries and dwarf sour cherries in late July as well.

They caused 50 per cent yield loss for many sour cherry growers.

Drosophila only affected the last June-bearing strawberry harvest so yield loss was minimal.

Day-neutral strawberry producers had to control drosophila for a second round of berry harvesting from mid-August until early October.

A province-wide monitoring program for spotted wing drosophila occurred from July to October in 2015.

Manitoba crops are susceptible to a wide range of other insects that caused little to no damage in 2015, the summary notes. For example, there were no reports of wireworm damage to corn. And levels of bertha army worm and diamondback moth were generally at low and non-economical levels.

(The full report is available at http://www.gov.mb.ca/agriculture/ crops/insects/pubs/2015summary. pdf.) allan@fbcpublishing.com

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nsects didn’t take a massive bite out of Manitoba crops in 2015, but there were some nibbling problems caused mainly by flea beetles and cutworms, says Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Development entomologist John Gavloski.

Alfalfa weevil populations were high enough in many alfalfa fields to cause economic damage and army worms were a concern in many small cereal grain fields, Gavloski wrote in his Summary of Insects on Crops in Manitoba in 2015 released Nov. 6.

Soybean aphid numbers also reached economical levels in some soybean fields in August.

Spotted wing drosophila were a concern in many fruit crops, including raspberries from midJuly on.

European corn borer populations appeared to be higher in 2015 than the past few years. Some Central Region cornfields were sprayed with an insecticide to control the pest.

Corn hybrids with the Bt trait are protected from corn borer. This year about 45 and 14 per cent of the Manitoba grain and silage corn hybrids, were Bt varieties, according to data from the Manitoba Agricultural Services Corporation.

the spotted wing drosophila. 2015 was the earliest and most widespread infestation of the insect in Manitoba, the summary says.

Drosophila were identified in traps three weeks earlier than the previous two years, starting in summer-bearing raspberry fields the second week of July in the southern international border region.

Drosophila were then identified extensively throughout southern Manitoba from mid- to late July in commercial and home raspberry fields and patches.

The last two years drosophila had been restricted to the south Red River Valley and south-central Pembina Valley regions. This year yield losses approached 50 to 75 per cent for many raspberry producers. There was little insecticide control as infestations occurred before drosophila was identified as a problem.

Always follow grain marketing, stewardship practices and pesticide label directions. Varieties that are glyphosate tolerant (including those designated by the letter “R” in the product number) contain genes that confer tolerance to glyphosate herbicides. Glyphosate herbicides will kill crops that are not tolerant to glyphosate. Individual product responses are variable and subject to a variety of environmental, disease and pest pressures. Refer to www.pioneer.com/products or contact your local Pioneer Hi-Bred Sales Representative for the latest and most complete listing of traits and scores for each Pioneer brand product and for product placement and management suggestions specific to your operation and local conditions.

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18

The Manitoba Co-operator | November 26, 2015

Quebec moves toward limits on neonics The province’s new pesticide strategy will also apply to atrazine and Lorsban

BY DAVE BEDARD Managing editor

T

Quebec’s new pesticide strategy calls for farmers to get advance approval before any use of corn or soybean seed treated with neonicotinoids. Photo: syngenta.com

he Quebec government plans to hold consultations ahead of a wide legislative swath through the province’s pesticide sector, to limit farmers’ use of neonicotinoid insecticide seed treatments and certain other pesticides.

Environment Minister David Heurtel on Nov. 22 released the province’s pesticide strategy for 2015 to 2018, mapping out the Couillard government’s plans to “protect the health of the population, pollinators and the environment.”

Specifically, the gover nment plans amendments by next winter to “modernize” the provincial Pesticides Act, with new financial penalties for violations.

It also proposes new regulations by the fall of 2016, aimed at ending the non-essential use of chemical pesticides in urban

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ALWAYS FOLLOW GRAIN MARKETING AND ALL OTHER STEWARDSHIP PRACTICES AND PESTICIDE LABEL DIRECTIONS. Details of these requirements can be found in the Trait Stewardship Responsibilities Notice to Farmers printed in this publication. ©2015 Monsanto Canada, Inc.

“Are we doing all this just to consume, in the end, more imported products?” marcel groleau president, Union des producteurs agricoles

areas — and to reduce farmers’ use of pesticides deemed to be of greater risk.

The province expects its “greater-risk” list to include the so-called neonics — imidacloprid, thiamethoxam and clothianidin — as well as atrazine herbicides and chlorpyrifos insecticides.

The legislation, if passed, would require any farm use of neonics or other “greater risk” pesticides to be reviewed beforehand by certified agronomists in “100 per cent of cases” — a move the Quebec government said goes well beyond the measures Ontario adopted last summer on neonic use.

Quebec’s strategy document also calls for economic incentives to encourage the use of corn and soybean seed not treated with neonics. A discussion document on such incentives is expected to be out next summer.

Quebec producers are today estimated to apply neonictreated seed on nearly 100 per cent of corn acres and over 50 per cent of soybean acres, representing about 1.2 million total acres, the province said.

Q u e b e c ’s s t r a t e g y a l s o pledges to allow the sale of lower-risk bio-based pesticides at all retailers, and to provide “economic incentives” favouring the use of pesticides deemed to be of lower risk.

Heurtel’s associate environment minister, Marc Plante, pledged in the Nov. 22 release that the strategy’s proposals will be subject to consultations with industry partners, so as to “clarify and improve” its planned changes and amendments.

The province’s Agriculture Minister Pierre Paradis hailed the proposed strategy, saying it will protect the health of the general public, but also of “the farmers who are (these products’) principal users.”

Marcel Groleau, president of Quebec’s politically influential Union des producteurs agricoles (UPA), called the proposed measures “disappointing and incomplete” and “bureaucratic solutions disconnected from the reality on the ground.”

Quebec’s farmers share the general public’s concerns about pesticides and the environment, he said, but farmers also already have a financial interest in using expensive pesticides as little as possible.

Quebec farmers, he added, work in increasingly open markets and their competitors in the U.S. and elsewhere aren’t subject to the same requirements — and neither the federal nor provincial governments demand regulatory reciprocity on agri-food imports, he said.

“Are we doing all this just to consume, in the end, more imported products?”

19

The Manitoba Co-operator | November 26, 2015

Stung by weak prices, potash miners look to specialty products Mining companies have already pared back their output in a soft market

BY ROD NICKEL Winnipeg/Reuters

P

o t a s h m i n e r s, f a c i n g another round of tough negotiations with big buyers in China and India, are looking to support sinking profits by boosting sales of higher-margin specialty products, according to top executives.

The pink fertilizer’s price has fallen sharply this year, under pressure from bloated capacity, soft grain prices and weak currencies in Brazil and India, spurring PotashCorp, Mosaic Co. and Belaruskali to slice output.

Miners face further pressure as they start talks in coming weeks with China’s Sinofert Holdings for a 2016 supply contract, which generally sets a global price floor.

But with few expectations of a rebound soon, potash executives are looking beyond production cuts.

ICL Israel Chemicals Ltd. plans to tap more profitable products, CEO Stefan Borgas said in an interview.

The company will accelerate production of premium-priced polyhalite, a mineral with several nutrients, at its United Kingdom potash mine, he said.

ICL is targeting production of one million tonnes of polyhalite, also called polysulphate, by 2020, up from its previous target of 600,000 tonnes.

“We are trying to accelerate this switch because polysulphate is so much more profitable than MOP (common muriate of potash),” Borgas said.

ICL is also redrawing plans to develop an Ethiopia deposit to first produce sulphate of potash (SOP), a premium potash suitable for fruits, instead of MOP. For Mosaic, low potash prices could lead it to boost sales of specialty products that combine micronutrients.

“The more we can de-commoditize our product offering, yes, the better off we’ll be,” said CEO Joc O’Rourke.

PotashCorp is also looking at less-explored options. CEO Jochen Tilk said he is open to diversifying into new products, including some unrelated to fertilizer.

He did not specify which p ro d u c t s, b u t Po t a s h Co r p recently made an unsuccessful attempt to buy Germany’s K+S, which produces salt and SOP along with conventional potash.

No easy answers On the surface, diversifying looks appealing, said Daniel Manuel, potash analyst at consultancy Fertecon.

But the premium SOP commands in its sliver of the overall potash market would evaporate if production jumped, he warned, adding that diversifying into other commodities comes with high costs of takeovers or developing projects.

In the meantime, buyers are taking a hard line.

Two Indian potash importers, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they have demanded discounts for

this year’s contracted sales, although sellers have balked.

In the U.S. Midwest, where potash is used extensively to fertilize corn, dealers are reluctant to stock up.

“They had this feeling that potash is right across the street in (Canada). I don’t need to worry about it,” said Joe Dillier, director of supply and merchandising at Growmark Crop Nutrients.

However, potash demand in Brazil began to recover late this year, said Carlos Heredia, supply chain director at Yara Brasil, although the pace remains below 2014.

While times are bleak, agricultural price cycles turn suddenly, Mosaic’s O’Rourke noted.

“When all the pundits are saying ‘the cycle will never end’ is normally when there’s a change.”

Potash companies such as Saskatoon-based Mosaic Co. are considering diversifying into new products, including some outside the fertilizer sector. photo: greg berg

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20

The Manitoba Co-operator | November 26, 2015

Industry updated on research efforts in forage and grassland sector Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada presented the details of its forage research project that began last October

BY JENNIFER PAIGE Co-operator staff/Saskatoon

A

wareness of the role forage plays in a healthy agricultural sector has grown over the past six years since the formation of the Canadian Forage and Grassland Association (CFGA), speakers told the group’s annual meeting here.

“Just as recent as two years ago the dairy industry had no interest in investing in the research and development of forages. I believe that this organization has done a great job at shining the light on the importance and opportunities that lie in the forage sector,” said Doug Wray, chair of the CFGA. “And, we can see the progress that has been made

by the various sectors’ shift towards investing in forage research.”

The CFGA held its sixth annual general meeting in Saskatoon on November 17 to 19, where more than 100 individuals gathered to network, share information and present updates.

Senior range and forage biologist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s (AAFC) science and technology branch, Bill Houston, was on hand to speak to attendees about the forage research project AAFC has undertaken.

“This project all started at CFGA in Olds, Alberta. We had our assistant deputy minister (ADM) of the science and technology branch attend,” s a i d Ho u s t o n . “ T h a n k s t o the attendees, who put some

pressure on our ADM to do m o re o n t h e c o m m u n i c a tion and transfer of forage research.”

Research priorities Houston outlined AAFC’s fivepart research endeavour that began last year. “ We formed an industr y advisory panel that was composed of about 20 members and included different national and provincial beef and dairy organizations, as well as some provincial government representatives that work with forages,” said Houston, who has taken on the role of project lead. “After those discussions we prioritized the list to the top five projects that the industry wanted to see transferred and built that into the proposal, which was approved last October.”

The first part of the research project looks at extending the grazing season through bale or swath grazing.

“Re c e n t l y, a p a p e r w a s released of the economics of extending the grazing season and it has shown that swath grazing can reduce cattle overwintering cost from 37 and 60 per cent compared to more traditional overwintering,” said Houston.

“These practices have certainly been looked at in Western Canada but the opportunity that we saw when we discussed it with the advisory committee was in Atlantic and Eastern Canada. We are working to promote these practices in those areas but in order to do that we need to get the economics of how this may work in those regions.”

The key to a successful cereal crop and the tools for an impressive shop.

Sweet forages The second area of research will look at sweet or high-energy forages, — how to increase the sugar content of forages, the best species to select, the best time to cut, how to fertilize, as well as wilting techniques.

“Research in the dairy industry shows that cows eat more forage that is higher in sugar content. Researchers are also seeing a corresponding increase in milk production, up to eight per cent,” said Houston.

“Economics are important so this summer we have hired a summer student to dig into the economics on sweet forages and we are just finalizing the analysis and doing a review on that right now.”

The project will develop forage species and agronomy, as well as pasture rejuvenation — taking existing research from the plot to field level.

“In Western Canada, there has been quite a bit of research done on pasture rejuvenation and so now we have the opportunity to take some of that science and update it with current conditions, latest technology and do a little bit of economic analysis on today’s dollars and what the cost-to-benefit ratio would be on some of this rejuvenation work.”

Finally, the project will look at managing manure nutrients in forage production, how these are best utilized in both the forage and livestock operations.

“We really want to work closely with industry and make sure that the transfer of information we are trying to achieve is something they are interested in,” said Houston. “And what I really like about this project is that we have good support from industry, from AAFC management as well as our forage scientists. It is a really good structure to be successful.”

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Houston was one of many presenters at the CFGA meeting.

Other topics covered included the importance of soil health, producer experiences on growing, grazing and marketing forages, discussion on forage varieties, technology advancements and an update on forage breeding initiatives.

“The presentations were well positioned to build on one another,” said Wray. “Starting with soil health and the benefits of building the soil to production practices, research and development to a discussion on the adoption of the practices and the roadblocks producers may be dealing with in the adoption of many of these techniques.”

According to Wray, more than anything the conference is looked at as a networking opportunity.

“I have watched the group during the breaks and that is really when you can see the benefits of gatherings like this, when individuals are networking, interacting and discussing what has been presented. The networking that has taken place is the best part of the whole event,” said Wray. jennifer.pagie@fbcpublishing.com

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21

The Manitoba Co-operator | November 26, 2015

Syngenta sues Cargill, ADM in GMO corn fight Grain firms shouldn’t have shipped Viptera corn without approval, Syngenta says Chicago/Reuters

S

wiss seed company Syngenta has sued top U.S. grain e x p o r t e r s Ca rg i l l a n d ADM over losses U.S. farmers said they suffered from rejections of boatloads of genetically modified corn by China.

The lawsuit, filed Nov. 19 in U.S. district court in Kansas, comes after Cargill, ADM and hundreds of farmers sued Syngenta last year to recover damages linked to the rejections, which began in late 2013.

Syngenta’s decision to sell a type of GMO corn seed called MIR162, also known as Viptera, before obtaining import a p p r ov a l f r o m C h i n a in December led to the rejections, U.S. farmers and exporters have said.

Syngenta said it was not responsible for losses incurred by traders or farmers. But if anyone is responsible, it is the exporters that shipped GMO corn to China without approval, Syngenta said in its new lawsuit.

ADM declined to comment on the lawsuit.

“Syngenta’s commercialization practices and conduct are responsible for the industry’s damages,” Cargill spokesman Mark Klein said Nov. 20.

Syngenta said in the lawsuit that Cargill and ADM failed to keep MIR162 corn separated from approved strains, even though they should have known the strain w a s n o t a p p rove d by China.

“Cargill and ADM decided that it was in their economic interest to try to ship corn containing Viptera to China anyway,” the lawsuit said.

In Januar y 2013, Sy n g e n t a t o l d Ca rg i l l that China’s approval for MIR162 was not available yet, and Cargill thanked the seed maker for its “ve r y c l e a r” e x p l a n a tion, according to court documents.

Cargill “nonetheless d o u b l e d d ow n o n i t s gamble” by entering into contracts from February to July 2013 to ship more than two million tonnes of corn to China, the lawsuit said.

Flax exports up after dry spell, prices stay soft The flax council sees potential in TPP members such as Malaysia

BY JADE MARKUS CNS Canada

P

rairie flax producers have seen a decline in prices, d u e i n p a r t t o we a k exports — but the most recent data from the Canadian Grain Commission shows a dramatic increase in sales.

“Prices have definitely come down, we know that,” said Don Kerr, president at the Flax Council of Canada in Winnipeg, adding he thinks the depreciation is caused, in part, by slower exports to Europe and China.

Europe has been importing less Canadian flax in favour of flax from the U.S., Russia, and Kazakhstan, and China has backed-up supplies, he said. “ We’re seeing a little bit of a slowdown right now, but I think that is a temporary situation.”

The Flax Council of Canada reports recent interest from the feed, pet food and people food sectors. photo: Laura rance

Flax exports for the week ended Nov. 1 hit 19,600 tonnes, according to the CGC, compared with only 500 tonnes the week before. The most recent week’s sales helped pull

the total exports during the crop year up to 36,300 tonnes, slightly outpacing last year’s exports.

Delivered elevator flax in Saskatchewan is about $11.59

per bushel, compared with the province’s year low of $10.75 and high of $14.50, according to Prairie Ag Hotwire. Delivered elevator flax in Manitoba is about $11.61, compared with a provincial low of $11.46 and a high of $14.76.

“On the demand side we’re seeing some really positive t h i n g s d e v e l o p ; we’v e g o t increased interest in terms of feed, the food industry and the pet food industry,” Kerr said.

The Tr a n s - Pa c i f i c Partnership ( TPP) trade deal could also open markets, he said, naming TPP member Malaysia as a market that could see growth.

Indonesia and South Korea have also expressed interest in the trade deal. “We’ve always looked toward them as potential markets for flaxseed,” Kerr said.

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22

The Manitoba Co-operator | November 26, 2015

cons e rvat i o n c h a m p i o n s

Grunthal-area dairy farm a model for water quality protection The Heese Dairy Farm along the Joubert Creek was recognized by the Manitoba Conservation District Association in 2014 for its work in riparian restoration

BY LORRAINE STEVENSON Co-operator staff/Grunthal, Man.

A

fter far ming for five generations and more than 80 years along the Joubert Creek, the Heese family knows a thing or two about the health and quality of the watercourse than transects their land.

The Gr unthal-area dair y farmers have farmed alongside the river since the mid-1920s when the patriarch, Dietrich Heese, moved his family from Dominion City to a small homestead here. In 1946, he and his 16-year-old son, William, expanded north of the creek, building a new dairy barn in 1954 and expanding their dairy herd.

Today they continue to milk 60 cows on a farm that is still 85-year-old William’s home, while his son Eric, and Eric’s son Nicholas, and their families now run Heese Dairy Farm together.

The family was honoured last year by the Seine-Rat River Conservation District (SRRCD) as the recipient of the SRRCD Conservation Award for outstanding environmental accomplishments for their efforts to improve the health of the portion of Joubert Creek that runs through their landbase.

Joubert Creek has long been an area of riparian and water quality concern as a result of farm practices along its shores.

They contributed to that at one time too, Eric Heese said.

“Back in the years (when) we had the cows roaming around there all summer,” he said.

“Back in the years we had the cows roaming around there all summer.”

Eric Heese

But now that riparian area is protected by a fence.

Two years ago, the Heeses worked with the SRRCD, which helped cover some of the costs to fence off two miles of the creek. They also added an alternative water source for the livestock after restricting their access to the river.

“On the other side of the creek we have two dugouts and we had to fence off the dugouts, so we applied for a grant for a solar pump,” explains Heese.

“Now the cattle just drink out of there and don’t walk into the dugouts either.”

In addition, they made significant upgrades to a livestock crossing across the river, and have planted willows along the riverbanks for bank stabilization.

They’re now seeing the payback from it all, including reduced erosion, run-off, effluent and compaction of the creek’s banks, Heese said.

The SRRCD notes on its website that land use notably affects the phosphate levels of the water courses. Joubert Creek has much higher phosphorus levels than the upper Rat River, which may be due to more land

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Two miles of the Joubert Creek running through their farmland is now fenced off, plus the Heeses have done other farm upgrades to reduce nutrient run-off and improve the health of the watercourse that feeds into the Rat River. The farm today is home to two generations of Heeses including Eric Heese (pictured) who farms with his son Nicholas. PHOTO: LORRAINE STEVENSON

along the Joubert Creek being used for intensive agriculture and the resulting phosphorusladen surface run-off.

SRRCD officials commend the Heeses for their dedication to the protection of the Joubert Creek, saying the family dairy farm is a community role model in water quality protection and environmental farm management.

Heese says it was simply the right thing to do. But he knows farmers still need some convincing to do likewise.

“I think farmers are reluctant to let people into their backyard,” he said. “But I think as more people see this, more people will do it.”

There is also funding to help farms make these upgrades, he said. But bottom line, water quality in Manitoba should be everyone’s concern.

“I know that I’m contributing and trying to keep the water clean,” he said. “I’m doing my part.”

The SRRCD will cover up to 75 per cent of the total project

costs, up to a maximum of $4,000 to fence off riparian areas, a maximum of $7,500 to establish a watering system o n c e f e n c i n g i s i n p l a c e.

Livestock crossings will also be funded at that percentage level up to a maximum of $1,000.

Funding for these CD programs flows through provincial Growing Assurance funding set aside for ecological goods and services. lorraine@fbcpublishing.com

Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame inductees

Longtime Agriculture Canada wheat breeder Dr. Ron DePauw was one of five individuals formally inducted into the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame at a ceremony at Agribition Nov. 21. Other inductees were former Saskatchewan premier Grant Devine; the late E. Ward Jones, an active 4-H contributor; B.C. wine-making pioneer Anthony von Mandl and the late Ovila Lebel, who founded Canada’s first provincial marketing board in Quebec. Portraits of inductees are on display in the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame Gallery located at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair in Toronto.

23

The Manitoba Co-operator | November 26, 2015

Management decisions made the difference in quality beef: speaker

Cow-calf producers can use TCSCF reports to inform their decisions around breeding and management

BY LORRAINE STEVENSON Co-operator staff/Carman

Y

ou only hit whatever you aim at, so you’d best aim high. However, it helps to know what the target actually is.

In the beef business, it is producing the highest-quality beef possible, an American cattle expert visiting Manitoba told the Manitoba Beef Background and Feedlot School held in Carman recently.

“Ultimately, our industry is built on this demand by the consumer and the consumer wants a high-quality product,” said Darrell Busby, manager of Tri-County Steer Carcass Futurity (TCSCF) Co-operative and retired extension beef specialist for southwestern Iowa.

It costs less to produce that quality than we tend to think, he said.

“It’s an accumulation of doing the right things,” he said. “I think oftentimes when we talk about producing high-quality beef people say, that costs money to produce.

“Our data shows it does not cost more. It is actually more economical to produce quality beef.”

Tri-County Steer Carcass Futurity (TCSCF), an Iowa-based service co-operative providing information to cattle producers, provides quality comparisons to help producers add more value to their production.

The TCSCF was founded by producers asking one key question, ‘what is the most profitable steer to feed?’

The program dates to the early 1980s, but became a service cooperative in 2002 owned by cowcalf consignors from southwest Iowa, said Busby who spoke to cattle producers about some of the key lessons learned in the program’s 30-plus years of operation.

Consignors — mostly from states south and east of Iowa and from Manitoba are early adopters of genetic evaluation tools and advice on best ways to improve calf health and performance, Busby said.

Moreover, they share the view that management practices should not have boundaries, and that everyone benefits when information is shared towards meeting that high-quality target.

“Our competition is not each other,” Busby said. “Our board has felt very strongly that we have to work together to become more efficient. That’s what the hogs and poultry have done. It’s our responsibility to share that information.”

Since 2002, a total of 97,446 steers and heifers have been consigned to the TCSCF Co-operative.

Consignors receive reports with information on their animals’ performance at the feedlot, including average daily gain and carcass data.

It shows how each animal individually gained and how they graded, said Busby, adding the producer can then use that information to tweak their breeding, management and marketing programs.

“You get to see all the data in the final report of all the cattle in the pen so if you want to compare how your cattle gained and graded compared to your neighbours, that’s your opportunity,” he said.

This is all about the decline of commodity beef and the move towards demand-driven product, while making it possible for producers to benefit from their efforts in health and management, Busby said.

Nearly three-quarters of the cattle marketed today are priced on their individual carcass merit in the food chain, he added.

“In the U.S. system 74 per cent of fed cattle marketed today are on some kind of reward system for higher-quality calves,” he said. “There are rewards for producing higherquality animals.

For the most part, producers like what they find out from participating in the TCSCF, he said.

About 35 per cent say they’re pleasantly surprised to find out just how good their calves are, while another 55 per cent say it’s enabled them to look for ways to improve, Busby said.

“It is actually more economical to produce quality beef.”

Darrell Busby

Naturally, not everyone’s happy though.

“Ten per cent are disappointed and think the TCSCF program is the worst idea in the world,” he said. “Telling a cow-calf producer his calves are not the best is worse than saying his daughter is real ugly.”

More information about the TCSCF Co-operative can be found online at: TCSCF.com IowaBeefCentre.org. lorraine@fbcpublishing.com

Darrell Busby, manager of the Tri-County Steer Carcass Futurity Co-operative in Lewis, Iowa, spoke to cattle producers attending the Manitoba Beef Background and Feedlot School about what makes the difference in grading a profitability. PHOTO: LORRAINE STEVENSON

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The Manitoba Co-operator | November 26, 2015

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26

The Manitoba Co-operator | November 26, 2015

NDP, Bloc name agriculture critics

Farmers sought for farm labour study The research will help address critical shortages Staff

T

h e Ca n a d i a n A g r i c u l t u ra l Hu m a n Resource Council is conducting focus groups with far mers to examine the National Occupational Standards (NOS) for apples, crops, honey, mushrooms, potatoes and turf.

These NOS will then be used for training programs based on what producers indicate are the best ways of doing business, a CAHRC release states. To date, 20 National Occupational Standards have been developed with input from 270 industry stakeholders for the pork, sheep, aquaculture, beef and poultr y commodities.

Producers can find dates,

“This research is important and meant to support employers in the industry.”

Portia MacDonald-Dewhirst CAHRC executive director

times and places for focus groups across Canada at h t t p : / / w w w. c a h rc - c c r h a . ca/node/2251. Participant expenses will be reimbursed.

The research is in support of two projects being conducted by CAHRC: the National Agricultural Occupational Framework and Labour Market Support (NAOF) and the Canadian Agriculture and Agri-Food Wo r k f o r c e A c t i o n P l a n (WAP).

“This research is important and meant to support employers in the industry,” s a i d Po r t i a M a c D o n a l d Dewhirst, CAHRC executive director.

NAOF is an in-depth study of the jobs and skills involved in today’s agricultural workforce with specific focus on 10 commodities. The information gathered through this research is being used to develop training and support tools

SAVE 23%!

for producers and work ers, as well as a curriculum mapping tool that will assist educators to enhance and develop new curriculum that reflects the moder n work done on farms today.

In addition, this research is helping to develop a jobmatching tool that links employers with qualified job seekers and student interns.

The WAP examines issues of industry labour management and shortages. A consultative process led by the national Labour Task Force, has identified two recommendations: one is to increase the supply of agricultural labour (skilled and unskilled workers) and the other to improve the knowledge and skills of workers already in the industry.

Two Quebec MPs will face Lawrence MacAulay next month STAFF

T

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Manitoba Co-operator

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sask. wheat says wide basis costing wheat growers billions Economist Richard Gray says elevator prices are down even though f.o.b.

Vancouver prices have remained steady to higher since

By Allan Dawson co-operator staff

T

h e Sa s k a t c h e w a n Wheat Development C o m m i s s i o n (SWDC) says export wheat prices are similar to or higher than last October, but farmers are receiving about $20 per tonne less.

“Rail transpor tation and handling capacity have not improved and this is being reflected in even lower returns for producers and a lower share of export values as the year progresses,” SWDC chair Bill Gehl said in a news release.

“We were forecasting this would cost farmers $2 billion (this crop year) but it’s likely to be closer to $3 billion now if this keeps up,” Gehl said during an interview.

Norma Windle was one of 15 participants in the workshop led by microbiologist Gary Graumann.

photo: lorraine stevenson

the meat of the matter in making sausage Workshop at Food Development Centre helps both professionals and amateurs learn the craft of sausage making

see EXPORT WHEAT on page 7 »

By Lorraine Stevenson co-operator staff/portage la prairie

O

ment 40069240

n regarding com al informatio on ti di ad cpublishing. y an For cription@fb bs su l: ai m s esubscription

t t o Vo n B i s m a r c k famously once said, “Laws are like sausages; it is better not to see them being made.”

But the Prussian statesman wasn’t in the sausage-making business.

Those who are, or simply experimenting at home with new methods, ingredients or recipes, need to know — and seeing is believing.

That’s what drew 15 participants from across Manitoba to a full-day workshop at the Food Development Centre here earlier this month.

They came to hear MAFRD meat microbiologist and food systems risk-mitigation specialist Gary Graumann talk about protein binders, smoking, piston stuffers, cooking temperatures and other things sausage makers need to know, such as the kinds of cracks and holes listeria likes to hide in and why.

That underlines why these are serious subjects for secondary meat processors who need an in-depth understanding of best practices for recipe formulation, production materials, processing equipment and techniques.

Sausage making is an ageold tradition with many prized

family and cultural recipes.

But there are also many critically important considerations for safe handling of processed meat.

They emphasize that point.

Graumann noted that the word botulism is derived from the Latin word botulus, meaning “sausage.” That’s not a coincidence.

“I hope I’ve educated people on the safety aspect of it, and the functionality of all the ingredients, from what you’re adding and why, and provided a rationale,” he said.

Hands-on training

Graumann didn’t just stuff heads with sausage theory.

After time in the classroom, workshop participants donned white lab coats, hair and beard nets, and slipped fastidiously clean hands into bright-blue rubber gloves and got right to the meat of the matter, making an uncooked coarse-ground sausage (bratwurst), and a fully cooked, ready-to-eat frankfurter (hotdog) in the Food Development Centre pilot plant.

Some were there to update themselves, or train their staff.

Greg Woods, an experienced meat processor from Cypress River, said he’s confident about their sausage-making recipes see SAUSAGE on page 6 »

PROOF #

he federal New Democrats have pro moted their deputy agriculture critic to the lead post in their new shadow cabinet, while the Bloc Quebecois has named a Montreal-area rookie MP to handle the file.

NDP Leader Tom Mulcair on Nov. 12 announced Ruth Ellen Brosseau, the MP for the central Quebec riding of Berthier– Maskinonge since 2011, as the party’s critic for agriculture and agri-food.

Brosseau will replace defeated Niagara-area NDP MP Malcolm Allen to face the Liberals’ new agriculture minister, Lawrence MacAulay, when the House of Commons reopens Dec. 3.

Before last month’s election, Brosseau as deputy ag critic devoted time to the development of a Canadian food strategy, a prominent NDP initiative. She also served as vicechair of the Commons standing committee on agriculture and agri-food for just over a year starting in February 2014.

Brosseau also took point on issues facing the agrifood industry such as farms’ and processors’ use of temporary foreign workers and compensation for dairy producers following the signing of the Canada/EU free trade agreement.

Brosseau was in the crop of rookie Quebec MPs the NDP brought forward in 2012 to develop their chops in critic and deputy critic roles. She’d gained brief national notoriety after the 2011 election, nicknamed the “MP for Vegas” after sticking to her pre-election vacation plans in the middle of the campaign.

The Bloc Quebecois on Nov. 9 tapped Simon Marcil, MP for the newly created riding of Mirabel, as its critic for agriculture and agri-food. He won his seat in last month’s election by a spread of 837 votes over Mylene Freeman, the incumbent NDP MP for ArgenteuilPapineau-Mirabel and the party’s critic for the status of women.

Marcil, who until last month worked for Hydro-Quebec and acted as an information officer for his shop’s union, was also president of the Bloc executive committee for the Mirabel riding and a member of the party’s national executive.

His previous political experience included an unsuccessful run for the provincial assembly in 2012, as the Option Nationale candidate in the Labelle riding, where he came in sixth against former Parti Quebecois ag critic Sylvain Page.

The Conservatives’ interim leader, Edmonton-area MP Ro n a A m bro se, h as n’t ye t announced a shadow cabinet. A party spokesperson in Ottawa wasn’t immediately available to comment Nov. 13.

27

The Manitoba Co-operator | November 26, 2015

FARMER'S

MARKETPLACE selling?

Call to place your classified ad in the next issue: 1-800-782-0794 FAX your classified ads to: 204-954-1422 · Or eMAiL your classified ads to: mbclassifieds@fbcpublishing.com

Classification

Index Tributes/Memoriams Announcements Airplanes Alarms & Security Systems AntiqUes – Antiques For Sale – Antique Equipment – Antique Vehicles – Antiques Wanted

Your guide to the Classification Categories and sub-listings within this section.

BUiLding & renovAtions – Building Supplies – Concrete Repair – Doors & Windows – Electrical & Plumbing – Insulation – Lumber – Roofing Buildings Business Machines Business Opportunities

Arenas AUCtion sALes – MB Auction Parkland – MB Auction Westman – MB Auction Interlake – MB Auction Red River – SK Auction – AB Auction Peace – AB Auction North – AB Auction Central – AB Auction South – BC Auction – Auction Various – U.S. Auctions

BUsiness serviCes – Crop Consulting – Financial & Legal – Insurance/Investments Butchers Supply Chemicals Clothing/Work wear Clothing/Western /Specialty wear Collectibles Compressors Computers

Auction Schools AUto & trAnsport – Auto Service & Repairs – Auto & Truck Parts – Autos – Trucks – Semi Trucks & Trailers – Sport Utilities – Vans – Vehicles Various – Vehicles Wanted BeeKeeping – Honey Bees – Cutter Bees – Bee Equipment

ContrACting – Custom Baling – Custom Feeding – Custom Harvesting – Custom Seeding – Custom Silage – Custom Spraying – Custom Trucking – Custom Tub Grinding – Custom Work Construction Equipment Crop Inputs Dairy Equipment Electrical Engines Entertainment FArM MAChinerY – Aeration – Conveyors – Equipment Monitors

Belting Biodiesel Equipment Books & Magazines

tiLLAge & seeding – Air Drills – Air Seeders – Harrows & Packers – Seeding Various – Tillage Equipment – Tillage Various trACtors – Agco – Allis/Deutz – Belarus – Case/IH – Caterpillar – Ford – John Deere – Kubota – Massey Ferguson – New Holland – Steiger – Universal – Versatile – White – Zetor – 2-Wheel Drive – 4-Wheel Drive – Various

– Fertilizer Equipment – Grain Augers – Grain Bins – Grain Carts – Grain Cleaners – Grain Dryers – Grain Elevators – Grain Handling – Grain Testers – Grain Vacuums – Hydraulics – Irrigation Equipment – Loaders & Dozers – Parts & Accessories – Potato & Row Crop Equipment – Repairs – Rockpickers – Salvage – Silage Equipment – Snowblowers/Plows – Specialty Equipment – Machinery Miscellaneous – Machinery Wanted

Fencing Firewood Fish Farm Forestry/Logging Fork Lifts/Pallet Trucks Fur Farming Generators GPS Health Care Heat & Air Conditioning Hides/Furs/Leathers Hobby & Handicrafts Household Items Iron & Steel

hAYing & hArvesting – Baling Equipment – Mower Conditioners – Swathers – Swather Accessories – Various CoMBines – Belarus – Case/IH – Cl – Caterpillar Lexion – Deutz – Ford/NH – Gleaner – John Deere – Massey Ferguson – Versatile – White – Combines - Various – Accessories

LAndsCAping – Greenhouses – Lawn & Garden LivestoCK Cattle – Cattle Auctions – Angus – Black Angus – Red Angus – Aryshire – Belgian Blue – Blonde d’Aquitaine – Brahman

sprAYing eqUipMent – Sprayers – Various

– Brangus – Braunvieh – BueLingo – Charolais – Dairy – Dexter – Excellerator – Galloway – Gelbvieh – Guernsey – Hereford – Highland – Holstein – Jersey – Limousin – Lowline – Luing – Maine-Anjou – Miniature – Murray Grey – Piedmontese – Pinzgauer – Red Poll – Salers – Santa Gertrudis – Shaver Beefblend – Shorthorn – Simmental – South Devon – Speckle Park – Tarentaise – Texas Longhorn – Wagyu – Welsh Black – Cattle Composite – Cattle Various – Cattle Wanted Horses – Horse Auctions – American Saddlebred – Appaloosa – Arabian – Belgian – Canadian – Clydesdale – Draft – Donkeys – Haflinger – Miniature – Morgan – Mules – Norwegian Ford – Paint – Palomino – Percheron – Peruvian – Pinto

– Ponies – Quarter Horse – Shetland – Sport Horses – Standardbred – Tennessee Walker – Thoroughbred – Warmblood – Welsh – Horses For Sale – Horses Wanted poultry – Poultry For Sale – Poultry Wanted Sheep – Sheep Auction – Arcott – Columbia – Dorper – Dorset – Katahdin – Lincoln – Suffolk – Texel Sheep – Sheep For Sale – Sheep Wanted Swine – Swine Auction – Swine For Sale – Swine Wanted Speciality – Alpacas – Bison (Buffalo) – Deer – Elk – Goats – Llama – Rabbits – Emu/Ostrich/Rhea – Yaks – Various Livestock Equipment Livestock Services & Vet Supplies Misc. Articles For Sale Misc. Articles Wanted Musical Notices On-Line Services orgAniC – Organic Certified – Organic Food – Organic Grains

Outfitters Personal Pest Control Pets & Supplies Photography Propane Pumps Radio, TV & Satellite reAL estAte – Commercial Buildings – Condos – Cottages & Lots – Houses & Lots – Land For Rent – Land For Sale – Mobile Homes – Motels & Hotels – Resorts – Vacation Property – farms & Ranches – Acreages/Hobby Farms – Manitoba – Saskatchewan – Alberta – British Columbia – Pastureland – Farms/Ranches Wanted reCreAtionAL vehiCLes – All Terrain Vehicles – Boats & Water – Campers & Trailers – Golf Carts – Motor Homes – Motorcycles – Snowmobiles Recycling Refrigeration Restaurant Supplies Sausage Equipment Sawmills Scales CertiFied seed – Cereal Seeds – Forage Seeds – Oilseeds – Pulse Crops – Specialty Crops CoMMon seed – Cereal Seeds – Forage Seeds – Grass Seeds – Oilseeds – Pulse Crops – Common Seed Various

seed/Feed/grAin – Feed Grain – Hay & Straw – Feed Wanted – Grain Wanted – Hay & Feed Wanted – Seed Wanted Sewing Machines Sharpening Services Silos Sporting Goods Stamps & Coins Swap Tanks Tarpaulins Tenders Tickets Tires Tools trAiLers – Grain Trailers – Livestock Trailers – Trailers Miscellaneous Travel Water Pumps Water Treatment Welding Well Drilling Well & Cistern Winches CAreers – Career Training – Child Care – Construction – Domestic Services – Farm/Ranch – Forestry/Log – Health Care – Help Wanted – Management – Mining – Oil Field – Professional – Resume Services – Sales/Marketing – Trades/Tech – Truck Drivers – Employment Wanted

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28

The Manitoba Co-operator | November 26, 2015

AUCTION DISTRICTS Parkland – North of Hwy 1; west of PR 242, following the west shore of Lake Manitoba and east shore of Lake Winnipegosis.

Westman – South of Hwy 1; west of PR 242.

Interlake – North of Hwy 1; east of PR 242, following the west shore of Lake Manitoba and east shore of Lake Winnipegosis.

Red River – South ofHwy 1; east of PR 242.

The Pas

Birch River

Minitonas Durban

Dauphin

Grandview

Ashern

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Fisher Branch

Ste. Rose du Lac

Parkland

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McCreary

Langruth

Minnedosa Neepawa

Gladstone

Rapid City

1

Carberry

Brandon

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Killarney

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Elm Creek

Sanford

Ste. Anne

Carman

Mariapolis

St. Pierre

242

Crystal City

Lac du Bonnet

Beausejour

Winnipeg

Austin Treherne

Westman

Waskada

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Red River

Also in stock low rib white 29 ga. ideal for archrib buildings BEAT THE PRICE INCREASES CALL NOW

FOUILLARD STEEL SUPPLIES LTD. ST. LAZARE, MB. 1-800-510-3303

AUCTION SALES

BUILDINGS

AUCTION SALES Manitoba Auctions – Interlake

AFAB INDUSTRIES IS YOUR SUPERIOR post frame building company. For estimates and information call 1-888-816-AFAB(2322).

Website: www.postframebuilding.com

McSherry Auction Service Ltd

AUCTION SALE Moving & Estate Plus Coins

Sun., Nov 29th @ 10:00 am Stonewall, MB - #12 Patterson Drive

Yard * Tools * Antiques * Household * Always Lots of Exciting Items! Featuring 200 Lots of Coins & Paper Money.

Stuart McSherry

(204) 467-1858 or (204) 886-7027

www.mcsherryauction.com

AG EQUIPMENT

DEALS ON THE GO!

CONCRETE FLATWORK: Specializing in place & finish of concrete floors. Can accommodate any floor design. References available. Alexander, MB. 204-752-2069.

AUCTION SALES Manitoba Auctions – Red River

AUCTION FOR ED HEIDEBRECHT SAT., NOVEMBER 28, 10:00 AM

ALTONA, MB ED’S CROSSING LTD. IS LOCATED 3 MILES SOUTH OF ALTONA ON HIGHWAY #30 THEN 1 WEST ON MILE 5

BILL KLASSEN AUCTIONEERS

AUTO & TRANSPORT AUTO & TRANSPORT Trucks DODGE 2006 DIESEL 2500, transmission needs repairs, 330,000-kms, new injectors 270,000-kms. gooseneck hitch, $8,500. Phone (204)248-2110.

BUILDINGS

FARM MACHINERY Parts & Accessories

Large Inventory of new and remanufactured parts

276 FORD BI-DIRECTIONAL 3-PTH & PTO on both ends, new engine, new tires, $28,000. Phone (204)625-5225.

FOR SALE: 1370 WHITE tractor (Fiat), 65-hwp, FWA, 3-pth, White FEL & home built grapple, 9-ft width blade. $9,500. Phone:(204)546-2299.

HEAT & AIR CONDITIONING

We also specialize in: agricultural complaints of any nature; Crop ins. appeals; Spray drift; Chemical failure; Residual herbicide; Custom operator issues; Equip. malfunctions.

Licensed Agrologist on Staff.

For assistance and compensation call

Back-Track InvesTIgaTIons

1-866-882-4779. www.backtrackcanada.com

2003 D-6-RXW SINGLE SHANK ripper. 28-in pads, A/C, Cab, diff steering, $85,000; 2000 D-6-R LGP. 16-ft 8-in dozer, cab, A/C, bush canopy, diff steering, winch, very clean, $85,000; 2007 D-6-N LGP crawler w/6-way dozer, A/C, cab, canopy, diff steering, ripper, extra clean, $96,000. 2004 D-6-N LGP crawler, 6-way dozer, A/C, cab, diff steering, Allied W6D winch, $86,000; 2008 CAT D-6-N LGP crawler tractor, 6-way dozer, A/C, cab, canopy, diff steering, cargo winch, $110,000. Phone:(204)871-0925.

FARM MACHINERY FARM MACHINERY Grain Vacuums CURT’S GRAIN VAC SERVICES, parts & repair for all makes & models. Craik SK, (306)734-2228.

FARM MACHINERY Parts & Accessories

FYFE PARTS

1-800-667-9871 •• Regina 1-800-667-9871 Regina 1-800-667-3095 •• Saskatoon 1-800-667-3095 Saskatoon 1-800-387-2768 • Winnipeg 1-800-667-3095 Manitoba 1-800-222-6594 •• Edmonton “For All Your Farm Parts”

www.fyfeparts.com The Real Used FaRm PaRTs sUPeRsToRe Over 2700 Units for Salvage • TRACTORS • COMBINES • SWATHERS • DISCERS Call Joe, leN oR daRWIN (306) 946-2222 monday-Friday - 8 a.m. - 5 p.m.

WATROUS SALVAGE WaTRoUs, sK. Fax: 306-946-2444

Hwy #205, Grunthal • (204) 434-6519

GRUNTHAL, MB.

AGENT FOR T.E.A.M. MARKETING

BRED COW SALES

every SATURDAY at 10 am November 28th December 5th &12th **Please call to consign** your bred cows.

Sat., November 28th at 10:00 am Bred Cow Sale - please call to consign your bred cows.

Sat., December 5th at 10:00 am

Closed Bred Heifer Sale - consigned to the sale are 160 black and black sim. heifers, and 120 red and red sim. heifers.

All heifers were palp tested and fully vaccinated prior to breeding. All heifers preg tested to a 60 day calving period.

Bulls exposed July 1 through Aug; all heifers exposed to black angus bulls.

This is a well grown and carefully selected group of heifers.

Sat., December 12th at 10:00 am Bred Cow Sale - please call to consign your bred cows.

For on farm appraisal of livestock or for marketing information please call

Harold Unrau (Manager) Cell 871 0250 Auction Mart (204) 434-6519 MB. Livestock Dealer #1111

WWW.GRUNTHALLIVESTOCK.COM

FARM CHEMICAL / SEED COMPLAINTS

MURPHY SALVAGE New & used parts for tractors, combines, swathers, square & round balers, tillage, press drills & other misc machinery. MURPHY SALVAGE (204)858-2727 or toll free 1-877-858-2728.

See our website: www.billklassen.com for complete listing and pictures or call 204-325-4433 cell 6230

TRACTORS Various

BUSINESS SERVICES Crop Consulting

GOODS USED TRACTOR PARTS: (204)564-2528 or 1-877-564-8734, Roblin, MB.

2002 Fourtrex 500cc Honda, 2000 Polaris 500cc Sportsman, 2013 Husqvarna front mount riding mower, Boat 1997 Sea DD Challenger 110 hp inboard, w/ trailer, Shop, Equip., Trucks and more!

STEVE’S TRACTOR REBUILDER specializing in JD tractors in need of repair or burnt, or will buy for parts. JD parts available. Phone: 204-466-2927 or cell: 204-871-5170, Austin.

BUSINESS SERVICES

6 QUICK ATTACH EXCAVATOR buckets, some trenching & clean-up buckets, plus 6 excavator rippers, some Cat’s & WBM’s. (204)871-0925, MacGregor MB. Winkler, MB • 1-204-325-4433

TRACTORS 2-Wheel Drive

NEW & USED TRACTOR PARTS NEW COMBINE PARTS

CONSTRUCTION EQUIPMENT SCAN TO DOWNLOAD THE APP »»

LIVESTOCK Cattle Auctions

FOR SALE: JD 2130- 3-pt, 3,000 original hours; JD 2550- 2wd, 3-pt, hi/low shift, 4,500-hrs, w/o loader; JD 2750- MFWD, CAH, 3-pt, 2-hyd’s, w/245 loader; JD 2950- 2wd, CAH, 3-pt, 2-hyd’s; JD 4050(2)MFWD, 3-pt, PS, w/o loaders; JD 4440- (2)Quad shifts, duals; JD 4455- MFWD, 15-spd, w/o 3-pt, w/o loader; JD 4640- Quad, 3-hyd’s; JD 4650- 2wd, 3-hyd’s, 15-spd, fact. duals; JD 4755- MFWD, 3-pt, 3-hyd’s, 6,000-hrs, 15-spd, fact. duals; JD 6420MFWD, 3-pt, PQ w/LHR, 2,900-hrs; JD 6420MFWD, 3-pt, 3-hyd’s, PQ w/LHR, w/640 loader; JD 7410- MFWD, 3-pt, 3-hyd’s, PQ w/LHR, w/740 loader; JD 7610- MFWD, 3-pt, PQ w/LHR, w/740 FEL; JD 7700- MFWD, 3-pt, PQ, fact. duals, w/740 FEL, grapple; JD 7810- MFWD, 3-pt, PQ w/LHR, fact. duals, w/740 loader; JD 7810- MFWD, 3-pt, 3-hyd’s, PQ w/LHR, 5,900-hrs. All tractors can be sold with new or used loaders. Now a Husqvarna dealer, with a full line of Husqvarna Equipment. Mitch’s Tractor Sales Ltd. St. Claude, MB. Mitchstractorsales.com Phone: (204)750-2459 (cell).

PRICE TO CLEAR!!

Multi-coloured millends.........49¢/ft.2

Swan River

Russell

TRACTORS John Deere

BUILDING & RENOVATIONS Roofing

The Icynene Insulation System® STEINBACH, MB. Ph. 326-2443 Toll-Free 1-800-881-7727 Fax (204) 326-5878 Web site: farmparts.ca E-mail: roy@farmparts.ca FARM MACHINERY Machinery Miscellaneous

• Sprayed foam insulation • Ideal for shops, barns or homes • Healthier, Quieter, More Energy Efficient®

---Highway #1 West, Whitewood, SK---

Featuring:

www.penta.ca

1-800-587-4711

USED FERTILIZER SPREADERS 4-8 ton large selection, Haul all drill fill w/brush auger, $2500. www.zettlerfarmequipment.com (204)857-8403.

HAYING & HARVESTING HAYING & HARVESTING Various NH 2004 FORAGE HARVESTER for sale, asking $15,000 OBO. Email delaquis09@hotmail.com Phone (204)248-2685

Rebuilt Concaves

Rebuild combine table augers Rebuild hydraulic cylinders Roller mills regrooved MFWD housings rebuilt Steel and aluminum welding Machine Shop Service Line boreing and welding

Penno’s Machining & Mfg. Ltd. Eden, MB 204-966-3221 Fax: 204-966-3248

Check out A & I online parts store www.pennosmachining.com

Combines COMBINES Accessories

*SALE* Huge discounts available, ask for details!

HEADER TRAILERS & ACCESSORIES. Arc-Fab Industries. 204-355-9595 charles@arcfab.ca www.arcfab.ca

(Prepare a site NOW for spring building)

TracTors TRACTORS Case/ IH FOR SALE: VA CASE 1949, pully, PTO, good rubber, good running condition. Phone (204)641-0204, Arborg MB.

** 40-50 RED, RWF COWS BRED RED

** 40 HEAD SIMM/ANGUS X - Includes 15 Heifers Bred Black Angus and 25 Cows Bred Simmental - Cows calving Feb. 20, Heifers March 1st, Full herd health. ** plus 40 Heifers Black, REF, Red Bred Red Angus/Polled Hereford Book you Bred Cows into these sales as they are filling.

For more info. or to book call 306-735-2822 or go to www.whitewoodlivestock.com for pictures & more information

Factory Direct Outlet SELLING FAST - BOOK NOW Don’t be disappointed!

DELUXE WOOD & WATER OUTDOOR FURNACES CSA APPROVED Now available North American wide at prices never seen before

$

4997

This is not a misprint!!

FC30HD Unit plus accessories

Mastercard, Visa & Interac available Introductory Doorcrasher Special

You receive base pump, rad hose, insulation, fittings, rust inhibitor PLUS our FC30HD (can heat 1 building) WOOD WATER FURNACE Some claim this is “North America’s Hottest Deal!”

Friesen Built Inc. 1-204-388-6150 • Toll Free 1-855-897-7278

IRON & STEEL FREE STANDING CORRAL PANELS, Feeders & Alley ways, 30ft or order to size. Oil Field Pipe: 1.3, 1.6, 1.9, 1 7/8, 2-in, 2 3/8, 2 7/8, 3 1/2. Sucker Rod: 3/4, 7/8, 1. Casing Pipes: 4-9inch. Sold by the piece or semi load lots. For special pricing call Art (204)685-2628 or cell (204)856-3440.

LIVESTOCK LIVESTOCK Cattle Auctions FARMERS & RANCHERS

Plan to attend the Bred Cow sale Sat., Dec. 12 2015 at 1:00p.m. Ashern Auction Mart There will be two separate lots sold: GROUP 1 HERD REDUCTION consists of: Black Angus cows & heifers 25 Black heifers bred Black Angus(b.w. 68-lbs) (25)2-yr olds coming w/second calf (25)3-yr olds; (32)4-yr olds; (8)5-yr olds 3 cow/calf pairs Bulls turned out on June 1. Home raised herd, on full health program, age verified.

For more info, Call Richard or Roseanne: (204)767-2204

BUILDINGS

** 220 HEIFERS approximately 85% Black, 15% Red, RBF Bred Black due to start calving March 10.

These Heifers will be sold 1/2 at each of the December 4th and 11th Bred Sales. ** 80 BLACK AND RED ANGUS OR LIMO 50% are 1st and 2nd calvers.

DISCS BUSHOG 25-FT, $7500; Bushog 30-ft, $7500; Krause Rock cushion 30-ft, $9500; JD 16-ft, $3500-$5000; Breaking discs Towner 18-ft; Kewanee 12, 14, 15-ft; DMI ripper, 5 shank, $8900; 7 shank, $10,900; McKee 7-ft snowblower $1200; Leon front blade 12-ft, $3500; 10-ft blade, $1500; Box scraper 10-ft, $2450; 3-PH Blade 9-ft $950; Hyd post auger, $2200; Grain screeners $200 up; Kwik Kleen 5 tube, $5000; 7 tube, $6500.

(204)857-8403, www.zettlerfarmequipment.com NEW GRAVITY WAGONS 400B, $7400; 600B, $12,500; 750B, $18,250. Large selection used wagons; 250-750 Bushel used grain carts, 475-1050 Bushel; PTO & Hydraulic drive Grainvacs: Brandt #4000, $8000; #4500, $8500; REM 2500 HD, $9500; Weigh wagon, $3500; Valmar #2420, $3000; #3255, $3500; #1620, #1655; Wishek discs: #842 14-ft, $25,000; #742 30-ft, $33,000; #842 30ft, $40,000; Land levellers 10-ft, $2450. Phone (204)857-8403.

Bred Cow & Heifer Sales

Friday, December 4 & 11, 2015 11 am

GROUP 2 consists of: 120 Red & Black Angus cows- avg. age 4-7years Cows are bred to Black & Simmental and Red Angus bulls 52 Red & Black heifers- bred Black Angus (b.w. 82-lbs) All cows & heifers on full health program.

Bull turned out June 5.

For more info, Call John:(204)364-2377 or Cell:(204)378-0174 OR Buddy:(204)768-0018, Kirk:(204)768-0019 Licence # 1128

Hwy #205, Grunthal • (204) 434-6519

GRUNTHAL, MB.

AGENT FOR T.E.A.M. MARKETING

REGULAR CATTLE SALES

every TUESDAY at 9 am December 1st, 8th & 15th

Saturday, November 28th at 10 am Bred Cow Sale

Monday, November 30th at Noon Sheep and Goat with Small Animals & Holstein Calves

For on farm appraisal of livestock or for marketing information please call

Harold Unrau (Manager) Cell 871 0250 Auction Mart (204) 434-6519 MB. Livestock Dealer #1111

WWW.GRUNTHALLIVESTOCK.COM

Gladstone Auction Mart

Bred Cow & Heifer Sale

Fri., Dec 4th at 11:00 A M consigned from Kenmar Farms 20 Purebred Shorthorn cows bred Shorthorn 10 Shorthorn Heifers bred Black Angus Bulls where exposed May 20th ------------------------------------------------Boggy Creek Farms complete dispersal of 93 cows 46 cows are Char/Sim x 36 cows are Red & Black 11 pairs are late summer calves All Bred Charolais Bulls where exposed June 10th ------------------------------------------------Complete dispersal of 35 mostly Black Angus x cows bred Hereford to start calving in Mar. ------------------------------------------------Phone Terra Fulton manager at (204)385-2537 to consign to this sale The cows should be in the mart by 12:00 noon on Thursday for preg checking. License #1108

1-800-782-0794 Stretch your ADVERTISING DOLLAR!

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The Manitoba Co-operator | November 26, 2015

LIVESTOCK Cattle Auctions

LIVESTOCK Cattle – Angus

KILLARNEY AUCTION MART LTD BRED COW SALES Saturday, November 28 at 1:00 PM Workman Annual Female Production Sale Thursday, December 3 at 11:00 AM Holmfield Colony, Killarney 25 Angus/Limo Cows January/February Calving

Berkeley Holstein, Boissevain 30 Angus Hfrs and 2nd Calvers April Calving

Larry Heinrichs, Clearwater 20 Blk Bred Hfrs March Calving

Thursday, December 10 at 11:00 AM Scott Brothers Livestock, Boissevain 130 Hfrs April Calving

LIVESTOCK Swine Wanted

Top Producing Black & Red Angus Breeders present the 27th Annual Keystone Klassic Black & Red Angus Sale Sat., Dec. 5, 2015 at 1:00PM Keystone Centre, Brandon, MB. Offering 65+ females, including an elite selection of foundation bred heifers & fancy heifer calves. Junior discounts avail. For a catalogue or more info contact T Bar C Cattle Co. Ltd. at (306)933-4200. View the catalogue online at www.BuyAgro.com (PL #116061)

WANTED: BUTCHER HOGS SOWS AND BOARS FOR EXPORT

P. QUINTAINE & SON LTD. 728-7549 Licence No. 1123

Turn your smartphone into a geniusphone.

LIVESTOCK EQUIPMENT 2 HORSE BOBSLEIGHS, W/POLE, double tree, 3-yrs old, 2.5-in steam-bent runners; 1 pony bobsleigh; 1 horse cutter complete w/shaft & tree. Call Leon (204)866-4141.

ALTERNATIVE POWER BY SUNDOG SOLAR, portable/remote solar water pumping for winter/summer. Call for pricing on solar systems, wind generators, aeration. Service & repair on all makes/models. Carl Driedger, (204)556-2346 or (204)851-0145, Virden.

Download the app at agreader.ca/mbc LIVESTOCK Cattle – Simmental

Don McIntyre, Crystal City 45 Angus Hfrs March Calving

Plan to attend the 37TH ANNUAL KEYSTONE KONNECTION SIMMENTAL SALE. Tues., December 8th, 2015 at the Keystone Centre Brandon, Manitoba. 50 lots of Simmental cattle. Yearling bred heifers with noted breeding dates. Heifer Calves that are quiet and will make 4-H or Junior Show heifers. Bull Calves that are some of the top genetics in Fleckvieh Simmental will be available on the 8th. These beef bulls will add Pounds to your calf crop for more dollars in your pocket. ADD GROWTH, MILK AND PERFORMANCE TO your Calf Crop by selecting an animal at the Keystone Konnection Sale. Heifer calf show at noon and sale to follow. View catalog online at www.marmacfarms.net or call (204)728-3058 or (204)729-5439 Keystone Sale Management.

Check out

killarneyauctionmart.com or call 204-523-8477 for more details DEALER LICENCE #1433

LIVESTOCK Cattle – Angus Mark your calendars for the SUNSET RIDGE RED ANGUS COMPLETE DISPERSAL, Sat., Dec. 19, 1:00PM at Heartland Livestock, Virden, MB. Selling 50 cow/calf pairs, 15 bred heifers & 2 herd bulls.

Wintering program & terms available on all bull calves. For a catalogue, or more info, Contact Nancy Howatt:(204)825-8292 or T Bar C Cattle Co. Ltd:(306)220-5006. View the catalogue online at www.BuyAgro.com (PL#116061).

SPRING CREEK SIMMENTALS GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY II FEMALE SALE will be held at the farm near Moosomin SK, Dec 22nd/15, 1:00PM. On offer will be 86 Red & Black Simmentals, Angus, & Simm/Angus cows & bred Heifers. Brian McCarthy (306)435-3590, Cell (306)435-7527.

LIVESTOCK Cattle Various 15 BLACK ANGUS HEIFERS and young cows. Ph: 204-425-3016

Advertise your unwanted equipment in the Classifieds.

Call our toll-free number and place your ad with our friendly staff, and don’t forget to ask about our prepayment bonus. Prepay for 3 weeks and get 2 weeks free!

1-800-782-0794.

FOR SALE: 30 BRED heifers, Red Angus X Simmental, bred Red Angus from reputable herd on Pfizer Gold program, Feb 10th calving start date.

View heifers on web www.srauction.ca Phone (204)447-2473 or cell (204)447-7608.

TRACTORS Various

TRACTORS Various

FOR SALE: IH 1150 mix mill. Good condition. Call Don:(204)422-5216.

LIVESTOCK Cattle Wanted

MUSICAL

TIRED OF THE HIGH COST OF MARKETING YOUR CALVES??

CD’S, GOSPEL & FIDDLING. 48 bass accordion, $699; Ukuleles $35-$200, Student guitars $79.95-$200; Electric guitars $129.95; Amps $69.95; Corg piano $525; Harmonicas $10-$225; 5 string banjo $229-$999; Violins $89.95-$899; Drum set $400; Hildebrand Music, Portage La Prairie mall. Phone:(204)857-3172.

300-700 LBS. Steers & Heifers Rob: 528-3254, 724-3400 Ben: 721-3400

ORGANIC ORGANIC Organic – Grains

800-1000 LBS. Steers & Heifers Don: 528-3477, 729-7240

GROW ORGANIC QUINOA! Total production contracts available.

Visit: www.quinoa.com or Phone:(306)933-9525.

Contact: D.J. (Don) MacDonald Livestock Ltd. License #1110

PERSONAL FIND A LASTING RELATIONSHIP.... Your Life is Meant to be Shared. We are Here to Help You. CANDLELIGHT MATCHMAKERS. Confidential, Rural, Photos and Profiles to selected matches, Affordable, Local. Serving MB, SK, NW-Ontario.

Call/Write for info: Box 212, Roland, MB, R0G 1T0, www.candlelightmatchmakers.ca (204)343-2475.

If you want to sell it fast, call 1-800-782-0794.

LIVESTOCK Swine For Sale BERKSHIRE BOARS FOR SALE. All sizes, delivery at cost. Phone Troy or Lee:(204)828-3317 or (204)750-2759.

SINGLE NON-SMOKER, YOUNG SENIOR, seeking a meaningful relationship with serious, loving & honest lady interested in country living in clean newer house to call home. Reply to Ad# 1026, c/o Manitoba Co-operator, Box 9800, Station Main, Winnipeg, MB R3C 3K7

REAL ESTATE REAL ESTATE Houses & Lots MARVIN HOMES INC- Ready to Move Home Builder since 1976. Book now for 2016 delivery.

(204)326-1493 or (204)355-8484 Marvin Vogt, MARVIN HOMES, Mitchell, MB. www.marvinhomes.ca Do you want to target Manitoba farmers? Place your ad in the Manitoba Co-operator. Manitoba’s best-read farm publication.

REAL ESTATE Land For Sale DOUG RATH & RAE FLOWER of Ste Rose du Lac, MB intend to sell private lands: NE 06-29-12W to Melvin & Maraeina Huber and Trent McNally who will be considered by Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Development for possible transfer of the Crown land forage lease associated with this ranch unit. This forage lease currently consists of 31-28-12W; the following: NE 31-28-12W; NW NW 06-29-12W; SE 06-29-12W; SW 06-29-12W; NE 07-29-12W; NW 07-29-12W; SE 07-29-12W; 26-28-13W; SW 07-29-12W; NW 25-28-13W; NE NW 26-28-13W; NE 27-28-13W; NW 27-28-13W; NE 28-28-13W; NE 33-28-13W; SE 33-28-13W; NE 34-28-13W; NW 34-28-13W; SE 34-28-13W; SW 34-28-13W; NE 35-28-13W; NW 35-28-13W; SE 35-28-13W; SW 35-28-13W; NW 36-28-13W; SW 36-28-13W; NE 01-29-13W; NW 01-29-13W; SE 01-29-13W; SW 01-29-13W; NE 02-29-13W; NW 02-29-13W; SE 02-29-13W; SW 02-29-13W; NE 03-29-13W; NW 03-29-13W; SE 03-29-13W; SW 03-29-13W; NE 04-29-13W; SE 04-29-13W; NE 09-29-13W; SE 09-29-13W; NE 10-29-13W; NW 10-29-13W; SE 10-29-13W; SW 10-29-13W; NE 11-29-13W; NW 11-29-13W; SE 11-29-13W; S W E 11-29-13W; NE 12-29-13W; NW 12-29-13W; S 12-29-13W; SW 12-29-13W. If you wish to comment on or object to the potential transfer of this forage lease to this purchaser please write to: Director, MAFRD, Agricultural Crown Lands, PO Box 1286, Minnedosa MB R0J 1E0; or Fax (204)867-6578.

FARMLAND FOR SALE: 600 cultivated acs of Farm land for sale in one block. Legal: Section 31-2-8 wpm. Location 4-mi south of Manitou. For further info Contact: Melvin Toews Golden Plains Realty Ltd (204)745-3677 PRIME NORTH PORTAGE PLAINS Farmland for Sale by Tender. Parcel one: SW 1/4 35-12-7W1 includes approx. 145 cultivated acres. Parcel two: South 200-acs of North 1/2 4-13-7W1 includes approx. 180-185 cultivated acres. Sale of this parcel will include three storage bins (does not include three hopper bins) Both of these packages have access to some irrigation. Parcel three: NE 1/4 15-13-7W1 Approximately 150 cultivated acres. Interested parties must rely on their own inspection of the property. Highest or any tender not necessarily accepted. All bids will be held in the strictest of confidence. Sealed bids for the following parcels of land located in the RM of Portage la Prairie must be received by December 15, 2015. Submit bids in a sealed envelope to Lorne and Doug Jordan, 80 Wilkinson Cres, Portage La Prairie, MB R1N 1A8

TRACTORS Various

SPECIAL EDITION Manitoba Ag Days Taking place Jan. 19, 20 & 21, 2016 at the Brandon Keystone Centre

The Manitoba Co-operator is presenting a great opportunity for you to feature your business, products or booth at Manitoba Ag Days in the Jan. 7th edition.

The Manitoba Ag Days Show is a winter indoor exposition of agricultural production expertise, technology, and equipment held in Brandon every January. The Show attracts exhibitors and visitors from across Canada and North Central United States and provides an annual opportunity for producers to comparison shop for everything they need for their agricultural operations.

DEADLINE: DEC. 21st · ISSUE DATE: JAN. 7th Contact your Manitoba Co-operator Sales representative to book your space today!

Terry McGarry Ph: 204-981-3730 Fax: 204-253-0879 Email: trmcgarr@mts.net

Warmer Winter, longer seasons

Butter is Back

David Phillips sees more climate change » PG 3

Consumption up six per cent last year » PG 15

November 5, 2015

SEE YOU AT THE SHOW!

The new government’s ag ‘to do’ list Ralph Goodale says improvements to grain transportation and trade are top priorities, but safety nets and research are also on the agenda BY allan DaWson Co-operator staff

G

rain transportation and trade are top of the new Liberal government’s agricultural agenda, says veteran Saskatchewan MP and former agriculture minister Ralph Goodale.

Other priorities include determining if farm aid programs are adequate, investing in infrastructure to protect soil and water and refocusing the government’s role in scientific research.

The Canadian Wheat Board is not coming back, but the Liberal government will dig into its apparent ‘giveaway’ to a foreign company and perhaps release

ServiNG maNitoba FarmerS SiNce 1925 | vol. 73, No. 45 | $1.75

maNitobacooperator.ca

Concerns expressed over loopholes in farmland ownership act The Manitoba Farm Industry Board asks for feedback on how to strengthen legislation preventing foreigners from buying farmland

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The Manitoba Co-operator | November 26, 2015

Crosswor ossword Cr osswor d

Amazing Grazing!

by Adrian Powell

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"Irresistabubble" chocolate bar 37 WWI battle sites Upper echelon 38 Big bike, to a big biker It's nothing 41 Babbling Addams family Behave like a jackass cousin Knight's charger, e.g.

42 Shoplifting, for example Formerly, quaintly 43 Old atmospheric pressure unit 44 Add a scent to DOWN 46 Pre-election event 1 Perspiration location 47 Worn at the edges 2 What some cones are made of 48 Recovery clinic, for short 3 Runs out of inventory 49 Wickerwork material 4 Synagogue guest, at times 50 Four, in combinations 5 Smug looks 54 Old Welshman, e.g.

6 Is unable to 56 They're never really "civil" 7 Man's neighbour 57 Comeback to " 'Tis so!"

8 Sounds heard at Cirque du 59 Stir fry sauce Soleil 60 Step on it, 9 Ready for anything Shakespearean-style 10 Notable part of a mule deer 11 Argentinian prairie SOLUTION TO PUZZLE 12 Assailed on all sides 13 Item of value 19 Fetes 21 Starchy Andean tubers 26 8 stone, in the U.K. 27 Brief voyage 28 Ring around the moon 29 Office worker who worked in the pool?

30 Give it a go 33 British 4WD brand 34 Knife's cutting part 35 Take advantage of an updraft H A L O

T R I P

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*Taxes included

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W A R S

❑ 1 Year: $150.00 (US Funds)

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E L A L R A N C O W T L A N D R O V E R

ATTACH YOUR MAILING LABEL HERE

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O D O R I Z E

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31

The Manitoba Co-operator | November 26, 2015

SEED/FEED/GRAIN Grain Wanted

BuyUsed Used Oil Oil ••Buy NOTRE •• Buy Buy Batteries Batteries DAME ••Collect CollectUsed Used Filters Filters • Collect Oil Containers • Collect Oil Containers USED • Antifreeze OIL & Southern,Southern Eastern, and Manitoba Western Western FILTER Manitoba DEPOT Tel: 204-248-2110

For Pricing ~ 204-325-9555

CERTIFIED SEED Specialty Crops

SEED / FEED / GRAIN

RECREATIONAL VEHICLES Motor Homes 2014 MERCEDES SPRINTER CLASS B Loaded Era Motor Home, 22,750-km, 4 ultra leather swivel arm chair seats. Rear leather bench converts to a sofa bed by the touch of a button. 7 seatbelts, GPS & XM Radio, TV, Microwave, Convection oven, Chrome Wheels, Macerator Sewage Pump; HD Trailer Hitch, Touch Button Generator, Power Awning. Beautiful Sliding Screen Door. Real Show Stopper. Fantastic Ride & Mileage. CSA RBIA Certified. Larger Triple Batteries. Full Spare Tire.

Stored in heated garage. Private Sale, no GST. Save Big vs New, almost 2 yr warranty remaining.

Price $99,900.

(204)325-1251 or cell (204)534-8011.

5 LOCATIONS to serve you!

“Naturally Better!”

Soybean Crushing Facility (204) 331-3696 Head Office - Winkler (888) 974-7246 Jordan Elevator (204) 343-2323 Gladstone Elevator (204) 385-2292 Somerset Elevator (204) 744-2126 Sperling Elevator (204) 626-3261

**SERVICE WITH INTEGRITY** www.delmarcommodities.com

Toll Free: 888-974-7246 SEED/ FEED/GRAIN Hay & Straw 1000+ VARIOUS ROUND BALES, feed tested.

1,400-1,550-lbs. Phone (204)248-2643, Notre Dame, MB. colletfarm@gmail.com 140- 5X6 NET WRAPPED hardcore grass bales on alfalfa & timothy base, no rain, $45.00 per bale. Interlake, (204)661-2213.

3RD CUT HAY FOR sale, 37 4x5 bales, $.07 cents/lb, also small square 2nd cut, $4.25/bale. No Sunday calls. (204)828-3648.

Alfalfa & Straw in 3x4 Square Bales Dairy & Beef Quality, Alfalfa has Been Tested Stored Inside, Delivery Available. (204)746-4505

AC Metcalfe &BARLEY CDC feed Copeland We buy feed barley, wheat, MALT MALT BARLEY oats, soybeans, corn & canola We buy feed*2-Row* barley, feed wheat, *6-Row* oats, soybeans, cornCopeland & canola AC Metcalfe & CDC & Tradition COMECelebration SEE US AT AG DAYS IN We buy feed barley, feed wheat, THE CONVENTION HALL SEE barley, US AT AG DAYS IN WeCOME buy feed feed wheat, oats, soybeans, corn & canola CONVENTION HALL BOOTH 1309& oats,THE soybeans, corn canola BOOTH 1309 COME SEE US AT AG DAYS IN COME SEE US AT AG HALL DAYS IN THE CONVENTION THE CONVENTION BOOTH 1309 HALL

FOR SALE: 1ST CUT large, dry round bales, approx 1300-lbs, also 2nd cut large round alfalfa bales, no rain, 20 plus protein. (204)749-2194, cell (204)526-0733.

FOR SALE: 34 SOLID core round bales of 2nd cut alfalfa, price five & a half cents per pound.

(204)759-2753, Shoal Lake, MB. FOR SALE: 5X6 HARDCORE good quality dry, clean grain oats bales, $45.00 ea. Also clean oats for feed or seed. Phone (204)641-0204, Russell, MB. HAY BALES FOR SALE 550 first cut hard core round hay bales for sale.

Mixture of timothy, grasses, & alfalfa. 5 x 5.5-ft, avg 1200-lbs. Near Sundown, MB. $45. (204)223-9253 HAY & ALFALFA WANTED. Round square bales. Call or text:(204)730-3139.

or

large

HAY FOR SALE: Timothy & Brome. 1st & 2nd cut.

60x65-in. round bales, 1,400-lbs, no rain. Phone (204)424-9125.

FARMERS, RANCHERS, SEED PROCESSORS BUYING ALL FEED GRAINS Heated/Spring Threshed Lightweight/Green/Tough, Mixed Grain - Barley, Oats, Rye, Flax, Wheat, Durum, Lentils, Peas, Canola, Chickpeas, Triticale, Sunflowers, Screenings, Organics and By-Products √ ON-FARM PICKUP √ PROMPT PAYMENT √ LICENSED AND BONDED SASKATOON, LLOYDMINSTER, LETHBRIDGE, VANCOUVER, MINNEDOSA

1-204-724-6741

Vanderveen Commodity Services Ltd. Licensed and Bonded Grain Brokers

HORSE OR DAIRY HAY. 3x3 squares, 1st or 2nd cut Alfalfa Timothy Brome mix. No weeds, no bottom bales, stored inside. Yard located on R-TAC Hwy. Pick up & delivery offered. Phone: (204)771-7496 or (204)738-2183. Petersfield, MB.

37 4th Ave. NE Carman, MB R0G 0J0 Ph. (204) 745-6444 Email: vscltd@mts.net

LARGE ROUND HAY BALES, all 1,270-1,350-lbs, $45/bale. Alfalfa grass round bales, 1,500-lbs each, $70/bale. Marquette, MB. Phone:(204)375-6551.

A Season to Grow… Only Days to Pay!

SMALL FLAX BALES FOR insulation/fuel etc.

Mon-Sat. Bill Matheson, Stonewall MB, (204)467-5608.

Why wait for your ag news?

Sign up for daily enews at manitobacooperator.ca

Andy Vanderveen · Brett Vanderveen Jesse Vanderveen

BUYING:

HEATED CANOLA & FLAX • Competitive Prices • Prompt Movement • Spring Thrashed

“ON FARM PICK UP”

1-877-250-5252

2013 Malt Contracts Available 2015 AOG Malt Contracts Available Box 238 Letellier, MB. R0G 1C0 BoxPhone 238 Letellier, MB. R0G 1C0 204-737-2000 Phone 204-737-2000 2014Toll-Free AOG Malt Contracts Available 1-800-258-7434 Toll-Free 1-800-258-7434 BoxMalt 238 MB. R0G 1C0 Agent: M &Letellier, J Weber-Arcola, SK. 2013 Contracts Available Agent: M & J Weber-Arcola, SK. Phone 204-737-2000 Phone 306-455-2509 Box 238 Letellier, MB. R0G 1C0 Phone 306-455-2509 Toll-Free 1-800-258-7434 Phone 204-737-2000 Agent: M & 1-800-258-7434 J Weber-Arcola, SK. Toll-Free Agent: Phone MTRAILERS & J 306-455-2509 Weber-Arcola, SK. Phone 306-455-2509 TRAILERS Trailers Miscellaneous

MALT BARLEY

RECREATIONAL VEHICLES

SEED/ FEED/GRAIN Hay & Straw BIG ROUND ALFALFA GRASS bales, 1st & 2nd cut; also barley straw bales and rolled barley & oats by the tote bag or small 50-lb bags. Phone (204)886-2083.

Specializing in: • Corn, wheat, sunflower, canola,

soymeal, soybeans, soy oil, barley, rye, flax, oats (feed & milling) • Agents of the CWB • Licensed & bonded

MALT BARLEY

BOOTH 1309

Call our toll-free number to take advantage of our Prepayment Bonus. Prepay for 3 weeks and we’ll run your ad 2 more weeks for free. That’s 5 weeks for the price of 3. Call 1-800-782-0794 today!

SEED/ FEED/GRAIN Feed Grain LARGE SQUARE BARLEY, PEA & alfalfa straw bales, approx. 600-lbs. $25-$30/bale. Phone: (204)728-4784 or (204)721-1542. Brandon, MB.

WE BUY OATS Call us today for pricing Box 424, Emerson, MB R0A 0L0 204-373-2328 *6-Row* MALT BARLEY Celebration & Tradition *2-Row*

*6-Row* Celebration & Tradition We buy feed barley, feed wheat, oats, soybeans, corn & canola

NOW IS THE TIME to list & give your farm the right exposure. Buyers wanting property in Manitoba look to the website www.manitobafarms.ca. Get your farm listed now with Delta Real Estate for the early spring buying spree. Local & foreign buyers are looking for large & small Grain & cattle operations, small holdings & land throughout MB. Call Harold:(204)253-7253. Delta Real Estate.

Licensed & Bonded Winkler, MB.

OAT OR SOYBEAN LAND wanted! Grow quinoa in 2016! Total production contracts available. Competitive returns and guaranteed delivery. Ph: 306-933-9525 or www.quinoa.com

GRANT TWEED: Specializing in farm properties. If you’re selling, buying or renting, I can help. Call (204) 761-6884. E: grant.tweed@century21.ca

EXCELLENT LIVESTOCK FARM 1,732 deeded acres w/4,425-ac of Crown land. All the land is fenced & the farm has very good buildings & metal corral system. The farm can carry up to 400-450 cow/calf pairs. There is a small bungalow home; Excellent 254-ac property located in the RM of Alexander at the junction of Maskwa & the Winnipeg River. 1,270 deeded acres cattle farm by Lac du Bonnet, also 640-ac crown land. Turn key operation; Turn key 4,500-ac cattle ranch by Pine River, MB. Price of farm includes cattle, cattle equipment & machinery. In one of the more scenic areas of Manitoba. 1000 head feedlot by Hartney MB. Jim McLachlan (204)724-7753. Homelife Home Professional Realty Inc. www.homelifepro.com

Confection and Oil Sunflowers, Brown & Yellow Flax and Red & White Millet Edible Beans

CERTIFIED SEED

REAL ESTATE Farms & Ranches – Acreages/Hobby

REAL ESTATE Farms & Ranches – Manitoba

NOW BUYING

SEED/FEED/GRAIN Grain Wanted

COME SEE US AT AG DAYS IN THE CONVENTION HALL BOOTH 1309

FARM LAND NEAR ST ADOLPHE FOR SALE BY NOTRE DAME USED TENDER Sealed tenders in writing for the OIL purchase of the property described below will be received by & FILTER DEPOT SMITH NEUFLED JODOIN LLP as follows: PROPERTY

by ALTO HOLDING LTD. LE• BuyFOR Used SALE: Oil • Buy Batteries GAL DESCRIPTION1/4 25-8-3 EPM (Tax • Collect Used FiltersSE • Collect Oil Containers Rolls #s 17300, 17400, 17406 & 17500) This Propand& Western erty is Southern 153.09 +/- acs is located Manitoba on the north side of PTH #210 approx 4-mi west of PTH #59 (immeTel: 204-248-2110 diately west of the railway crossing). CONDITIONS OF TENDER: 1. Interested parties must rely on their own inspection & knowledge of the property.

Any specific questions pertaining to the property should be directed to Kenneth Heinrichs at (204)326-3022. 2. Tenders must be delivered to SMITH NEUFELD JODOIN LLP in Steinbach by 2:00pm Dec. 4th, 2015. Please mark on front of envelope “Confidential Tender- Alto Holdings- Jodoin”.

3. Tenders must be accompanied by a $10,000 deposit cheque payable to SMITH NEUFELD JODOIN LLP. Deposit cheques accompanying unacceptable bids will be returned. 4. The highest or any tender will not necessarily be accepted. TERMS & CONDITIONS OF SALE: 1. The bidder(s) whose tender is accepted will be required to complete an Agreement covering the terms & conditions of the sale by Dec. 11th, 2015. 2. Possession date will be Jan. 1st, 2016. 3. In addition to the deposit, the balance of the accepted tender must be paid on or before Jan. 1st, 2016. If the balance of the purchase price is not paid by the possession date or under acceptable conditions, the deposit paid shall be forfeited as liquidated damages & not as a penalty.

SMITH NEUFELD JODOIN LLP Attention: Marcel D. Jodoin 85 PTH 12 N Steinbach, MB R5G 1A7 (204)346-5113

RECYCLING

2013 Malt Contracts Available Box 238 Letellier, MB. R0G 1C0 Phone 204-737-2000 Toll-Free 1-800-258-7434 Agent: M & J Weber-Arcola, SK. Phone 306-455-2509

REAL ESTATE Land For Sale

STOCK TRAILER 16-FT BUMPER pull, $3200; 20ft GN, $3500; GN flat deck, 25-ft with ramps, $5500; 36-ft Dually with ramps, $6000; 28-ft flat deck, $7500; 40-ft Dually, $8500; 48-ft double drop, suitable for farm use, $6000; Dollys, $2000.

(204)857-8403.

CAREERS CAREERS Farm / Ranch WILD NORTH VENTURES INC. is looking for fulltime Hog Barn Workers. Job duties include daily chores, assisting sows at farrowing, A.I Breeding, some minor record keeping, etc. The livestock facilities are located 9-mi SW of Fisher Branch, MB. Weekend work required. No Formal education required. Experience an asset but not required. Starting wage $11-14 per hour plus benefits. Please forward all resumes to Fisherweanlings@gmail.com or mail to Box 1320 Arborg, MB R0C 0A0.

CAREERS Help Wanted HELP WANTED: Feeding & care of dairy cattle.

The position requires a detail-oriented, reliable person who is able to work efficiently w/farm machinery for feeding, bedding & manure removal. If interested, please send your resume to borstlap@xplornet.com or call (204)745-7864, Haywood, MB. SEASONAL FARM WORKERS SOUGHT. Position will be seasonal full time, 40+ hrs per wk. Wage $11/hr. Period of employment anticipated to be from Apr/2016 until Aug/2016. Job description includes cutting and packing of asparagus, as well as weeding of organic fields. Must be willing to work long hrs and do repetitive tasks as well as bending and some heavy lifting. Applicants must be able to work well with others. Education requirements not applicable; experience an asset. Location of work is MacGregor and area, MB. Please apply by email to admin@rivervalleyfarms.ca, or in writing to River Valley Specialty Farms Inc., Box 33, Bagot, MB R0H 0E0.

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32

The Manitoba Co-operator | November 26, 2015

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33

The Manitoba Co-operator | November 26, 2015

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Ripe kiwifruit comes at a premium One bad kiwifruit can spoil the consumer when it comes to marketing New Zealand’s namesake fruit

BY SHANNON VANRAES Co-operator staff

S

omehow, the name Chinese gooseberry didn’t quite fit the bill for a fruit grown in New Zealand.

Was it a real gooseberry? Was it from China? Was it part of a communist plot to raise funds? Was it subject to berry tariffs or possibly a melon tax?

These were the questions that plagued the furry brown fruit until June of 1959, when producer Jack Turner suggested rechristening what was then called Hayward’s Chinese gooseberry as the modern kiwifruit. There was only one problem.

“It didn’t become part of our intellectual property,” said Mark Gardiner of Whitehall Fruit Packers, New Zealand’s largest producer of organic kiwifruit.

“It’s a pity we didn’t make use of that… now just everyone has kiwifruit, Italy and Chile and everywhere, even though that particular cultivar came from New Zealand.”

In fact, New Zealand is no longer even the world’s largest kiwifruit producer — Italy is.

But that doesn’t mean New Zealand growers, who sell through a single-desk system under the brand name Zespri, are letting go of the country’s namesake fruit. Zespri has partnerships with growers in Italy, France, Japan, South Korea and Australia. It has also trademarked and protected new golden varieties of the kiwifruit to ensure it can capitalize on future growth in the industry by protecting intellectual property.

Currently, Zespri’s biggest competition comes from Chile where it does not have any partnerships.

“Their cost of production is somewhere close to 50 per cent of ours,” said Zespri’s chief operating officer, Simon Limmer. But he added the Chilean threat doesn’t just come on the basis of price and market share.

Limmer said the biggest danger with kiwifruit from Chile is that it could turn people off from the fruit altogether as a result of different harvesting and shipping practices that see fruit hit grocery store shelves before it’s actually ripe and ready to eat.

“If you have that bad eating experience of a sour green, hard kiwifruit… you don’t come back in a hurry,” he said, adding that Zespri kiwifruit are sold at premium that works to guarantee only ripe, sweet fruit make it to market. Innovative packaging that cradles the fruit is also used to ensure it survives shipping — some packaging also includes a tiny spoon and knife combination, in addition to instructions on how to best eat the fruit’s bright flesh.

About seven per cent of Zespri’s revenue goes back into marketing, Limmer said.

“The real focus is on taste and on nutrition,” he said, adding they are also working on inroads to Chinese markets.

Not surprisingly, the Chinese gooseberry is widely grown in China, but the country doesn’t export and there is a growing opportunity there for premium products.

But in the short term, the biggest issue facing New Zealand’s kiwifruit industry is PSA, or Pseudomonas syringae pv. actinidiae. The bacterial disease wiped out 100 per cent of the fruit’s golden variety in Italy by 2011, only three years after being discovered there. It then destroyed 90 per cent of the golden orchards in New Zealand.

Kiwifruit vines are covered by a protective canopy in case of hail. Costing as much as C$90,000 per hectare, grower Mark Gardiner said they pay for themselves in about 10 minutes during a storm. Photos: Shannon VanRaes

“It’s still a challenge, right now we’ve got people out there cutting out vines, and cutting out bits and pieces that have PSA.”

Mark Gardiner

The industry is rebuilding with a new, resistant golden kiwifruit variety. But Gardiner said living with the disease has become a reality.

“It’s still a challenge, right now we’ve got people out there cutting out vines, and cutting out bits and pieces that have PSA,” he said, adding the new variety combined with fresh approaches to biosecurity and disease removal have been key to recovering.

“In New Zealand, people think about biosecurity all the time — but really only when coming and going from the country,” said Shane Max, Zespri’s orchard productivity manager. “With PSA people had to think about it going from one orchard to another, they had to suit up to visit a neighbour… and that was all new.”

While orchards are recovering, the costs of dealing with PSA are still cutting into grower income. Gardiner said as a larger producer, he has the scale to keep making a living, but that some smaller producers left the industry.

Despite the setback, New Zealand’s kiwifruit industry has still doubled production over the last 15 years. The last season saw 2,500 growers produce 450,000 tonnes of kiwifruit on about 3,000 orchards, mostly in the Bay of Plenty region, and Zespri now sells in more than 50 countries.

Kiwifruit grower Mark Gardiner at his orchard near Hamilton, New Zealand.

“I planted my first kiwifruit when I was still a single man, back in 1975,” said Gardiner. “Young and ambitious, and foolish.”

Today, Gardiner and his wife Robyn have packing facilities in addition to nearly 200 hectares of kiwifruit orchards in the Waikato region. Innovations such as hail canopies, using sheep for weed control and girdling vines for sweeter fruit have all played a role in the operation’s success, despite trials like disease and the sale of one farm during a period of high interest rates. “ We’v e j u s t t a k e n o p p o r t u n i ties as they’ve arisen,” said Gardiner.

“There will be more challenges, but I think there will also be a lot more opportunities.” shannon.vanraes@fbcpublishing.com

Kiwifruit vines are girdled pre-harvest to make fruit taste sweeter.

34

The Manitoba Co-operator | November 26, 2015

Quotas’ end seen as boost for EU beet sugar exports The gap between EU and Brazil sugar production costs has narrowed

BY DAVID BROUGH Peterborough, England/Reuters

E

While Manitoba’s sugar beet sector has long been shut down, increased yields and efficiency and the end of production quotas are expected to increase European beet sugar’s export profile. photo: thinkstock

xports of EU beet sugar, once output quotas are dismantled in 2017, will be feasible due to improved efficiencies in EU production in recent years, industry leaders said Nov. 13.

EU sugar production quotas will be lifted after Sept. 30, 2017, forcing sugar producers in the European Union to compete freely on the world market. The EU is now a net sugar importer.

With the protection of production quotas, EU beet sugar producers have boosted efficiency via mechanization, improving yields at a faster rate than cane production in top grower Brazil, Martin Todd, a senior industry consultant, told a one-day seminar organized by NFU Sugar.

In c re a s i n g y i e l d s h a ve b o o s t e d sugar beets’ position in crop rotations, he said, and the end of quotas “will be a good opportunity for the efficient producers in Europe to expand production, and supply

the internal market and the world market.”

Valerie Vercammen, general secretary of Belgian beet growers’ group CBB, said the gap between Brazilian and EU costs of sugar production had narrowed. “European manufacturing is becoming more efficient.”

Richard Pike, managing director of British Sugar, a unit of Associated Br i t i s h Fo o d s, t h e U . K .’s l e a d i n g sugar supplier, said the lifting of EU production quotas would create opportunities to boost sugar output and sales.

He said he saw the immediate priority for British Sugar as boosting sales in the domestic market, where t h e Pe t e r b o r o u g h - b a s e d p r o c e s sor has maximum comparative advantage.

Export potential for EU beet sugar would depend on world sugar prices after 2017, which were hard to forecast now.

“Now we are in an environment of low world sugar prices. That environment will change at some point,” said Todd, a managing director at LMC International.

Iraq sacks grain board officials The government will hire ‘competent professionals’

Clearfield has something new to bring to the conversation.

Baghdad/Reuters

I

raq’s acting trade minister replaced nine officials at the country’s powerful grain board in a bid to push through anti-corruption reforms ordered by Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, a statement said Nov. 16.

The ministry did not name the department and silo managers or accuse them of graft, but said the changes were made “to appoint competent professionals… and exclude elements that were not able to succeed in their past responsibilities.”

T h e g r a i n b o a rd i s responsible for procuring grain internationally and from Iraqi farmers, making it one of the world’s biggest importers of wheat and rice. Any disarray there would raise concerns over the country’s ability to secure strategic commodities.

The move comes two weeks after the minister sacked the head of the grain board and several other officials over graft allegations. A month earlier, authorities issued an arrest warrant for thentrade minister Milas Mohamed Abdul Kareem following a corruption investigation.

Several Trade Ministry officials have faced corruption allegations in the past, and four ministry security guards are being prosecuted for allegedly killing a ministry media adviser in September with a bomb attached to his car.

It’s no wonder the talk is heating up over the Clearfield® Production System for canola. Not only is it the only canola system that delivers control of flushing weeds for fewer in-crop applications, it also lets you benefit from specialty contract premiums. And they’re exclusively for Clearfield canola growers.

So get in on the conversation. Not to mention the opportunities. To find out more visit agsolutions.ca/clearfieldcanola or contact AgSolutions® Customer Care at 1-877-371-BASF (2273).

Always read and follow label directions.

AgSolutions is a registered trade-mark of BASF Corporation; ARES is a trade-mark, and Clearfield, and the unique Clearfield symbol are registered trade-marks of BASF Agrochemical Products B.V.; all used with permission by BASF Canada Inc. © 2015 BASF Canada Inc.

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The Manitoba Co-operator | November 26, 2015

Farmer sues Pakistan for action on climate The farm family wants to see the government take ‘adequate measures’ tices that waste less water and new crop varieties that require less water, and urging farmers to use biogas and manure digesters to generate green energy and reduce methane emissions.

Leghari said he isn’t demanding compensation. What he wants from the government, he said, is action on the broader problem.

“Direct relief would be insufficient in scope to compensate me or other farmers against future grievances,” he said.

BY ANAM GILL Lahore, Pakistan/ Thomson Reuters Foundation

A

sghar Leghari had had enough. The farmer was tired of watching his family fight against the unpredictable weather that threatened their crops in Rahim Yar Khan District, in Pakistan’s South Punjab region.

He was also disheartened by the fates of many small-scale farmers around him, whose struggles with weather shifts have ended in poverty. And he was angry at Pakistan’s seeming inability to protect its people against the devastating effects of climate change.

So Leghari decided there was only one thing to do: he took the government to court.

In August, Leghari, 25, filed a petition with the Lahore High Court claiming that the government of Pakistan was violating his fundamental rights by neglecting to tackle the impacts of climate change.

Quoting the objectives of the country’s 2012 National Climate Change Policy, he accused leaders of failing “to ensure water, food and energy security in the face of the challenges posed by climate change.”

In response, Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah ordered the formation of a Climate Change Commission to push forward the policies the government promised.

That commission, made up of officials from key ministries — including the Ministry of Climate Change and the Ministry of Water and Power — as well as heads of other government departments and international organizations, has now begun meeting.

Climate change “appears to be the most serious threat facing Pakistan,” the judge said.

‘Ray of hope’

A man carries sugar cane to sell at a fruit and vegetable market in Lahore in January 2010. A sugar cane-growing farm family recently sued Pakistan’s government urging government action on climate change issues. Photo: reuters/mohsin raza

dropped to under 1,000 cubic metres and is still shrinking.

Leghari’s petition argued that the government is obligated to implement the policies it laid out in 2012, including practical steps

needed to adapt to the effects of climate change and to limit the country’s own emissions that contribute to the problem.

Those include steps such as promoting crop irrigation prac-

In response to Leghari’s petition, Sajjad Ahmad, joint secretary of the Ministry of Climate Change, told Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper that the government has put policies in place but many have not been implemented.

Leghari’s advocate in court, Mansoor Usman Awan, told Thomson Reuters Foundation that government departments that might be required to act on climate change — includ-

ing Agriculture and Forestry, Irrigation, Water and Power and the Federal Flood Commission — had failed to deliver effective adaptation and mitigation measures.

The new commission hopes to begin changing that.

Hameed Naqi, director general of WWP-Pakistan, one member of the commission, said that even if the group manages to implement only the priority actions set out in the 2012 National Climate Policy — most of which are aimed at protecting the nation’s fast-dwindling forests — that would make huge strides toward addressing the country’s climate and environmental problems.

“The judge is pushing the government departments to take action,” he told Thomson Reuters Foundation. “The commission is a ray of hope for us.”

The court has “jump-started the process,” Leghari said. Now, “hopefully this will result in positive change for everyone.”

‘Public-interest’ lawsuit Leghari, who is studying law in Lahore, said his family relies on the income it gets from its more than 500-acre sugar cane farm in Rahimyar Khan.

But water scarcity and temperature changes in the Punjab region are stressing crops and making it impossible for some farmers to continue to make a living.

Leghari said he felt it was time to hold the nation’s leaders accountable.

“My petition aimed to compel the concerned departments and ministries to take action and consider climate change an important issue before it is too late,” he said.

He believes government action on the problem has been negligible, even though the nation has had a climate change policy and framework in place for over three years.

“The circumstances that merited the filing of this petition do not affect only me, but are endemic,” Leghari said. The case “does not deal with an individual grievance, but seeks to address a larger public-interest matter.”

Water shortages The law student said his family farm has struggled in particular with access to water as supplies dry up and rainfall becomes more unpredictable.

According to the Ministry of Climate Change, in 1950, water availability in Pakistan stood at 5,300 cubic metres per person per year. By 2011, that figure had

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36

The Manitoba Co-operator | November 26, 2015

COUNTRY CROSSROADS CON N EC T I NG RU R A L FA M I L I E S

Manitoba’s Farmers Edge has sights set on global market

The data and precision agriculture company says accurate data is key to getting the results farmers demand

BY ALLAN DAWSON Co-operator staff

B

ig data may seem like a lofty topic for the average farmer, but many are already using it to improve productivity without even realizing it, the co-founder of one of the fastest-growing precision agriculture services on the continent says.

“They’re doing it in the coffee shops,” said Wade Barnes, CEO and co-founder of Farmers Edge, a company he co-founded with Curtis MacKinnon in a Pilot Mound, Man., basement 10 years ago.

But whereas the coffee shop data exchanges also come with a certain degree of bragging rights, Farmers Edge is aiming to make them bankable by capturing the farmer’s own field-centric data, analyzing it, and then helping the farmer build a recipe that cuts input costs, increase yields and boosts the bottom line.

Farmers Edge is continuing to expand in Canada and four other major agricultural countries — the United States, Australia, Brazil and Russia. It manages around four million acres now, but is shooting for 35 million by 2021.

“We’re just getting started,” Patrick Crampton, Farmers Edge’s, chief products officer, said in an interview with Barnes on the sidelines of the Agri-Innovation conference in Winnipeg Nov. 17.

“At the end of it, agriculture is just math, but you’ve got to have the right data feeding into the model or you’re not going to get the right answers.

“By using data science we can provide a farmer with a recommendation that has probabilities around it. You can’t guarantee the weather. You can take the history of the farm, the view of where the weather is, forecasts and apply these models. You can give them a scientific recommendation with risk associated to it so they can make an informed decision.”

Farmers used to increase productivity by planting the newest

“By using data science we can provide a farmer with a recommendation that has probabilities around it.”

Farmers Edge, the data science/precision agriculture company founded in Pilot Mound, Man., wants to manage 35 million acres globally by 2021.

Patrick Crampton

PHOTO:Victoria anne photography

varieties, but yields have plateaued. New gains are coming through data science, Barnes said, and that’s why industry giants like Monsanto have entered the fray.

That was a wake-up call for Farmers Edge. Its roots were in variable-rate fertilizer, plus a la carte offerings. To better compete, Barnes revamped the firm’s business model focusing on adding value to farmers’ operations at an affordable price.

Given all the risk in agriculture, when farmers buy an input they want the potential to triple their investment, Crampton said.

“We stripped away every part of our product offering that wasn’t scalable and didn’t meet the needs of farmers around the world and… distilled it into five precision solution offerings,” he told the Agri-Innovations conference. “We are selling the same offerings in Brazil as we are in Russia as we are in the U.S., Canada and Australia — because it fits every farmer.”

Farmers Edge has an integrated platform including software, hardware and support services. The core is called Smart Solutions, which includes a

weather station for every 2,500 acres of land, soil sampling, remote imagery every six days during the growing season, CanPlug telematics, which the firm uses to collect data from every field operation then processes and analyzes it. That package costs $1.95 an acre. An extra $2 more an acre adds a variablerate fertility program.

To get that price, the farmer must sign up all his or her entire acres for four years. The economies of scale keep costs down, Barnes said. Every year of data provides additional information that can make for improved recommendations and save money.

For example, the first year the entire farm will be zone soil sampled, but then every other year after only a portion of the farm will be sampled with fertility recommendations based on a “virtual” soil sample, Crampton said. Farmers Edge will know how much fertilizer was applied, how much was removed and be able make an accurate fertilizer recommendation.

“That builds an integrated, proprietary data set for each of our customers’ farms,” Crampton said.

“We combine that with our team of agronomic researchers, our new product development group and our data science team to develop new products that deliver more value to our customers, which drives more acres and more data… and that’s what’s driving Farmers Edge’s business today.”

Monsanto is formidable competition, but Crampton said Farmers Edge has some competitive advantages having grown “from the ground up,” in Western Canada. Barnes and MacKinnon worked directly with farmers and know what they want: a good return on investment, a program that isn’t too time consuming or complex with support.

“We have the 20-minute rule,” Crampton said. “If you can’t fix that farmer’s problem in 20 minutes he’ll pull the card out of the monitor and he’ll flat rate (fertilizer) and do what he did last year because it worked. We’re trying to make them better, but it has to be easy and it has to have support to make it work.”

Farmers Edge is also accustomed to working with very little public data in Western Canada,

unlike what’s available in the U.S. where Monsanto is starting up. Australia, Brazil and Russia are just as lacking in public data, Crampton said.

The company also has two important patents. One prohibits any other company from making fertilizer recommendations based on yield maps combined with remote sensing photographs, Barnes said. The patent, which expires in five years, was purchased from Mosaic.

The other, which is pending, allows Farmers Edge to calibrate other combine yield monitors from an already calibrated monitor, while still having each combine track the yield it collected separately.

“Yields from yield monitors are notoriously inaccurate,” Crampton said.

“We believe we have the most accurate yield maps in the industry.

“It’s part of having the right data.”

Farmers Edge has been hired

by Dow Chemical to work on carbon offsets in Brazil for the Rio Olympics in 2016, Crampton said.

Last December Farmers Edge took a big step towards global expansion when Silicon Valleybased venture capital company Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) invested an undisclosed amount. The same firm has invested in such giants as Google, Amazon, Uber and Spotify. Former U.S. vice-president Al Gore is a partner in KPCB. KPCB likes to invest in firms with market disruption potential, KPCB partner Brook Porter told the Winnipeg Free Press last year. “(F)ood and agriculture is a multitrillion-dollar market where there’s plenty of acres to build a big company,”… and... “it (Farmers Edge) has the potential to be a billion-dollarplus company.” allan@fbcpublishing.com

Barnes responds to big data skeptic

BY ALLAN DAWSON Co-operator staff

W

Farmers Edge CEO Wade Barnes says there’s no shortage of arable land in the world.

PHOTO: Victoria anne photography

ade Barnes has met his share of big data and p re c i s i o n a g r i c u l t u re

skeptics.

One large Saskatchewan farmer bluntly told Barnes, cofounder and CEO of Farmers Edge, his farm needed another agronomist “because I didn’t spray my lentils on time,” not a data program.

The farmer didn’t spray on time because he was waiting for

his neighbours to spray first. The neighbours were probably waiting for him, Barnes said.

“If one alpha farmer is making that mistake, multiple people are making that mistake,” he said.

As an agronomist Barnes, used to think models, including those used to make fertilizer recommendations, didn’t work. The problem wasn’t the models, it was the data going into them.

“Good data going into a computer model works,” he said.

There’s lots of talk about arable land being finite, but Barnes has a different take.

“I’ve been all over the world,” he said. “The one key thing I have learned is there’s a fantasy that we’re running out of farmland and we won’t be able to feed the world b e c a u s e we d o n’t h a v e e n o u g h farmland.”

Farms are getting bigger and harder to run and yields aren’t increasing as fast as they once were, but data science can help, Barnes said.

Meanwhile, there’s a massive productivity gap on millions of acres of farmland in places such as Russia and Poland, he said. allan@fbcpublishing.com

37

The Manitoba Co-operator | November 26, 2015

COUNTRY CROSSROADS

Prairie fare Let’s focus on ‘more’ instead of less julie gardenrobinson Food and Nutrition Specialist NDSU Extension Service

“

T

hey have biscuits and sausage gravy on the menu.

I b e t t h e y k n ow h ow to make it here,” my husband noted while we were travelling in a southern state. Sometimes restaurants cut up links instead of using ground meat, so the gravy is not flavoured throughout. As a server walked by with a steaming plate of biscuits and gravy, we could see that this restaurant used ground sausage.

When I first met this Indianaraised guy 24 years ago, I never had heard of putting sausage gravy on biscuits. I’m sure I gave him the “you’re not from around here” look when he prepared it for me the first time. It was quite tasty, actually.

He gave me a similar look when I made the Midwest staple “tater tot hotdish” for him. “Well, you better order the biscuits and gravy,” I said.

When the server arrived with a good-size bowl of sausage gravy and plate of biscuits, I looked at him with uplifted eyebrows. Eating a bowl of gravy at a restaurant was not my idea of “moderation.” He grinned.

Evidently “they made it right.”

He even shared a little of his generous entree with me. It was quite tasty.

Sausage, bacon, ham, deli meats and red meat in general have received negative press in recent weeks. You might have seen scary headlines such as “death by bacon.”

As my husband contentedly chomped on biscuits and gravy, I thought about all the recent headlines. The World Health Organization recently

placed processed meats in the same carcinogen category as cigarettes.

Specifically, the report said eating about two ounces of processed meat daily could raise your risk of getting colon cancer by 18 per cent. Keep in mind that your risk for colon cancer is fairly small.

Before you toss the bacon, let’s consider that this news is not brand new. You may recall that years ago, researchers showed that high-temperature cooking of red meats on the grill or in a frying pan can increase the production of carcinogenic compounds.

Should study results such as these make you drop meat from your menu? I hope not. Meat provides protein, iron, zinc and other nutrients. According to current recommendations from h t t p : / / w w w. c h o o s e m y p l a t e. gov, most adults need five to six ounces of protein daily, depending on the amount of physical activity they get.

However, I think we all know that “vitamin B” is not short for “vitamin bacon.” Moderation and balance are still keys to a healthful diet.

Most of us know someone who has or had colon cancer, so we want to take steps to reduce our risk. Research about diet and cancer is ongoing.

With this knowledge, we can take some steps in our kitchen.

Therefore, moderate your cooking temperatures, avoid flareups on the grill and use a food thermometer to gauge doneness.

Instead of focusing on what not to do, let’s consider a few lessons about what to do to reduce our risk for cancer. Let’s focus on “more” instead of less.

These tips are adapted from the American Cancer Society and the U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

PHOTOs: Thinkstock

• G et more fibre in your diet.

Fibre fills you up and can help with weight management. Eat more dry edible beans, lentils, split peas and other fibre-rich foods.

• E njoy more fruits and vegetables because they contain phytochemicals (cancer- fighting compounds). Have at least 4-1/2 cups of fruits and vegetables every day.

• Have more whole grain foods, such as whole grain bread, oatmeal and brown rice.

• G et more physical activity.

Use the steps instead of the elevator, take walking breaks instead of snack breaks, and

park farther from your destination. Go dancing. Wear a pedometer to chart your level of physical activity. Walk on a treadmill or go to a mall when the weather is cold or rainy.

If you are expecting a biscuits and sausage gravy recipe, you won’t find it from me. This native Midwesterner hasn’t perfected it yet.

I do know a good hotdish, though. Here’s a fibre-rich recipe chock full of beans, plus some ground beef and bacon.

Enjoy a moderate intake of lean protein, such as meat, fish and poultry.

Calico Beans Hotdish 1/4 lb. bacon 1 lb. lean ground beef 1 medium onion, chopped 1/4 c. brown sugar 1/2 c. chili sauce 2 tbsp. vinegar 1 tsp. dry mustard 2 (16-oz.) cans baked beans 1 (15.5-oz.) can kidney beans, drained and rinsed 1 (15.5-oz.) can cranberry beans, drained and rinsed 1 (15.5-oz.) can navy beans, drained and rinsed 1 (15.5-oz.) can Great Northern beans, drained and rinsed 1 (15.5-oz.) can pinto beans, drained and rinsed

Fry bacon in skillet until crisp. Discard all fat. Drain bacon on paper towels. Brown ground beef and onion in same skillet.

Drain beans (do not drain the baked beans). Combine all ingredients. Bake, covered, at 350 F for 45 minutes. For slow cookers: Combine all ingredients as given above in a large slow cooker. Cook on low for four to eight hours.

Directions for freezing: Put leftovers in a microwave/ovenproof casserole, cover and freeze. Reheat in a preheated 350 F oven to an internal temperature of 165 F, as measured with a food thermometer. Or cook in a microwave on high for four minutes, stir and continue heating until beans are of desired temperature.

Makes 20 servings. Each serving has 240 calories, 6 grams (g) fat, 17 g protein, 33 g carbohydrate, 9 g fibre and 720 milligrams sodium.

38

The Manitoba Co-operator | November 26, 2015

COUNTRY CROSSROADS

House fires can cause fatalities Here’s some tips to help prevent them Reena Nerbas Household Solutions

D

eaths from fires and burns are the third leading cause of fatal home injury (Runyan 2004). Here’s some tips to help prevent them from happening: • U se extension cords as a short-term solution in your home. Since cords heat up and cool down during use, the cord tends to quickly wear, thus becoming a fire hazard.

• Unplug appliances such as the toaster, toaster oven, curling iron, coffee maker and kettle when not in use. Pull these appliances out from under cabinets before use.

• Clean the dryer lint tray after every use. Vacuum behind the dryer as well as using the crevice tool of the vacuum to reach inside the lint trap housing.

Extra Tip: Dryer lint is very flammable. In fact, some people save it in sealable bags and use it as fire starters or keep a lintfilled bag in the glove compartment of their vehicles as part of their emergency kit.

• C heck furnace filters once a month. If they are dirty replace them. It isn’t necessary to purchase expensive filters; the three-in-one pack will do. After removing the filter, do not stand or lay it beside the furnace. Discard it immediately because the debris on the filter is flammable.

• Avoid turning on the dishwasher and dryer when no one is home or when all h o u s e h o l d m e m b e r s a re sleeping.

• I f your carbon monoxide detector goes off, call 911 or Manitoba Hydro immediately. Remember, carbon monoxide is a silent killer because it doesn’t carry its own odour.

Extra Tips: The yeast in bread making can trigger the carbon monoxide detector.

Turn on fan (if not built in and automatic) with every gas stove use.

• It is safest not to use extension cords when plugging in Christmas lights. If extension cords are used, be sure to unplug them at night or when no one is home.

• When plugging in Christmas lights, make sure that every bulb on the strand is functioning properly.

• Keep tree holder full. Water freshly cut Christmas trees twice a day for the first while and once a day after that or as necessary.

• S tore one ABC fire extinguisher near the kitchen and one in the furnace room. The Class ABC fire extinguisher is suitable for three kinds of fires: Class A (ordinary combustibles such as wood or paper), Class B (flammable liquid fires such as grease or gasoline) or Class C (electrical fires). Check the date to make sure that your fire extinguisher has not expired.

Extra Tips: If your fire extinguisher has sat for a long time, turn it upside down for a few seconds and give it a pat to loosen the powder that falls to the bottom of the extinguisher. During use: Aim the extinguisher towards the bottom of the flames and squeeze the trigger in a slow sweeping motion.

• Talk to your family regarding fire prevention and discuss an escape plan and meeting place outside of your home.

Beginning at age three, speak to your children about the importance of not hiding during a fire.

• In the case of a stove fire or grease fire, turn the element off. If possible put the lid on the pot and close the oven door. Toss baking soda onto fire. Flour will NOT work.

• C hange the batteries in carbon monoxide and smoke

detectors whenever daylight saving time occurs. Make sure that your detectors have not exceeded their expiration dates.

• C lean chimney properly at least once a year.

Many thanks to the Steinbach Fire Department for the preceding information.

I enjoy your questions and tips, keep them coming. Need a presenter on the topic: Effective Speaking or The Power of Words? Check out: Reena.ca.

Check cords for any wear and unplug appliances when not in use. PHOTO: THINKSTOCK

READER’S PHOTO

End of the day on the farm.

PHOTO: VANESSA WOLLMAN

Starting a pot of baby’s tears This can be a tedious job but well worth the effort

The plant cascades attractively and will eventually form a lovely ball of apple-green foliage completely enclosing its container.

By Albert Parsons Freelance contributor

B

aby’s tears, Soleirolia soleirolii, (another common name is angel’s tears) is a member of the nettle plant family. Both names reflect the tear shape of the plant’s tiny leaves.

(Perhaps it also refers to the tears that might be shed when a gardener like me slips when planting up a pot of baby’s tears.) This is a very tedious job indeed, which might explain why the few places that I have seen baby’s tears offered for sale demand a very high price for a pot of this delightful plant.

The tiny thread-like stems sport tiny round, somewhat kidney-shaped leaves that form a dense mound of foliage.

The plant cascades attractively and will eventually form a lovely ball of apple-green foliage completely enclosing its container. To start a new pot, snip off the ends of these thread-like stems (I make my slips about five cm long) without damaging either the plant or the slips. Be careful not to get the ends mixed up or the wrong end of the slip will be inserted into the soil and it will die instead of taking root. The tiny stems are delicate and must be handled with extreme care.

Baby’s tears is a fairly easy plant to

Pieces of stem are clipped off the parent plant and planted close together in a suitably sized pot of damp soilless mix. PHOTO: A LBERT PARSONS

grow, although it does like high humidity and consistently moist soil. If the air is too dry or if the planting medium — which should be a peat-based soilless mix — is allowed to dry out, some of the leaves will turn brown and the plant will be less attractive. Any brown leaves that

do appear are very difficult to remove because they are so tiny and because of the multitude of thin, intertwining stems. Although the plant likes moist soil and high humidity, it does not like to be too wet, and can be killed if overwatered. However, if the soil is allowed to dry out the plant will wilt and may not fully recover. Baby’s tears will perform best if its pot drains well and if its location has good air circulation. I give my baby’s tears a feeding of halfstrength 20-20-20 every couple of weeks — less often in the winter time.

I like to display my pot on a pedestal so that the plant can cascade down the sides of the container. If some of the stems get too long, pinching the plant does no harm and in fact will make

the plant branch out even more than it already does. The appearance of baby’s tears will vary with the amount of light it gets. I have mine on a table adjacent to a north-facing window, and it performs well although the stems tend to be somewhat elongated and the leaves spaced quite far apart on the stems. I have also grown the plant in the sunroom where it receives several hours of direct sun each day and the growth habit is much more compact. The leaves on the stems are much closer together and the stems are shorter and more branched.

When I slip the parent plant to start a new pot of baby’s tears, I carefully plant the stems that I have snipped off into a pot of damp soilless mix, making a separate hole with a thin pencil for every slip. I crowd as many as I can into the pot, and expose it to bright light and warm temperatures and soon the slips perk up and begin to put forth new growth. It will take about three months before the slips produce foliage attractive enough to go on display.

The tedious job of starting a new pot of baby’s tears proves to be worth the effort when I am able to display a container of this unusual and attractive plant.

Albert Parsons writes from Minnedosa, Manitoba

39

The Manitoba Co-operator | November 26, 2015

COUNTRY CROSSROADS

Hunting show filmed in Oakburn area ‘Canada in the Rough’ episode will air on television in 2016

By Darrell Nesbitt Freelance contributor

M

aking a retur n tr ip to the E lphinstone area, and meeting up with Kris and Nancy Wujcik, the operators of Michitoba Outfitters, Keith Beasley and friends were not just there for a goose hunt.

Beasley was visiting earlier this fall to hunt waterfowl, share goose sausage with the local food bank in Shoal Lake, and film a “Canada in the Rough” episode.

“Two and a half years ago we shared fellowship with Kris and Nancy Wujcik, and that show featuring a spring snow geese hunt, has aired,” said Beasley. “This time we focused on ducks and Canada geese.”

This is a world-class waterfowl area and we wanted to showcase it to our viewers once again, said Beasley.

“As hunters, we aim to feed our families first, then local families and communities,” said Beasley. “It’s a great way to be involved.”

Keith Beasley, along with his brothers, Paul and Kevin, attend hunting and sportsman shows across Canada following their father’s passion for hunting. Hailing from O n t a r i o, B e a s l e y Bro t h e r s Outdoors presents a unique hunting adventure show in “Canada in the Rough.”

“The hospitality of Kris and wife Nancy is second to none,” said Keith. “His assistance in seeing a great hunt, spring or fall, is dedicated

“Canada in the Rough” producer, Keith Beasley, (l), talks action scenes with his cameraman. PHOTO: DARRELL NESBITT

This is a world-class waterfowl area and we wanted to showcase it to our viewers once again.

to setting up decoys. It’s not uncommon to see 500 geese set up in the fall, and upwards of 2,000 on a big spread in the spring.”

Where is this barn?

T

his barn was photographed by former Manitoba Co-operator editor Bob Hainstock in the early 1980s but its whereabouts are unknown and, unlike other photos published recently in this paper, there is no other information available about it.

Gordon Goldsborough, webmaster and journal editor with the Manitoba Historical Society (MHS) is looking for more information about it, including its GPS co-ordinates, to include on a map of historic sites being prepared for the Manitoba Historic Society.

Can a Co-operator reader answer any these questions? Even one reply to one question is much appreciated, says Goldsborough, who wants to figure out what percentage of barns published in Hainstock’s 1986 book Barns of Western Canada: An Illustrated Century remain standing. Goldsborough is not trying to compile an inventory all old barns, but to get an indication of the rate at which old barns are disappearing from the landscape.

1. Where is/was the building located? Geographic co-ordinates (latitude and longitude or section-township-range) would be very helpful.

2. Is the building still standing? If so, in what condition is it? How does it look compared to the 1980s? Has it undergone any major renovations through the years? For what purpose was it used in the past?

What is its present use?

3. If the building is no longer standing, when did it come down? Was it demolished, burned, or moved? If removed from its original site, where is it now?

4. Who was the original owner? Who owns it now? Is the present owner related to the original one? A family name would be helpful, even if first names are unknown.

5. Contact information to the present owner, such as a phone number, would be helpful but not essential.

If you have any information about this barn please contact Gordon Goldsborough at: email: gordon@mhs.mb.ca telephone: (204) 474-7469 Mail: 2021 Loudoun Rd. Winnipeg, MB. R3S 1A3

Michitoba Outfitters has exclusive rights to over 30,000 acres of prime agricultural land, and roost water. (For more information go to: www. michitobaoutfitting.com.)

With Oakburn’s business, “The Meat Man,” being the b a c k b o n e o f t h e e p i s o d e, it will be one of 13 original shows to be aired in 2016 o n s e ve n n e t w o rk s a c ro s s C a n a d a ( E n g l i s h / Fre n c h ) , national in the U.S., and 25 countries overseas.

Darrell Nesbitt writes from Shoal Lake, Manitoba

Welcome to Country Crossroads

I

f you have any stories, ideas, photos or a comment on what you’d like to see on these pages, send it to Country Crossroads, 1666 Dublin Ave., Winnipeg, Man. R3H 0H1, phone 1-800-782-0794, fax 204-944-5562, email susan@ fbcpublishing.com. I’d love to hear from you.

Please remember we can no longer return material, articles, poems or pictures.

— Sue

40

The Manitoba Co-operator | November 26, 2015

This year’s Value Bonanza sales event gives you more SMART WAYS TO SAVE! It starts with BONANZA BUCKS – it’s like bonus cash just for buying select New Holland tractors and equipment. And, your savings continue with 0% FINANCING or CASH BACK in lieu of financing. But hurry! The clock is ticking. See us before this offer ends on November 30, 2015.

See all the SMART deals at nhvaluebonanza.com *For commercial use only. Offer subject to credit qualification and approval by CNH Industrial Capital Canada Ltd. See your New Holland dealer for details and eligibility requirements. CNH Industrial Capital Canada Ltd. standard terms and conditions will apply. Depending on model, a down payment may be required. Offer good through November 30, 2015, at participating New Holland dealers in Canada. Offer subject to change. Taxes, freight, set-up, delivery, additional options or attachments not included in price. © 2015 CNH Industrial Capital America LLC. All rights reserved. New Holland Agriculture is a trademark registered in the United States and many other countries, owned by or licensed to CNH Industrial N.V., its subsidiaries or affiliates. CNH Industrial Capital and New Holland Construction are trademarks in the United States and many other countries, owned by or licensed to CNH Industrial N.V., its subsidiaries or affiliates.

USED EQUIPMENT www.agdealer.com/raymorenh

COMBINES

2013 NH CX8090 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $344,000 2011 NH CX8080. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$175,000 2011 NH CR9080. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $269,000 2011 NH CR9080. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $239,900 2010 NH CX8070 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $190,000 2010 NH CX8080 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $209,900 2008 NH CX8080 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$175,000 2003 NH CR970 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $125,000 2003 NH CX840 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $76,900

2000 CIH 2388 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $62,000 1998 JD 9610 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$51,000 1998 NH TR98 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $28,900

COMBINE HEADS

2015 NH 840CD-35 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $89,000 2015 NH 840CD-35 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $89,000 2015 NH 840CD-35 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $89,000 1993 MB 960 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $8,500 2010 NH 94C-42FT CR/CX . . . . . . . . . . . $59,000 2010 NH 94C-36FT CR/CX . . . . . . . . . . . $49,000 2009 NH 94C-36FT CR/CX . . . . . . . . . . . $49,000 2009 NH 94C-40FT CR/CX . . . . . . . . . . . $54,900 2009 NH 94C-30FT CR/CX . . . . . . . . . . . $44,000 2008 NH 94C-36FT CR/CX . . . . . . . . . . . $49,000 2008 NH 94C-36FT CR/CX . . . . . . . . . . . $42,000 2005 NH 94C-30 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $25,900 2010 MB FD70 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $75,429 1994 CIH 8820 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $4,900 677746

$251,000

$270,000

690840

‘14 Versatile 450

‘15 Versatile 450

‘09 New Holland TV6070

Air Drill, Excellent cond., 51FT-12IN, 4-1/2”STEEL, 6-RUN SS, LIQ, 550LB TRIPS

‘09 New Holland P2070 - 70’ Air Drill, NH Opener, Double Shoot, Floatation Tires

‘14 SeedMaster CT6012

Air Drill, Excellent cond., 60FT 12IN, TIRE N TIRE, HD FRONT CASTERS, DUAL FRONT WING CA

TRACTORS

2009 NH TV6070 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $90,000 2003 NH TM140 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $55,900 1995 NH 9680 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $76,000 2006 CIH STX480. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $159,000

SWATHERS

1989 JD 590 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $3,500 2009 MB M150 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $110,000 1999 MB 9200. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $46,900 2013 NH H8060-36FT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $119,000 2013 NH H8060-36FT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $119,000 2012 NH H8060-36FT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$118,000 2008 NH H8040-36FT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $79,000

Windrower, 635hrs, Excellent cond., 36FT, SCHUMACHER, UII, DELUXE CAB, CAB SUSPENSION

ATV 2009 CK 3100S. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $9,250 Baler/Round 2008 NH BR7090 . . . . . . . .$14,900 Deep Tillage 1984 FC 800 . . . . . . . . . . . .$10,000 Deep Tillage 1984 MR CP750. . . . . . . . . .$16,000 Truck 2003 IHC 9900I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $38,000 Mower Conditioner 2013 NH H7460-16FT Rubber . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $37,000 Mower/Batwing 2014 SU XH1500 S3 SERIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $26,900 Mower/Zero Turn 2012 CK RZT 54 KW $3,650 Mower/Zero Turn 2010 CK TANK 60 $4,900 Seed Tender 2011 CONVE CST-40-C . . . $75,000 Skid Steer Loader 2006 NH L185 . . . . . .$18,900 Grain Auger 2003 FK 1370TM . . . . . . . . . $9,500 Harrow Heavy 2007 MR FIELD PRO-70 $21,900 Harrow Heavy 1997 RITEW 8055 . . . . . .$15,900 677851

‘08 New Holland BR7090

High Clearance Sprayer, 4WD, 865hrs, 275HP, Good cond., 100FT, 1200GAL SS, 2 SETS TIRES, FM1000, AUTO PILOT

Round Baler, Good cond., 1.5M PICK UP, LACED BELTS, 31X13.5-15 TIRES, HYD, PICK UP

737580

737591

‘95 New Holland 9680

‘08 New Holland H8040-36FT

MISC.

737592

Tractor, 4WD, 6808hrs, Excellent cond., 20.8R42 DUALS, STANDARD, 4 REMOTES

$79,000

$51,000

$6,200 ‘98 John Deere 9610

2001 FC 67 XL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $17,000 2000 SPAIR 3200 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$10,900 2013 NH SP.240F XP 1200GAL 100FT $275,000 2012 NH SP.240F XP 1200GAL-100FT $235,000

‘13 New Holland SP.240F XP

$119,000

$89,000

$179,900

736163

Combine, 4112hrs, Excellent cond.

SPRAYERS

$169,000

$35,000 ‘04 New Holland SD440-51FT-12IN

693358

$92,000

618931

‘00 Case IH 2388

Combine, 2730hrs, Good cond., 30.5X32 FRONTS, ROCK TRAP, HOPPER TOPPER

677744

Tractor, 4WD, 229hrs, 450HP, Excellent Tractor, 4WD, 500HP, Excellent cond., STD, Tractor, 4WD, 2875hrs, 155HP, Good cond., cond., 800/70R38 DUALS, STD QUAD SHIFT, 800’s, 98GPM, 6 REMOTES, E-PRO STEERING 82LB LOADER, THIRD FLOOR PEDAL, WHEEL MECH REMOTES, DEMO WEIGHTS, 480/85R34 R1 736280

734008

$59,000 ‘10 New Holland 94C-42FT

CR/CX Draper Head, 42FT CR/CX, GUAGE WHEELS, SPLIT UII REEL, HYD F/A, HYD TILT

‘13 New Holland H8060-36FT

$37,000

2014 MR C2 51FT-12IN c?w 9450. . . . . $195,000 1994 MR MAXIM I 50FT-10IN . . . . . . . . . .$16,900 2009 NH P2070 70FT X 12IN. . . . . . . . . . $92,000 2004 NH SD440 51FT-12IN . . . . . . . . . . . $35,000 2010 JD 5000-51FT c/w 1910 TBH . . . . . $74,500 1998 JD 1900 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$13,900

737582

‘15 New Holland 840CD-35FT

Header, 35FT, TRANSPORT, GUAGE WHEELS, Windrower, 298hrs, 190HP, Excellent cond., AHHC, X-AUGER 36FT, DELUXE CAB, CAB SUSPENSION, DELUXE LED LIGHTS, 600/65R

‘13 New Holland H7460-16FT

Disc Mower Conditioner, Excellent cond., CHEVRON RUBBER ROLLS, MOMAX MODULAR DUTTER BAR, HYD TONGUE SWING 700503

$24,900

SEEDING

‘08 New Holland CX8080

Combine, 1375hrs, Good cond., Chaff Spreaders, Yield & Moisture, Intelliview II Display

$14,900

‘10 New Holland 94C-36FT

Header, Excellent cond., DOUBLE KNIFE Header, Excellent cond., 36FT, DOUBLE DRIVE, 6 BAT UII SPLIT REEL, DOUBLE DRIVE, KNIFE DRIVE, 6 BAT UII 42IN DIAMETER ONE HYD FORE/AFT, TRANS PIECE REEL, SLOW SPEED

709462

$179,000 718052

677742

$21,900

‘09 New Holland 94C-40FT

‘11 New Holland CX8080

Combine, 2260hrs, 360HP, Good cond., 520 DUALS, 600/65R28 STEERS, LARGE TOUCH SCREEN DISPLAY, CR STYLE SPREADERS

$49,000

677738

$54,900

677932

736273

$275,000

Combine, 682hrs, 449HP, Excellent cond., 520 DUALS, CAST, Y&M, SPREADERS, HIDS, 790CP-15FT

690133

$76,000

‘13 New Holland CX8090

Combine, 1135hrs, Good cond., 620 DUALS, S3, SID’S, DSP, DELUX CHOPPER, 790CP-15

677757

$90,000

‘11 New Holland CR9080

733839

$344,000

$239,900

737584

‘07 Morris FIELD PRO-70

Harrow, Good cond., 70FT, STANDARD TINE ADJUST

‘15 Rem VRX Grain Vac, VRX

Highway #2 South

Highway #6 North

Highway #10 East

Fax: 306-946-2613

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Ph: 306-946-3301

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