Country guide west

western edition

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February 16, 2016 $3.50

The

Attitude

To Farm

Strong, StubboRn, like Katelyn Duncan pg. 14

Protect your assets Get more from incorporation PG. 10

CROPS GUIDE have we survived the deregulation of Western wheat?

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Contents

February 16, 2016

BUSINESS 8

time to drop ‘commercial?’

Yes, you’re a commercial farmer, but saying so may be leading more consumers to conjure up images of factory farms.

10 protecting your assets

These six strategies will make sure you get more than just tax savings from your incorporation.

22 high velocity

Karl Gerrand is promsing to shake up not only the old CWB but the entire grain industry with his high-efficiency grain shipping.

28 A focus group?

So you’ve been invited to participate in a focus group.

Should you go? Can you actually make a difference?

32 a foodie’s calgary

Here’s a way to explore the future of agriculture, and to eat some great food too.

36 Guide HR — the dark side for entrepreneurs

Running a business makes you dynamic, energetic and passionate.

But each of those traits has a downside to watch out for.

55 early warning signs of a business in trouble

Whether it’s a farm that’s on the edge, or a business you deal with, it’s never good to be the last to know.

56 going political

As agriculture becomes big business, leaders like AGCO’s Martin Richenhagen are expected to take a stand on public issues.

60 the farm voice in paris

Even if you don’t believe in climate change, our Gerald Pilger says farmers need to be at the table where decisions get made.

PG. 14 Young, Smart & Stubborn Even though the odds can seem stacked against them, young farmers all across Canada are finding ways to get their futures started. How are they doing it? In a word, our Maggie Van Camp finds the essential ingredient is attitude.

62 a world in flux

With its climate changing, farmers in Central America need more than tourist dollars from snowbird Canadians

66

g uide life — farm etiquette: essential for business success

It may not matter which fork you use as long as you find ways to show respect for the people you deal with.

EVERY ISSUE 6 MACHINERY GUIDE

Great new machinery innovations are coming for forage growers.

68 GUIDE HEALTH

There’s no such thing as an aphrodisiac. But these pills help.

70 HANSON ACRES Even on a Saskatchewan farm, black cats are bad luck.

CROPS GUIDE 37 now or never

Other grain exporters envy our chance to solve weed resistance before it gets out of hand. The question is, will we do it?

40 can you cut costs?

When crop prices drop, can it be a good idea to try to shave your weed control costs? The experts say the answer is yes, and no.

48 the corn belt moves north

Monsanto is carrying out a plan to sell hybrids across the West.

52 making change

After deregulation of the grain sector, farmers, industry and government had to find new paths forward. It seems to be working.

Our commitment to your privacy At Farm Business Communications we have a firm commitment to protecting your privacy and security as our customer. Farm Business Communications will only collect personal information if it is required for the proper functioning of our business. As part of our commitment to enhance customer service, we may share this personal information with other strategic business partners. For more information regarding our Customer Information Privacy Policy, write to: Information Protection Officer, Farm Business Communications, 1666 Dublin Avenue, Winnipeg, MB R3H 0H1.

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February 16, 2016

country-guide.ca 3

desk EDITORIAL STAFF Editor: Tom Button 12827 Klondyke Line, Ridgetown, ON N0P 2C0 (519) 674-1449 Fax (519) 674-5229 Email: tom.button@fbcpublishing.com Associate Editors: Gord Gilmour (204) 453-7624 Cell: (204) 294-9195 Fax (204) 942-8463 Email: gord.gilmour@fbcpublishing.com Maggie Van Camp Fax (905) 986-9991 (905) 986-5342 Email: mvancamp@fbcpublishing.com Production Editor: Ralph Pearce (226) 448-4351 Email: ralph.pearce@fbcpublishing.com ADVERTISING SALES Sales Director: Cory Bourdeaud’hui (204) 954-1414 Fax: (204) 944-5562 Email: cory@fbcpublishing.com

Writing the book on Canada’s farmers Tom Button is editor of Country Guide magazine I don’t quite mean what you might think by the headline above. I don’t mean writing the book about farmers FOR farmers. I mean writing it to inspire, encourage and empower other business owners and managers across the country.

It’s a thought that comes to me almost every time I sit down to write this column, which I normally do just as we’re pushing the files out the door for the printer.

Check it out for yourself. Take a spin through the business books on the Chapters or Amazon sites. Better yet, restrict yourself to their best sellers. Or best of all, wander through the business section at your nearest Chapters. (It won’t take long. And you’d better hurry or it may not take any time at all!)

The books you’ll see will often fall into two categories. (Yes, I know there are technical books too, but that’s not what I want to talk about.)

The first are the memoir-like offerings from successful business leaders, like the top execs at Fortune 500 companies.

You’ll find them chock full of personal stories about their management challenges and experiences, plus the stories of allies and rivals who they’ve crossed paths with.

The second category come from Harvard, Wharton or other business professors, and they’ll be chock full of stories too, although this time they’re more likely to be organized as case studies.

To those outside the business world (and to many inside it), such books can seem 4 country-guide.ca

a self-indulgence with little or no application, but when you talk to readers, you’ll find that they — like you — are interested in what business leaders think, and how they identify the strategies they want to pursue, and then put wheels under them.

It’s like the question we asked when we decided to make Country Guide into more of a business book for farmers. Agriculture is an amazingly diverse industry, with enormous differences in crops, regions, farm types and more. We had to ask, is it possible to write about a grain farm in southeast Saskatchewan in a way that is helpful to an irrigation farm in southern Alberta or a hog farm in Ontario?

It turns out you can, as long as you get the best possible writers. In fact, you can do it not only because the challenges of HR, tax management, and expansion are, at a strategic level, quite similar, but also because different farms need to be driven by minds with the same attributes, including passion, commitment, innovative thinking, and a deep understanding of value.

I’ll write more about this next issue, but for now, I’d like to leave you thinking of what it would look like if that Chapters shelf was stocked with covers bearing the kinds of faces you see in every issue of Country Guide.

Between now and next time, then, take a minute and let me know what you think.

I’m at tom.button@fbcpublishing.com. Are we getting it right?

Kevin Yaworsky (250) 869-5326 Email: kyaworsky@farmmedia.com Lillie Ann Morris (905) 838-2826 Email: lamorris@xplornet.com Head Office: 1666 Dublin Ave., Winnipeg, MB R3H 0H1 (204) 944-5765 Fax (204) 944-5562 Advertising Services Co-ordinator: Arlene Bomback (204) 944-5765 Fax (204) 944-5562 Email: ads@fbcpublishing.com Designer: Jenelle Jensen Publisher: Lynda Tityk Email: lynda.tityk@fbcpublishing.com Associate Publisher: John Morriss Email: john.morriss@fbcpublishing.com Editorial Director: Laura Rance Email: laura@fbcpublishing.com Production Director: Shawna Gibson Email: shawna@fbcpublishing.com Circulation Manager: Heather Anderson Email: heather@fbcpublishing.com President: Bob Willcox Glacier FarmMedia Email: bwillcox@farmmedia.com Contents of this publication are copyrighted and may be reproduced only with the permission of the editor. Country Guide, incorporating the Nor’West Farmer and Farm & Home, is published by Farm Business Communications. Head office: Winnipeg, Manitoba. Printed by Transcontinental LGMC. Country Guide is published 13 times per year by Farm Business Communications. Subscription rates in Canada — Farmer $43 for one year, $64 for 2 years, $91 for 3 years. (Prices include GST) U.S. subscription rate — $35 (U.S. funds). Subscription rate outside Canada and U.S. — $50 per year. Single copies: $3.50.

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We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Periodical Fund of the Department of Canadian Heritage.

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Subscription inquiries:

Call toll-free 1-800-665-1362 or email: subscription@fbcpublishing.com U.S. subscribers call 1-204-944-5766 Country Guide is printed with linseed oil-based inks PRINTED IN CANADA Vol. 135 No. 3 Internet address: www.agcanada.com

ISSN 0847-9178 The editors and journalists who write, contribute and provide opinions to Country Guide and Farm Business Communications attempt to provide accurate and useful opinions, information and analysis. However, the editors, journalists, Country Guide and Farm Business Communications, cannot and do not guarantee the accuracy of the information contained in this publication and the editors as well as Country Guide and Farm Business Communications assume no responsibility for any actions or decisions taken by any reader for this publication based on any and all information provided.

February 16, 2016

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1/26/16 8:52 AM

Machinery More forage options

By Scott Garvey, CG Machinery Editor

These new concept machines will mean more harvesting choices for forage growers

he giant German farm machinery expo Agritechnica is a glimpse into the future, giving farmers a look at the equipment they’ll be filling their machinery sheds with in coming years.

That includes forage growers. If the machines on display this past November are any indication, they can expect a tidal wave of innovations.

Krone’s Premos 5000 Above: Material in a swath feeds into the Premos 5000 and is compressed through forming moulds by a pair of 800-millimetre rollers.

Krone’s prototype Premos 5000 pellet harvester will provide a way for growers to handle forages the same way they now handle grain — and with some of the same equipment. It’s easy to see why it won a Gold Innovation Award at Agritechnica.

The first ever in-field pelleting harvester, the Premos 5000 picks up swaths behind a tractor the way any other baler does now, but immediately converts

Right: Krone displayed a glass case full of pellets made by the Premos 5000 at their Agritechnica exhibit.

the forage into 16 millimetre pellets. A nine-cubicmetre hopper holds five tonnes of them, which can be loaded into a grain truck and hauled back to the yard or directly to a buyer.

“We can handle it like corn,” said Kai Lüpping, one the technical staff behind the Premos 5000’s development, as he stood beside the machine at Krone’s display during Agritechnica. “It’s not one big bale.”

As material feeds into the Premos 5000, it is crimped between a pair of rollers that force it through extrusion moulds 16 millimetres in diameter. “This innovative system eliminates any energy-intensive pretreatment (chopping, milling),” reads the company press release. “In fact, the energy demand is just half that required by stationary pelleting systems.”

That said, the Premos 5000 will still require a tractor that has in the neighbourhood of 400 horsepower to run it.

Krone says the pellets can be used for more than just livestock feed. For instance, 250 grams of pellets can absorb up to one litre of liquid, making them useful for animal bedding. And because they are so absorbent, they can reduce the amount of manure coming out of a barn compared to typical straw bedding.

The pellets also have a density that is three to four times that of a standard straw bale, so they can be used as biofuel. The company says 2.5 kilograms of pellets have the same energy content as a litre of heating fuel. On-farm biofuel systems are popular in Europe, especially Germany, so Krone has been emphasizing this benefit.

The Premos 5000 is in its third year of development and continues in field trials. Krone expects to have it ready for commercial launch in 2017. As it stands now, Lüpping says the price tag will likely come in at around C$372,500.

Multibaler For operations that rely on silage as livestock feed, Agronic, a company in the Netherlands, offers the Multibaler, which can take regular silage 6 country-guide.ca

February 16, 2016

The Multibaler can be used in the field directly behind a forage harvester or stationary in the farmyard to form and wrap silage into bales.

Photo: Krone

and pack it into a round bale shape and wrap it in plastic. Just like the Premos 5000, it too can work either right behind a tractor in the field or stationary in the farmyard.

Producers can use a forage harvester mounted to a three-point hitch on the front of a tractor to blow the chopped material directly into the Multibaler, which is pulled behind the tractor. The Multibaler drops wrapped round bales of silage in the field, so ensiling can become a one-person operation. There is no need to immediately haul silage to a pit and pack it. The bales can be hauled out of the field later as time permits. When they are broken open, livestock get exactly the same type and quality of feed they would if the silage had been handled conventionally.

Agronic builds two sizes of Multibaler: the 820 and 1210 models, which produce two sizes of bales ranging from 250 to 450 kilograms with the 820, and 600 to 1,000 kilograms with the 1210. PTO drive provides power to the Multibalers, which require only a 70-horsepower tractor for the smaller model and 90 for the larger 1210. The Multibalers can also be ordered with their own on-board diesel power supply for stationary use.

If producers want to sell silage feed, having it wrapped in round bales makes that process along with transport a little smoother.

Depending on the model and features, a multibaler will set you back something north of C$140,000. The company’s website is www.gebknoll.nl. CG

German manufacturer Krone says its Premos 5000 pelleting harvester is the first of its kind.

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February 16, 2016

country-guide.ca 7

business

Time to drop ‘commercial?’

When you call yourself a commercial farmer, consumers may hear ‘factory farm’

By Lisa Guenther, CG Field Editor abels are a tricky business, especially in an agriculture where there is a dictionary full of words you can use to describe other farmers, or that you can use to call yourself.

Are you a farmer, or a producer? Or are you a grower, or a rancher?

More to the point, what do you call yourself that paints a clear picture of who you are for non-farmers and consumers? You’re proud to farm, after all, but you’re also proud that you produce the healthiest, highest-quality food that the world has ever seen, and that you do it in a sophisticated, successful, scaled-up and amazingly productive way.

So what’s wrong with “commercial farmer” as a way of differentiating yourself from New-Agers or from hobby farmers, or from farms that seem like overgrown gardens compared with the way you farm?

Maybe nothing is wrong with it. But maybe it’s time we at least put it through the mill to find out.

So I started asking farmers about it last summer.

As you might expect, they don’t all agree.

Which term do farmers embrace?

First I caught Lane Stockbrugger before he headed back into the field in east-central Saskatchewan where he farms with brother Lance.

The Stockbrugger family has been farming that same land for over 100 years. But taking over the farm wasn’t a sure bet for the Stockbruggers when they were kids. A car accident claimed their father’s life in 1983. Their mother survived the accident and raised her two daughters and two sons on the farm.

Stockbrugger started farming his first quarter over 20 years ago, while in Grade 11. He also went on to work as a marketer, and Lance became a chartered accountant, creating a savvy management team that reflects the complexity of farming today.

Stockbrugger isn’t exactly a fan of “commercial farmer.” Farming isn’t entirely about size these days, he says, because production models are so diverse.

For example, what kind of farm is a grain operation with 1,000 acres?

8 country-guide.ca

“We’ve no idea what his gross profit is per acre because he could be doing very different things than the farmer next to him who farms 10,000 acres,” says Stockbrugger. You run the risk of insulting someone if you call him a hobby farmer, or even insulting an entire industry, he adds.

Mary Jane Duncan was next on my list. She thinks of a commercial farmer as someone who runs the farm as a business, to make a living. Like many ag insiders, she doesn’t see commercial and family farms as conflicting categories.

“We’re watching markets and keeping on top of agronomy stuff. But we’re still all family,” she tells me one morning, just before she hops in the combine.

Duncan’s farm is near Regina, Sask. She shares labour with family, but has her own land and she markets her own grain.

Terminology matters in the beef industry, too.

A commercial cow-calf producer differentiates that operation from a purebred herd, rather than separating hobby and business-oriented outfits. And outsiders shouldn’t assume that every beef producer embraces the descriptor “rancher.”

“We learned quickly that people in Ontario and even to some extent Manitoba don’t see themselves as ranchers. They’re farmers,” says Annemarie Pedersen, a public relations specialist specializing in agriculture.

Canada Beef and the Beef Advocacy Centre tend to stick to beef producer to be more inclusive, she says.

Thus the conversation around which label to embrace is complex enough within the agriculture industry. But it becomes even more nuanced once you involve consumers.

Commercial or factory farm?

Even farmers who see themselves as commercial farmers may not want to identify that way all the time, says Duncan.

There’s a trend right now for consumer-directed TV commercials to portray simple family farms.

They aren’t exactly wearing bib overalls and holding February 16, 2016

business pitch forks, but neither are they acting like the chief executive officers of multi-million dollar businesses, and there’s a reason for that discrepancy between image and reality, Duncan says. Friendly farmers sell better than those who are interested in profit.

There’s a perception that big is bad, she adds, “and that profit is bad. But really, to stay viable in an industry you have to be making some profit.”

Like other farmers, Stockbrugger often finds himself waving the flag as a sort of spokesperson for farmers, and he definitely sees a perception problem with the term “commercial farmer” when he’s talking to consumers.

To that audience, he says, commercial farm can sound “kind of factory-farmish, where accountability is out the window.” Yet the majority of farms are still family-run, he says, and they are highly productive without the negative connotations of factory farms.

The term “commercial farm” risks raising those issues without resolving them, Stockbrugger thinks.

It turns out Duncan and Stockbrugger may be right on the mark when it comes to consumer images of farms.

Based in Kansas City, the Centre for Food Integrity is an industry group that studies consumer trust in food, with a special focus on communication techniques, and it has found that consumers suspect large farms put profit ahead of principles.

This means that large family farms must spend more time talking about their values, the group says.

Canadian communications experts agree. “It’s mind-boggling these days how often food and food issues are in the press,” says Chris Forrest, public relations director with AdFarm.

Forrest doesn’t have a specific recommendation on whether producers should use the term “commercial farmer.” But he doesn’t want to lose sight of the fact that a commercial farm can be a family farm, too. The term commercial farmer “probably comes with an expected level of professionalism that you’re bringing to your career.”

Pederson agrees, yet points to a differentiation that could prove critical. Farmers are at the top of the list of the most trusted professions, she says. Yet when you talk about most trusted industries, agriculture becomes more of a grey area. In many consumers’ minds, the word agriculture triggers images of factory farms, multi-billion dollar companies, pollution, pesticides, and antibiotics.

It’s safe to conclude that the agriculture industry has a perception problem. But it’s not clear that farmers should embrace the “commercial farmer” label with consumers while having to explain at the same time that this doesn’t mean they’re factory farms.

Pedersen asks why it’s up to commercial farmers to differentiate themselves from hobby farmers in the first place. Commercial farmers produce most food.

It turns out, in fact, that none of these questions are easy. For instance, how do consumers perceive the term “rancher?” It should be simple, right?

February 16, 2016

After her work with organizations such as Canada Beef and her own experience talking with consumers, Pederson sees “rancher” a little like a Rorschach test — it reveals more about the person looking at the inkblot than the inkblot itself.

For some people, the idea of a rancher conveys a certain romanticism, Pedersen says. Yet other consumers see ranchers as lawless, and maybe even abusive towards their animals.

Whatever term producers use, part of the challenge will be pulling consumers past those stereotypes. And one model to look at is the Behind the Beef program, which was delivered by the B.C. Cattlemen’s Association.

Farmers know what they mean by commercial farm. But do consumers?

Convincing consumers in cities such as Vancouver that the beef industry can be trusted with animal welfare and environmental issues is an uphill battle, says Pedersen. Behind the Beef hired and trained people to hand out recipes in grocery stores with information on beef production. Pedersen, who helped with the program, said they often chose ranchers.

Consumers were more interested when they could get information on raising cattle straight from the source, Pedersen says.

Producers have to own their stories, she says. And although social media is great for interacting with some people, farmers need to expand their reach beyond Twitter, she adds. “I think the personal conversations are the hardest. But we have to win people over one person at a time.”

Forrest agrees that everyone in agriculture has a role to play in facilitating those conversations. At interview time, AdFarm was preparing to launch License to Farm. The film, funded by SaskCanola, along with the Saskatchewan and federal governments, looks at misperceptions around agriculture.

Forrest hopes the film encourages individual farmers to join the conversation, but those conversations do need to be respectful and fact-based, he says.

“Ignoring people or arguing with them isn’t going to accomplish much. It’s about sitting together at the table and sharing information.”

Duncan says she’d probably reserve “commercial farmer” for an ag audience, even though she identifies as one. With her friends, she doesn’t focus on explaining what a commercial farm is, as they don’t have a good grasp of the business side of farming.

As for Stockbrugger, he’s not going to be labeling himself a commercial farmer anytime soon for any audience. He doesn’t mind the term producer, he says, but there’s more to farming than producing.

The other day, though, he overheard his fouryear-old son tell his sister “I’m going to be a farmer when I grow up.” That seemed to sum it up. CG country-guide.ca 9

business

Protecting your assets These six strategies will ensure you get much more than just the tax benefits of forming a farm corporation

By Angela Lovell any farms that incorporate do so for tax purposes. After all, there are definite tax advantages available to a corporation and its shareholders that are not available to individuals or partnerships.

But farm businesses should be careful that they don’t let the tax tail wag the dog, says Jerry Lupkowski, a senior partner with MNP at its Portage la Prairie, Man. office.

“Tax is hugely important, but there are many more reasons to incorporate a business, such as protecting assets,” Lupkowski says. “We encourage our clients to take a look at the whole picture and make sure they’re not only getting the tax advantages of incorporation but also the creditor-proofing advantages.”

#1

Keep personal and business assets separate

Personal and business assets should be kept separate, and owners must decide which assets will be moved into the corporation and which assets will remain outside of it. Advisers often suggest that farmers keep their land under personal ownership, or in a separate holding company, rather than end up with all their hard-earned eggs in one basket.

“If a farm is properly incorporated, assets such as equipment or farm buildings will be inside the company, but the land remains as a personal asset outside of the company,” says Lupkowski. “This means that if someone accidentally gets run through the combine, it’s the company that gets sued because it owns the combine. It doesn’t mean that the spouse can’t sue the individual who owns the land but the chances are she will not be successful. If the land is not owned by the company, it’s not exposed in the event of this kind of situation.”

One of the first things farm owners have to get their head around when they incorporate is that the corporation is an entity in its own right, and they have to ensure that any business dealings for that corporation are done under the correct, full, legal name.

“If a farmer has incorporated the farm, he or she needs to tell all the creditors, suppliers, the bank, and 10 country-guide.ca

everybody he or she deals with the new operating name for that corporation,” says Lupkowski. “If a farmer has been dealing with the same fertilizer company forever, it’s easy to get too comfortable with saying it’s for Jerry’s Farm, but now it’s no longer Jerry’s Farm, it’s Jerry’s Farm Ltd. So that is the name the fertilizer bill should be made out to, or Jerry could find himself personally liable for that bill instead of the company.”

But it’s not just about credit-proofing, adds Lupkowski. “It affects income taxes too, because if Jerry bought the fertilizer, the company can’t get a deduction for it because it’s not a business expense.

Similarly, if Jerry bought a pickup truck, and it’s really a corporate asset, the corporation could have claimed the GST back if it had purchased the vehicle, but Jerry can’t. So for many reasons farmers should make sure they’re operating in the proper legal setting.”

Farm business owners should never use personal credit cards or personal lines of credit for their business because even if they’ve done a great job of sheltering personal assets, if they run all their input purchases, for example, through a personal credit card, they’re exposing those assets, adds Lupkowski. “The credit card company comes after the individual whose name is on the credit card,” he says. “It doesn’t see the company, even though the farmer bought the fertilizer or chemicals for the company. The reward points aren’t worth losing your house for.”

#2

Protect against dangers beyond your control

Similarly, assets need to be protected as much as possible from unforeseen, catastrophic events — such as BSE, food scares or trade issues — that can devastate the industry. “You weren’t negligent, you didn’t do anything wrong, so you need to ensure you, your family and what you’ve earned over the years are safe should you encounter something beyond your control,” says Lupkowski.

There are legitimate tax advantages to being a director of the farm corporation. Commonly a spouse is made a director so he or she can be paid February 16, 2016

business

a director’s fee to split income. But that can expose personal assets to unnecessary risks.

“You can be an owner or shareholder without being a director,” explains Lupkowski.

“If your business doesn’t succeed and you have your spouse listed as a director, they’re liable to third-party creditors, and things such as unpaid employee wages, GST, PST or payroll deductions. If they have assets outside of the business, it’s maybe a good idea not to make them a director to safeguard those personal assets if things go wrong.”

a shareholder’s #3 Have agreement in place Protecting assets from third-party creditors is one thing, but all too often the real threat to personal and business assets can come from within.

Farm businesses, especially those that only involve family members, can be far too complacent about their business relationships, which means they don’t plan ahead for a situation where things go sour because of a family dispute or marital breakup.

“When things are going well, that’s the time to get all your documents in place because everybody’s willing to work with you,” says Lupkowski. “When things are looking sketchy, it’s too late to fix it.”

“It’s a situation,” he adds, “that’s more common that we would like to see.”

A shareholder’s agreement will help protect everybody when things aren’t going according to plan.

“Often, when I advise clients that they should have a shareholder’s agreement in place they’ll say, but why?

It’s just me and my spouse,” says Lupkowski.

“But if the marriage goes sideways,” he explains, “chances are they’re not thinking to their best business abilities. Emotions are clouding judgment. An agreement sets out how they will work through the situation from a business standpoint."

Such an agreement will cost money to cover having it drawn up properly, and hopefully the agreement will never have to be used, Lupkowski tells clients, “but it’s worth its weight in gold if they ever have to.”

#4

Negotiate a limited personal guarantee

Borrowing money is a fact of life for most businesses, and it’s not uncommon for a bank to request a personal guarantee to secure a loan or line of credit. But that doesn’t mean anyone needs to feel pressured or obligated to sign on the dotted line.

“All too often people are fearful of the bank, and I really think they need to take a different view of it,” Lupkowski says. “The bank is a partner in the business, and owners need to talk to them when times are good, not only when times are tough.

“Just because they put a personal guarantee February 16, 2016

in front of you doesn’t mean you have to sign it,” he adds. “If you’re a well-run operation, you’ve got good information, and you’ve got good people on your team, you’ll be attractive to many banks, and you may be able to negotiate a limited personal guarantee up to a certain dollar amount.”

For example, if both you and your business partner have limited personal guarantees on both sides, the bank may agree to have one partner be good for half the debt, and the other partner can be good for the other half.

cash an an asset, #5 Treat and protect it

Cash is an asset that most people don’t treat like one.

If the business is successful and cash accumulates, that’s good, but it’s not always best to just let it sit there.

“That cash is the shareholders’ equity, so if you’ve got lots of retained earnings you should strip that equity out into a separate entity, perhaps a holding company, so it’s not at risk should the business not continue to be successful,” says Lupkowski.

It might be necessary to lend some money back to the business once in a while, but if that happens, security for the loan should be properly registered to make sure you don’t end up behind a lineup of unsecured creditors, such as suppliers, if something goes wrong.

“People will say, it’s my company, I control it, I can take the money out whenever I want, and that’s true when times are good. But when times get tough, if you have registered proper security against the assets of your business because you’ve lent it money, it puts you in front of non-registered creditors,” says Lupkowski. “The banks are usually going to be in front of you, but at least you’ve got claim against the assets versus just being lumped into the pool of unsecured creditors. It’ll be the best insurance you’ve ever bought, if you need it.”

There should also be activity on the loan from time to time, such as charging interest or taking a small repayment, because loans that sit for more than seven years with no activity are not required by law to be repaid.

The same applies for assets that are transferred into the business. “If you transfer the combine which you own, and which the business has not paid you for, to the business, you should register a General Business Security Agreement on it, which means the serial number of the property is recorded and properly registered,” says Lupkowski.

Parking cash into investments is a good idea, but they also have to be chosen carefully. “From a creditor-proofing standpoint, Registered Retirement Savings Plans are secure and safe, but Tax-Free Savings Accounts are not, which is one more thing to consider when you’re making your investments,” says Lupkowski.

Continued on page 12 country-guide.ca 11

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business

Continued from page 11

“ Running a business is risky,” Lupkowski says. “Spend the time now to look at potential liabilities.”

#6 LIGHT ’EM UP

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At the same time, a business owner can’t treat corporate cash as his or her own unless it’s paid out as wages or directors fees, which are taxable. “You may own the company but the company owns the cash in the bank,” says Lupkowski. “People can easily get into trouble from a tax standpoint because if they borrow money from the company to buy a personal asset — say to buy a boat, take a holiday, or to build an extension on their house — that is a taxable transaction.

“You have to make sure all your suppliers, creditors, and everybody knows whether you’re dealing with them on behalf of yourself, or on behalf of the company, so that any assets you have outside the company aren’t inadvertently put at risk because they thought they were dealing with the individual, rather than the company.”

Make sure the business has adequate insurance to cover any accidents involving business owners or employees, whether they occur on or off the farm, and be cognizant of environmental and health-and-safety issues.

“One thing to remember is that you don’t even need to be at fault,” says Lupkowski. Also recognize that if someone decides to sue you, the legal costs can become significant.

“Running a business is risky, so spend the time now to look at potential liabilities and get some professional advice to help lower your risks.” CG

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Don’t go to Hawaii on the business

country-guide.ca 13

business

Trend setters: Young, smart & stubborn

By Maggie Van Camp, CG Associate Editor

ortunately, statistical trends don’t capture stubbornness, optimism and enthusiasm, necessary ingredients for farmers.

Because the trends that the statistics do capture don’t make easy reading.

Below we bring you two inspiring stories of young people meeting the challenge head on. But first, here are those statistics, starting with some numbers from the 2011 Census of Agriculture.

(See table page 20.)

In a mere 20 years, the average age of a Canadian farmer has risen from 47.4 to 54 years old.

It isn’t only in Canada. In many developing countries, the average age of farmers is over 60. The USDA 2012 Census of Agriculture found that only six per cent of principal operators were under 35, while a third were over 65.

Our farm youth have run away from farming.

Here’s an even more frightening way of looking at the numbers. In 1991, nearly 78,000 Canadian farmers were under 35 years old. Two decades later, this number had decreased to only 24,120, nearly a 70 per cent drop.

If it keeps decreasing at a similar rate, by 2031 we will have only 7,500 young farmers in the whole damn country.

On only one out of 10 farms was the oldest operator under 40 years old in 2011, despite all the different types and sizes of farms in all our provinces. In 1991, it was about one in four. Fewer young operators were taking over from the burgeoning cohort of older operators approaching retirement, and today that cohort is five years closer to retirement age.

It’s also true, however, that the spike

14 country-guide.ca

in prices, first for grains and oilseeds and then for cattle and hogs has spurred on the younger generation. As well, clusters of New Age farmers have begun to dot the countryside as more beginning farmers entered the fast-growing local fresh and organic markets.

Suddenly, farmers feel that being a farmer is sexy. Calendars of farmers rival those published with firefighters. According to country singer Kenny Chesney, even tractors can be sexy.

Maybe things weren’t as bad as the numbers seemed. After all, changes in the structure of farms weren’t reflected in those declining statistics of 2011.

Farms were getting bigger and more family farms were incorporated. Today, multi-generational or sibling farms dominate the rural Canadian landscape and the younger farmers involved in these operations are often not considered the main operators.

In the province of big skies and even bigger farms, 11.8 per cent of farmers were under 40 years old in the 2011 census, the highest percentage in the country.

One of those young farmers is 25-yearold Katelyn Duncan who farms with her dad John, sister Mary Jane and brother Landon, just south of Regina. Together they grow about 7,500 acres of grain and oilseed, specialty crops. Katelyn is also general manager of Saskatchewan Young Ag-Entrepreneurs, a networking group of about 200 18 to 40 year olds.

Duncan has been going to farm meetings for seven years and has noticed a lot less grey hair in the crowds lately.

She also says improved grain and oilseed prices have encouraged many young people to come home to the farm. Addi-

February 16, 2016

business

tionally, she says provincial and federal government programs have also helped reverse the trend. She points to all sorts of learning opportunities — mentorship, leadership training, and green funding — and she says the federal GF2, and FCC’s young farmer loan at prime plus 0.9 per cent is good for her age group.

“Our government has done a fantastic job of making funding and programs available for young farmers,” Duncan says.

“However, those opportunities are underutilized. Maybe the young farmers don’t know about the programs, or maybe they just don’t want to do the paperwork.”

New farmers have to face the core challenge, says new farmer, 25-year-old Katelyn Duncan. “It’s a competitive industry. Money talks.”

Governments south of the border have been targeting support for beginning farmers and ranchers since 1992 and have much deeper pockets. The 2014 Farm Act reduces the premiums on buy-up level coverage by half for new farmers, and it also waives the application fee for the noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program and increases the per cent of crop covered for natural disasters. The U.S. now ponies up $25 million more for education and programming for young farmers, it has loosened the terms for beginning loans and grants, and it financially encourages the transition of Conservation Reserve Program land to beginning farmers.

Despite the recent pullback in grain prices and the staggering increase in land and rent prices, optimism abounds around Duncan. “The farms are getting larger, there are fewer players in the game. When you enter farming you have to start small, and work on a succession plan with family,” she says. “But someone still has to run the seeder.”

It’s not necessarily just the number of farmers that helps keep farming and rural living vibrant, she says. It’s whether the young people living and working in Continued on page 16 Continued on page xx February 16, 2016

country-guide.ca 15

business

Photography: carey shaw

Continued from page 15

Principal Operators by Age Group, 2007 and 2012 257,705 243,472

75 years and over*

443,571 412,182

65 to 74 years*

608,052 596,306

55 to 64 years 466,036

45 to 54 years

565,401

214,106 268,818

35 to 44 years* 25 to 34 years

109,119 106,735

Under 25 years

10,714 11,878

2012 Census 2007 Census

Number or principle operators Source:USDA NASS, 2012 Census of Agriculture.

*Statistically significant change.

rural areas step up to the plate, initiate growth, and fill leadership roles. “We need someone to carry on,” says Duncan. “As long as there’s young people within the ag industry, whether they are involved in a farm or not, they will continue to contribute to the future of agriculture.”

Raised in a web-based world and weaned on social media, this generation wants to access ideas and knowledge immediately. “We need a network to support each other, for people our age to communicate ideas,” says Duncan. “Many people my age want to talk about the same issues, such as land prices and water drainage, and those issues are different than for someone twice our age.”

Companies are competing with farms for bright, young graduates from ag colleges. When Duncan graduated from the University of Saskatchewan with her ag business degree a few years ago, she had job offers from companies she hadn’t even applied to. Most of these jobs had consistent paycheques with less risk and the weekends off. These enticements drew many of her classmates away from farming, especially if they didn’t have an established family farm to go home to.

For many young farmers, one of the main threats to the success of their farms today is debt and equity management. The older generations have been unwilling to exit the industry so land is simply not available to buy or rent. Since farming requires such massive amounts of capital investment, it’s very difficult for young farmers to keep their heads above water, especially competing in an industry dominated by old money and inherited land.

Land is simply not as available and attainable as it was a decade ago, with non-farm investment and aggressive buyers pushing the market. The shift toward renting has been amplified. “It’s a competitive industry,” says Duncan. “And money talks.”

The dramatic change in land prices and ownership, rental rates and the price of quota has definitely dampened the ability to start from nothing.

The shift has been toward consolidation and growth of larger family farms with fewer commercial farms starting up independently.

“I don’t know how it’s possible to start a brand new farm now. I don’t know any here,” says Duncan matter-of-factly.

According to the USDA’s paper Beginning Farmers and Ranchers at a Glance 2013, the number of new farmers who have been on their current operation less then 10 years, regardless of age, dropped 20 per cent in five years.

But within those numbers, the youth situation seems to be swinging back upwards. In 1982, 16 per cent of all principal operators of beginning farms were under 35 years old; by 2007 it had dropped to only five per cent but four years later 14 per cent of principal operators were under 35 years old.

Continued on page 18

16 country-guide.ca

February 16, 2016

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They’re Bucking the trend In their mid-20s, Ryan Taylor and his partner, Robyn McCallum, are about half the age of the average farmer in Canada. Not only that, they also started from scratch a few years ago, near Miramichi, N.B. The 2011 census found that in the Atlantic provinces, only 7.1 per cent of farmers were under 40 years old.

They started out small and slow — with some help from family — with a quarter acre of sweet corn sold at a farm market run by Robyn’s parents. After three years, they’re growing 550 acres of soybeans, oats, wheat and corn, mostly on rented land, and they recently bought their own 50 acres with a house.

They also do about 200 acres of custom work.

Taylor is a certified heavy-duty mechanic. These skills have allowed them to reduce their costs by doing their own repairs, and the extra work has increased cash flow at important times of the year.

They’ve also been able to buy used equipment that he can fix up, and borrow equipment from neighbours in exchange for mechanical work.

18 country-guide.ca

For Robyn McCallum and Ryan Taylor, the statistics aren’t in control. They’re determined to make their own future.

McCallum is working on her PhD in biology, researching ways to boost native pollinator and beneficial insect populations in crops at Dalhousie University’s agricultural campus in Truro, N.S. She’s also president of the students’ association and last year her paper won Farm Management Council’s award of excellence on how the agricultural industry can best support young farmers looking to succeed in the global marketplace.

Mentors have played a critical role in their startup. They pointed out land for rent, they provided access to equipment, they opened up new marketing opportunities, and above all else they provided guidance and know-how.

Neighbour John Schenkels trusted them enough to be their first high moisture corn contract, and has been a good friend and a trusted adviser ever since.

Although this enterprise is entirely their own, some of the couple’s farming relatives, such as uncles Dale February 16, 2016

business and Ian Archibald who are dairy farmers in Nova Scotia, have encouraged and guided them.

However, not everyone has been supportive of the farming dream. “I still remember a high school science teacher pulling me aside to seriously question why I wanted to study agriculture, but comments like that have made me stubborn and determined,” says McCallum.

Also, when they first asked for a farm loan, the bank loan manager looked at them as if they had three heads, says McCallum. “They could not fathom why two young, educated people would want to start their own business, let alone an agricultural business.”

Starting from nothing really forced them to have top business skills. It was imperative for them to learn how to write a business plan and a budget, and to do cash flows. The process helped them set goals based on a clear vision. Taking these steps, backed up with paperwork, allowed them to access operating lines and it made it easier to apply for grants.

Going forward, they’re working with farm adviser, Len Davies, to really understand their business and build strategy to reach their goals.

The biggest challenge in getting started in farming is access to enough capital and land to operate at a size capable of earning a sufficient profit. A few years ago it was estimated that the average farm asset base for farms producing with $25,000 to $30,000 in gross value was over $800,000.

The couple’s vision is to have a financially viable, commercial farm, so expansion and opportunities are at the forefront of their minds and plans. Right now the farm is a sole proprietorship under Ryan’s name and eventually they plan to incorporate. “We’ve doubled our acres every year since we started three years ago,” says McCallum. “We want our farm to grow to support us both full time and be a good place to raise a family.”

Last year they did custom work on 200 acres that helped make the tractor payments. They also have some land suitable for growing wild blueberries.

Their energy and enthusiasm come from working as a team on a common goal, with each bringing skills, teaching each other and learning continually.

This is a classic case of “one plus one equals three,” and a partnership based on mutual respect, hope and love. “Ryan is so supportive to work with, especially with mechanics and equipment.

February 16, 2016

He empowers me to learn and is very patient,” says McCallum.

But it takes flexibility too, she says.

“Young farmers must be at the ready to change crops and business practices to meet markets and customer demands. This is at the heart of any profitable business.”

Last year McCallum attended the Canadian Young Farmer Forum in Ottawa and learned about risk management, financial reporting and business

plans. It was the first time she heard other young people talking about how much they wanted to build something. She also heard about how to deal with the relationships and emotions around the farm.

Their greatest challenge in farming so far is stress. It’s a big responsibility at 20 years old, with big numbers. Taylor remembers it was a bit unnerving the first Continued on page 20

country-guide.ca 19

business

“ We know we aren’t going to be like other young couples but we are OK with that,” — Robyn McCallum

Photography: Victoria Coy Photography

Continued from page 19

Distribution of farms by age of the oldest operator, Canada and province, 2011 Farms by age of the oldest operator Less than 40 years

40 to 44 years

45 to 49 years

50 to 54 years

55 years and older

Canada

9.9%

6.9%

11.8%

16.2%

55.2%

Atlantic Provinces

7.1%

6.5%

11.5%

15.0%

60.0%

Quebec

10.7%

7.7%

14.4%

18.4%

48.8%

Ontario

9.5%

6.7%

11.5%

15.9%

56.4%

Manitoba

11.5%

7.7%

12.3%

16.6%

51.9%

Saskatchewan

11.8%

6.6%

11.0%

16.1%

54.6%

Alberta

9.6%

7.1%

11.7%

15.8%

55.8%

British Columbia

6.4%

6.2%

10.6%

15.1%

61.6%

Source: Statistics Canada, Census of Agriculture 2011 http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/96-325-x/2014001/article/11905-eng.htm 20 country-guide.ca

time he saw a cheque with four zeroes.

“It changes your way of thinking when it’s your own money out of your pocket going into the ground,” he says. “You have to really want it.”

Many people told them they couldn’t grow corn so far north, but in the last couple of years they’ve successfully grown 2300 heat unit varieties. They’ve improved their field management skills to ensure the corn is healthy and that it develops fast enough to mature before frost. However, weather risk is always there and, with experience, they’ve had to learn how to deal with that worry. “I can still remember going outside in early fall and getting that gut sinking feeling thinking we had early frost on our corn… But it was just dew,” laughs Taylor.

They’ve also felt great reward and satisfaction. Originally they grew the sweet corn because they wanted to buy a hitch wagon for Taylor’s Belgian draft horses, a passion he acquired from his grandfather.

Although in the first few years their earnings went directly back into starting their farm, four years later they were finally able to buy a show cart and show hitch wagon.

Farming can be all consuming, and they even tried banning the word “corn” on certain days to make sure they take a break.

To relax, they also show draft horses.

“We know we aren’t going to be like other young couples but we are OK with that,” McCallum says. “Farming brings us joy and allows us to pursue our passion for agriculture, together.” CG For a list of provincial measures specifically targeting young and beginning farmers and farm transfers go to: http://www.farmstart.ca/provincial-measuresspecifically-targeting-young-and-beginningfarmers-and-farm-transfers/ February 16, 2016

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business

22 country-guide.ca

February 16, 2016

business

High velocity Karl Gerrand is promising to shake up Canada’s grain industry with high-speed logistics.

Will his competitors play nice?

Photography: VICTORIA ANNE PHOTOGRAPHY

By Gord Gilmour, CG Associate Editor f there’s one thing Karl Gerrand understands, it’s that Canada’s newest grain company can’t afford to be just another “me too” operator.

Gerrand is heading up Global Grain Group, or G3 as it has quickly been dubbed in the business, a phoenix arising from the ashes of the former Canadian Wheat Board with the backing of global grain giant Bunge and the Saudi Arabian government.

Under Gerrand, the company’s goal is to create a pipeline flowing with Prairie grain headed for Vancouver, all carried by dedicated trains cycling back and forth more quickly and efficiently than anything Canada has ever seen Making this happen means investing heavily in a network of modern facilities with loop track loading systems that enable trains to be filled in hours, not days. In fact, they’ll load

so fast, the engines won’t even decouple from the cars, but will rather idle around the track as each car is filled in just minutes. At port, similar logistical systems will unload trains with equal speed, with zero car shunting and lost time.

For railways, this will make G3 their most efficient shipping partner, Gerrand says, which will lead in turn to lower average freight rates and better service for G3 as well as benefits for growers. It will also mean simpler and faster grain movement, which will translate into a greater ability to capture otherwise missed market opportunities.

For the company, it means a key point of differentiation, which Gerrand predicts will pave a path to success.

Continued on page 26

“We believe, coming in as a small player in this industry, we’re going to have to provide a different value proposition to the farmer and the market.”

February 16, 2016

country-guide.ca 23

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business

Under Gerrand’s leadership, the key to success will be building the kind of grain presence that CWB backers always wished they had.

Continued from page 23 “We believe, coming in as a small player in this industry, we’re going to have to provide a different value proposition to the farmer and the market,” Gerrand explains during an interview in his office in downtown Winnipeg.

Faster, faster, faster Gerrand says the need for an evolution of the grain shipping model can be seen very clearly in recent events. Just two winters ago the western system groaned under the combined strain of a brutal winter and a bumper crop.

Grain movement was close to a standstill at times, and growers suffered from lost market opportunities and constantly rising costs through shipping demurrage — the penalty a shipper must pay for being unprepared to load a cargo by the agreed upon time.

“The farmer, as you’ll recall two years ago, couldn’t get grain into elevators because they were full and we couldn’t move grain to port because the ports were jammed up,” Gerrand says. “There were upwards of 45 vessels sitting in the Vancouver port area at any one time. All the grain companies were paying demurrage for poor freight efficiency, and that all ultimately flows back to the farmer.”

The heart of the G3 model will be a Vancouver 26 country-guide.ca

terminal elevator with a loop track, and the company is currently in the consultation and evaluation phase of the project, after filing their application with the port. Gerrand says a lot of details remain to be worked out, but early signs are good.

The local government appears keen on the plan, and area residents are willing to give it a look with an open mind. Two key attributes of the project might prevent the rise of project-killing NIMBY-ism, Gerrand says. First there’s the fact the terminal ships grain, which is correctly viewed as a very safe product to ship. Then there are the benefits of the design itself.

“When we explain to them how the loop track will work, and that there won’t be shunting cars back and forth and all that banging and noise, they’re generally very happy,” Gerrand says.

Without building the loop track system at port, it would be impossible for G3 to capture the full efficiency of its model, Gerrand says. He also added that this would hinder any of the company’s competition from going down the same road, even though some are already buildling loop tracks at country positions. The complicated and crowded geography makes replicating this model very hard for any of the other players at the port.

“None of the other companies have room at their existing locations to install a loop track,” Gerrand says. “If you don’t have the west coast port capacity February 16, 2016

business to unload those cars just as quickly as you can load them, you lose the freight value.

To the railways, the value is in keeping that train together and bringing it back without breaking it apart. That’s the real keystone to our model.”

The new G3 strategy This admission reveals one of the true ironies of the evolution of the former CWB. One of its greatest weaknesses might actually turn out to be its unexpected strength.

In the western grain echo chamber, there have always been experts to say the CWB could never succeed because of its lack of physical assets.

It never owned and operated elevators, but instead acted as a central marketing agency for the western wheat and barley crop, with logistics being handled by the established grain handling firms.

Once the monopoly was lost, the story went, it would only be a matter of time before the inevitable obituary would be written and the wake would be held. After all, what incentive would the elevator companies have for playing ball with the new CWB, which was really just another commercial competitor? Sure, it might limp on for a few seasons, but the writing was on the wall.

And building elevators? Not a viable option, according to this thinking. Grain handling assets are expensive and extremely long-lived, it says, and they face a long and slow payback period. It’s not coincidental that until now the recent action in the grain business has been largely financial, as one pool of capital acquired another, and the system continued to rationalize.

But where others saw an insurmountable barrier, Gerrand and his team see an opportunity to build a new system from the ground up, based on a strategy of optimizing every step to remove bottlenecks and ensure uninterrupted flow of grain from Prairie to port.

Which is where the irony comes to the forefront. The reason this works for G3, Gerrand explains, is that while other grain companies try to cobble together the best possible system with their existing facilities through merger, acquisition or legacy ownership, the industry has moved on, especially since today’s larger crops and time-sensitive global markets make moving the grain to port on time and on spec more important than ever.

“We think we’re building the right system for today,” Gerrand says.

What will that system look like? It’s too February 16, 2016

soon to say for sure, but it will be larger than the current seven high-capacity elevators that are in operation in Manitoba and eastern Saskatchewan. It will likely expand to something in the mid-to-high 20s, giving the company a bigger geographic footprint to source grain from.

“Most of our future expansion will concentrate on Alberta and Saskatchewan, I can say that with certainty,” Gerrand says. “We’re actually quite well represented in the eastern part of the region.”

In the end, Gerrand sees that footprint placing most growers within striking distance of one of the company’s elevators, i.e. it will be realistic for them to ship a Super B of grain.

Meanwhile, this will also meet the needs of the company in terms of lower risk through geographic diversity and enough capacity to keep trains full and running.

“The railway is not their customer, and I do wonder,” Earl says, “are they looking at it that way?”

The leverage question The size question may be crucial. Does G3 have the scale to get attractive deals from the rail sector? Plus, G3 has two quite large competitors in Viterra and Richardson. They’re unlikely to stand idly by while an upstart company begins to eat up their market share, Earl says.

“They’re big enough to meet this competition without putting themselves at risk. Even with the additional facilities they’re going to be building, G3 is still going to be relatively small — they’ll be about the same size as a Parrish and Heimbecker or Paterson.”

Earl says he’s also a bit concerned at how the company appears to be betting

“ I don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade,” says rail expert Paul Earl. “Greater efficiency is always a worthy goal.”

Hurdles in the way It’s an impressive vision, but one observer says success and failure will both be in the details.

Paul Earl is a legendary and, at times, controversial voice in occasionally fractious grain transportation debate. He held senior positions with United Grain Growers, and the Canadian Transportation Agency, and these days is a senior scholar with the Asper School of Business and an associate of the Transport Institute, both at the University of Manitoba.

Earl says greater efficiency in the grainhandling system is always a worthy goal, and G3 is headed down the right track by seeking it. He’s less convinced that it’s going to necessarily result in a lot of benefits for the company or its farmer customers.

“I don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade or denigrate what they’re doing, because greater efficiency is always a worthy goal,” Earl says. “What I will say is that there are some questions that I think still need to be answered.”

First and foremost is whether the railways will in fact respond to the incentives that G3 is placing in front of them with better service and lower rates. Earl says they may, but then again, they may not.

heavily on its logistics program and accepting on faith that it will have the sales program to support it.

“In economic theory, we describe transportation as a derived demand,” Earl says. “I just wonder if they’re not looking at transportation to drive sales, rather than sales to drive transportation.”

And then there’s the complicating mix of regulatory and revenue-cap issues, which can prove fraught and sometimes political.

One point both Earl and Gerrand agree upon is the necessity for the financial backers of the venture to take the long view and not expect short-term results.

“These grain handling assets don’t pay back very fast,” Earl says.

Gerrand, who was one of the founders of CanOat Milling, says he’s very familiar with the challenges of attracting capital to agriculture, and in no small part the quality of investors is going to be key to the company’s success.

“It’s not easy to build greenfield projects in the grain industry,” Gerrand admits. “The returns aren’t as attractive in the very short term as other investments.”

But, he adds, “We have some very patient investors who are taking the long view.” CG country-guide.ca 27

business

A focus group?

More companies are asking more farmers to sit in on focus groups. Should you agree? What rules should you expect?

By Angela Lovell

rom the day the first farmer put the first seed in the ground, there’s never been a farmer who didn’t have a wealth of opinions. Nor have there been very many farmers who take much if any persuading to share what they think.

In today’s more sophisticated world, however, the game has changed. Companies want your opinion both so they can design better products that work better on your farm, and also so they can achieve their own objectives, i.e. getting more of your money.

The two go hand in hand.

So if you get a call to participate in a focus group, will you be helping to design a better product or go-tomarket strategy that will help all farmers? Or will you primarily be helping the company’s bottom line?

Equally important, will the focus group actually make a difference? Or will it be a waste of time, helping some marketing agency pad its own fees?

What does a good focus group look like?

We asked some of the people who organize focus groups for their own take on what makes a focus group worth attending.

Ben Graham, managing partner at AdFarm, which conducts focus groups exclusively for the agricultural industry, says farmers can get valuable insight from the quality of the questions that the focus group gets asked.

“We work hard to avoid the obvious or the notso-smart questions,” Graham says. “You’ve got to ask good questions because if you are trying to gain market intelligence, your information is only as good as the questions you ask.”

Farmers can also get insight from whether the organizers seem to understand agriculture. “We certainly don’t do focus groups during seeding and harvest,” says Colin Siren, vice-president at Ipsos Reid, where he conducts an average of 20 to 30 focus groups a year with farmers and others in the agricultural industry. “We don’t contact our farmers on Sunday, and because farmers are typically more available early in the morning, unless they’re a dairy farmer, we tend to do morning focus groups and then a lunch session, whereas with consumers it would almost always be done in the evening when they tend to be more available.”

28 country-guide.ca

Something seems to be working, though, because Canada’s farmers do participate in focus groups.

“My gut feeling is that participation is higher (among farmers) than among the general public because from a farmer’s perspective, there’s a lot more to offer in the discussion than just the incentive that they receive for coming out to the group,” says Siren. “They get some insight into something that might impact how they think about their business.”

How much should they pay?

Farmers generally receive a small cash incentive for participating in a focus group, but that’s less a motivation than an acknowledgement of respect for their time and opinion.

Graham agrees. “It’s not a ton of money — maybe $50, $100 or $200 depending on the need of the group,” he says. “But really, the money isn’t the driver. Farmers have a passion for their business, and their love for what they do gives us a really good opportunity to get involvement.”

That’s the viewpoint from farmers too. “My hope was that I was contributing something to my industry through my presence at the focus group just by being heard, having a voice for someone who was listening,” says Craig Christensen who farms 9,000 acres of cereals and oilseeds east of Calgary and attended a recent focus group.

“I don’t know if I was making a difference, but it felt good to try,” Christensen says. “If I did make a difference I think it was just by helping the facilitators understand what my concerns were for my business and the agricultural industry.”

Focus groups also give farmers a chance to swap notes with their peers and see what other parts of the industry are up to. “There were a lot of different types of farmers in the room but a lot of the concerns were very similar. It seems wherever you go a farmer is a farmer,” says Christensen.

And Graham finds farmers also want to make sure the story isn’t wrong. Agriculture can suffer from misinformation or badly presented arguments, so a chance to set the record straight is a good motivation for many producers to participate in focus groups, he says. “I think part of what motivates producers is the danger of not participating, because February 16, 2016

business

somebody else might put some opinions forward that might hurt their business or agriculture in general and they don’t want to take that risk.”

Why a focus group?

Businesses and organizations commission focus groups for any number of reasons. Sometimes it’s to get a feel for how a new product would be received, or to solicit feedback on issues or challenges that face the industry.

Often the focus group helps to shape arguments or frame positions on a specific topic, or it assists companies to develop the right marketing messages and campaigns.

“If a company has multiple messages about, say, a new product, it wants to make sure it has the right messages in the right order,” says Graham. “Let’s say it’s a fertility product and it’s great on yields, really good for the environment because it’s a controlled-release product. It makes things easier to store and manage on your farm, and maybe it’s easier to apply. So you’ve got this whole long list of messages you could tell the grower.

The beauty of the research is it helps you prioritize that message so that you make sure you lead with the most important message to the grower.”

For Christensen, the focus group was called because an advertiser wanted to better understand their target audience. “I think that could have a potential impact for my business, which would hopefully be better advertising content and delivery, and hopefully help the agricultural industry be better informed about what purchasers of agricultural inputs and products are looking for.”

Effective focus groups Getting the right people in the room is as important as asking the right questions, and there’s a lot of work and effort that goes into filling the chairs.

“A product, for example, might be targeted to mid-size farmers, so in the West I might need to talk to farmers that have between 1,000 and 3,000 acres that are predominately wheat and canola growers.

Part of the recruitment process is to find growers that match that segment,” says Graham. “In Canada it’s tough because of our privacy laws, so we would have to query farmers about how many acres they farm and whether they would like to participate.”

Farmers can also be segmented by demographic or psychographic information. “We may want to talk to progressive farmers. So that’s a little tougher. How do you decide which farmer is more progressive than the next?” says Graham. “We have to build some questions and scenarios and select the appropriate farmers.”

Then, after you have the right people in the room, you need to run an effective program.

That requires a facilitator who can make peo-

The survey says…

If you’re sick of hearing the phone ring, or of getting your email or you mailbox clogged with survey requests, you aren’t alone.

“It’s becoming tougher to get farmers to participate in surveys because it’s so overdone,” says Ben Graham of Adfarm. “There are so many points where surveys are used; there are online surveys, call-in surveys, surveys at trade shows, so we have to think of unique ways to do it. Questions need to be short and to the point. Digital is becoming the best way to do surveys because it’s the least time-sensitive for farmers and the time commitment is a lot less.”

But before you throw that survey in the garbage or hit the delete button, it may be well to remember that surveys are a useful tool for many of the companies serving your needs.

“If you’re a canola seed company and you’re trying to gauge where seed sales are at and how many growers have booked their seed early, a survey is excellent for that,” says Graham. “You can come back and say 50 per cent of growers have booked their canola seed and I’m only at 37 per cent of my sales target. There are a lot of other canola seed companies out there and I’m behind, so I’d better get going. Surveys are useful to see current status or even trends.”

Colin Siren of Ipsos Canada says there is a symbiotic relationship between surveys and other types of research such as focus groups and one-on-one interviews. “Surveys continue to play an important role for those trying to understand the attitudes, opinions and behaviours of farmers,” says Siren, who adds Ipsos maintains a survey panel of 120,000 Canadian farmers. “But we also use qualitative research, like focus groups and interviews because these give you the general direction on an issue, whereas quantitative research, such as a survey, allows us to follow up and quantify how far our client is from achieving their goal or the potential for a new product.”

Continued on page 30 February 16, 2016

country-guide.ca 29

business Continued from page 29 ple in the room comfortable with each other and the process, says Scott Samoleski, vice-president of Street Smart Marketing Strategy Inc., which conducts focus groups for many different industry sectors, including agriculture.

“We usually try to keep our meetings intimate with about six to eight people, and keep the duration to about two hours,” Samoleski says. “We let them know the reason they’re there is to get their opinion, and that the more honest they are, the better. Not only are we learning what their opinion is but we have the opportunity to ask questions and find out why they feel that way, and what would it take to perhaps change their perspective.”

Christensen says he liked the format of the focus group he attended. “It was really well organized, and the questions were fair and pertinent about our issues and concerns for our business and agriculture going forward,” he says. “I really liked the open ended questions because they were designed to encourage open discussion.”

“ It’s ironic that the people with all the decision-making authority are the people that have the least contact with customers.”

— Scott Samoleski Avoiding groupthink Samoleski’s group has developed what he calls a unique style that helps ensure no one person dominates the conversation. “When you are running the group it’s important to make sure that you get everyone’s opinions before they hear other people talk to avoid groupthink,” says Samoleski. “We make sure that people commit to their point of view before we enter into a discussion. We put questions on the table and ask everyone to individually think about what their answers are. Then we go to every single person and make sure that we hear what they had to say.

If we see that people are parroting back what they heard somebody else say, we go back and ask them what they had written down.”

Samoleski’s clients are looking for more than just an information dump from focus group conversations. They want detailed analysis that identifies trends and common issues and provides them with direction. It’s the reason that Samoleski makes audio and videotapes of each meeting. He will carefully analyze the information afterwards and give his clients a better idea which subjects are pushing the emotional buttons of participants.

“When you’re running a meeting, you’re concentrating on the timing, the flow, and making 30 country-guide.ca

sure that you’re getting everything out of people,” Samoleski says. “We turn the audio recording into a written transcript so we know exactly what every person in the room said. The video gives us the degree of expression so we can tell if someone’s skeptical or if they’re passionate or if they’re upset about something.”

Identifying the common patterns from various focus groups allows clients to understand what’s most important to a potential audience. Sometimes there might be one person in the room who really harps on a particular thing, and you think that must be a big deal, says Samoleski. By comparing that meeting against four or five others, however, you can get better insight into whether it’s actually a unique issue to that one grower, or something that seriously affects a number of others too.

Christensen has no hesitation in speakng up about issues, but he knows not everyone is comfortable doing that in a group setting, and his only criticism of the process was that he felt there should have been an opportunity for one-on-one discussions as well. “If you are talking about business concerns and opportunities, farmers typically like to keep that kind of stuff tight to the vest and those conversations don’t happen easily,” he says. “I think a more personal component would have made it easier for some people to open up.”

Get to the decision makers Not all focus groups bring people together in a room. Online groups are also common and have the advantage of being able to connect a wider audience. The Internet also provides some social listening opportunities that can give insight into general cultural or industry trends.

“Often the discussions that are being held in social media spaces about farming are more general than what our clients are looking for,” says Siren.

“But social listening has its place. If you even look at something as simple as Google Analytics you have a baseline to understand the type of dialogue and discussion that’s going on now and compare that to 10 years ago. It’s a very powerful tool, especially when there’s a change in public dialogue or perceptions.”

Social media can sometimes trigger focus groups, adds Graham. “Social media can be a tool to help us mould focus groups because we’ll discover a groundswell of discussion about something, which can prompt the need for more investigation and market intelligence,” he says.

For many of Samoleski’s clients, a focus group helps bring the board room and the farm gate closer together. “What we try to do is put the customer in the boardroom,” he says. “It’s ironic that the people with all the decision-making authority are the people that have the least contact with customers. And the people that have the most contact with customers have the least power to impact change. Part of our role is to try and reduce the gap between executive leadership in a company or organization and what’s happening on the ground floor.” CG February 16, 2016

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business

A foodie’s

Calgary

By Steven Biggs, CG Contributing Editor

round the world, the mention of food and Calgary conjures up thoughts of a great steak in a bustling town. But the idea of Calgary as a foodie destination isn’t so easy a jump. Or at least, it hasn’t been so easy until now.

But is it true? Is even the heart of beef country being transformed ino a more diverse ag market?

I ask Karen Anderson. After all, as the owner of Calgary Food Tours, she’s about as close to the front lines as you can get. So I quiz her about the sort of people who attend her food tours, and in reply, she recalls one participant who told her, “I can read about the best restaurants in Calgary,” but the challenge was to meet people — owners, chefs, and staff — and to get a sense of where food is going.

Next time you’re in CowTown, here’s a way to see the future of Canadian food, and do some great eating too Her tours include tastings, but they also give visitors food stories and introduce them to real live Calgarians. “You come to Calgary and go to the Tyrrell Museum, the mountains, and Heritage Park… but did you meet a Calgarian?” asks Anderson.

But if you were going to show people from across Canada and even from around the world about food in Calgary, where would you start? Who would you pick to include on your tour stops?

Anderson takes the same approach that she uses when she travels herself. She is always seeking out people and stories when she goes somewhere new. “I travel a lot globally and I always start vacations with a food tour,” she says. Food, she feels, is a gateway to local knowledge and people.

Her company website is peppered with three words: food, fun, adventure. And when I speak with Anderson, although she is serious and engaging, she laughs a lot. Her approach to food — people, stories, and fun — seems an engaging yet down-to-earth way to teach people about food.

Food trends start on the ground, where Anderson’s tours meet the real people who are making real differences

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February 16, 2016

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From nursing to food “It was a transformative experience for me,” Anderson says as she talks about her first exposure to food tours. At the time, Anderson, a former nurse practitioner, was studying in Boston. “Because I didn’t know that city I was taking courses to meet people. I saw one was a chef-guided tour of an Italian district. It turns out that the chef was a nurse,” she recalls.

The food businesses in that district became an important network of people in her life. Today, she says, her tours provide “inside information and relationships with food operators.”

“I grew up very connected to my food,” says Anderson. “You bought your bags of turnips, potatoes, and carrots and you put them in your cellar for the winter,” she recalls, talking about her upbringing in New Brunswick. There was also a side of beef — and lots of fish, since her grandfather was a fisherman.

Anderson started Calgary Food Tours in 2006 when looking for a business suited to family life. “I have a mind that sees patterns and I like to tell stories,” she says. Combined with her interest in food, and the idea of food tours, it created what she calls a “perfect storm.”

Calgary cuisine “If you’re going to have beef this (Calgary) is probably the best place in the world to have it,” she says. Then she talks about a restaurant where patrons explore the flavours of beef, tasting different breeds, grain-fed versus grass-fed, and beef aged in different ways.

For people like me who think of steak when they think of Calgary, Anderson says, “I’d tell them that there’s a lot on the menu once you get past the beefy blinders.” She suggests bison. Then she talks about the cold nights in the area and how it affects the root vegetables, saying, “Our root vegetables are so incredibly sweet.”

She talks about prairie-hardy fruit such as sour cherries, saskatoons, and black currants, and how the large honey production in the province is spawning meaderies. “We are micro-brewery crazy in Alberta,” she adds.

Photography: Loree Photography

Food tourists The company offers five different food tours weekly, from May through October. Four of the tours explore neighbourhoods, and one of them, a farmers market.

Clients include international tourists from places such as Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Norway — she even had someone from Namibia last year. She says that many people go online to find Calgary Food Tours, on sites such

THE 5 TOURS

Anderson says Calgary is a city of 1.2 million people that has a downtown core studded with glass-and-steel towers. Most of the eateries in this part of town, she says, are “expense-account” restaurants. But outside of that core, visitors can see the character of Calgary.

“What most people don’t realize about Calgary is that near the downtown core there are very walkable, liveable neighbourhoods, like little pearls on a necklace. That’s where we focus,” she says.

Inglewood’s Edible Enticements � $100 Anderson says this is where Calgary started in the late 19th century.

It’s experienced a revitalization partly driven by food businesses and “food mavericks” who have gentrified the neighbourhood.

The tour includes an Italian lunch, knife skills demo, spice blending, tasting gourmet treats, chocolate tasting, a private restaurant tour (with wine), honey and sweets, a tea tasting, and bakery treats.

Craving Kensington � $100 “ It was the first suburb of Calgary,” says Anderson of this neighbourhood just outside the downtown core. “There’s so much good food in that neighbourhood we only walk two blocks,” she says.

She calls it a “cozy and enjoyably walkable neighbourhood that’s bursting with delicious offerings and great stories.”

Palette to Palate � $100 This is an art and food appreciation tour that looks at food, wine, and culinary arts in the designer district, which she says was formerly “millionaires row.” Includes a stop at an art gallery.

Savouring 17th Ave. SW � $100 “ It is notorious and infamous for when the Calgary Flames are in action.

It’s called the red mile,” she says of this trendy neighbourhood. The tour involves a six-stop progressive lunch. “It’s a very fun part of town,” says Anderson. “THE place to be on a Saturday afternoon.”

Chef-Guided Tour of the Calgary Farmer’s Market � $30 Includes tastes of fresh produce, saskatoon treats, elk jerky, bison, pork sausages, fruit wine samples, artisanal cheeses and coffee — and recipes.

On the website she promotes this tour by saying, “The ranchers and farmers you’ll meet on this tour are from southern British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan. They devote their lives to growing food for you to eat and this is your chance to hear how they do it.”

Continued on page 34 F eb r u a r y 1 6 , 2 0 1 6

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When food is on the table, it’s the right time to talk farming, Anderson believes.

Continued from page 33 as TripAdvisor. “Our company credo is food, fun and adventure and those are the characteristics of the people we attract,” she says.

She also attracts people from Calgary bedroom communities. “They are people that like a small-town life. When they come in the city they feel intimidated so they walk around with us to get to know the neighbourhood and not feel so intimidated by all the one-way streets,” she says.

Food and farmers “I am devoted to city people understanding what it takes for a farmer to put food on our table, so that is a big part of our storytelling,” says Anderson, who used to lead day-long farm tours. Those tours, called Foodie Tootles took busloads of urbanites to farms to raise awareness of farming.

Along with the food tours, Anderson shares her thoughts on food on CBC Radio One’s Alberta at Noon, City Palate magazine, and her two blogs, Cowtown 2 Chowtown, and Savour it All. Sometimes it’s more than recipes, cov34 country-guide.ca

ering food-related issues. She talks about entrepreneurs reviving small grocery stores, and how Amazon in the U.S. is offering next-day delivery of fresh food.

In another, where she talks about largescale hog farms and porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED) coming to Alberta, she says, “I think consumers are going to have to realize the need for higher pork prices if this industry is going to be viable.”

In another post where she shares her aunt’s carrot cake recipe, she says, “I’ve lived in Alberta 30 years now and I know many of the farmers that grow my food.

Now when I make Aunty Em’s cake I use as many things from their farms as I can.

I know she would’ve loved the golden hue and rich flavour of the organic canola oil I can source here.”

Joyous thing When I first contact Anderson she says she’s just handed in a book manuscript. It’s a cookbook based on her annual food tours — but on tours she gives in India. “That’s a really joyous thing,” she says talking about the tours.

“This year’s trip is all about #Eat-

PrayPlay,” is how her blog post about the forthcoming India trip begins.

EAT — because this trip is for food lovers and our shared passion for the mouth-watering cuisines of India.

PRAY — because India’s religions are so much a part of the vibrant daily life of her people — we make an effort to learn about them and the culture that forms around them.

PLAY — because, though we’ll see lots of “life in our face,” India will surprise you with the joy and love in most of her people. We make sure to play, have fun, join in festivals and unwind with a restorative form of yoga that anyone can take part in.

Like the Calgary tours, the eat-prayplay theme of this India tour weaves together food and the stories of people.

Anderson says, “It’s a way to make cultural connections beyond just visiting a place. My goal is go there and cook — and cook with Indians. We do lots of touring, but we mostly are going to experience the culture.

“I’ve always wanted to inspire people to know where their food comes from,” says Anderson. CG February 16, 2016

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HR

The dark side for entrepreneurs

By Pierrette Desrosiers, psychologist and coach

ince you are an entrepreneur, some people imagine that you get to do whatever you want to do, whenever you want to do it.

They think running a business means you can follow your passions and have the freedom to work with whomever you like. Some even believe an entrepreneur can choose to buy almost anything, and that the bank is always there for them.

Such sentiments, of course, are pipe dreams. In reality, you are probably free to work when you want — as long as you log 70 to 80 hours per week. You get to choose what you want to do, as long as it’s among the most urgent of your hundreds of important tasks. You hire someone who is available, even if he doesn’t fit the profile. You endure nights of insomnia because of business worries, and you work long, stressful hours, and then fight with your spouse because you are not there for the kids.

Entrepreneurs are often idealized.

They are perceived as invulnerable, happy, and able to brave all storms. The truth is a little darker.

Michael A. Freeman, former entrepreneur, psychiatrist, and clinical professor of psychology at UC-San Francisco’s medical school found that entrepreneurs suffer more mental health problems than the general population. According to his research: • 4 9 per cent of entrepreneurs suffer from a mental health problem, versus 32 per cent of the general population.

• Almost a third of entrepreneurs suffer from two or more diagnoses.

• 7 2 per cent of entrepreneurs are directly or indirectly affected (through a family member) by a mental health problem, compared to 48 per cent of the general population.

The main diagnoses of mental health problems identified among entrepreneurs are: ADHD (Attention Deficit Disorder), depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety, and addictions (drug, alcohol, sex, technology, or medication).

The traits that make entrepreneurs successful include boundless energy, creative ideas, motivation, strength of character, a high tolerance for risk, and a great desire for independence.

36 country-guide.ca

These same traits, when pushed to the extreme, can lead to downward spirals of stress, resulting in a lack of sleep, too little investment in other areas of life, lack of exercise, and chronic multitasking. In short, the same traits that fuel our entrepreneurs can also consume them.

As Freeman reported, “The people that we admire for being entrepreneurs seem to come from the same gene pool as the people who are kind of socially stigmatized because of mental health conditions,” implying that the traits “must confer some adaptive advantage otherwise they wouldn’t be so highly represented in the population.”

Let’s look at a few character qualities that benefit business owners but that have also been linked to specific mental illnesses.

Creativity and innovation: “Innovate or die” is the mantra of nearly all entrepreneurs. However, this attitude has been linked in several studies with psychosis, bipolar disorder, depression, ADHD, and substance abuse.

Goal attainment and achievement motivation: Pursuing goals is essential to business success but has also been correlated with bipolar disorder.

High risk tolerance: The acceptance of risk is a key ingredient in entrepreneurial success, but it often coexists with bipolar disorder, substance abuse, and ADHD. Since many entrepreneurs pay a high price for their “freedom,” it is critical to stop seeing them as invincible people.

Instead, we need to see their vulnerability.

Some experts even argue that a society that values a strong economy must develop a system to help its leaders hone their strengths. As business creators, entrepreneurs are responsible for a big part of the economy. They create services, products, and jobs.

Supporting stable entrepreneurs creates a stable society.

But, if you’re reading this as an entrepreneur, you know you need to take responsibility for your own long-term success by investing in your mental health. Let’s look at a few key ways you can do that.

Passion is one important ingredient in success, but it’s not sufficient. You need to be able to maximize your sur-

rounding environment by hiring the right people, executing a solid business plan, and adapting when internal or external circumstances change. But most importantly, you need to know yourself — your strengths, weaknesses, and values — and you must be able to manage yourself.

This involves knowing when your personality traits are helpful and when they cross the line, becoming weaknesses.

• Self-assurance can become arrogance.

• Expending too much energy can burn you out.

• Developing too many ideas can result in disorganization and lack of focus.

• Tolerating too much risk can cause financial difficulties.

• B eing too competitive can provoke conflicts.

This leads to an important question: How can you best foster the qualities that make you an entrepreneur while preventing the manifestation of their darker side?

Take time to exercise: It is good for your physical and psychological health and can help you focus, reduce anxiety, and be more energetic.

Take time to eat healthy: Your body is your only vehicle to take you through life.

You can buy a new tractor if your motor is done. If you’re done… you’re done.

Take time to meditate five to 10 minutes a day: It helps you think clearly, solve problems, and appreciate life.

Invest in your close relationships: It will increase your happiness and keep you from becoming a workaholic.

Remember, we are all vulnerable, so find a confidant with whom you can talk about anything and everything. You don’t always have to be strong.

Your self-worth is not the same as your net worth. You are more than your business. CG Pierrette Desrosiers, MPS, CRHA is a work psychologist, professional speaker, coach and author who specializes in the agricultural industry. She comes from a family of farmers and she and her husband have farmed for more than 25 years. Find her at www. pierrettedesroiers.com, or contact her at pierrete@pierrettedesrosiers.com.

February 16, 2016

By Gord Gilmour ⁄⁄ associate editor

Now or never Getting Canada’s response to herbicide resistance right could end up being one of our key competitive advantages as a grain-exporting nation n Australia, the problem is so bad growers are catching chaff with mechanical seed destructors or burning it in windrows in order to destroy weed seeds.

In the U.S. Cotton Belt, the unthinkable has happened and crews walk through fields, handroguing Palmer amaranth at $150 per acre.

In Europe, they’re resorting to more and more expensive weed-suppression cocktails, often running over $100 extra per acre.

These are the effects of herbicide-resistant weeds if they’re left unchecked for too long.

In Canada, most farmers have heard of the problem, but few are focusing on it in a big way, outside of the weed science professionals. Those folks are certainly making the case for action, but what’s less clear is how much attention anyone is paying to them. If we’re not, that’s a terrible irony, because right now is precisely when we should be listening, according to one weed control specialist.

Kate Sanford Mitchell manages the herbicide and insecticide portfolio for oilseed crops for Bayer CropScience in Calgary. The company takes the issue very seriously and has leveraged its global footprint to best understand the issue — including talking often with weed science specialists in other countries.

“ There is nothing new on the horizon.

I wish I could say differently, but that’s the truth, and we’re all looking very hard.”

— Kate Sanford Mitchell, Bayer CropScience “It doesn’t matter where they’re from, they all say basically the same thing: ‘I wish we had been in the position Canada is in, where you know how bad it can get, and how quickly, but it’s not a big problem yet,’” she says.

That’s because dealing with the problem in its infancy is always going to be cheaper and easier, since the necessary steps will be less dramatic, problematic and expensive. If we miss this window, it’s likely that everyone in the business will look back and regret it.

To understand why getting this right is crucial, we need to understand what happens when weed resistance crops up in fields.

February 16, 2016

Herbicides not the cause There’s often a perception herbicides cause resistance, but that’s not the case — what they actually do is reveal it. Clark Brenzil, a weed control specialist with the Saskatchewan agriculture ministry, tells Country Guide that weed populations are by their nature genetically diverse, and within every population are likely a few weeds resistant to any given chemistry.

Every time you spray, you’re applying selection pressure to that population. Then, if you spray often enough with the same chemistry, over time the population of non-resistant weeds will be wiped out, only to have the resistant weeds fill the “space” that’s been left. It is, simply put, just another day at the office for Mother Nature.

“To Mother Nature, we’re just another evolutionary challenge,” Brenzil says. “Nature is very diverse, resilient and resourceful and this is how it deals with this kind of challenge.”

That challenge has been around a while now too, with crop protection products coming along in the post-war years and enjoying a decades-long golden age. It seemed like a solution had finally been found for weeds, the most pernicious pest for field crops.

It’s small wonder that growers adopted the new technology so enthusiastically, and few had concerns about what might happen in the long term.

Started with atrazine The 1970s saw the first problems begin to crop up with atrazine in corn. U.S. growers had been using it widely since its introduction in the mid1950s, but suddenly, after many seasons of success, it was proving ineffective.

“That was our first clue as to what was happening,” Brenzil says.

Reaction was predictable — growers and industry simply moved on to the next-best alternative, since there were plenty of options. But after a few seasons, something troubling happened — resistance to the alternative.

“Now we had plants that were resistant to both chemicals,” Brenzil says.

That brought the concept of rotating chemicals by mode of action to the forefront. Because different modes of action attack weeds differently, it tilts Continued on page 38 country-guide.ca 37

Continued from page 37 the odds in favour of the farmer by making nature’s challenge just that much greater. It bought time, but the problem returned after just a few seasons, as more and more acres became infested with weeds, with some resistant to multiple chemistries.

The next strategy was to move on to tank mixes that apply multiple modes of action simultaneously.

Think of this strategy as lining up a number of slot machines at a casino that all spin with a single pull of the handle. Developing resistance requires hitting a winner on all the machines in play at once, and with each additional chemistry, the odds against Mother Nature increase exponentially.

That strategy is close to the state of the art today, but even it’s still under refinement. The latest twist is applying a soil residual in the spring to reduce the weed population initially before in-season applications. A lower population means less selection pressure in this game of big numbers.

“That’s pretty much where we’re at today with chemistry,” Brenzil says.

Adding diversity

In Australia, some farmers are using the Harrington Seed Destructor to pulverize seeds as they come off the combine, but at $240,000, it’s not a cheap option.

Adding more non-chemical control methods to the farm arsenal will be critical, says Bayer CropScience’s Sanford Mitchell. Since there’s nothing just around the corner to replace the chemical tools we do have, protecting them is crucial.

“There is nothing new on the horizon,” she says.

“I wish I could say differently, but that’s the truth, and we’re all looking very hard. Even if we did find something tomorrow, it would still take 15 years and $250 million to develop it and bring it to market.

Just for reference, it only took 10 years to get to the moon.”

While at least some of that delay is regulatory, it does underline the scale of the challenge facing the industry, and the necessity to have a plan to prevent a weed control disaster — something Sanford Mitch-

ell’s international colleagues repeatedly state Canada has an opportunity to do.

Brenzil says, doing so is going to require adding diversity at almost every turn in order to keep Mother Nature off balance and not sure what to expect next.

That could include just about anything — cropping choices, seeding dates, seeding rates, even adding a bit of spring tillage when necessary.

“That’s not suggesting going back and undoing all the good things zero till has accomplished,” Sanford Mitchell stresses. “We’re talking about a bit of judicious tillage in spots you know are particularly bad.”

Nature notices routines Brenzil adds that diversity can come in surprising ways, so in order to identify opportunities it’s necessary to look at your operation and identify patterns anywhere you can find them. To nature, a pattern is something predictable, like the pattern most growers use to seed in the spring.

“Almost everyone starts near the house, seeding those fields first, and works outward to the fields furthest away, seeding those last,” Brenzil says.

“Why not start at the furthest field and work your way back toward the house?”

It might seem like a small thing, but a small thing, repeated season after season, has a selection effect on the weed population. Suddenly throw something different at them, and those populations need to adapt.

That takes energy and time, giving your crop the opportunity to get up and growing before the weeds take hold and set more seed.

“We’re going to be looking at incorporating a lot of small changes,” Brenzil says. “There will be no silver bullet.”

Sanford Mitchell says even modest changes have been proven to have a big effect. A U.S. study, for example, looked at the direction farmers sowed their fields.

Researchers sowed wheat in a north-south direction and in an east-west direction. Planting east-west oriented the crop to block sunlight to the weeds more effectively, preventing them from competing with the crop.

“It decreased weed density by 51 per cent and increased yield by 24 per cent, just by changing the direction of seeding,” she says. “How simple is that?”

Think local

photo: australian herbicide resistance initiative

38 country-guide.ca

The relatively simplicity — and importance — of taking those first steps is something she hopes growers are coming to understand as the challenge grows.

If she’s concerned about anything it’s that too often farmers are paralyzed by the scope of the problem, and feel that there’s nothing they can do.

“It is a global problem, but with a local solution,” she says. “It starts with one field, and it starts today. Every farmer has a field that they know is a bit bad — that’s where they should start.”

It also doesn’t matter what your neighbours do — or don’t do. Many farmers have the perception that unless everyone around them takes the same February 16, 2016

weed resistance

steps, any effort is futile — but that’s never been the case. Consider the number of weedy fields that have, over the years, existed side by side with clean ones, and the case for individual action becomes clear.

“There are farmers out there who are farming in areas where resistance has become a real problem, yet it’s not really on their farm,” she says.

Crowdsourcing Crop protection companies like Bayer CropScience have a growing interest in keeping this situation under control, even to the point of doing things that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago — like telling a producer that it might be time to switch away from their products to a different family of chemicals, including options that might be made by their competitors.

Sanford Mitchell concedes it’s a sea change for companies long used to fighting for every last acre for their products, but says it highlights the growing realization in the business that it’s not just farmers that have to make some sacrifices for the overall sustainability of these crop protection tools.

“I think we’ve come to recognize that it’s not just up to farmers — we need to be sustainable too,” she says.

February 16, 2016

One effort Bayer CropScience is making to add to the conversation can be found online at www. mixitup.ca. It’s a low-key and unbranded website where you’ll find the only mention of the company itself in the fine print at the bottom — this is clearly a site that’s all about the issue.

“It’s a place for us all to share our ideas and experiences with resistant weeds, and find solutions,” Sanford Mitchell says.

It’s a practical application of a high tech concept built for the Information Age, but in the end really boiling down to the old axiom of having many minds seeking a solution. By sharing information and sparking the discussion, hopefully a solution will become just that much nearer.

They key will be to not ignore the problem and hope it goes away — because it won’t. Without action it will just get worse, season after season.

What remains unclear is if the sector will rise to the challenge. If it does, it could become a key competitive advantage, while others grapple with higher cost of production.

If it doesn’t, this will be just another missed opportunity, and those international experts will shake their heads and wonder how it could happen, with all that warning. CG

In Arkansas, there’s only one tool left for managing herbicide-resistant Palmer amaranth — the hoe.

country-guide.ca 39

By Gord Gilmour ⁄⁄ Associate editor

Can you cut costs?

As crop prices drop, growers have a new focus on cost containment. Weed control is always a big bill, so it’s only natural this gets a hard look — but taking the wrong steps could cost you money igh crop prices always make the decision to apply crop protection products relatively easy.

Just a few years ago, when canola was north of $700 per tonne and wheat was sitting near $500 per tonne, the question was never “Should I spray?” it was “Why wouldn’t I spray?”

After all, at those prices if you could save just a bushel or two of yield, it was money in the bank. With today’s lower prices, cost containment becomes a serious question. It’s not all about raw bushels anymore, but rather about how to find the sweet spot of producing cost-effective bushels. Pencils are being sharpened, and every expenditure is going under the microscope.

Should you be reviewing your weed control budget? It’s probably not a bad idea, but don’t make wholesale changes without carefully considering all the impacts it could have on your operation.

Clark Brenzil is the Saskatchewan agriculture ministry’s weed control specialist, and he says growers need to be aware of all the potential unintended consequences, because the stakes are pretty high.

“Weed competition is one of the primary areas of concern where we have ‘leakage’ of yield with crops,” Brenzil says. “They are the primary pest of field crops.”

Other pests, like diseases and insects, for example, won’t necessarily overwinter here or occur every season. They take time to arrive during the growing season, if they arrive at all. They’re climate dependent and frequently won’t appear if the conditions don’t line up right. The lower disease pressure this past growing season due to drier-than-normal conditions is a good demonstration of this. By contrast, give weeds a hot season and the hot-season weeds will thrive. A cooler season will correspondingly see the cooler-season weeds run wild.

It all favours a “proceed with caution” approach, Brenzil says, because there are some reasonable strategies that may yield intended results, but some ideas should be best avoided at all costs.

Decision models One approach is the economic threshold model, where applications are only made if there’s an economic case. If you get good crop establishment early in the season and the weed pressure simply isn’t there, a case might be made for minimizing costs by skipping an application.

40 country-guide.ca

“This is a tool for a straight yes-no decision,” Brenzil says. “You either choose to spray or not, based on what you’re seeing in the field.”

He does caution that before deciding not to spray, growers need to be aware any weeds that are in the field will set seed that will be returned to the seed bank, which could add to pressure in subsequent seasons.

Jeanette Gaultier, Brenzil’s counterpart in the Manitoba agriculture department, agrees the strategy could get a second look this season, and stresses that success with it will depend on good crop scouting.

Only by really knowing what’s in the field will there be a basis for good decision making.

“I think a lot of farmers in the past few seasons have just had their program — ‘this is the pre-seed burnoff, then I’ll use this in-season,’ and they’d just go ahead and apply it,” Gaultier says. “Lower crop prices could have them taking a second look, but I think it’ll be on a field-by-field basis.”

She echoes Brenzil’s words of caution about taking a long-term view of weed control and making cost-containment decisions with an eye to the longterm effects.

“Some of these strategies might save you a few dollars in the short term, but they can have pretty horrendous long-term costs,” Gaultier says.

Don’t cut rates One approach that both Brenzil and Gaultier say that growers should stay away from at all costs is cutting herbicide rates. It’s a strategy that’s been popular in the past. As recently as 2005, grower surveys were showing that up to 40 per cent of farmers had used the technique.

“I think there are better approaches than cutting rates,” Brenzil says. “Cutting rates has a number of dangers, including the risk of selecting for herbicideresistant weeds more quickly.”

Gaultier agrees, adding it is also false economy because farmers would be putting out dollars and sacrificing time to apply a product at a rate with questionable efficacy.

“If you’re going to go to that trouble, you might as well spend the few extra dollars and make sure you get control,” Gaultier says.

A better strategy might be to look more closely at the chemical control options you’re selecting, Brenzil says. Increasingly there are lower-cost generic or offpatent options available in almost every major class February 16, 2016

Weed control

There may be ways to cut herbicide costs this year, but one of them should not be cutting rates.

of crop protection chemistry. They may vary a bit with formulation and you’ll need to be aware of that and how it might affect performance, but there may be a lower cost option available for you that will work just fine.

“In our guide to crop protection, for example, there are about 240 individual products, but only about 60 active ingredients,” Brenzil says.

He adds that generic options frequently come with less service and insurance in the form of product guarantees, which growers might want to consider when making selection decisions.

Maintain tank mixing Gaultier also cautions against choosing control products on cost alone, rather than balancing efficacy. She is particularly concerned that growers might turn their back on the practice of tank mixing, which not only gives better control, it also forestalls the development of resistant weeds by applying multiple modes of action simultaneously.

“I especially wouldn’t like to see growers foregoing tank mixing glyphosate,” she says. “We absolutely must protect glyphosate.”

Gaultier also says, counterintuitively, using slightly more expensive products like older soil-applied residual chemicals may pay dividends as well.

“It’s a bit more expensive up front, but it does give you that residual control which will, over time, give you lower weed seed levels,” she says. She also notes it’s another tool in the fight against herbicide resistance.

February 16, 2016

“ I especially wouldn’t like to see growers foregoing tank mixing glyphosate. We absolutely must protect glyphosate.”

— Jeanette Gaultier

One strategy growers should incorporate, regardless of good times or bad, is an integrated weed management approach that also relies on cultural practices. Over time it will not only control weeds better, it should also lower crop protection costs.

“If you look at a field and you see a problem, this might be an opportunity to clean it up a bit with things like seeding dates and rates, and selecting a more competitive crop,” she says. “For example, peas are shining pretty brightly right now relative to other crops, and while there aren’t a lot of chemical control options, once you get them started they’re quite a competitive crop.”

Gaultier notes that tillage is an option too, though a controversial one. It doesn’t mean bringing back the plow for the whole farm, but judicious tillage in problem areas is an option. Some weed researchers recommend it, while soil scientists always cringe a bit at the damage it might do to soils.

“You could definitely have a coffee shop debate over this one,” Gaultier says. CG country-guide.ca 41

THE REAL STORY OF AG

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THE REAL STORY OF AG

Keep it in the family Let’s tell the story of family farms Feeding the world is not just a big responsibility, it’s big business – with a world population over 7.3 billion, it has to be. However, many consumers don’t associate large-scale business with family business, even though 98% of

Canadian farms are family-owned and operated. As a result, many consumers don’t trust their food supply. We need to make sure the story of the family farm is being told, and that “big” doesn’t mean “bad.”

We all have stories we can share, whether you grew up on a family farm, or you work in an industry that serves farm families. Look for opportunities to tell the real story of Canadian agriculture, whether it be online, in the grocery store or at the dinner table.

Here are some talking points to get you started: 98% of Canadian farms are family farms Almost all of the farms in Canada are family-owned and operated, and producing healthy, sustainable food is their first priority. Remember, farmers feed their own families the food they produce.

Family farms have evolved They look different today than they did 50 years ago. But that doesn’t mean our food supply isn’t safe and healthy anymore. New technology has allowed farmers to do more with less, making agriculture more sustainable today.

Farmers protect the environment because they want to pass their business on to the next generation.

Farming is a complex business Families must manage food safety and traceability, detailed budgets and accounting, marketing, employees, everchanging technology, and more. Modern farms must be run as a business, and it makes good business sense for many family farms to incorporate. As a company, farms can minimize taxes. Plus, family members can own shares in the company, making it easier to pass the farm from generation to generation. But their business structure doesn’t change the fact that family members work side by side every day, bringing to life their shared passion and dedication for producing safe, healthy food.

We’re in this together Everyone in the industry needs to work together to help improve perceptions. By being open and proactively communicating with the public about how we grow food and why we operate in the ways we do, we can maintain consumer trust and continue to produce high-quality, nutritious food in ways that are efficient and sustainable.

2016-01-14 10:22 AM

THE REAL STORY OF AG

Social starters The importance of family is something everyone can understand and relate to, whether you’re in ag or not. It’s common ground that can start a conversation.

Visit AgMoreThanEver.ca/resources to find a collection of photos that you can easily share on social media to start or support conversations about family farming.

The land is my

lifestyle and my

livelihood, but it’s also my

legacy.

Photo credit: CR Photography (Chantal Rasmuson) Pictured: Nate and Colin Rosengren

Providing safe, healthy food for my family is important to me too.

I love ag for the life it gives my kids now…and the opportunities it gives in the future.

That’s why I farm.

Photo credit: Aimée Ferré Stang

Or, even better, share your own pictures and make your story personal.

(photo by Jerri Judd)

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THE REAL STORY OF AG

What are others saying?

“My farm is a family farm. It is 100% owned by myself, my husband and his two parents. We love everything about agriculture with a fierce passion. We have never, ever, sold a product that we wouldn’t happily serve to our children. Every decision on the farm takes more than just finances into consideration. Our number one goal is to leave a farm to our children that is both environmentally and economically viable.”

– Adrienne Ivey, Saskatchewan rancher

“Agriculture is a fast-growing business, and it has to be run as a business. It involves family, of course, but we’re always looking at the latest research, we’re looking at what practices are evolving in other countries, and we’re adapting those practices so we can become more efficient to get our product into the marketplace.”

– John Thwaites, Ontario fruit and vegetable grower

2016-01-14 10:23 AM

Looking for more?

Watch The power of shared values webinar featuring Charlie Arnot, CEO of the Center for Food Integrity, who shares three simple steps to gain consumers’ trust by tapping into the power of shared values. Charlie helps bridge the divide between science and consumer perception and offers great insight into creating messages that are proven to resonate with consumers.

Visit AgMoreThanEver.ca/tag/webinar.

The power of shared values

AGvocate Challenge There are 2.1 million Canadians working in agriculture and agri-food. Imagine the impact we could make if we all made a commitment to improve perceptions of agriculture.

There are simple ways you can start being an agvocate today.

Just choose to do one of the following: 1. Search the hashtags #FutureFarmer, #AgMoreThanEver, or #Farm365 and find a positive post to retweet.

2. When you overhear a misleading or inaccurate conversation about farming, find an appropriate time to share your story.

3. Dedicate one day to volunteer at an event that promotes agriculture such as Open Farm Days or Ag Literacy Week.

4. Tell a friend or co-worker about the need to speak up, and ask them to take the agvocate challenge.

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We all share the same table.

Pull up a chair.

“We take pride in knowing we would feel safe consuming any of the crops we sell. If we would not use it ourselves, it does not go to market.”

– Katelyn Duncan, Saskatchewan

“The natural environment is critical to farmers – we depend on soil and water for the production of food. But we also live on our farms, so it’s essential that we act as responsible stewards.”

– Doug Chorney, Manitoba

“The welfare of my animals is one of my highest priorities. If I don’t give my cows a high quality of life, they won’t grow up to be great cows.”

– Andrew Campbell, Ontario

Safe food; animal welfare; sustainability; people care deeply about these things when they make food choices. And all of us in the agriculture industry care deeply about them too. But sometimes the general public doesn’t see it that way. Why? Because, for the most part, we’re not telling them our story and, too often, someone outside the industry is.

The journey from farm to table is a conversation we need to make sure we’re a part of. So let’s talk about it, together.

Visit AgMoreThanEver.ca to discover how you can help improve and create realistic perceptions of Canadian ag.

2016-01-14 10:23 AM

By Gord Gilmour ⁄⁄ Associate Editor

Is this the shape of Prairie grain?

Monsanto is betting $100 million on it.

The Corn Belt moves North Monsanto has plans to produce varieties that can be grown on half the acres in Western Canada t might not look like it at first glance, but this nondescript boardroom in a steel building beside a busy highway in southern Manitoba is the heart of the western Canadian corn pipeline.

The site near Carman is home to Monsanto’s major corn expansion project, announced just over two years ago with much fanfare and the promise of $100 million in investment over 10 years.

Those are big numbers, especially when you consider what a relatively minor player this crop has been in Western Canada so far.

Sarah Gehlar and Rafael Mateo, seated around the table in that boardroom, are two of the individuals who are going to make major contributions to the science and crop-breeding program behind this push.

Gehlar is a North Dakotan by birth, with bachelor’s and master’s degrees from North Dakota State University’s plant science program and a doctorate in plant breeding from Oregon State University. She’s been working with Monsanto since 2008 and is the project lead for North America’s early corn project, based out of a facility at Glyndon, Minnesota, just east of Fargo.

Mateo is a bit farther from his birthplace, a transplanted Guatemalan by way of Texas, where he studied. He now lives and works mainly in Guelph, Ont., where he’s been a commercial corn breeder the past nine years, and is now a proud Canadian citizen.

48 country-guide.ca

Gehlar says there’s been a lot of interest around the globe in seeing corn move north, including similar projects in Northern and Eastern Europe.

Better selection tools Some say global warming is setting this stage, but Gehlar says from a breeding perspective that’s not what’s making things move.

“It’s all about the improvements in germplasm (as plant breeders call the living genetic materials they work with),” Gehlar told Country Guide. “We’ve seen really good results just next door in North Dakota with our products, and we think we could get good results here too.”

Mateo agrees, adding that identifying the opportunity is what’s led to this investment, and that the company’s financial commitment is key because all the modern breeding tools in the world won’t matter if no one’s willing to put their money where their mouth is.

“We have a lot more tools that let us screen for better material,” Mateo says. “But it has to be driven. Someone has to say, ‘We want you to screen for early corn.’ It doesn’t, and won’t, happen overnight. But when you see the potential and how significant it could be, you say, ‘We can do this.’”

What would good results look like? About 3.3 million acres of grain corn were planted across the entire country last year. Just over three million were in Ontario February 16, 2016

crop production and Quebec, leaving just 300,000 in the West. If Monsanto and other life-science companies have their way, that number is going to get bigger — a lot bigger.

Monsanto says its corn could be suited for up to 26 million acres in Western Canada — about half the total. When rotation requirements are taken into account, they’re hoping for eight million to 10 million acres in 10 years. But to achieve that, a few things need to line up.

Challenges The researchers need to tease out the genetic potential for corn to survive and even thrive on the northern plains.

Corn — or maize as it’s more commonly called in most of the world — is at its heart a tropical grass, first domesticated about 7,000 years ago in central Mexico. Its genetic basis is a wild grass called teosinte, which was similar but lacked the tightly packed ears of modern corn. Early Mesoamerican farmers such as the Mayans were drawn to this grass for a reason, most likely it was because they knew a robust plant when they saw it. But exactly what makes corn so robust takes more modern analysis.

Without getting too complex, corn is a warmseason grass, not a cool-season grass like wheat or barley which, like about 95 per cent of plants use the C3 photosynthesis pathway. They use sunlight to fix atmospheric carbon using one mechanism only, and only during daylight hours.

Corn is one of the C4 plants which use enzymes to further “process” the products of this initial phase, which can continue at night.

The hitch is that cool temperatures can shut this process down, hence the challenges in moving the crop farther north.

Making this biological package work on the Prairies will be one of the key challenges for breeders like Gehlar and Mateo, but they both seem confident it’s achievable. The other challenge, Gehlar says, will be making the crop productive enough to attract growers.

“Somewhere around 110 (bushels per acre) is our initial target. When you’re growing something new, it’s always a bit hard to say what you’ll get, but that’s the target where we think it will be of value to farmers and the market.”

That’s not on par with the heart of the U.S. Corn Belt and Ontario, where average yields can easily surpass 200 bushels per acre — but it is very close to recent annual averages of 110 and 124 bushels in North Dakota.

A yield of 110 bushels at the current price of C$4.50 would gross just under $500 per acre. Will that be enough to attract Canadian growers?

Corn could also be competing with the growing number of high-yielding wheats that are also creeping north from the U.S. Varieties like Faller are beginning to yield into the 80s, which could make the challenge that much greater for corn.

“I’m confident we can develop an early enough product for this area. Competing against wheat, I’m February 16, 2016

also confident we can deliver a productive enough one to make some additional revenue,” Mateo said.

“I can see that we’re moving forward. But you start with a target of maybe 110, and you get it.

Then you aim for 120. And when you get that you think, ‘Can I get 130?’”

At 2016 prices, corn would generate a gross around $500 per acre.

Learning curve The second leg of the challenge will be providing extension advice for new growers. Here’s where Monsanto’s Allan Froese, a well-known corn agronomist in the Red River Valley, enters the conversation.

The crop is already well established in the area, where conventional tillage remains common due to the heavy clay soils and ample to excessive moisture.

Local growers are used to the crop, and have the equipment and infrastructure to deal with it.

“This is a row crop, and you’re going to need either a planter or access to one,” Froese says. “A lot of the growers here also grow soybeans, so at least they have a second crop to potentially share that expense.”

While that might be a bit of a hassle, it’s not likely a deal breaker since many new growers resort to custom planting for this crop, at least in the initial stages. But then there are other requirements, such as a corn header, enough storage for a high-yielding crop, and drying capacity.

Corn comes off sopping wet compared to other crops, typically somewhere between 20 and 27 per cent moisture. That needs to come down to between 14 and 15 per cent, which means hot air drying.

Here there’s a bit of an infrastructure mismatch.

“Corn will likely be grown on the southern Prairies, where few growers have dryers at this time,” Froese said. “Ironically, it’s the growers farther north who do have dryers, but we’re not likely to see much corn there, at least not for a while.”

Continued on page 50 country-guide.ca 49

For Allan Froese, Rafael Mateo and Sarah Gehlar, the 110 bushel-per-acre goal is just a start.

“ I’m confident we can develop an early enough product for this area. Competing against wheat, I’m also confident we can deliver a productive enough one to make some additional revenue.” — Rafael Mateo, Monsanto Continued from page 49 Another challenge will be how the crop fits into areas where canola is more common than soybeans, and zero tillage or minimum tillage is the order of the day. It’s likely going to take a few seasons of trial and error to hone the system into something that fits the geography, climate and cultural practices.

“It will definitely evolve over time,” Froese says.

“Our goal will be to share as much information as possible with growers, to give them the best chance for success.”

Think local That process will take time. Will Monsanto continue the heavy commitment to the breeding program for long enough to meet the objective?

Mark Lawton is the company’s Canadian technology development lead, and Dan Wright is the country’s trait launch lead. During a conference call from their offices in Guelph, both expressed confidence and interest in corn for the Prairies.

“It’s been a really fun and exciting transformation from just a few years ago,” Lawton says. “I think we’ve been able to get the right people in the 50 country-guide.ca

right locations to do the research and begin providing results to growers.”

Lawton acknowledges that growers will need to see with their own eyes that the potential rewards will outstrip any risks. For that to happen, local investments like the ones the company have been making are necessary, he says.

“This will only happen with local research, developing new hybrids under local conditions,” he says.

Wright agrees, adding the local touch was going to require a combination of boots on the ground and patience on the part of the company.

“I think we’re developing some really good shortseason hybrids, and they’ll get a good look from growers — there’s definitely grower interest,” Wright says. “But it’s also a long-term play. We’re not going to just produce a whack of seed and convince growers to give it a whirl — we want them to be successful, and that might mean moving a bit more slowly at first as they get their heads around the agronomics and the other ins and outs.”

Wright says growers in the region have demonstrated an admirable track record of adaptability and new crop adoption. Canola and pulses were small players at first, then really took off as growers gained a level of comfort watching their neighbours grow them.

“I think corn will likely follow a similar pattern,” Wright says. “We will see some early adopters experiment with it. They’ll have some successes and some failures and, over time, as they get better at it, and we produce better hybrids for them to work with, there will be more successes than failures… over time that comfort level will be established and, eventually, we may see a time when we see the same sort of exponential growth we saw in those other crops — but that’s likely still a few seasons away.” CG February 16, 2016

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Caliber Equipment Abbotsford (604) 864-2273 Dennill’s Agricenter Dewberry (780) 847-3974 Vegreville (780) 632-2514 Hanlon Ag Centre Lethbridge (403) 329-8686 Pentagon Farm Centre Lacombe (403) 782-6873 Red Deer (403) 346-1815 Leduc (780) 387-4747 Westlock (780) 349-3113 Dawson Creek (250) 719-7470

Ag West Equipment Ltd. Portage la Prairie (204) 857-5130 Neepawa (204) 476-5378 Brandon (204) 571-2460 Elie (204) 353-3850 Avonlea Farm Sales Domain (204) 736-2893 Greenland Equipment Ltd. Carman (204) 745-2054 Morris Sales & Service Virden (204) 748-2408

Nykolaishen Farm Equipment Swan River (204) 734-3466 Reit-Syd Equipment Ltd. Dauphin (204) 638-6443 Wilson Agritech Inc. Steinbach (204) 371-9928 Saskatchewan

All West Sales Partnership Rosetown (306) 882-2024 Canada West Harvest Centre Emerald Park (306) 525-2300 Saskatoon (306) 978-2300

GlenMor Equipment LP Prince Albert (306) 764-2325 Lazar Equipment Ltd. Meadow Lake (306) 236-5222 Norsask Farm Equipment North Battleford (306) 445-8128 Nykolaishen Farm Equipment Kamsack (306) 542-2814 R-J Sales & Service (1991) Ltd. Wadena (306) 338-2541

www.LEMKEN.ca

By Gord Gilmour ⁄⁄ Associate editor

Making change In the wake of deregulation, the cereals sector has needed to reorganize itself, and so far it seems like the major pieces have been picked up hen the Canadian Wheat Board was losing the single desk, there was no shortage of dire predictions about what the fallout might be.

Even many of those in favour of an open market conceded that there were a lot of moving parts, and it was going to be necessary to proceed with caution lest very important issues get missed, lost or dropped.

As August 1, 2012 loomed closer, policy wonks of all stripes furrowed their brows and got down to business.

More than three years on, it seems they’ve been largely successful. The sun continued to rise and set and wheat and barley found their way to world markets. That’s not to say it’s been a seamless transition, but it’s seemed at least manageable.

What is a little difficult is keeping track of all the changes.

Agricultural economist Richard Gray of the University of Saskatchewan says it’s a bit of a mixed bag when it comes to how things have reorganized following deregulation, as one might expect, but there are plenty of positives to focus on.

“A lot of the really important pieces did get picked up,” Gray says. “Cigi (Canadian International Grains Institute) remained intact, for example, and there was a recent study conducted by the Australian Export Grains Innovation Council that compared the two countries. It was pretty positive on the Canadian system, and identified a number of areas that we were doing better, including Cigi, and that’s an outside look at the system.”

Gray adds that other important agencies like the Western Grains Research Foundation also successfully weathered the transition.

Hiccups That’s not to say there weren’t hiccups. During this period of deregulation, the Canadian Grain Commission moved from guaranteeing the protein level of each hold of a ship to guaranteeing the protein level of the entire shipment, Gray says. That meant variation from hold to hold which revealed itself in less consistency as the ships were unloaded on the other end and millers struggled to maintain the efficiency of their mills with a constantly changing end product.

“This was causing havoc on the other end, so the grain companies found they needed to revisit this,” Gray says.

52 country-guide.ca

Gray adds both Australian and Canadian wheat sectors are struggling with similar challenges in deregulated markets when it comes to extracting premiums for certain products. In Australia multiple sellers have made it much harder for growers to receive any premium for a certain type of wheat prized by Japanese buyers who are making udon noodles. Likewise, Canadian CWRS milling wheat is likely to face future challenges. In both cases the problem is that production is higher than the premium demand.

“We produce far more CWRS than the world needs,” Gray says. “Can we capture a premium in one sector of the market and not another?”

However, most of these issues are relatively minor compared to the 800-pound-gorilla problem — transportation in Western Canada, Gray says. It’s the industry’s greatest challenge compared to other growing regions. The trip to salt water is longer, over rougher terrain and frequently through harsher weather than in any other major grain exporting region. This outsized challenge makes for outsized problems when they arrive, Gray says. “I think one of the most significant gaps is grain transportation logistics. They’ve never really solved this issue.” (See High Velocity, page 22.)

In the country, that meant plugged elevators a couple of winters ago when the system creaked under the massive load of a bumper crop. At port, it meant ships line up awaiting cargoes and racking up penalty fees.

While the CWB is a thing of the past, it did play a central co-ordinating role in ensuring that grain shipments met sales at port, something that hasn’t been replaced in any meaningful way.

Grain companies will probably object to sharing their commercial information with a third-party co-ordin­ator, but Gray notes that there are relatively recent precedents. The Grain Transportation Agency functioned as a referee and co-ordinator from the early ’80s to mid-’90s.

That role extended to mixing and matching available supplies at port elevators owned by various companies — a function that was always meant to be replaced by a cash market at port that allowed the various grain companies to make similar transactions. However that particular market has never functioned, Gray says.

“There needs to be the same sort of vision that established the Winnipeg Grain Exchange,” Gray says.

February 16, 2016

Crop logistics Value Chain One hole that definitely needed to be filled was a value chain organization that represented all the stakeholders in the newly deregulated cereals sector.

It’s a model with a proven track record in other sectors, as evidenced by the Canola Council of Canada and Pulse Canada.

Cam Dahl is the inaugural president of Cereals Canada, and he lays out the new organization, its mandate and key goals.

“While not specifically modelled after the Canola Council or Pulse Canada, there are similarities,” Dahl says. “Cereals Canada is specifically formed to be a value chain organization that represents all parts of production.”

That includes farmers from all regions of the country, as well as shippers, exporters and processors plus organizations involved in variety development and research. Those three membership groups all sit at the board table, but no one group holds the balance of power.

“By specific design, no single membership pillar has a majority of board seats,” Dahl explains.

Funding is split in a way that does reflect the balance of board seats, with growers picking up 39 per cent of the tab, buyers and processors a further 39 per cent and variety development and research organizations a further 22 per cent.

Cereals Canada has three key areas of focus: market development, innovation and industry leadership.

The market development includes new-crop missions to showcase that season’s harvest.

When Dahl spoke to Country Guide, he was travelling on one of these missions to North Africa, the Middle East and West Africa, and says it was the last leg of the annual effort.This year it covered more than 20 countries and reflected a “Team Canada” approach Dahl says.

“It includes Cereals Canada, Cigi, the Canadian Grain Commission, exporters and producers,” Dahl says. “The purpose is to provide technical support for current customers, technical information for prospective customers and feedback to the entire Canadian value chain.”

Continued on page 54

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country-guide.ca 53

Market Development Continued from page 53

Research priorities Innovation will revolve primarily around working to develop national research priorities for wheat, Dahl says. The model aims to bring together all the stakeholders to build a national strategy. Cereals Canada’s specific goals will include working to ensure the needs of end-use customers are incorporated into research objectives.

Industry leadership is a large and somewhat vague title, but Dahl says the two key pieces will be fostering common goals for the cereals sector and ensuring a common message to both international customers and various levels of government in Canada. Specifically that’s meant advocating positions in the wheat class review, variety registration reform, “Team Canada” trade missions, and representation on industry round tables.

Grower groups from around the country have signed on, including the Atlantic Grains Council, Les Producteurs de Grains du Quebec, Grain Farmers of Ontario, Manitoba Wheat and Barley Growers Association, the Alberta Wheat Commission and the B.C. Grain Producers Association.

“The one exception to date is the Saskatchewan Wheat Development Commission which has not yet accepted our invitation to join,” Dahl says. “The door has, and will, remain open to them.”

In the meantime Dahl says a board member from Saskatchewan represents their interests at the national level.

Research focus One of the newest grower groups is the Manitoba Wheat and Barley Growers Association. Executive director Brent Vankoughnet says the organization, and others like it in the other provinces, will be the voice of farmers and will advocate for farmer interests. So far the MWBGA has focused mainly on research, which members have identified as needing more work.

“We’ve gotten set up over the past couple years, and set up the checkoff, which has given us a revenue stream to commit to what we feel are a number of well-focused research projects,” Vankoughnet says.

A full list is available on the organization’s website, but major projects include looking at variables that may influence gluten strength in CWRS, developing new genomic tools to accelerate wheat breeding, fusarium head blight research and fusarium testing.

While much of the work and the model will be familiar to growers who are long accustomed to industry associations, Vankoughnet says the new cereals groups differ in one key way.

“Most of these associations were formed for new crops that were growing in acreage,” he says. “In this case, they’re for a sector that’s already established and won’t be growing at 15 per cent a year. If anything, some would say our challenge will be ‘How do we halt the exodus?’” he says.

One key will be varietal development, which for wheat is challenging.

Vankoughnet says the organization would be working with other organizations like the WGRF and the groups from other provinces to optimize the role of producers in varietal development in order to ensure future varieties are meeting grower needs.

54 country-guide.ca

The Canadian International Grains Institute (Cigi) was established in 1972 to promote Canadian field crops internationally and was jointly funded by farmers through the Canadian Wheat Board and the federal government.

As deregulation loomed, many worried the organization might become one of the unfortunate casualties of the shift. However, it actually became one of the agents of change, as it took on a larger role and garnered interim funding, mainly from farmers through the Western Wheat and Barley Checkoff.

Cigi executive director JoAnne Buth says the organization acted much like a placeholder in the three years following deregulation. During that time the main objective was to ensure that market development work didn’t get missed in the inevitable uncertainty as the industry charted new waters.

That meant “new crop missions” — annual visits to buyers to give them information on the quality of the latest Canadian crop, as well as continuing Cigi’s traditional role in providing milling, baking and processing expertise to buyers. It’s also meant growing into a new and more independent role in establishing and expanding relationships with other players in the grain industry.

“I always tell people that it’s an evolutionary process, not a revolutionary one,” Buth told Country Guide recently.

On her watch the organization has continued to work with industry stakeholders like Pulse Canada and the new Cereals Canada, offering technical expertise as well as insight into industry trends in various parts of the globe.

“I hope we’ll continue to work closely with these organizations,” Buth says. “Pulse Canada really has the whole value chain at their table, which is very valuable for the industry, and Cereals Canada is working very hard to get the whole chain on board. We think they’ll be a very strong partner to keep working with.”

Buth says that what’s still needed is a funding formula that recognizes that growers aren’t the sole beneficiaries of Cigi’s work, and shouldn’t be the sole funders. Cigi is talking to industry about what form its support may take.

“This is a message we’ve heard very clearly from producers, and have taken to heart,” she says.

Buth also says the organization wants to continue to offer training and information for growers in the form of programs like the popular Combine to Customer course, which brings farmers to Winnipeg to see Cigi’s processing facilities.

“The program is so popular there’s a waiting list, because farmers have told us they value the information they get through it so much,” Buth says. “We want to keep offering them valuable insight into how things are structured and work together, and also feedback from customers on how their crops are used and what’s important to the end-users.” CG February 16, 2016

business

Early warning signs of a business in trouble

Whether it’s your farm, or a company or a farm you deal with, it’s never good to be the last to know

By Angela Lovell

nfortunately some businesses will fail. There can be any number of contributing reasons, such as an economic downturn, competition, bad customer relations, bad internal management, changes in markets, government regulations or unforeseen events.

Even so, there are a number of warning signs that could signal the business is in trouble, says Jerry Lupkowski, a senior partner with MNP at its Portage la Prairie, Man. office.

Lack of profitability

Loss of key employees

It’s easy to blame the weather, market conditions or a long list of other factors for a poor month or quarter, but if the business is consistently underperforming from where traditional averages have been, it’s important to look for the real reasons why.

Early warning signs to look for on your income statement include a shrinking gross profit. Given the nature of agriculture, it’s natural that there will be some movement up and down, but ask your accountant or financial adviser where you stack up against other farmers with similar operations. Are your margins similar to the rest of the industry?

A key employee may see the handwriting on the wall long before it’s obvious to the business owner, and they may decide to jump ship. Communication is key. Identify problems and discuss them to help the farm or business retain the valuable people it needs.

More bad debts If the business is seeing an increase in bad debts, chances are it’s going in the wrong direction.

Loss of customers This could be a product issue — for example with crop quality or livestock health — or a customer relations issue. The business is only as good as its customers think it is. The day they leave is the day it’s done.

Cash flow problems If the farm business is borrowing to pay the hydro bill, that’s an early warning sign that all is not well.

So is a buildup of unpaid statutory creditors, so if the business didn’t pay this month’s payroll remittance or GST payment, if it’s been pushed off to the next month, that’s a situation that needs to be addressed.

Remember, directors of a corporation are personally liable for payment of these types of unpaid expenses.

More old receivables If you have a lot of receivables over 90 days, why aren’t your customers paying you? Do you ever ask a new customer to see their balance sheet, or do you ever do a credit check on them? Can they afford what they are buying from you? What if they don’t pay? Can you afford it? Never hesitate to ask for invoices to be paid on time, and if you have to provide an incentive — such as a discount — to collect what’s owed, that’s sometimes what you have to do.

February 16, 2016

Bad management There are ways to address a lack of management skills, such as through training or mentoring, but the mismanagement of assets is harder to deal with. The business owner must know where the money is going and what the outstanding liabilities are at any given point. If the owner is also a director, he or she could end up being responsible for certain unpaid liabilities such as payroll deductions, GST or PST.

Litigation If the business is being sued by customers, creditors, employees, unpaid suppliers, or financial institutions, it’s a strong indication that the business is not on track. In such situations, it’s best to react early rather than later, and to take measures to protect personal and business assets.

Bad employee relations This can refer to employee-employer relations or to relationships between business partners. Employees have rights that protect them from discrimination, harassment and unfair dismissal, so business owners must ensure they treat employees with respect. At the same time, employees must understand they are representatives of the business during the hours they are employed, whether they are on or off the farm, and they should act accordingly.

Friction among partners If the business partners aren’t getting along, it’s time to take a hard look. Take it as a sign that you need to think about how you and your partners can go your separate ways without adversely affecting your core farm business. If you don’t begin looking at the alternatives, don’t be surprised when you find out that your partners already are. CG country-guide.ca 55

business

Going political AGCO chief Martin Richenhagen fields unusual questions at a corporate press conference in Germany

By Scott Garvey, CG Machinery Editor uddenly the discussion became political, turning AGCO’s Fendt-brand press conference during last November’s Agritechnica machinery show in Hanover, Germany, into one of the most unique I can remember attending.

Standing on stage with a German journalist who was acting as event host, AGCO CEO and president Martin Richenhagen eventually found himself talking about larger political and moral considerations around the Syrian refugee crisis and the need to address world hunger.

Granted, the influx of Syrians was a major concern in Europe at the time, but no one I spoke to expected it to come up as a topic in a press conference intended to launch new tractors and to discuss corporate affairs.

But maybe we shouldn’t be surprised, Richenhagen is one of the most unusual CEOs in the industry, despite his assertions to the contrary at the same press conference.

“I think I’m a very normal, average manager,” Richenhagen said, speaking in German. “I try to keep things simple and walk the talk.”

Yet when the journalist emceeing the event asked, “What are your weak points?” Richenhagen’s initial response suggested he isn’t so average after all.

“My hair,” he said to a round of laughter from the 300 or so journalists in the room. “I’d like Donald Trump’s hairdo.”

Then he followed up with a more serious response.

“Well, what are my weak points?” he mused.

“Sometimes I’m a bit too open, and maybe I crack a joke where it’s not really suitable. But I don’t really want to change. That’s my personality. I don’t want to be a very reserved or distant person or manager. I want to be a straight-up guy.

“I recently met some farmers who I studied with during my student years and they said you haven’t really changed much. But I am a little heavier.

“I try to be authentic. Somehow, it’s not difficult for me. I am what I am. That’s what you’ll have to accept for a few years yet. The supervisory board would like me to continue (as CEO) until 2020. I accepted, so my sales partners and customers will have to live with me for a while.”

I’ve been to many events and press conferences 56 country-guide.ca

Martin Richenhagen fields reporters’ questions during the 2012 grand opening of Fendt’s Marktoberdorf, Germany tractor assembly plant.

Photo: AGCO over the years where Richenhagen has spoken. I’ve even interviewed him a couple of times. This kind of casual monologue has become his trademark, putting everyone at ease.

Conversely, some CEOs and senior corporate executives seem to strike fear into the hearts of their lieutenants. I can remember one occasion where an executive walked into the room at a press event in a way that was a little reminiscent of that scene in Star Wars when Darth Vader strides out of his space ship as nervous Empire officers scramble to accommodate him.

Although his position commands respect, I’ve never seen that kind of thing happen around Richenhagen.

The intent of the AGCO press conference at Agritechnica was to discuss what’s new with its GerFebruary 16, 2016

business

On display at Agritechnica, the Fendt 1000 tractor will be launched in North America early this year, wearing both Fendt and Challenger badges.

Photo: Scott Garvey

many-based Fendt brand. The big announcement for European editors was that Richenhagen intends to make it a full-liner brand which, along with Massey Ferguson and Challenger, would make it the third such line for AGCO. Fendt dominates the German market, but so far hasn’t threatened to take North America by storm, although some of the high-end features common to that brand have been engineered into AGCO’s other machinery marquees.

Richenhagen revealed this integration is about to ramp up still further. Early in 2016, the rigid-frame 1000 Series, 500-horsepower Fendt tractor that the company debuted in Germany last year will be integrated into the Challenger product line in North America. That was the big take-away for North American editors.

“The Fendt 1000 will be launched in North America in 2016,” Richenhagen said. “In North America, the Fendt 1000 will be yellow and green. We have a loyal green customer base, mainly in Canada and Pennsylvania. We also have very strong Caterpillar dealers who want to have that product in yellow, Challenger branded. It might say ‘made by Fendt’ or ‘engineered by Fendt’ or something like that.”

“What you should know is the Fendt 1000 was designed for the North American market from the very beginning,” added Rob Smith, one of Richenhagen’s senior executives who briefly shared the stage with him. “From 2007 and 2008 on, the concept was to be extended to North America.”

February 16, 2016

When the floor was opened up for questions, Richenhagen was asked by a British journalist how many full-liner brands farmers of the world can support.

In typical fashion Richenhagen didn’t flinch, throwing out what sounded like an honest response, this time in English.

“In the past, in the ’50s in Germany, we had almost 200 independent tractor brands,” he said.

“And they were supported by the small country of Germany, before reunification, when we had only 50 to 60 million people.”

“In the world, we basically have only three global full-liners. Global means full-liners being present on all continents including Africa, including South America, and they are CNH, John Deere and AGCO. I think this is pretty OK. I think there is space for one, two, three more. So I wouldn’t exclude the smaller players, especially the mid-size Europeans, from becoming more global players. Or the new guys coming from Asia who want to enter Europe and work on broadening their line.”

“So I think this is all in the (best) interests of the farmer, because competition makes sure that we do our homework properly, and that product development is the focus of most of the companies.”

Richenhagen’s emcee then took a forward-looking approach and asked him, “Where do you see AGCO 25 years from now?”

Continued on page 58 country-guide.ca 57

business

Martin Richenhagen and a German emcee shared the stage during an AGCO press conference in Hanover, Germany, in November.

Photo: Scott Garvey

Continued from page 57 “I think we will be a world market leader, although we don’t know in which segments yet,” he responded. “I would like to be the (overall) world market leader, with the resulting (profit) margin.

Our chances are good for organic growth and market growth, because we have some competitors that aren’t doing their job very well.”

“Is AGCO planning any more corporate purchases?” the emcee pressed him further.

“We know there are some companies that are for sale, for example Antonio Carraro in Italy, or some others that are already insolvent in Germany,” he replied.

“We have to look closely to see if there is a pearl out there that’s yet to be discovered. There may be some possibilities for the coming year, but I can’t say more.”

As mentioned earlier, after discussing his corporate news, Richenhagen found himself delving into political matters, particularly the Syrian refugee crisis. Needless to say, that kind of discussion at a machinery press conference is rare.

“I think Germany has so far done something quite positive,” he said. “We are starting a new millenium by not destroying something, instead doing something positive. That’s good for Germany, and it’s something we didn’t do in the previous centuries.

Other countries, America for example, are impressed with how we’ve acted.”

“I’d change the laws in Germany and allow asylum seekers to go to work immediately,” he added.

“We’d like to employ them and send their children to school as soon as possible.”

58 country-guide.ca

In fact, the brand has already hired a small handful and is housing about 100 at company facilities in Germany.

“Today we have about 100 asylum seekers who live here, and we offered to accept 400 more because we have the space,” he said. “In the past we received rent payment from the community, but I said this is not ethical. We have to do without it. We are providing the accommodation for free. We have a football (soccer) field at our facility and we offered it as well, because it’s better that children play football than just hang around.”

Actually, Richenhagen has been publicly discussing global inequality and world hunger for a long time, and he has created initiatives like the anual AGCO Africa Summit in Berlin, which aims to help facilitate positive change on that continent. I can remember asking him at a 2012 press conference in Minnesota why he wanted to help develop agriculture in Africa.

“I’m glad you asked him that,” one of the company’s PR agents told me quietly after the event wrapped up, explaining it was personally important to him.

“We have to do something more and ask why this situation has come about,” Richenhagen told the crowd in Hanover in November, delving further into the topic of inequality. “We have a very fast-growing world population and we have to make sure that all children are fed suitably and have access to school.”

“A billion people in the world are suffering from hunger, and we have to do something about it.” CG February 16, 2016

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business

The farm voice in Paris Maybe we really can have an effective voice in global climate-change talks, even if we can’t agree whether climate change is real

By Gerald Pilger

limate change is a divisive topic. People either believe man-based climate change is real and that action must be taken immediately to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, or they reject the premise that mankind is responsible for climate change and they argue passionately that action is not only not warranted or needed, but that it also won’t do anything to make our weather better.

Typically, it seems a person’s views are either black or white. There is little grey in climate change.

Yet neither position sits well with Don McCabe, president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture.

He takes a different approach altogether.

“Whether farmers believe in climate change or not,” McCabe says, “they need to have a voice in making the rules. Farmers need to be part of the solution. Ag needs a voice at the table.”

McCabe is that voice for Ontario farmers. Not only has he attended the last three United Nations Conference of the Parties (global climate change conferences), he was a panel member in two events at the breakthrough global meeting in Paris last December called COP21.

McCabe says his role was to bring North American farmers’ needs and solutions to the delegates of the 195 countries represented at that meeting.

It was clear, he says, that there would be policies coming out of that meeting to address climate change. “There will be new rules, and farmers need to have a part in the making of those rules.”

While McCabe acknowledges that agriculture is part of the problem, he sees no conflict in arguing that it can be an even bigger part of the solution.

He points out, for instance, that agriculture is all about the connection between the living and

60 country-guide.ca

non-living worlds. Farmers understand the carbon and nitrogen cycles that produce the food and fibre the world relies on. They understand soils and the sequestration of carbon in those soils.

McCabe feels agriculture needs to be recognized for what it has already achieved, and farmers need to be given the tools, technologies, and policies to further reduce greenhouse gases and to curb the impact of climate change.

However, McCabe believes there are roadblocks.

North American agriculture is unique. Globally, there are half a billion farmers, 70 per cent of whom are women who farm one hectare or less.

Second, the average consumer does not know what farmers do, and there is no time for them to learn.

Third, McCabe is concerned that governments and companies could barge ahead without understanding the impact their actions could have on farmers. Fourth, there will likely be new costs imposed on farmers arising from new policies and regulations, which means that input costs could rise.

McCabe lists a number of things Canadian farmers need to do now: • Get familiar with the new terminology • Get a grounding on the science • Listen to the signals the supply chain is sending • Understand what the customer expects • Talk about sustainability in a way that is engaging and that the public will listen to • Understand what they are being asked to sign on to • Stay on top of their businesses Most importantly, McCabe says government must hear from agriculture. “Farmers must be a part of the solution. It is very important that farm organizations be involved in climate change policy. There is a whole new world in the bio-economy.”

February 16, 2016

business

Chris Perry, a fourth-generation farmer from southern Alberta also believes farmers need to look at the big picture.

“Agriculture is an enormous user of energy and resources. We need to be sustainable. We need to define the role ag plays in climate change,” says Perry.

This was the message Perry presented at COP21.

Perry was a panel member at the Field to Market Event at the Gallery of Solutions, a side event to the main climate change meetings in Paris last December. The purpose of the event was to inform COP21 participants how agriculture is working to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.

Perry participated in that panel at the request of Pepsico, a major sponsor of the event. Perry’s farm is a supplier of potatoes, sunflowers and other crops to Pepsico, and the company recognized him as a leader in sustainable agricultural practices in part because of his use of varied crop rotations as well as precision agricultural practices, and also because of his investment in an on-farm biogas production facility. Pepsico wanted him to tell COP21 delegates about his innovative and sustainable farming practices.

Perry admits his motivation for investing in sustainable agriculture is as much altruistic as it is economic. He firmly believes he must leave the land in better shape for future generations than it was when he began farming. That is why he is constantly searching for best practices that he can incorporate.

Pepsico recognizes the increasing desire by consumers for the products they buy to be produced in a sustainable manner. Perry says farmers need to consider this consumer demand as well. “We have to be aware of consumer trends. Farmers have to know who they are selling to and what it is they want.”

Perry says companies like Pepsico want to buy from growers who strive to meet consumer demand for sustainable production. “Companies want to know how sustainable your production system is,” Perry says. “It is not enough to just be compliant; it is what you are doing over and above requirements.

It is extremely important both for farmers and food companies to be seen by consumers as the epitome of food.”

Perry also believes it is crucial for farmers to be at the table when climate change is on the agenda.

“Agriculture needs to be recognized for what it is doing and what it can do to mitigate climate change,” Perry says. “We have to be on the bandwagon.”

Also sitting on the panel with Perry was Keith Alverson, a farmer from South Dakota and member of the National Corn Growers Association. Alverson spoke of the ability of soils to sequester carbon. He told delegates about South Dakota State University

February 16, 2016

Politicians need to know how much we are already doing to return carbon to our soils, and to keep those soils healthy and productive. Our control of the soil must not be jeopardized research that shows 60 per cent of their soil’s carbon had been lost between the time when the land was first broken and 1984.

However, with the introduction of no till and other modern farming practices, carbon sequestration in South Dakota soils increased by 24 per cent between 1985 and 2009.

Alverson pointed out modern farming practices can also mitigate some of the problems that climate change could otherwise create for farmers.

The sequestration of carbon results in better soil health and promotes higher yields. Zero tillage also helps farmers adapt to the drought and the heavy rains that increase in frequency as a result of climate change.

In a South Dakota Corn Growers’ new release Alverson is quoted as saying: “Corn growers not only have the ability, but an obligation to play a role in the world’s collaborative effort to address climate change. Regardless of your beliefs, the world is getting warmer and farmers need to consider best management practices to improve their soil health, which in turn will benefit the soil and climate for future generations.”

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack was the keynote speaker at the Field to Market Event and he summed up the need for input from agriculture in the development of policy on climate change: “The science is clear: climate change impacts global food security.”

While COP21 likely did nothing to change an individual farmer’s belief whether climate change is real, man-made, natural, or a hoax, it did open the eyes of delegates to the impact agriculture can have on climate and greenhouse gas emissions.

Instead of arguing over the premise of climate change, it is time for farmers to unite to meet the demand by the public for actions that reduce the risk of climate change.

Agriculture can provide solutions that consumers are demanding. More than that, there is a market for sustainable agricultural solutions that farmers can capture. CG

country-guide.ca 61

business

At first glance, the vegetation still looks green and lush, but Trenia Arana knows that the land’s moisture is evaporating.

A world in Flux In Central America, where so many Canadian farmers vacation in winter, a changing climate means its farmers need more than tourist dollars

By Stephanie McDonald, Canadian Foodgrains Bank renia Arana speaks of the knot she feels in the back of her neck, caused by the tension of trying to figure out what to do about her family’s situation in the midst of a drought dragging through its second year in western Nicaragua. For the past decade, Arana has been farming full time, but six months ago she went to work as a housekeeper in the nearby town of Jinotepe.

“When I saw how things were going with the drought, I had to go to work,” she says. Now, her 11-year-old son tends the family’s gardens before he goes to school each day at noon. A neighbour stops in to check on the farm when he can.

On the day I meet Arana, she’s home with her nineyear-old daughter. She’d asked for the day off from her employer to meet with me. Her husband has worked in neighbouring Costa Rica for the past 18 years, returning home once every month or two. So it’s up to Arana to prepare, seed, weed and harvest the family’s 62 country-guide.ca

seven acres of land. Most of it is dedicated to corn, beans and sorghum, but for the past number of years she’s also been growing fruit trees — coconut, mango, orange, lemon, papaya and passion fruit.

Arana tells me that it’s been two years since she’s harvested anything, due to the drought. She can count on one hand the number of rains in the past year, none of which were significant. She lives an hour’s drive south of the capital city Managua, in what’s known as Central America’s “Dry Corridor.”

Traditionally, farmers in Nicaragua depended on two rainy seasons in the year. Rain would start in early May, and the crops would be planted. A three- to four-week dry window in August allowed the crops to be harvested before the rains began again in early September and the second planting. The first crop cycle is the smaller of the two, but having a harvest is vital for food and to produce seed for the second planting. The second cycle is in the hurricane season when more rain is expected and, in turn, a bigger harvest.

February 16, 2016

business But, that was before. Their agricultural calendar is in disorder now, and scientists blame climate change. The rain has become less predictable, and when it does come, there isn’t enough, and it has been made worse by El Niño.

“Before, the rainy seasons were a lot better,” Arana says. “We’d get 25 to 30 hundred-pound bags of corn, 20 to 25 bags of beans and 20 to 30 bags of sorghum.”

Arana was able to plant in both cycles in each of the last two years, but says that she got next to nothing for her efforts.

“We wasted our money,” she says. “We’re in debt because of the drought. I don’t know how we’re going to pay it off. We have enough for food and to send the kids to school and that’s it.”

Arana’s story isn’t unique among smallholder farmers in central Nicaragua.

Of the 13 farmers I met during my recent trip to Nicaragua, nearly all spoke of having to purchase food, reducing their meal sizes or cutting out foods that were no longer affordable to them, and needing to search for work off the farm. In recognition of the severity of the drought, the government of Nicaragua, with help from the World Food Programme, increased school meals for children from one to two a day.

The United States Agency for International Development’s Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) issued a food security alert for Central America and Haiti last fall, calling the drought in the region one of the worst in recent decades. Total rainfall between January 1 and September 10 of 2015 was the lowest in the past 35 years. The alert from FEWS, stating that approximately 2.5 million people in the region were already in need of urgent food assistance, was released on October 16, World Food Day, an annual day to raise awareness of issues of hunger and food insecurity.

when we meet. A motorcycle accident led to a broken leg, a cast and crutches. We sit in rocking chairs inside the coolness of his house. Music carries in from the next room. I presume if it wasn’t for his bad luck I wouldn’t have been able to meet him. He gives the impression of a man who doesn’t sit still for long.

Pastrana owns about 78 acres of land.

He’s recently given just under nine acres to each of his three adult children who manage their portions on top of day jobs. Of the 52 acres he has left, seven are in coffee. Pastrana says that coffee farming has become more technical and better managed in the years since he took over from his parents. He has a field that was planted 17 years ago that is still in production, but the plants are normally renewed every 12 years as yields start to decrease.

“Where I have my farm, it’s cool, so we start the harvest in February and we go through April. We’re the last ones to harvest here because we’re at the high-

est elevation.” Harvest on coffee farms at lower altitude will start in November and finish in January. Pastrana has four fulltime workers and hires 20 more for the harvest season. The temporary workers are also farmers, but at a smaller scale, who have already finished their own harvest before going to work on the larger farms.

There are essentially three harvests, with the coffee being picked at different maturities. First is the select harvest, followed by the main harvest and then finally a clear-cut harvest, where everything is taken including the green berries. Each takes about three weeks.

A typical harvest for Pastrana is 100 bags of 100 pounds each from his seven acres. His export quality beans are sold to a business in Ocotal. The beans are delivered de-pulped and dried. At the plant they are re-dried and prepared for roasting.

Tasters at the processing plant will Continued on page 64

High altitude farming Drought is on the mind of every farmer I meet. But, like anywhere in the world, there are always some who are able to escape the worst of what the climate throws at them. At 49, coffee farmer Felipe Pastrana is one of these, and to thank for that is his farm’s location at 1,600 metres above sea level, near the community of Monzonte, close to Ocotal in Nicaragua’s northwest. “We’re at high altitude so we always get shade and rain,” he says.

Pastrana is temporarily immobile February 16, 2016

At harvest, 25 workers depend on Felipe Pastrana’s 78-acre farm. country-guide.ca 63

business

As the soil gets drier, Guillarmina Castro looks to import agronomic strategies like no till.

Continued from page 63 drink a cup of coffee made from his beans and score it out of 100 points to determine what price he will be paid. The highest Pastrana has been able to achieve is 93. “To get good points you have to harvest the coffee when it’s not fully red, but when it’s turning red. If you harvest coffee and it’s mixed, if you have under-ripe beans mixed with over-ripe beans, they lower your points,” he explains.

“We’ve had three consecutive years of receiving the prize for highest quality in Nicaragua, but when it comes time to sell, they give us the same price as local market coffee,” Pastrana says. “They make a huge profit off of us.”

Despite the uncertainty, the company he sells to offers a better price than he’d get elsewhere in the area. Other businesses will only pay a flat rate for beans, Pastrana says, then separate the best coffee from the lower quality, market it and keep the profit.

The trade-off is that he doesn’t get paid up front, but only when the coffee is exported. He delivered his beans to the plant in April and when I met him in September he still hadn’t been paid. In 2015 he earned US$305 per hundred-pound bag, before taking out US$50 for taxes, transport, customs fees and insurance.

“Here the businesses will pay me $255 for a hundred-pound bag. But in Japan they resold it for $800 for the same market quality. If you look at the margin of profit they are making, most goes to the business. We are just left with a very small profit,” Pastrana says.

64 country-guide.ca

Pastrana keeps a portion of his harvest to sell roasted and ground to those in town. He sells it for five cordoba a bag (C$0.25), which makes eight cups of coffee.

While his high altitude coffee plants have been largely spared from the effects of the drought, he says the lack of rain is “a big problem” on his land at a lower elevation where he grows beans and corn.

“Those are things we use in order to feed our workers and now we have to buy them because we can’t produce it.”

Conservation agriculture Head 150 km southwest and you’ll arrive where Guillarmina Castro farms in Pavón, close to Somotillo.

Here, Castro and her husband Hector Guevaro are facing problems similar to other farmers working in the country’s Dry Corridor — they cite the lack of rain as their No. 1 challenge — and yet, something different was happening on their approximately 38-acre farm.

Castro lived through the devastation of Hurricane Mitch in 1998 and is now watching as another climate event plagues her community. She says that they’d only had two really good rains in the previous eight months. Nearby rivers that once flooded regularly have gone dry. Despite the hardships, a new way of farming has provided hope.

For the past three years Castro has been adopting conservation agricultural practices, with support from local and international aid groups, including the Canadian Foodgrains Bank. The three main practices — minimal disturbance of the soil, crop rotation, and February 16, 2016

business soil cover — are seen as particularly useful in dry areas, trapping what precipitation does fall.

“We get better yields and can produce with less rain,” Castro says.

Castro’s husband Hector readily admits that it’s his wife who is the motor behind the farm and proudly shows off what she’s accomplished. On a tour of their garden (interrupted by a too-curious and hungry neighbour’s pig that had to be chased away), I’m shown the rich soil, mulch and planting stations with three corn plants in each. It was easy to forget how little rain there had been as we walked through the farm. There were no telltale signs of drought that I had seen in other farmers’ fields.

It is through donations to the Foodgrains Bank, primarily from rural Canada, that this work in Nicaragua is able to happen. “Growing Projects” across Canada see a group of farmers setting aside a piece of land, and planting and harvesting it as a community or a group of churches working together. Proceeds from the sale of the harvest are donated to the

Foodgrains Bank and in turn are funnelled into work overseas, such as projects teaching conservation agriculture in Pavón. In 2015 there were 260 “Growing Projects” and other fundraising events across the country. Each project is unique, with some donating the proceeds of wheat and others pumpkins. It is farmers helping farmers.

Agronomists currently work with 187 farmers in the region to help them adopt conservation agriculture practices. While the amount of land each owns differs, by any measure, the farmers are small-scale and wholly dependent on the climate. Farmers are encouraged to first try the method with a portion of their corn or bean crop, but Castro has embraced the concept.

In addition to corn, she’s growing pole beans, cassava, watermelons, tomatoes, and green peppers using the three conservation agriculture principles. So far she’s converted just under half an acre of her farm, with plans to increase it to three and a half acres.

“It’s more work. I can’t convert it all in one year. The hard part is making the

planting stations,” Castro says. Previously, she would scatter seed on the land.

She is now more deliberate, planting three seeds in evenly spaced stations.

As climate change causes an increase in extreme weather events, what was traditionally known as subsistence agriculture is fast turning into survival agriculture in some parts of the world, including Nicaragua. Farmers like Castro have had to adjust to an increasingly arid climate and try new practices. In an imperfect situation, she is adapting and finding reason to be hopeful.

When I ask what her neighbours think of what she is doing, Castro says, “Some laugh at you. Some like it.” But as soon as she learned about it she could see the advantages. In what appears to be the new normal in Nicaragua’s climate, she sees it in her own terms: “the only option for survival.” CG Stephanie McDonald is a senior policy advisor at the Canadian Foodgrains Bank. She visited Haiti and Nicaragua in September to study the impact of climate change.

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life

farm Etiquette:

Essential for business success If you stick to these six rules, it won’t actually matter which fork you use

By Helen Lammers-Helps ou may think that etiquette is all about using your napkin at a formal dinner or the rules for making introductions at a cocktail party. And you’d be right… to a point. Those are certainly aspects of etiquette, but Jay Remer, known as Canada’s Etiquette Guy, says etiquette actually goes far beyond knowing some list of good manners.

Every interaction involves etiquette, says Remer who, although based now at St. Andrew’s, N.B., is no stranger to farming, having been part of a large dairy farm in New York state for 10 years.

Etiquette, Remer says, is a code of conduct that allows us to interact with one another without ruffling any feathers. “Connecting with one another is one of the drivers of being human,” he explains. “Etiquette allows us to communicate civilly with one another.”

Over the many years that Remer has been teaching etiquette, he has developed the Six Pillars of Civility, a framework that can guide our behaviour.

The six pillars are compassion, humility, awareness, responsibility, gratitude and encouragement.

These are his “Principles for Action” and Remer believes they are important not only for formal interactions, but also for how we behave day-to-day with our families and our business and community connections, both on our farms and beyond.

#1: Compassion Compassion isn’t as easy to understand as we might think. In fact, it can be downright difficult to understand and apply. When should you be compassionate? What degree of compassion should you show in what situations?

It’s important to get the answer right. Compassion is essential for any good relationship.

“When our friends and loved ones experience negative emotions, we can greatly help them to work through these difficult times by being present, which is one way of showing compassion,” Remer says.

However, this does not mean that it’s our job to fix their problems.

Then take the concept one step further. As hard as it may be to accept flaws in our loved ones, we are often even harder on ourselves, Remer says.

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“Compassion for ourselves is the single most missing element today,” Remer says. “We expect ourselves to be superhuman.”

Instead we should allow ourselves to make mistakes, and then we should forgive ourselves, learn the lessons that the error can teach us, and move on.

#2: Humility “Humility reminds us all that there are no big shots,” says Remer. “No matter what our professional position or achievements, no matter our social station, and no matter our wealth or education, we all have great value.”

Remer says good leaders are measured by their ability to make their employees feel valuable. This begins with the etiquette of our personal interactions with them. Do we demonstrate respect, or are we always trying to keep them in their place?

#3: Awareness In our fast-paced, time-starved lives, too often we are unaware of the people and events around us and how we affect them, says Remer.

“We’re too busy to congratulate a friend for achieving a milestone, we forget birthdays and anniversaries, we don’t take the time to write simple thank-you notes and we don’t bother to RSVP to invitations,” says Remer.

Remer says these simple acts are valuable for sustaining the many connections needed for a healthy society. “The dynamic is essential to maintaining a healthy productive work environment as well as in familial and social situations.”

#4: Responsibility “Taking responsibility for our commitments is necessary for the society we live in to survive in a civil way,” says Remer.

In our interactions with others, the trick is to discern what is our responsibility and what is not.

“Too often,” says Remer, “we take on the burden of other people’s responsibilities, when in fact it may be none of our business.”

Ask yourself: Are you being helpful? Instead, maybe you’re being nosy, judgmental, and controlling.

February 16, 2016

life

#5: Gratitude There’s a reason why “thank you” is one of the first phrases we teach our children, says Remer.

Showing gratitude is a cultural cornerstone.

Unfortunately, these days, we take too much for granted, he says, including our health, access to food and shelter, good friends, a comfortable lifestyle and the list goes on.

We don’t feel grateful. We feel instead that we somehow deserve all these things.

Yet gratitude is critical, both in the home and workplace.

“Employees work far more effectively when the work they are doing is appreciated,” Remer points out, and he encourages us to stop and notice what is around us, and to see the goodness in the people we meet each day.

#6: Encouragement There is no better way to build healthy and successful personal relationships or to maintain a vibrant community or workplace than by encouraging one another, says Remer. “It is like the gasoline in our car or the food in our body.”

Without encouragement, there will be a toxic, fearbased environment in the home, school or workplace.

Each month Remer receives about 50 emails (which he tries to answer personally) from people seeking his advice on how to handle difficult situations. Not surprisingly a lot of them have to do with family, especially in-laws, he says.

Thinking of how the Six Pillars apply to our situations can help us solve our relationship problems, he believes, and he gives examples of how these principles can be applied in real life situations. For instance, if you know someone who is experiencing a difficult situation, show them compassion. “Don’t tell them to ‘suck it up.’”

When there is conflict, be aware that each person has been shaped by their own experiences, which will influence how to do things. When emotions run high, people may get facts and feelings mixed up, making up stories that become part of the facts in their own minds. Staying aware and mindful will help you discuss the problem in a calm way.

The growth of our children can be stressful too.

“There’s a fear of the unknown,” Remer says. We focus so much on our children and how their behaviour isn’t exactly the way we’d like it to be, that we become ungrateful ourselves and revert to childish behaviour.

Instead Remer encourages us to take responsibility for our own stress and think through how we respond to others. “Avoid meddling in your adult children’s lives,” he urges.

February 16, 2016

It’s a different world, and the expectations on today’s farmers are higher than ever, says ‘‘Etiquette Guy” Jay Remer Remer has one word of caution. Following the Six Pillars of Civility will stand you in good stead when interacting with others, but the individual rules of etiquette do change with time. “Etiquette is a moving target that requires flexibility.”

If you’re still wondering which fork to use at a formal dinner, Remer says you start with the cutlery on the outside and work your way in throughout the meal. Your beverage is the glass on your right, your butter plate and napkin are on your left. However, he paraphrases the manners diva, Emily Post, and says “it doesn’t matter which fork you use, as long as you’re nice.”

And here’s one more tip. If you are having trouble pronouncing someone’s name, there is a searchable database that gives pronunciations here: www.pronouncenames.com/. CG country-guide.ca 67

h e a lt h

Sex life is important

By Marie Berry

ou have probably seen the ads on television about erectile dysfunction or ED drugs, and you may wonder if this is a new condition. It’s not, but many people don’t want to talk about it (so they just tolerate or ignore the symptoms) and many health care providers don’t ask about it.

With the availability of a variety of drugs for ED, however, you hear about the condition more often.

But remember, these are not aphrodisiacs, because such drugs don’t exist.

Sex life problems fall into two categories: low desire or libido, or performance issues of which ED is an example. It’s estimated that about 80 per cent of sex life problems are the result of either a drug side effect or a disease. The other 20 per cent are attributed to psychological causes such as depression or anxiety.

Viagra-type drugs do work, but first explore if other drugs cause your ED Before you rush to obtain a prescription for one of the drugs advertised for ED, it’s a great idea to check if a drug or disease might be the culprit. Antidepressant drugs are notorious for reducing libido. Working with your doctor and pharmacist, you may be able to find an effective drug that causes fewer problems.

As well there are coping strategies such as choosing an effective dose with fewer side effects, or timing doses so they interfere less when you are sexually active. Alcohol is often erroneously considered to be conducive for sex; while it may reduce inhibition, it also reduces the ability to perform.

Health conditions like high blood pressure, atherosclerosis, diabetes, and stroke interfere with blood flow, and you do need a good blood flow for an erection. It’s estimated that men with diabetes are three times more likely to be impotent than those without; and men who smoke a pack of cigarettes daily are four times as likely.

Prostate problems and surgery are associated with reduced sexual functioning. Dementia can be associated with impotence as can Parkinson’s disease because of nervous system changes.

The incidence of impotence increases with age, which may be attributed to increased incidence of disease conditions and use of medications.

The class of PDE5 inhibitors includes sildenafil (Viagra), tadalafil (Cialis), and vardenafil (Levitra), all of which are advertised for ED in men. It is estimated at about half of men between 40 and 70 years have some degree of ED. The drugs act by relaxing smooth muscle in the penis which enables an inflow of blood and an erection. All are considered equally effective, and need to be taken about an hour before sexual activity for maximum effectiveness. Tadalafil is slightly faster acting requiring only half an hour and can be taken at a lower dose on a daily basis.

These drugs require a prescription because you need to be healthy enough for sexual activity. If you have liver or kidney damage, you may not be able to use these drugs, or may need a lower dose.

These drugs are contraindicated if you take nitrates for heart pain or angina because the combination can result in dangerously low blood pressure.

For women, the latest drug for increased libido is flibanserin or the “pink pill” because it is a pink tablet. Taken daily, it acts in the nervous system to enhance libido, but it seems more useful premenopausal than postmenopausal. There seems to be only a modest benefit, and adverse effects include severe drops in blood pressure and fainting. As well, alcohol — even alcohol in non-prescription medications or foods — can worsen this drop in blood pressure.

Your sex life is important. If you are having problems, first check to see if the situation is the result of a drug effect or a disease condition. Also keep in mind that there are some effective drugs for men. We come a long way from Spanish fly!

Marie Berry is a lawyer/pharmacist interested in health and education.

Everyone is always concerned about a good night’s sleep and a whole class of drugs has been developed to help. Some of these may actually cause more problems. Next issue, we’ll discuss the various classes of sleeping pills as well as some natural remedies. Until then, sleep well!

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February 16, 2016

The Canadian Association of Farm Advisors (CAFA) Inc. is a national, non-profit professional umbrella organization dedicated to assisting farm families and businesses by increasing the skills of farm advisors and consultants.

www.cafanet.com

CAFA improves the quality of farm advice through continual learning

BY LIZ ROBERTSON, M.A., CAFA EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Family/ Personal

E

veryone has access to a colossal amount of information through the Internet and various forms of meetings, courses and literature. Sifting through it all to find what you actually need — and what is correct — is a task all its own.

Fortunately, CAFA’s Farm Update Series is making finding relevant farmfocused planning information easy. CAFA’s Farm Tax, Farm Succession and the Farm Management Updates each offer a oneday farm-focused session of informative presentations by some of Canada’s best farm advisors.

The Farm Tax Update that was held in Guelph in October of 2015 was the first of the series. It had over 200 farm advisors registered to increase their skills and knowledge about farm tax and legal issues.

Coming up in May, the Farm Succession Update: 3 Circle Model — In-Depth will see top farm advisors share their expertise to improve the level of knowledge surrounding the complex and often emotionally charged issue of farm succession. The information is ideal for farm advisors working with clients on transition or managers and families

Ownership

Business

Farm Succession Update 3 CIRCLE MODEL IN-DEPTH

WEDNESDAY, MAY 18, 2016

Ajax ConventionIt Centre working through their own succession. is Ajax, Ontario a day of high-level information on how the process of succession is managed when the farm family, management and ownership are looked at holistically.

With fewer and larger farms and the average age of farmers being over 54 years, there will be many more farm successions in the coming years. The complexity of the process is because it is a family matter and farm business matter and one that inevitably requires a number of professionals to help see it successfully implemented. Continual professional development for farm advisors

is critical to stay current with tax laws and legal issues and to have the resources of other professionals to be able to offer the holistic team approach.

The topics range from blended families, working with multi-generational families, communication styles, strategic planning, sustainability and legal aspects of farm ownership and transfer. Registrants are sure to learn a substantial amount on farm succession and meet other professionals who help guide the process. It is a day invested in increased skills and knowledge for all farm professionals, and as Benjamin Franklin once said, “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.”

The event is being held at the Ajax Convention Centre and space is limited.

CAFA is also planning on making the day’s presentations available via live webinar.

Registration forms are online at www. cafanet.com/Conferences.aspx or by contacting CAFA at 1-877-474-2871 or info@cafanet.com.

About CAFA: CAFA is a national, not-for-profit organization dedicated to assisting farm families and businesses by increasing the skills and knowledge of farm advisors.

SAVE THE DATES! February 25, 2016: Focus on farm Women, Guelph, Ont. May 18, 2016: Farm Succession Update – 3-Circle Model In-Depth, Ajax, Ont. & via webinar June 2, 2016: Farm Management Update, Woodstock, Ont. & via webinar Fall 2016: Farm Tax Update

More information available at www.cafanet.com/Conferences

Toll free: 1-877-474-2871 Email: info@cafanet.com PO Box 270 • Seven Sisters Falls, MB • R0E 1Y0

Follow us on Twitter @CAFANET

acres

By Leeann Minogue

What’s up with that darn cat?

On the farm, small problems have their own way of getting big ome days it was hard to tell if Buddy, the Hanson’s collie, had amazing herding instincts, or if he was just a jerk. When he spotted Buddy nipping at a cat in the middle of the yard, Dale’s first instinct was to give the dog a cuff. “Cut that out, Buddy! You’re six times the size of that cat.”

Later, when Dale, his son Jeff, and Jeff’s four-year old son Connor were walking from the cleaning plant to the shop, Buddy did it again.

“Guess I didn’t smack that dog hard enough before,” Dale muttered.

Jeff considered lecturing his father about dog training, but he knew that as much as Dale complained about them, he liked having animals outside on the farm. Dale’s idea of a “cuff” was probably something most people would see as a gentle swat.

But then Jeff saw another reason not to lecture Dale.

“Hang on, Dad,” Jeff said. “I think Buddy’s herding that cat.

“What?” Dale said.

“Watch. Every time the cat gets out in the open, Buddy tries to turn him back toward a building.”

Connor let go of Jeff’s hand and ran for the weigh scale. Buddy ran after him and gently tugged on the sleeve of the boy’s red snowsuit.

“Daddy!” Connor hollered. “Buddy’s got my arm!”

“Buddy, get over here,” Dale called, and the dog came running, leaving Connor on the scale, laughing at the metallic sound it made under his snowboots.

“See?” Jeff said. “That dog’s protecting Connor and the cats. Haven’t you heard all those coyotes howling the last couple of nights? I think they’re pretty close to the yard.”

“Huh,” Dale shrugged. “You might be right.”

Intrigued as they were by the idea of Buddy being so useful, because it was 30 below, Jeff and Dale didn’t stand outside to see if the dog would do it again. They took Connor into the heated shop.

With no barn or livestock on the farm, the Han70 country-guide.ca

sons didn’t have a large herd of free-range cats like some farmers. While Dale could see the value of having a few cats around to keep the mice under control, he wasn’t interested in running a cat shelter in his heated shop. He kept their herd down to three or four cats — enough to do some hunting, but not so many that they couldn’t have names. If anyone asked Dale, he told them it was annoying, having cats underfoot when you were trying to work, and disgusting to have to keep a litter box in his shop for those cold winter days. But when he was working alone, he’d sometimes look down and realize he was accidentally petting one of the darn things.

“Blackie, come and play,” Connor yelled when the friendliest of the three current cats on the Hanson farm poked its head through the hinged cat door.

“He’s my favourite,” Connor said, running with the cat while Dale made coffee.

“Good thing someone likes these cats,” Dale said.

The next morning, Dale was telling his neighbour, Brian Miller, about his amazing herding dog over coffee at Dale and Donna’s kitchen table. “Not that the world would notice if a coyote ate one of two of those cats.”

But by that afternoon, Dale and the rest of the Hansons realized that one cat would indeed be missed.

“Blackie!” Connor’s little voice was hoarse from calling for his favourite cat. He was starting to cry, and his nose was running.

“Come inside, before those tears freeze on your face,” said Connor’s mother, Elaine. “We’ll find Blackie tomorrow.”

They didn’t. By noon, Connor had worked himself into a full blown crying fit.

“I knew I should have done something about those coyotes,” Dale said to his wife.

Dale found the old cat carrier at the back of the shop, drove to the local Humane Society and picked out a cat that looked enough like Blackie, he thought, to fool Connor. At first he felt lucky to be able to see the vet right away to have the cat neutered. He felt february 16, 2016

less lucky when he got the $180 bill. “At least it included ‘complimentary IV,’” he grumbled to himself.

When he got home he phoned Jeff. “Come out to the shop,” he said. “Bring Connor.” But Jeff wasn’t home. “I’ll be about 15 minutes,” he said. “I had to run down to Estevan.”

Then Dale heard another car drive in the yard. “That’s Kym,” Dale’s wife Donna said. “Let’s go.” Donna called her daughter-in-law. “Bring Connor out to the shop,” Donna said. “Tell him we’ve found Blackie.”

“What?” Dale said.

“Kym had some extra cats. One’s black, so she said she’d bring it over.”

Dale fumed, wondering if he might be able to get a refund from the vet. They put on their parkas and went outside.

When Connor and Elaine got to the shop, Kym let out the replacement cat. The cat took one look at them, then bee-lined to the top of the highest shelf in the shop and refused to come down.

“Come on, Blackie,” Donna coaxed.

“That’s not Blackie, Grandma” Connor said. “It has white on its tail.”

Sure enough. They could see the impostor tail hanging down from the shelf. Buddy stood underneath, barking at the cat.

Kym fled the scene, just in time to wave to Jeff on his way in. “I found him,” Jeff told his young son. “Blackie was just taking a little vacation.”

Jeff reached into the backseat of his truck and pulled out a fully black cat. “Found him on Kijiji,” he whispered to Dale. “Down in Estevan.”

“Is that Blackie?” Connor scrutinized the cat.

Before Connor could decide, this cat darted off into a corner, ducking behind some standing shovels. Connor tried to reach it, but he knocked over the shovels and hit the cat.

The cat howled and burrowed deeper into the corner. Buddy ran back and forth between the two cats, unable to decide which to bark at first.

It was Dale’s turn to save the day.

“That wasn’t Blackie, Connor,” he said, pulling the newly neutered cat out of his truck. “I’ve got him here.”

But as Dale pulled him out, the new cat clawed Dale’s wrist, drawing blood. Dale dropped the cat. Jeff tried to grab it, but the cat scratched Jeff’s thumb hard enough to make Jeff bleed too. The angry cat hissed and hid under Dale’s truck. Buddy came over to bark at this cat too.

“Blackie’s gone for good,” Connor started to cry, big tears rolling down onto his red snowsuit.

Then they heard a knock on the shop door. Brian Miller came in, holding up a black cat.

“Missing this guy?” he asked.

“Blackie!” Connor yelled. The cat leapt out of Brian’s arms and ran to the boy.

“He must’ve climbed up underneath my truck to get warm,” Brian said. “Rode all the way to my place. Just noticed him today.”

Buddy gave the cowering cat one more loud bark, then ran to Blackie and licked his head.

“Damn cats,” Dale said. “We’ll have to bring the dog into the house and let a couple of coyotes spend the night in the shop.

Leeann Minogue is the editor of Grainews, a playwright and part of a family grain farm in southeastern Saskatchewan. february 16, 2016

While studying for the ministry, I lived in a large stone building on the campus of the University of Saskatchewan. Vina was the housekeeper. She complained constantly about her husband. What a rascal he must have been! At least, according to Vina he was a rascal. I never met the man but I listened as she described his bad attributes. As an idealistic theological student I tried to help. I moralized: “You know, Vina, you married him for better or for worse.”

“Yes,” she responded, “but he don’t get no better!”

Many things don’t seem to be getting better. How do you respond when you get your life to where you want to be, only to encounter a difficult situation? The unplanned challenge might be low commodity prices, an economy that does not meet your expectations or family members who disappoint. You find a job but it is not as fulfilling as you thought it would be. You hoped to accomplish great things but life becomes routine. You finally have enough money, but not nearly enough health. After you have lived long enough to acquire some wisdom, no one is eager to hear. You join a church with hopes of changing the world, and you are invited to come on Saturday to wash the Sunday School floor. Marriage day brings a wonderful euphoria, and then we find it is not so fun to share the clothes closet and stay home when our partner is sick.

The question for each of us is, “What am I doing to make things better?” In turn, it leads to another question, “What kind of legacy do I want to leave on this earth?”

Sometimes we are inspired to move beyond our comfort zone and journey into uncharted territory. Occasionally we come to an unexpected turning point in our life. Events, circumstances, chance meetings just happen and open a new chapter of adventure.

We open ourselves to new possibilities then find ourselves on a road that tests the limits of our character. The test, handled wisely, will probably also give meaning and purpose to life. Robert Frost writes about such experiences in his poem, “The Road Not Taken:” Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less travelled by, And that has made all the difference.

We only pass through this life once, so we might as well make the most of the opportunity. Occasionally I meet people who are fulfilling their “Bucket List.” They have a list of things they want to accomplish before reaching death’s door, and they are actually doing them.

I met a man on the train between Montreal and Saskatoon.

He was crossing Canada in its entirety by train. It was something he had always wanted to do.

Many of us become so anxious about the future, we forget the present. Jesus teaches us that the gift of life is to be shared with others. If we keep it to ourselves, we are not rewarded as richly. If our priority is giving to others, the benefits are enormous. Generosity and giving are the keys to an abundant life, a fulfilled life, perhaps even a successful life. Psychologist William James said, “The great use of a life is to spend it for something that outlasts it.”

What is success? Success is leaving this earth a little better because we have been in it. Success is letting a little more love warm cold hearts, a little more light shine on a dark world.

Success is living courageously and compassionately.

Suggested Scripture: Proverbs 22:1-12, John 10:10b-18 Rod Andrews is a retired Anglican bishop. He lives in Saskatoon. country-guide.ca 71

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