Country guide west

They’re living together. Should they marry?  18 | Handing sales to India

 51

western EDITION / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA / february 1, 2017

Seed of an idea

Wayne Gale looks beyond ag for template to transition business 8

Halal on the plate

More farms target halal meats, but demand far outstrips supply  28

CROPS GUIDE Are you sure you’re getting great crop advice?  40 2017 could be the year for feed barley  42 Publications Mail Agreement Number 40069240

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6 MACHINERY

Fastrac evolution Redesign keeps these tractors roadable at 70 km/h, while boosting their competitive in-field performance.

Inside country guide / Vol. 136 Issue no. 2 / FEBRUARY 1, 2017

Business

40 CROPS GUIDE

14

s even steps to better business These corporate strategies could help drive your farm performance to new levels.

18

l iving together, farming together Actually, common-law is fine, as long as you think through the possible issues.

24

game changer Diversification reduces risk for Lewis Farms, and keeps it aligned with changing markets.

28

t he halal market Farmer-owned SunGold is venturing into halal meats, where demand is growing.

45

hat’s your cultural w intelligence quotient?

Making your farm a welcoming place for a changing workforce.

48

t hinking small The Brits are going small with machinery. We may too.

51

iving our business g to india If we won’t grow our own organic food, India is only too happy to do it for us.

35 Peola continues

to show promise

38 Adding nutritional punch to instant noodles

40 When you need great advice

42 Halting the feed barley decline

44 Weather

Guide Life

60 Rural distress 64 Health 65 Hanson Acres 66 Reflections

54

reate your foreign c exchange strategy Too many farmers underestimate impact of currency.

56

an you count on c Agristability?

A lot depends on what you farm, and who does the work.

58

HR — A question of charisma Be a more charismatic leader with these tips.

8 Meet in the boardroom When Wayne Gale returned home to work on the family seed business with his father John, it quickly became clear that the father and son were equally energetic, equally opinionated, and equally ready to fight instead of compromise. Now, the strategies the family used to turn their squabbling into a co-operative, high-performance leadership team could prove a template for farms across the country that are looking to solve their own succession stalemates.

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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COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA / FEBRUARY 1, 2017

3

EDITOR’S NOTE 1666 Dublin Ave., Winnipeg, MB R3H 0H1 (204) 944-5765 Fax (204) 944-5562

EDITORIAL STAFF

Been south yet?

Work-life balance isn’t just a matter of giving yourself and your family a treat. It’s a proven strategy to improve profitability, and to help generate more objective plans for your future

Editor: Tom Button 12827 Klondyke Line, Ridgetown, ON N0P 2C0 tom.button@fbcpublishing.com (519) 674-1449 Fax (519) 674-5229 Senior Editor: Maggie Van Camp mvancamp@fbcpublishing.com (905) 986-5342 Fax (905) 986-9991 Production Editor: John Morriss john.morriss@fbcpublishing.com Field Editor: Lisa Guenther lisa.guenther@fbcpublishing.com Field Editor: Shannon VanRaes shannon.vanraes@fbcpublishing.com Online Editor: Greg Berg country-guide.ca Design & Layout: Jenelle Jensen

The two emails almost crashed into each other on their way into my in-box.

The first was from columnist Gerald Pilger. “Check out my new ride,” Gerald said, and attached was a photo showing him about to climb onto a camel in North Africa.

Gerald farms near Edmonton, but is an “expedition” type of traveller, always returning home with fresh perspectives that lead to great columns, such as this month’s article on organic agriculture, inspired by his stops in India.

The next email was from Edmontonarea farm business adviser Art Lange, who offered a valuable idea that I’ve never had anyone suggest to me before, and that I intend to follow up on in future issues.

Art said that our feature stories are excellent for portraying the work ethic and the dedication of today’s farmers.

But, he asked, are the farmers that we write about all work and no play? “I urge you and your writers to include information about the work-life balance of the people in all the articles that you are writing about,” he said.

It’s a great suggestion. We should be recognizing that a healthy attitude to work-life balance is essential to a healthy business, and to a well-lived life.

As Art added, it is also essential to a healthy family life, which is not only one of the foundations of successful farming, but can be one of its benefits as well.

And of course the benefits go even deeper than that, as Gerald, Art and many others, including work psychologist and

m.

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FEBRUARY 1, 2017 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

Country Guide columnist Pierrette Desrosiers would agree.

Innovation is crucial to farming today. Farmers need to be innovative in their own right, plus they need to be better than ever at evaluating all the innovations that are being pushed at them by companies large and small, often with very large price tags.

But we know that innovativeness is a skill. It isn’t just something that you’re either born with or without.

It’s a skill you can grow. Except... it grows best in a rich soil. Research across many industries proves that an individual’s innovation score increases when they are engaged in and excited about their work. Yet here too we know that engagement is one of the benefits of travel.

Our minds are fresher and more vigorous when we travel and take time off, and this pays dividends in our performance when we return.

Innovation scores increase too when individuals develop new networks and make new connections, which is what happens when we travel. Sometimes that’s because we meet farmers from other regions, or because we meet travellers from other industries, or simply because we see how smart people in other countries have come up with their own solutions to the problems we all share.

So if you haven’t climbed aboard a camel this year, or driven south, make your plans now. Don’t worry. You can read your Country Guide on our website. And I promise, we’ll soon be telling you how the farmers in those stories obtain their work-life balance.

Are we getting it right? Let me know at tom.button@fbcpublishing.com.

ADVERTISING SALES Sales Director: Cory Bourdeaud’hui cory@fbcpublishing.com (204) 954-1414 Fax (204) 944-5562 Kevin Yaworsky kyaworsky@farmmedia.com (250) 869-5326 Lillie Ann Morris lamorris@xplornet.com (905) 838-2826 Advertising Services Co-ordinator: Arlene Bomback ads@fbcpublishing.com (204) 944-5765 Fax (204) 944-5562 Glacier Farm Media President: Bob Willcox bwillcox@farmmedia.com Publisher: Lynda Tityk lynda.tityk@fbcpublishing.com Editorial Director: Laura Rance laura@fbcpublishing.com Production Director: Shawna Gibson shawna@fbcpublishing.com Circulation Manager: Heather Anderson heather@fbcpublishing.com Contents of this publication are copyrighted and may be reproduced only with the permission of the editor.

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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.

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machinery

Fastrac evolution JCB redesigns the 8000 Series Fastrac tractor

By Scott Garvey CG Machinery Editor

A

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FEBRUARY 1, 2017 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

Photo: JCB

Top to bottom: Unveiled at JCB world headquarters in Rocester, England, the new 8000 Series Fastracs return to typical Fastrac (nearly) equal-wheeled configuration.

The new 8000 Series tractors get the same cab that was introduced two years ago on the smaller 4000s.

The new 8000 Series offers higher horsepower ratings and features to improve in-field performance.

Photography: Scott Garvey

ll eyes were on a stage in JCB’s Rocester, England world headquarters building in October as a few dozen ag journalists from several different countries gathered for the reveal of the company’s all new 8000 Series Fastrac tractor. As is usually the case with events like this, no matter what the brand, the unveiling was accompanied by flashing lights, loud music, and speeches from proud executives.

Back in 1991, U.K.-based JCB ventured out of the light construction equipment sector it was familiar with and into the crowded ag tractor market, but not with a me-too design. Instead, it went to market with a novel machine that could head out into a field and perform like a regular tractor, but could also haul loads and travel down the road almost as fast as a truck.

It was the birth of the Fastrac.

Now, 25 years later, JCB has totally redesigned its flagship 8000 Series models.

About two years ago, the company also retooled its smaller 4000 Series tractors, giving them, among other things, a new, more comfortable cab. That same cab shows up again on the new 8000s.

With its previous 8000 Series lineup, JCB had ventured away from the equalwheel design with a rear deck that had defined the Fastracs since their 1991 introduction, building them to look more like a conventional front-wheel assist tractor. But this latest redesign brings them back to that typical Fastrac configuration and in line with the smaller 4000 Series.

The two new models that now make up the 8000 Series get a boost in horsepower over the previous models too, so they now offer horsepower ratings of 280 in the 8290 and 335 in the 8330. The tractors keep that 70 km/h roading ability that still rates them among the fastest on the road today.

The 8000 Series represents “a brand new

chapter” in Fastrac development, according to JCB executives.

“The Fastrac is as capable in the field as it is on the road,” said Tim Burnhope, chief innovation and growth officer at JCB, referring to the 8000’s overall features package.

The earliest Fastracs weren’t really praised for their in-field performance while doing heavy draught work. But it’s clear after spending a day in the field with the new tractors that this criticism no longer applies. They offer features and capabilities that make them capable field machines, and getting farmers to consider them for that job is now a focus for JCB’s North American marketing staff.

The engine and transmissions are from AGCO, so their parts availability stretches well beyond dedicated JCB dealers. An 8.4 litre SISU (AGCOPower) diesel mates to a programmable Fendt CVT transmission.

That allows the engine management system to run the tractor at the lowest possible rpm during field operations (or it can be set for other priorities like field speed) and to keep torque where it needs to be while minimizing fuel consumption, even in changing field conditions. The Activ Traction feature monitors wheel slip and throttles down the engine until traction returns, then the tractor picks up ground speed again.

Full chassis suspension not only keeps the tractors stable at 70 km/h on the road, it also improves traction in the field and reduces the need for fuel-eating ballast. But the tractor’s ability to pull can be improved

by adding a single, rear deck-mounted weight, which can be lifted on and off with a front-end loader. That makes it one of the few ballast options on the market today that is relatively easy to add and remove right on the farm.

The new 8000s keep the air-over-hydraulic braking system that allows them to pull truck trailers, mating to trailer brakes with rear air line connections. Combine that with the tractor’s four-wheel disc brakes and ABS and you get a machine that can pull a lot of weight down the road very fast and very safely, something you don’t get by hitching a regular high-horsepower tractor to a semi trailer and just caging the trailer brakes to allow it to move.

The tractors also abandon the previous mechanical steering linkage for a new, hydrostatic dual-steer system. Two independent fluid circuits provide a failsafe system in the event of a failure in one or the other, and optional Rapid Steer changes the effect of steering wheel input based on ground speed. That heightens sensitivity for low field speeds and reduces it for high road speeds.

Aside from the new Fastracs, JCB also announced some updates to its TM320 telescopic handler and 411 and 417 AGRI wheel loaders. All get Tier 4 Final diesels and cab refinements. The TM320 also gets some boom design improvements that include cylinder end dampening for smoother telescopic action along with high-tech bronzegraphite bearings for extended life. CG

New bronze-graphite bearings on the telescopic arm of the TM320 are designed for longer life.

Photo: JCB

A new dual-system hydrostatic steering system provides adjustable sensitivity and a failsafe feature to make high-speed road travel safer.

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Nominations close February 28, 2017. info@soilcc.ca 204-792-2424 www.soilcc.ca @soilcouncil COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA / FEBRUARY 1, 2017

7

Change Makers

Meet in the boardroom

By Angela Lovell

W

ayne Gale never forgot something he heard at a seminar 20 years ago, just after he had made the decision to enter the family business and work with his father. “When there are only two people running a business,” the speaker said, “it’s an argument.”

So what do you do when you have two smart, opinionated, A-type personalities trying to run a business together, especially when they also happen to be father and son, with all the additional dynamics that come along with that?

The Gales’ answer was to tackle the problem like two strong, opinionated, A-type personalities.

They got Wayne into a peer advisory group, and they also formed an advisory board to not only give them impartial advice from people outside of their familyowned seed company, but to help mediate some of the disagreements that would inevitably arise between them as Wayne and his father John both worked to move the third-generation business into a new era.

They might not seem the kind of ideas that would spontaneously come up, especially for a father and son whose brainpower was already engaged pretty heavily with running the business, but in a way, the ideas weren’t theirs.

In this case, the ideas for advisers came through Wayne’s involvement with the Canadian Association of Family Enterprise (CAFE), a national, non-profit organization that promotes the well-being, understanding, and success of families in business.

“CAFE has three principals,” says Wayne Gale, currently president of Stokes Seeds at Thorold, Ont. “One is that you establish a board of directors or advisers, two is to be involved in a peer advisory group, and three is to

8

FEBRUARY 1, 2017 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

create a Family Council. The organization has resources to help you with all of these.”

Gale soon found himself assigned to a peer advisory group made up of people around his own age who were all in second- or third-generation family businesses, meeting once a month. “It was like a support group, working through family and business issues,” Gale says now. “We relied on each other for advice.”

Professional, Third-Party Advice Then, thanks to a recommendation from one of the peer group members, Gale hired a family business consultant who helped him and his dad develop a strategic plan for the company, and establish an advisory board.

“He also helped us figure out a plan for how we both would fit into the business,” says Gale. “He went to Dad and asked him to outline 10 things he thought I should do in order to know the business. Then he asked me to outline 10 things I wanted to do in the business. He brought us the two lists and said, ‘Wayne, you work on accomplishing your dad’s list and John, you work at providing Wayne these opportunities.’”

They also set to work on that advisory board, and after interviewing six applicants, the Gales settled on three business professionals with diverse backgrounds to sit on the board, with a mandate to provide useful, thirdparty advice about different aspects of their company.

The advisory board met with the Gales at least three times a year and wasn’t afraid to give tough advice when it was needed. “They also had the hammer, they could walk out the door,” says Gale. “They weren’t ‘yes men’ and we definitely respected their opinion.”

The Family Council Through its history, the family had already gone through three successions, and they quickly saw the potential value of a Family Council, which includes not only family members directly involved in the business on a dayto-day basis, but also those who aren’t involved but are in some way still reliant on it.

“The Family Council is meant to be an opportunity for the owners and people involved in the company to disseminate information to family members who are

Photography: Daniel Weylie

A two-pronged plan helped Stokes Seeds grow its business, despite strong personalities within the family

not directly involved in the company, so they have a better idea of what the future holds for them,” says Gale. “It keeps all the misinformation and lack of information out of the family tree so that everybody’s on the same page, and there isn’t a two-tier system where if you’re in the company, you know what’s going on and if you’re out of the company, you have no idea, even when your future inheritance relies on the success of the company.”

The origins of Stokes Seeds dates back to 1881, but the Gale family became involved when Wayne’s grandfather was working for the second generation of the Stokes family that founded the business selling seed to commercial horticultural growers in Canada and the United States.

When the Stokes ran into financial difficulties, they decided to cease operations in the U.S., and that’s when the Gales’ grandfather bought out the Canadian side of the business, including the inventory and rights to the name. Gale’s father, John joined in the late 1950s and by the mid-’60s they had both U.S. and Canadian corporations.

Even so, although he didn’t completely throw the idea of working in the family business out of the window (he believes in keeping as many doors open as possible), when Gale graduated from high school in the ’70s, he decided to go to the University of Waterloo to pursue his passion for computers, and after obtaining a degree in mathematics he ended up working as a computer programmer in Ottawa on contract to several government agencies, including Revenue Canada.

While he was away at university, Gale’s grandfather died and his uncle joined the business, but the relationship between the two brothers was tense, which helped make Gale’s decision to pursue his own career a little easier. “There was a lot of tension in the company at that time and they really didn’t want a third Gale involved in the business,” he says. “So I stayed clear of that.”

A Few Qualms Eventually Gale’s dad bought the uncle out and told his son that he could use some help.

“So I decided I would go and work for my dad,” says Gale, even though he had reservations because he’d seen first hand how the

What do you do when you have two smart, opionated, A-type personalities trying to run a business together?

Continued on page 12

COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA / FEBRUARY 1, 2017

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change makers

pressure of a seasonal business that requires managing a lot of employees, inter-family relationships, and different personalities could make a family-owned business environment stressful and, to put it mildly, not a lot of fun.

Gale also had no illusions about the fact that he and his dad were very different people. “When I started, Dad wore a T-shirt and jeans and I wore a three-piece suit,” recalls Gale. “I didn’t have a title or an office. I had to find my own position in the company.”

Gale was so unsure about whether he would stay, he rented rather than purchased a home. But one thing he was definite about was the fact that he wasn’t going to allow his relationship with his dad to suffer because of the business. “I told my dad when I started, I don’t want to have the same relationship that you and your dad had,” he says. “I don’t want to be screaming at you, and you screaming at me, because I will be gone.

That’s not a threat, it’s just that I’m your son, and I want you as a father, I don’t need you as a boss.”

We’re a family business, not a business family,” Gale says. “We believe in empowering individuals… not just in the workplace but in the family too.”

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FEBRUARY 1, 2017 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

Building Management Structure There was essentially no management structure in the business as it stood, so that became Gale’s first focus. “It was just my dad and a couple of ladies who were like first lieutenants, and a sales manager and that was the organizational structure,” he says. “The goal initially was for me to work in all the departments for a couple of weeks to get to know the employees and how the place worked.”

Gale only made it through three departments when he had to take over as financial controller following the unexpected death of the company’s accountant. “I got thrown into the job, but the accounting department at that point was pretty basic. We just kept books by hand, we had no computers, and had an accounting firm producing the statements,” he says.

After three months as controller, Gale decided it was time to put a more formal structure in place, so he suggested to his dad that they hire a controller, which would allow him to concentrate on designing a computer system to process orders.

It was a wise choice as it turned out because the controller they hired became so much more important to their business

than they ever imagined she would. “We found a lady who was not only our controller; she became the ‘mom’ of the organization,” says Gale. “Any time my father and I had difficulties, we would go to ‘Mom’ and she would delicately try and keep the two of us on track, and acted as a bit of a buffer between us, and I think that really helped our relationship and helped smooth the succession that was taking place as I joined the business.”

Gale became president and expanded his responsibilities, taking over the order processing and customer relations, and then beginning to move into advertising and marketing. “Dad was mostly interested in the seed side because he had a natural ability to understand what we needed in our catalogue, so he took care of that,” he says. “We established our own territories naturally and we got lucky in that we didn’t end up with two people who are identical. We ended up with two people who are quite opposite, so that added to the strength of the company.”

Change not Always Easy Stokes Seeds brings in flower and vegetable seeds from all over the world, and repackages them at its main office in Thorold, Ont. Close by at St. Catherine’s is the company’s research facility, which includes trials to test adaptability. It also has distribution facilities in the U.S. at Buffalo, New York and Vineland, New Jersey, that serve the U.S. northeast.

It also employs 15 sales representatives across Canada and the U.S., and during its busy season its 50 full-time employees swell to around 125 with the addition of seasonal workers.

As the business has grown it hasn’t always been easy for John to accept or understand some of the changes that the business went through. Technology was an area that was a particular hurdle for him.

“When we went to our paperless, stock pick system Dad would be in my office saying we’ve only got three units of a product on the shelf and we’re going to be out of those by the end of the day,” says Gale. “He didn’t understand that we actually had 200 units but they were in a different bin location somewhere else. It took him a while Continued on page 14

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change makers

to get used to that, and it’s an example of how technology changed the business in a manner that he had a difficult time coping with.”

Although he may have struggled with a few things, Gale says he credits his dad’s openness and values for the way the business has evolved and thrived.

“He’s always taught me that we are caretakers. We take care of this business for the sake of our employees and our customers, that’s our role,” he says. “Our role isn’t to use this for personal gain, or as a personal podium or for personal gratification, we’re here to work, and we’re here to make sure that our employees have a place to work and our customers have a way to get the product. That’s always been his prime directive.”

Next Succession Underway The family succession from grandfather to dad wasn’t always smooth, and the last transition with Gale’s father, who is still involved in the business at 82, has caused a few bruises, but overall has been successful.

Gale is now in the process of planning for another succession that will likely involve passing the reins of the business to a non-family member.

His daughter has a career in the military, and his son Peter, is already working in the company on the computer side of things, but doesn’t want to assume the role of his father.

“He’s told me he’s happy where he is so that has put me on a different plan,” says Gale. “We’ve set up a family trust and all sorts of things that go with that type of plan where there’s not a family member who’s going to be actively involved in the management of the company, but maybe involved in the ownership of the company. It will be a different type of succession than what my father had.”

Not that Gale, who is 61, plans to retire any time soon, but he is beginning to think about his replacement down the road. “I still want to be involved in the company but at some point somebody will have to take my position as the day-to-day president,” he says. “I have a headhunter I’ve worked with before who is looking for the right person.”

At the end of the day, whether it’s a Gale at the helm or not, maintaining the family’s values and culture is important to all of them. “We are a family business, not a business family,” he says. “We’re generous and we believe in empowering individuals to be able to make decisions and making sure people who have responsibility have the authority to carry it out. Those are things we hold dear, not just in the workplace but in the family too.”

Gale believes the best manager is the one who can go golfing every Friday. “If you think about it, it’s because he’s not that critical in the operation,” he says. Not that he intends to golf every Friday, but when he’s on vacation he doesn’t expect his cellphone to ring. “I feel that I’ve got the team in place and the responsibilities identified such that they really should be able to deal with any problem that heads their way.”

A good example is his current pro­ject to make himself less essential to the company’s technology. “I’m a computer person so there’s quite a few parts of our computer system that are heavily reliant on myself and one other individual in their maintenance and upkeep, so we’re investing a considerable amount of money replacing parts of that system with systems that are maintained by large corporations so that I no longer become part of the critical path to success,” he says.

And they don’t call Gale the “Plan B” man for nothing. “I always have a Plan B,” he says. “It may not be a great plan and I sometimes am not good at articulating that plan to others, but I always have a Plan B in my pocket. I don’t want to end up in a position where the company is ever stranded.” CG 14

FEBRUARY 1, 2017 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

7 steps to better business Learning how to adapt boardroom strategies to the farm could earn you the best of both worlds

By Angela Lovell

W

e all think of pinstriped suits and ivory towers when we hear the word “boardroom.” But w ith more family-owned farms getting more complex, maybe there’s something here we can borrow from the corporate world’s playbook to do better business on the farm.

“There are a lot of board governance practices, and even just corporate practices that can be applied to a family farm without it being so formal and intimidating,” says Jennifer Wright, senior human resources adviser with the Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council (CAHRC).

As farm operations continue to grow, Wright says, more operations have multiple family and also non-family members, which add more levels of complexity but also increases the resources that management can draw on.

“It’s important,” Wright says, “to run the farm as a business with a more formal, professional structure.”

The idea that farms need formal business structures can be daunting, but the evidence is growing that it promotes better, more efficient decision making

2

Have Someone in Control A lot of board practices can translate well to farm meetings.

Appointing a chair, taking minutes (or at least recording decisions made at meetings), scheduling regular meetings, having an agenda, and setting a start and end time for meetings can help keep everyone on track.

That said, not too many family farms have adopted many of these practices, although they are well established in businesses of all sizes in other industries. “I know a lot of smaller businesses and even larger businesses that have teams that run meetings,” says Wright. “Sometimes the chair is a rotating chair, so everyone plays that role at some point. That’s one way to ensure that everyone’s involved, especially if you’re working with a family, so no one is always dominant in that situation. But no matter who plays that role, you have to ensure that they garner a level of respect from everyone at the meeting, and that everyone understands they do play a leadership role in that circumstance.”

At one time or another, almost everyone has suffered through a meeting that they were sure would never end because it had been hijacked by a couple of talkers who like to take the discussion off on tangents that have no relevance to the issue at hand.

Obviously the chair plays a vital role in keeping a meeting on track, and has to be comfortable exercising authority over the participants, but arming that person with agendas and timelines makes the task a lot easier.

2

and focused, and that all the other things that you might want to talk about, that aren’t really related to the agenda can be talked about at another time. By having an agenda people’s expectations for what’s going to be discussed in a set time is clear and the person leading the meeting can always draw back to it. It sets clear expectations before anyone even comes into the meeting.”

Set an Agenda An agenda, if it’s used properly, can help keep the meeting focused, and save everyone a lot of time and frustration. “With an agenda everyone knows what’s going to be discussed and in what order it’s going to be discussed,” says Wright.

“It serves to formalize things and to make sure that what’s being discussed is concise

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Delegate, delegate, delegate Governing and corporate boards also often set up subcommittees, which give the opportunity for the group as a whole to save time and energy by delegating one or two people to handle a specific issue or area or responsibility and report back to the rest of the group. A good example would be purchasing a new piece of equipment.

“If, for example, you establish an equipment management committee or whatever you want to call it, you can pass off the responsibility to those two or three people who are taking care of that, and have the expertise to look into options and report back to the board or management group that need to make the purchasing decision,” says Wright.

“If others have ideas, they can share them with those committee members instead of having six or eight family members out there trying to do due diligence on all the same issue.”

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change makers

4

Figure out what kind of meeting you need Within any family business structure, there are likely going to be meetings of different kinds. Senior management meetings might be held weekly and involve only the people responsible for day-to-day operations, although in the case of family farms these can also be owners or shareholders. Management meetings, whether held in an office or around the kitchen table, are designed to make sure the operation runs smoothly on a daily basis by keeping everyone in touch with what’s happening, what’s coming up, and what needs to be done.

“If we’re talking about just the operation of the farm and how

5

Define Responsibilities On most farms — especially family-owned operations — roles and responsibilities often seem to just evolve over the years, but it’s easy to take for granted that everyone understands these roles and responsibilities. That may not always be the case, especially for new employees or family members coming into the business, or even as the farm grows and technology, crops, or farming practices change. Defining how the business is organized, and who does what in a more formal way creates more clarity for everyone, and helps it function more efficiently. “If responsibilities are defined within meetings and within the organization, then it’s clear. If one brother or sister is supposed to be in charge of equipment and another brother or sister is in charge of HR, it gives you a point to draw back to,” says Wright. “If someone has an opinion about a certain area they know who is responsible and who to approach. Just like any business, if the manager of product development needs to hire people, he or she will connect with the manager of HR, and so that structure can also be set in place within a farm organization.

“I believe it’s important to put some formal structures in place similar to any other business. There are things that you can put in place that aren’t as formal as a board, like an advisory group that brings in some third party, or outside expertise and provides the business with advice,” says Wright. “Maybe that’s something that some family farms want to consider, depending on the size of the farm, just so that they’re not always talking amongst themselves.”

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6

that senior management group meets, what’s most important is that it needs to agree, as a group, who’s taking the lead and what the structure is,” says Wright. “It’s a governance cycle which can apply to a senior management group as well as a board. There’s governance training out there by a number of different organizations but the key things are to have an agenda, take minutes, and understand everyone’s role at the meeting.”

Board meetings can also involve senior managers, but will almost always include the shareholders or owners of the business, and there can often be outside people such as financial or legal advisers sitting in as well.

Consider an Advisory Board Some distinctions between an advisory board and a board of directors are important to note. A board of directors has fiduciary responsibilities, and it is responsible to all of the shareholders, whereas an advisory board is responsible only to the person who appoints it — usually the owner or CEO of the business. A board of directors expects staff or senior management to carry out its decisions. An advisory board is there only to offer advice and it’s up to the owner or CEO of the business to decide whether or not to implement any recommendations the advisory board makes.

Advisory boards don’t have to be permanent. They can be set up for a specific period of time or to deal with a specific subject. As an example, if the farm business is diversifying into direct marketing of its value-added products, it may want to consult with people who have experience with retail sales or marketing to help it make a marketing plan. Once that advisory board has provided the information and recommendations that the business needs, it can dissolve.

“A board of advisers is an interesting proposition because you can bring in people who are helpful in areas where you need advice and help,” says Larry Martin, principal of Agri-Food Management Excellence. “You may want a finance or marketing person, someone with a technical background or someone who could help with transition planning. It’s a really good concept, but not many farm businesses right now are using it.”

7

Get Impartial Advice Wayne Gale, president of Stokes Seeds in Thorold, Ont., got the idea of creating an advisory board through his involvement with the Canadian Association of Family Enterprise (CAFE), a national, non-profit organization that supports and promotes families in business. Gale was just entering the third-generation, family horticultural seed business that his father, John had run since the ’60s, and felt they needed some third-party advice on different aspects of the business.

They brought in, and paid, three people with diverse business backgrounds — in agricultural business, manufacturing and insurance — to sit on the company’s advisory board and provide advice about everything from marketing to succession planning. “When they started with us they knew nothing about our business so they were impartial,” says Gale. “They stayed with us for about 10 years. They were a sounding board for our ideas, and gave us confidence to make changes in the business that weren’t always pleasant, or what we wanted to do. The advisory board gave us the reassurance that we were doing the right thing and sometimes coached us to listen to each other’s point of view. It really helped us a lot in figuring out our roles in the company.” CG

The farm is like any other business. Everyone needs to be clear what the structure is, and where they fit inside it

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BUSINESS

Living together, farming together

A

s Eric Walker tells me about his farm, there’s lots of talk about complex business structures and about his ambitious plans.

And there’s lots of talk, too, about family, hope and love.

“It’s been a constant whirlwind of expansion, a blur of building, and three babies… that’s on top of the three we already had,” says the 35-year-old farmer from Sussex, N.B. Eric and his father, Daryl, are in the middle of building a new robotic dairy barn, with three robots to milk 165 cows, just over twice the size of the herd when Eric moved back to farm with Krystal six years ago.

Since then, the farm has become one of the first in Canada to use sand bedding with a gravity sorting system, and they’ve improved production per cow.

Eric is also the province’s representative on the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, and Krystal worked offfarm as an accountant until after the last baby, when she decided to stay home to look after the children and do bookkeeping from a home office.

It’s the kind of story that renews your faith in the future of the family farm.

Except, this isn’t a traditional family structure, because Eric and Krystal are cohabitating. They’re living common-law.

Today, more and more Canadian couples are choosing to live together, i.e. not to marry. And that includes a growing number of farming couples.

“We are seeing far more cohabitations,” says RobinLee Norris, a lawyer who specializes in agriculture and is a partner at Miller Thomson in Guelph, Ont. That’s not all that surprising, considering how Statistics Canada’s numbers reflect a sweeping demographic change toward living together. Between 2006 and 2011, the number of common-law couples in Canada rose 13.9 per cent, compared to a 3.1 per cent increase for married couples.

In 2011, for the first time, the number of commonlaw-couple families (1,567,910) surpassed the number of lone-parent families (1,527,840), with common-law

18

FEBRUARY 1, 2017 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

By Maggie Van Camp / CG Senior Editor

couples accounting for 16.7 per cent of all census families, compared to lone-parent families at 16.3 per cent.

If that growth rate still holds, about a fifth of all Canadian families today are based on unmarried partners living together. And it’s not just in Canada. More than two-thirds of married couples in the U.S. say that they lived together before getting married.

Often, living together is seen as a way of trying out marriage, giving the couple a chance to test their compatibility while still keeping the option open to end the relationship without legal implications.

However, sociological research also points to other contributing causes, such as secularization, increased participation of women in the labour force, changes in the meaning of marriage, risk reduction, individualism, and changing views on sexuality.

Sometimes timing and geography become big factors too. It’s just not as simple as in days gone by, when it was common to fall in love with someone who lived in the same community. Back then, there were fewer options and less distance to consider. For example, Eric’s parents and grandparents all grew up on the same road.

Conversely, Krystal was raised in the Okanagan Valley, B.C., and the couple met in Alberta.

Like many others from the Maritimes, Eric had packed up and headed to Alberta’s oil country. (After graduating from McGill University, he did try working for his dad for a couple of years, but his dad wasn’t ready yet to talk about succession, so Eric put his resumé out and got hired to work in loans in Grand Prairie.)

The second day there, he met Krystal who was doing an evening shift as a waitress after working her day job as an accountant, and they soon became close friends, although they didn’t start going out for a couple of years.

In fact, Krystal didn’t even know Eric had grown up on a farm until after they’d been dating a while and they were visiting one of her friends, who operates a purebred Holstein herd in B.C. “I was in awe of the cows,” Eric says. “It wasn’t until then that she knew how engaged I was in farming, and how much I wanted to farm.”

When Eric got a promotion in his banking career and

Photography: images by ceci

Common-law is the choice for more and more young farming couples

those big family gatherings. In fact, one of those gatherings would change their lives.

On that weekend, Daryl sat down with Eric and his two siblings and asked which if any would be interested in taking over the farm. A few days before affirming his interest with his family, Eric had a big conversation with Krystal. “It meant that she (and her children) would have to move across Canada for me,” says Eric. “Up to that point, I had mostly kept my desire to farm inside.”

She supported his dream. “My parents liked her from day one,” says Eric. “Although they are very conservative, they’ve accepted it (not being married but living together).”

The community has welcomed her with open arms. Eric says that folks don’t even question their marital status, but it helps that he calls Krystal his wife, she has a ring on her finger, and they’ve had babies together.

Reality is that living together in some parts of the world and cultural pockets is more prevalent and accepted than others. In some Scandinavian countries, more babies are born to unmarried mothers than to married ones, mostly due to cohabitation. In Quebec, cohabitating has emerged as a substitute for marriage, with about half of births to non-married mothers.

For some couples the decision to live together is about setting financial priorities. Today weddings can be very expensive, and many prefer to use their resources and time to buy a house or to save to have the wedding of their dreams. Eric and Krystal wanted to focus their energy and assets on building the farm.

For Krystal and Eric, love and commitment mean more than a marriage certificate, but they also worked out the legal details had to move, he asked Krystal to move with him. But although they were in love, neither was ready to rush into marriage. Krystal had her children to think about. Plus, she had grown up in a split family, so for her a marriage license didn’t seem as important as love and commitment — a shift in thinking that is becoming more common among younger Canadians.

They settled into their new life together, raising children and working, with Eric often travelling for work.

But with a schedule that meant they barely had time to eat together as a family, it didn’t seem the right way to live for Eric.

“For me, a banking career was a great learning opportunity but it was not a fulfilling way to raise a family,” he says.

Eric had been raised in a traditional farm family with all the extras, including 4-H, community involvement, siblings and a big extended family who all love weddings.

Krystal first met his family at one of

Matrimonial Home When Krystal and her children first moved into Eric’s house in Alberta, it was a home he alone had equity in. They created a lease agreement so legally she was renting from him.

Then, when they moved to New Brunswick, Eric bought a separate one-acre parcel with a small house for them to share (for only $50,000).

At first Eric had a verbal agreement with his parents to buy shares in the farm at a set price and it didn’t involve Krystal. Then after a few years of adjustments and expansion, and after the farm helped his other siblings start their own farms, they worked out a formal written agreement for quite a bit more than the original handshake deal.

“It was worthwhile to keep all our family relationships intact,” says Eric.

Continued on page 20

COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA / FEBRUARY 1, 2017

19

BUSINESS

More farm families across Canada live outside the traditional ideas that their parents and grandparents accepted without question In this agreement, Eric bought common shares from his mom that increase with the growth of the business, and his dad got preferred shares giving him voting control but not the value of the growth for 10 years.

They also have a cross life insurance policy, in case one of them dies. The spouses will get the shares via the life insurance policy going to the farm corporation to be used to buy them from their spouses.

Eric and Krystal also formed another 20

FEBRUARY 1, 2017 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

company, i.e. a management company, with 50/50 ownership. That company is paid for the work they do for the farm, including Krystal’s bookkeeping and Eric’s management. He says this structure keeps the farm at arm’s length and it adds a level of professionalism and perspective. “We can focus on the farm’s cash flow,” says Eric.

Eric and Krystal want to raise their children on the farm. Their current house isn’t where the barn is, however, so it doesn’t

allow for that type of lifestyle, and his parents aren’t ready to move out of the home farmhouse yet. So once they get the new barn done, they’ve decided to build a new house across the lane. However, all the properties are on separately deeded land.

Usually, explains Miller Thomson’s Norris, as long as the property is still in the farmer’s name only, it will remain as that person’s after the common-law relationship breaks up, subject to a claim for its increase in value.

The value of the property a spouse brings into the marriage on the date they get married is not part of the net family property, but the increase in value during their marriage may be. (To give some protection, consider not transferring gifts to a child until after marriage. In most provinces, gifts or inheritance after the wedding date are not joint property.)

However, the matrimonial home is split evenly.

Farm families need to be aware of this, legal advisers say. One mistake that’s often made with farm couples living together is that they build a new house on some key farmland, close to a barn. The house is the matrimonial home so the common-law partner legally owns half of the farm that the house is sitting on.

Some pieces of land are more important to the operation than others, so keep them in the farmer’s name only, especially if it was a gift. Instead, encourage the new couple to buy a house or small acreage as their matrimonial home, in contrast to a house on a larger acreage or on land with barns that are essential to the operation.

Sometimes you may be encouraged to put joint names on property to avoid probate fees, but remember, if it’s in joint names, the spouse or common-law partner legally owns half.

To protect against this, the common-law spouse who doesn’t own the property needs to be compensated fairly for what they were doing on the farm so they don’t have a claim.

Pay the cohabitating partner a reasonable salary all along for what they were doing on the farm. Track it, claim it on your taxes and keep the paperwork clear as to who was paid for what jobs when.

Things get cloudier if there are children.

The rights of children born to common-law and married couples are the same when there is voluntary separation. Also, the nonowning parent spouse has the right to stay in the matrimonial home, even if he or she does not prove a resulting or constructive

trust. This may be granted if there are children involved, whether the spouses are married or common-law, says Norris.

Confusing legalities Whatever the reasons or acceptance, cohabitating is happening more for this generation. Farm families need to put their pre-conceived notions aside and try to understand the implications, as well as to plan and structure their farms to accommodate this change.

“There is an incorrect assumption among many farm families that if they are living common-law, the farm is safe from claim if the spouses cease to cohabit,” says Norris.

However, following the trend of more common-law marriages, there are more legal situations because of this, and there are more lawsuits claiming constructive and resulting trusts for farm assets when common-law spouses separate.

The confusing part is that the courts are still sorting out the rights and responsibilities involved with cohabitation. In Canada, every province has its own rules about family law, and those laws are often complicated.

Even the definitions are changing.

For example, a 2013 ruling in B.C. changed the definition of spouse in B.C. so common-law partners enjoy the same rights as married couples after two years of cohabitation. So now, couples who have been living together for two years are entitled to a 50/50 split of shared debts and assets — excluding any pre-relationship property or inheritances.

In Alberta, meanwhile, commonlaw relationships are referred to as “adult interdependent partners” and come into effect when the couple has lived together for three years or more, or has a child and live together. The law is quite a bit broader than most other provinces. If you live in a relationship with another person outside of marriage, and if you share one another’s lives, are emotionally committed to one another and function as an economic and domestic unit for a period of not less than three years, there could be legal obligations between the parties. In Newfoundland, after two years of living together in a conjugal relationship, a couple can be considered common-law.

In other provinces, for unmarried couples to have rights they can register as being in a domestic partnership. For example, under the Nova Scotia Vital Statistics Act, a couple must live together for two years

before being entitled to any possible spousal support. Similarly, in Manitoba, the couple could register their common-law relationship at the Vital Statistics Registry but they must be living together in a conjugal relationship for three years or more, or one year with a child.

The rules for settlement after living together also seem to be evolving for farm-

ing couples. Recently, the Supreme Court of Canada decided where there’s a joint family venture, such as a farm, the value created during the relationship may be split. In 2010 an Alberta court awarded 35 per cent of the increase in value of a dairy farm during the period of cohabitaContinued on page 22

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21

BUSINESS “However, if there is no domestic contract, then when a cohabiting couple separates voluntarily, the initial position is that assets are divided based on ownership,” says Norris.

If the farm is entirely in the name of one spouse, the other has no right to automatically claim half of that interest, even though the spouse would if they were legally married.

So on the face of it, says Norris, common-law is safer from an asset protection perspective. The difficulty is that if the nonowning spouse can prove to the court that she or he contributed to the growth of the asset, such as working on the farm, helping build fences or barns, or contributing cash to home expenses, she or he can claim something called a “resulting trust,” also called a constructive trust, and be given some of that asset by the court.

tion to a common-law spouse for farming and domestic services provided during this period. The judgment contains a good summary of the law with respect to “unjust enrichment,” as applied to common-law spouses involved in farming operations.

Furthermore, the judgment was awarded against both the common-law husband (who owned the farm land) and the farming corporation (in which the farmer’s sons had an interest) that held livestock and a dairy quota.

In Ontario the law doesn’t even recognize assets as matrimonial property in these relationships. Instead the province uses the law of constructed trust to protect people’s property rights. In this province the right to claim support on separation is the same if a couple is married or living commonlaw, but the right to make claims against assets is different. A domestic contract can be entered into under the Family Law Act by either common-law spouses or married spouses and that can determine both asset division and support obligations.

Estate law It’s also a little messier when it comes to common-law spouses, children and estate laws. Estate law treats common-law and married spouses differently in Ontario. Mar-

ried spouses without a domestic contract have a claim against the other person’s estate for an equalization payment if they are left out of a will, says Norris. Conversely, common-law spouses do not, and again would have to start a lawsuit and prove a resulting trust exists to get a share of the assets.

If there is no will, the law provides for married spouses. The first $200,000 of the estate goes to the surviving spouse and the balance is divided between the children and spouse based on a formula that looks at the number of children.

However, there’s no such provision for common-law spouses, says Norris. It all goes to the children, if there is no will. The common-law spouse would have to make a dependency relief claim for support with a resulting trust claim for asset division against his or her own children and the estate.

“Again, a domestic contract and a will are the best solutions to the inequities that exist in the legal treatment of common-law and married spouses,” says Norris.

LEAVE NOTHING BEHIND.

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FEBRUARY 1, 2017 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

It isn’t as much a case of whether the couple is married or common-law. When big assets are involved, it’s whether the legal ramifications of any kind of split have been considered.

Co-hab agreements “It is every bit as important to have a domestic contract when parties are living commonlaw as when they are married,” says Norris.

Cohabitation agreements are written, legal structures to help ensure the family farm legacy will be intact and a partner will be taken care of if the couple splits or one person dies. To ensure they’re enforceable if challenged in court, such agreements should be carefully drafted and the other partner or spouse needs to be given an opportunity to obtain independent legal advice.

When done properly, the great thing about doing a formal cohabitation agreement is that couples and families fully discuss the couple’s present finances and future goals. “The discussion around a prenuptial or cohabitation agreements is what is valuable,” says Gayle Langford, lawyer and registered family mediator at Red Deer. “Anything that helps families discuss all the what-ifs and to come to an agreement before the what-if occurs makes things more predictable and easier when those what-ifs happen.” CG

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Change Makers

Game changer

From potatoes to grain to a commercial bull business, Lewis Farms has diversified to manage risk and accommodate market challenges

By Laura Laing

24

FEBRUARY 1, 2017 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

Photography: Anthony Houle

“S

ometimes, progress simply isn’t possible without change,” says Ken Lewis, general manager of Lewis Farms in Spruce Grove, just west of Edmonton, Alta.

Which means that ignoring opportunities to change, or actively resisting change when it arrives can actually be the paths of greatest risk.

Because change will happen. In fact, like other farmers, Lewis has seen continuous change during his over 40 years in the business, including volatile markets, BSE, new consumers, new industry players and, of course, the weather, and he has tried to be smart about meeting those changes and opening the farm up to them.

But of course, that doesn’t mean luck has nothing to do with it.

Lewis in fact thinks it has been part of his story, either because his timing seemed somehow to be just right, or because he happened to be the right person with the right experience at the right place and time.

But, too, he’s the first to agree that luck isn’t what you want to hang your business on, because luck can and will run out.

In Lewis’s opinion, the keys for succeeding through adverse conditions include attention to risk management and diversification, plus determination and a keen passion for what you do.

For 85 years, Lewis Farms has embraced change, managed challenges and somehow turned them into opportunities. Today the farm has a purebred Simmental and Angus cow herd of 900 and two co-operator herds with Lenard Mark and Kyle Martin, consisting of

mother cows contributing to their bull program. They also grow about 400 acres of seed potatoes and 5,000 acres of wheat, canola, barley, and silage (corn and barley). Their 3,000 to 4,000 acres of hay and pasture are on a combination of deeded and rented land.

In the beginning, the Lewis Farms risk management and diversification strategy was more influenced by natural evolution or need, rather than a formal plan. Lewis’s grandparents grew just over 400 acres of seed potatoes, half of which were under contract with Frito Lay. Cattle didn’t become part of their operation until the 1950s, as a way to use the cull potatoes and to feed the other crops in their rotation. (Potatoes require a wide crop rotation, so other crops like barley and wheat are grown.)

“The cattle were an evolution of the crop business,” says Lewis. “What drove the diversification of our business further from there was a keen interest specifically in purebred cattle.”

From potatoes to grain to their globally

recognized and respected cattle business, for Lewis, diversification is a layered effect strategy, with each enterprise building and enhancing the others.

This risk management and growth strategy didn’t end with the simple diversification from crops to cattle. In the late ’70s and early ’80s, Lewis Farms entered the purebred cattle sector, where they established more than one market for their purebred bulls, as well as embryo and export markets.

Finding their niche in the cattle business took some experimentation. They started by using artificial insemination of Simmental, Charolais and Murray Grey on commercial cows in the ’70s, which helped to define their specific interest in Simmental cattle in the early ’80s and now their growing expansion into Black and Red Angus.

The purebred business was a good fit since they were already running cattle and were quite involved in showing cattle.

Being diversified, our risk management is spread, but that also means we aren’t as efficient as we could be when you compare to other operations really specialized in one commodity like grain and oilseed or strictly cattle.”

Continued on page 26

“To the consumer, our story doesn’t exist until we tell it.”

Andrew Campbell, Agvocate Dairy Producer

Be somebody who does something.

Be an agvocate.

Learn more at AgMoreThanEver.ca.

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25

change makers Managing change with risk Risk management has always been a need in the cattle industry, and it’s growing rapidly in response to the extreme volatility in the industry over the past few years. New companies, like Agra Risk in Strathmore, Alta., are emerging in the industry to meet this growing realization and need for risk management.

The company helps both crop and cattle producers by educating and taking the fear out of unknowns in the markets.

“People forget that there are tools that protect all commodity participants from disaster and extreme loss. When it comes to risk management, one of the major issues is lack of education and fear of the unknown,” says Greg Appleyard, Agra Risk president and founding partner. He’s also participated in large-scale crop and cattle production for over 20 years.

“For years I believed following the industry gave us a road map to what the cattle are worth. I was wrong. Our success has come from running our own returns on a daily basis — fully understanding that if you don’t buy them right, you may never have a chance to get out of them,” he says.

When it comes to surviving and succeeding through change, a risk management strategy must support prediction and profitability in the business. Not easy in the cattle industry, but one that in Appleyard’s opinion is possible. “The day you buy cattle they are not losers,” says Appleyard.

“There’s 100 per cent gain or loss.”

With a hedge strategy, it will not get worse unless there is a major event like a border closure, he says. As a direct participant in the industry, he hedges 100 per cent of the cattle.

“This has allowed profitability for us even in a year like last year,” says Appleyard. “As a cattle investor, it just becomes common sense to me to hedge every animal under a consistent program that makes returns not only predictable, but profitable.”

26

FEBRUARY 1, 2017 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

The farm is a great equity builder in North America, not just Canada,” Lewis says. “On the flipside though, is the challenge of cash flow. It is always pretty limited relative to that equity.”

The next shift in diversification was from female production to supplying bulls, not only for the purebred industry but also for commercial herds. That commercial diversification pushed further expansion, so they could meet cow-calf producers’ growing demand for stronger genetic influences for their calf crop and breeding replacements.

Having several enterprises helped spread the risk and any potential impact on their bottom line, and it allowed them to withstand market challenges, like BSE and major fluctuations in prices market volatility. With different breeds of purebred cattle and different markets that they cater to, their commercial bull business has more stability than feeder and fat markets. Progressive cow-calf producers invest in bulls for the long-term benefit of their herd. Their diversification also helped when the semen and embryo business and embryo export market was hit hard by border closures from BSE. “But sometimes what is a benefit to the business can also be a challenge,” says Lewis.

“Being diversified, our risk management is spread, but that also means we aren’t as efficient as we could be when you compare to other operations really specialized in one commodity like grain and oilseed or strictly cattle.”

The ability to adapt and diversify, and then to grow and to take advantage of opportunities as they arise relies on financial backing and ability. For Lewis Farms, this financial foundation has been and continues to be land equity. “Fortunately for us, we have a large enough land base, allowing our business to grow,” he says.

Lewis says this is the case for many farmers and it’s what makes agriculture an opportunistic enterprise compared to other businesses. “The farm is a great equity builder in North America, not just Canada,” he says. “On the flipside, though, is the challenge of cash flow. It is always pretty limited relative to that equity.”

Lewis believes that one of the great pillars supporting the survival of the family farm throughout time has been land equity, combined with the fact that as a whole the farming industry is fairly conservative. “Our

debt-to-equity ratio is usually relatively low compared to other businesses, and we tend to be pretty conservative in our industry,” says Lewis. “I think that is a differentiating factor in the business of agriculture versus other businesses.”

In addition to land equity, when it comes to supporting their continued growth, Lewis Farms is now reliant on the next generation’s knowledge and energy. What keeps Lewis up at night is also his biggest source of pride in the operation — the enthusiasm, passion and involvement of the next generation.

Since its inception Lewis Farms was built on a foundation of family working together.

Ken farms with his father, Jack, wife Corrie and their children, Kyle and Kirbie, and his sister Sandy and her children, Jordan, Jamie, and Tyler. They’re all involved to some degree with Lewis Farms, and that brings many complexities to managing succession for Lewis Farms. This generational change demands a succession plan and a strategy that fits the large, multi-faceted operation and family.

Succession has been an eight-year project for the Lewises and they’re still working through it. “You try and build a format that the next generation will have a template for, and one that will support their growth and success and keep the family together,” says Ken. “Family business can be tough on the family, its emotions, livelihoods and business. A succession plan is more complex in today’s family farm than it ever used to be.”

Reputation Lewis Farms’ annual bull sale sees over 340 bulls through the ring and caters to an audience of 1,000 in-ring and online viewers and buyers, many of whom have been attending and supporting their growth since their first on-farm bull production sale in 1985 where 37 bulls were sold along with five females.

When it comes to surviving change, a solid reputation is what has kept his auction ring full at their bull sale, despite the ups and downs in the marketplace. Often it’s hard to find a seat, many of which are taken by customers who attended their first bull sale and are now close friends.

It’s something Lewis and his family have

worked hard for and are very proud of, and what he believes is the backbone for the success of their business. “Reputation helps manage risk. You need to stand behind and in front of your product,” he says.

Lewis says sticking with one thing and doing it well helped with their credibility and reputation. “Don’t flip-flop; adjust and change what you need to, of course, but stay focused. It sounds simple and it probably is, but just trying to stick to that zone and building from there and being quality-oriented rather than numbers driven. Numbers can be short-term. The vision of your business is long-term.”

And when it comes to longevity, Lewis agrees that the Canadian cattle industry has and will continue to endure times of change and adversity, but he feels it is set to survive risk and change perhaps better than other businesses. “The one thing that doesn’t change for our industry is that people need to eat and hopefully they continue to choose beef,” he says. “We are a legitimate industry providing safe, reliable food and the reality is that somebody still has to produce the cattle.”

Lewis says losing Western Feedlots is definitely a loss for the industry, not only in Alberta but for Canada. But, he says, this is another example of how we need to adapt to change to make progress. For cow-calf producers there’s more opportunity to diversify and think about backgrounding. “This is what always creates a margin in a market like this when nothing is working. It requires a change, and with that change, brings opportunity,” says Lewis. CG

Changes devastate feedlots Recent market volatility and new government programs have been blamed for the shutting down of Canada’s biggest cattle feeder, Western Feedlots. The company, which has been in the cattle business since 1958, claims the strong “headwinds” facing their operation like the high markets in 2014 and 2015 and recent policies introduced by Alberta’s NDP government, including Bill 6 and the looming carbon tax, forced them to close the pens on their operation in September.

Western Feedlots wasn’t the first feedlot to close recently, just the largest. Five family-run feedlots have closed over the past two to three years, according to a group called Stop the Head Tax in Lethbridge (Alberta) County.

“Our industry is under attack on all fronts,” said Rick Paskal, president of Van Raay Paskal Farms Ltd., an Alberta cattle feeding operation and a major backer of the Stop the Head Tax group. “We are going to see more cattle feeders go under in the next six months in Lethbridge County,” he warned, “and see more cattle fed in the United States, which will mean job losses, further price reductions for ranchers and another blow to Alberta’s already faltering economy.”

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27

BUSINESS

The

halal market

In a more diverse Canada, many farmers are learning what halal actually means, and some are already finding ways to profit from its booming demand

By Shannon VanRaes / CG Field Editor

Photo: Chris Procaylo

N

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FEBRUARY 1, 2017 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

avigating the narrow aisles of his Winnipeg shop with the energy of a man half his age, Yusuf Abdulrehman pauses to point out bright spices, dark teas and pastel sweets that have travelled across the globe to reach his prairie outpost.

I had called Abdulrehman because I wanted to learn about halal meats, and he had invited me to his store. He points to shelves stacked high beyond his reach, explaining, “We don’t only sell halal meat, we have a variety of products coming from all over the world, coming from Syria, from Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia. This is why you need to be at the store to see it all, there is so much here.”

After directing one customer to a nearby freezer and pausing to quickly say “As-salãmu ‘alaykum” to another, Abdulrehman leads the way to a side room, pulling out a variety of well worn chairs and stools before settling in.

“I will start with this,” says the owner of Halal Meat Centre & Speciality Foods, leaning forward. “When I first came here and other immigrants came here from wherever it was they came from, they all started looking to see where they can get halal meat, but at that time you could not find it anywhere.”

The short-term solution for Muslims like Abdulrehman was to eat kosher products since both kosher and halal foods are porkfree, and they are slaughtered under similar conditions. But for the one-time salesman who fled political turmoil on Zanzibar with

only the $20 he had sewn into his belt, the long-term solution was clear — he would open Winnipeg’s first halal store, even if it meant harvesting the animals in accordance with Islamic requirements himself.

More than three decades later, Abdulrehman still slaughters most of the meat sold in his store, but he is also able to purchase halal chickens from a local supplier and he notes that mainstream food companies now produce halal products as well.

Maple Leaf Foods launched Mina Halal, a line of hand-slaughtered chicken, in 2012. It was soon followed in 2013 by six value-added halal chicken products including nuggets. Sargent Farms in Ontario and Dunn-Rite in Manitoba also provide halal poultry, as do other small processors across the country. Cargill’s Dunlop facility in Ontario specializes in halal beef and SunGold Meats in Alberta specializes in halal lamb and goat. Other Canadian companies even sell halal bison and elk.

According to the 2011 National Household Survey, there are more than one million Canadian Muslims, up from about 580,000 Muslims in 2001, making it the fastest-growing religion in Canada and for producers, processors and marketers, halal consumers represent a growing and largely untapped demographic.

Despite increased availability of halal food in Canada, a 2014 survey found 70 per cent of halal households felt food companies were failing to meet their needs, while an additional 61 per cent of respondents felt major grocery chains fell short of expectations.

“There is definitely a lot of room for improvement,” says Salima Jivraj, managing director of halal at Nourish Food Marketing, which commissioned the survey. “Most of the 900 people we interviewed were from urban centres — from Toronto and the GTA — so if they feel they are being underserved then I can only imagine that Muslim Canadians in smaller centres, small communities are also underserved, probably more so than the people we spoke with.”

The difference between Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal and places like Corner Brook or Moose Jaw is clear to consumers like Shireen Ahmed. Today the sports writer

and activist lives in Toronto, but she was born in Halifax and still treks out to the family cottage on Prince Edward Island each summer, which means stocking up before she hits the road.

“Here (in Toronto) we have incredible butcher stores where I can get everything from filet mignon, to chopped sirloin, to ribs, to Pakistani tandoori chicken, to wings, so you name it, here I can get it, and that is pretty awesome,” says Ahmed. “But if I drive out to P.E.I., I will take a cooler full of those kinds of foods, halal hotdogs, marshmallows, halal gummy candy, everything you can’t get there.”

While some stores on the East Coast do carry halal products, the mother of four says the selection is scant and prices are high. In some areas, there’s an alternative, of course, but it isn’t always convenient either.

“Basically, you go to a farm in rural Nova Scotia or wherever and you literally order a whole cow and that cow is chopped up and put in your freezer. That’s how a lot of people do it in those areas, compared to, say, in Mississauga,” explains Ahmed.

One place you might look is Oulton Farm, about halfway between Halifax and Wolfville, one of the few provincially inspected abattoirs offering halal slaughter on the East Coast.

Until about six years ago, Oulton’s was the only inspected halal provider in Nova Scotia. “We probably do about 500 or 600 goats each year, and that is limited by supply, basically,” says Wayne Oulton, whose parents founded the meat shop and first ventured into the halal market in the 1970s. “And we do about 2,000 lamb as well.”

“For local farmers, it’s great,” Oulton says, explaining the province lost its federal slaughter capacity, leaving producers reliant on provincial plants and local customers.

“So I think as a local farmer, if we can sell it to a local business, that’s a better home for our animals that hopefully brings more dollars to everybody.”

Thousands of kilometres west, near around Innisfail, Alta., one processor has turned to halal processing to diversify its consumer base and drive its business, only on

We were looking at how to grow our business,” SunGold’s Kliner says.

“One thing that was very apparent is that the ethnicity of the population of our country is changing.”

Continued on page 30

COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA / FEBRUARY 1, 2017

29

BUSINESS a much larger scale. Since opening its doors in 1974, SunGold Specialty Meats has undergone many re-imaginings, but today the federally inspected lamb and goat processing plant is entirely halal, even though no one in the company’s ownership group is Muslim.

“We are actually owned by livestock producers, by farmers, so our ownership is a group of Alberta livestock producers,” says SunGold’s general manager, Miles Kliner, explaining how halal was identified as an underserved market during a long-range business planning exercise.

“We were looking at how to grow our business, asking how were we going to

strengthen our business and researching the food service and retail landscape… consumers’ requirements, consumers’ taste, consumers’ interests,” says Kliner. “So in a nutshell, when you do all that research you put together that information… one thing that was very apparent, is that the ethnicity of the population of our country is changing and growing, and there is an opportunity to serve that market.”

The next steps were to research halal certification agencies, form a partnership with one, and begin the move towards meeting Islamic slaughter requirements, a process SunGold completed in 2006.

For most halal consumers, the term means that a healthy animal has been slaughtered by a Muslim, killed with a swift neck incision as the butcher thanks God for the animal. Pork is also forbidden under Islamic dietary law.

“The word halal means permissible,” says Abdulrehman, “which means you make sure the knife is sharp and that when you do the slaughter, you do the job as quick as you can so you do not torture that animal. At the same time, what you are doing, is you are thanking your lord for allowing you take a life from another living creature for your own sustaining.”

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Dhabihah (or Zabiha) is the term most often used to describe the ritual slaughter that makes meat halal, and Kliner says there isn’t a day that goes by when the SunGold website doesn’t receive a question or comment from consumers, some of which are about halal processing, wondering about how it all works and if it’s humane. The general manager assures customers it is, explaining how ancient techniques and modern practices are combined to ensure animal welfare requirements are met or exceeded.

“Done properly, they don’t feel any pain, this is a must for us,” says Kliner, explaining

animals are restrained and stunned prior to harvest. “I’ve had consumers call up and they are really irate with me on the phone, almost to the point where I can’t get a word in edgewise… but when they calm down and actually hear me describe the process… they come away with the feeling that they were really glad they called.”

Back in Toronto, Jivraj agrees there is no reason halal isn’t compatible with modern meat processing methods. The editor of Halal Foodie recently returned from Alberta where she spoke to producers about the business possibilities halal offers the cattle industry.

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“With beef there is the issue of captive bolt stunning,” she says. “And that was one of the main questions I got in Alberta, how do we work around that? And from my conversations with the certifiers, they say it’s just a matter of us working with them to find a solution.”

It’s not that captive bolts aren’t allowed, she adds, it’s that for the meat to be halal, the ritual slaughter must occur after the bolt is applied, but before animal is dead.

“It’s a matter of timing,” Jivraj says.

However, some questions about halal Continued on page 32

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31

slaughter have less to do with concerns about animal welfare and more to do with anti-Muslim sentiments and far-right ideology. It doesn’t take more than a few seconds of online searching to come across racist or ignorant diatribes, posted under the guise of providing information about halal slaughter.

Some of the calls Kliner receives have reflected that xenophobic sentiment.

“Honestly, in today’s day and age with all we see and hear in the media, that’s not good,” says Kliner. “It’s important for us to be able to tell the story with the facts and ensure that people aren’t just running off in some direction making assumptions.”

Kathy Twardek, director of consumer protection and market fairness for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, notes that all products produced in federally inspected facilities must meet the same health and animal welfare requirements, whether they are halal or not.

The agency also implemented labelling requirements last spring, requiring halal product labels to be accompanied by the name of the organization that certified the product as halal. “(The regulations) were put in place to respond to the need for a more consistent approach to the labelling of halal products,” says Twardek. “There are different interpretations of halal and different certifiers follow different processes… so by providing the certification body, consumers are able to decide if the type of halal they are looking at is what they are looking for.”

The move has garnered a mixed reaction from consumers, with many feeling there isn’t enough oversight of the certifiers.

“It’s a great first step… but because there is no accreditation, anyone can be a certifier,” says Jivraj. “If I have a product, I could actually open up a side certification business and then certify myself because there is no one governing that.”

What she’d like to see is a national accreditation agency pulled together by the religious community, but with the additional authority of government backing.

Still, there’s another issue that is gaining even more priority.

“For some reason, the main focus right now is chicken: is it slaughtered by hand or is it slaughtered by machine?” Twardek says. “The traditional method is slaughtered by hand and it is preferred, but a lot of people also accept machine slaughtered, so that is really where the variance 32

FEBRUARY 1, 2017 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

Photography: White Creek Ranch Photography

BUSINESS

SunGold got into halal processing because so much Canadian demand was under-served, but it is already venturing into global markets too, with sales to the Middle East and Hong Kong.

is occurring, but it is just a matter of what your certifier tells you.”

At Waldner’s Meats in Niverville, Man., the value that customers place on hand-slaughtered birds has been long apparent. The small, provincially inspected processor slaughters about 42,000 each year, supplying stores such as the one owned by Abdulrehman.

Angela Chipilsky says they bring in a halal harvester every time they process poultry. “He comes out when we process our birds and he hand cuts and blesses every one,” she says, adding the hand processing seems especially important to their older generation of clients.

Other trends are also emerging in the halal market. While earlier generations were generally only concerned about whether a product was permissible, Jivraj says Canadian-born Muslims are often searching for additional qualities, such as food that is organic or locally produced.

“Especially with the millennial generation that is coming up now, they are the ones that are born here and they don’t have the same struggles as their parents did, so they are not looking for fast and easy, they are starting to look at quality,” Jivraj says. They also lack the sentimentality about the brands and products from their homeland, making tiny shops like Abdulrehman’s less alluring to second-generation Muslim Canadians.

But back in his Winnipeg store, Abdul-

rehman isn’t concerned about declining customers or competition from the big retailers.

That’s because stores like his are benefiting from yet another cultural shift.

“The customers have changed, they have diversified. Now I am not only catering to the Muslim community, I am catering to the general public as well. I have more clients now that are not of the Islamic faith,” he explains.

Some come for goods like carbonated yogurt drinks and spices, but they also buy halal meat. Even at chain retailers, more non-Muslims are buying halal products.

A report published in Canadian Grocer Magazine notes that while 11 per cent of all meat sold in the United Kingdom is halal, Muslims only account for three per cent of the population.

Canadian Grocer Magazine went on to say, “the concept of halal has extended far beyond a religious choice, also attracting consumers who are environmentally conscious (and) health conscious.”

Jivraj, who also founded Canada’s first Halal Food Festival four years ago, is optimistic. “I think it is only going up because the population is increasing,” she says. “We have one million Muslims right now in Canada, and that number is expected to triple in 20 years. It is growing 13 per cent annually, and the the higher the population, the more the demand, the more the growth.”

But while Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada puts the value of the Canadian halal market at an estimated $1 billion, a 2014 report by Thomson Reuters estimates the value of of the global halal market will reach US$1.6 trillion by 2018. It offers Canadian producers and processors a whole new set of opportunities, says Jivraj.

“Canada will be in a really, really good position to be exporting,” Jivraj says. “Canada as a whole is seen by other countries, like China or in the Middle East, as this pure country with this vast open land base and grazing cattle. We have this image so our meat is seen as premium, but we are not pushing it much in the halal category.”

Ron Davidson of the Canadian Meat Council suggests this could be because different countries have different halal requirements, meaning a halal processor on the Prairies might be able to export to the United Arab Emirates for example, but not to Indonesia or Malaysia, where the market is considerably larger.

“Companies are trying to adjust to that and we are certainly interested in the halal market — there is quite a bit of meat going to these countries and there is quite a bit of room for growth,” Davidson says. “So we are trying to satisfy the requirements for different countries and that is a challenge for the plants.”

Smaller operations like SunGold have made inroads into the Middle East, as well as into Hong Kong. And in 2014 another Alberta-based meat processor, Prairie Halal Foods, opened its first office in Dubai.

“In Dubai, where there is a lot of New Zealand lamb consumed, we service the high-end restaurants at hotels and resorts,” says Kliner, noting SunGold exports are premium, grain-finished products.

Halal beef from Canada also makes it into overseas markets, with about half a dozen smaller, federally inspected plants processing it in Alberta and Ontario. But Duane Ellard of Canada Beef says the market isn’t often a priority because halal beef production is associated with an increased production cost.

“When you incorporate another process in the harvesting process, it comes down to a financial consideration,” Ellard says. “So there is an extra person that has to be in attendance, there has to be a certification, there needs to be a program in place, records have be kept, from a harvesting perspective, there is quite a bit of regulation.”

Still, consumption in Canada has grown three per cent in the last five years, and the

organization does promote Canadian halal harvest in the Middle East, North Africa and the European Union.

For those who do seek halal certification, market opportunities in Canada and abroad seem ripe. But will Canadian processors take advantage of it?

“Canada sits at a really great place just

because of our agricultural ability,” Jivraj says. “We are also maturing as a community ourselves and many of us are secondgeneration, third-generation Canadian and our demands are that we want to be more and more like our peers. We want products that are mainstream… there is only growth ahead.” CG

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33

BUSINESS

A sweet, sweet story When she was growing up, Lindsay Contractor’s sweet tooth was finely tuned to the nuances of fluffy marshmallows and chewy gummies. But when she began practicing Islam in 2011, those sugary treats took a sour turn.

it would be great to see a Canadianmade product on the shelves, but it just isn’t there,” she says, adding that scarcity of halal gelatin could be the major roadblock for those interested in pursuing halal candy production.

“I grew up in a world full of lots of gummies and marshmallows, and I never thought twice about eating them, I didn’t even realize that there was pork in them,” explains Contractor.

“But as soon as I reverted to Islam, I obviously stopped eating pork-based products and I realized that they didn’t have any gummy options here.”

Eventually, Contractor did find enough beef gelatin to perfect her marshmallow recipe and she decided to sell the overage out of her home near Toronto in 2013. In a snap decision, she also ordered some halal gummy candy manufactured in Turkey and put that up for sale as well.

Gummy candy and other processed confections generally rely on gelatin for their unique consistency, a product often made using pork byproducts, which means they can’t be halal, the term most often used to describe products meeting Islamic dietary requirements, which includes eating meat slaughtered by hand and abstaining from pork.

Taking to social media, Contractor soon learned halal gummies and halal candy in general isn’t widely available in Canada, if it’s available at all, and the few halal products the mother and entrepreneur did find on store shelves were not appealing.

“There were marshmallows available, but they were hard and small, almost crunchy,” says Contractor, who quickly decided to make her own.

But here too she was hampered by a lack of halal ingredients.

“I was literally running all over the city trying to find halal beef gelatin,” she says, noting the few large stores that carry it sold out immediately.

What Contractor eventually found was imported halal beef gelatin in smaller Muslim-run, corner stores.

“It was definitely a hot product and

34

FEBRUARY 1, 2017 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

The response was overwhelming.

“People just kept coming and coming to my house,” Contractor says. “I realized that gummies were the star of the show, people wanted them. I was just advertising on Facebook and through word of mouth at that time and we were still overwhelmed.”

It was the largest hole in the halal market Contractor had discovered yet and she was not going to let it go unfilled. Within months, she and her husband Imtiaz secured a warehouse and became the first large-scale importers and distributers of halal gummies in Canada. Blossom & Bean: Halal Confectionaries was born.

For halal consumers like Shireen Ahmed, the arrival of halal gummies meant the end of a years’ long craving.

“I dropped my children off at school, all four of them, I went to the store when it opened, I bought two bags and I ate a whole one in the car by myself,” says the Toronto-based sports writer, who grew up in Halifax when halal dietary requirements were less known and less accommodated. She had her first halal gummy candy when attending university and still remembers being unable to eat cake at a friend’s birthday as a kid because it was iced with marshmallows.

“It excluded you automatically, when as a child you really want to blend in, you want

to eat the same things, and diversity in Halifax in the ’80s, I’m sorry to say, wasn’t as celebrated,” Ahmed says. “It’s seems like something small, it’s just candy, but I’ve been reflecting on how much joy we get from food, how much comfort we get from it, it’s fun to have these treats and participate in sort of the silliness of having these squishy gummy candies.”

But demand for halal candy in Canada is far from being anecdotal. A survey by Nourish Food Marketing found that fewer than 28 per cent of halal consumers believe candy and sweets are halal by default, meaning more than 72 per cent of halal consumers are looking for candy labelled halal.

With more than a million Canadian Muslims, Salima Jivraj, Nourish’s managing director of halal says there are hundreds of thousands of potential customers waiting for products like halal gummies to become available.

“Some of it is novelty, but for people who haven’t been able to eat things like marshmallows, it is a big deal,” says the agency’s Jivraj. “This is one of those categories that has a lot of potential.”

Duane Ellard at Canada Beef is less sure of the potential halal beef gelatin has, at least in terms of market size, but says the organization will help connect anyone who is looking for the product with the right supplier.

“Chances are if we don’t already know, we can find out where you need to go for whatever you are looking for,” says Ellard, but he adds that getting economic returns from niche markets can be challenging for processors.

Still, Contractor hopes to see the day when she can source both gelatin and gummy candies from Canadian food processors. “Absolutely,” Contractor says, “it would be great to see Canadian products be available.”

PG. 40 S tart 2017’s cropping season by finding the right agronomists to give you the best advice.

PG. 42 F eed barley deserves to be grown on more acres.

Should you seed some this spring?

Peola continues to show promise On their own, the peas and canola may only produce 60 per cent of normal, but that still adds up to a 120 per cent yield

By Julienne Isaacs

I

Brent VanKoughnet uses a screen in the yard before putting the crops in separate bins, but some producers put the mixture in one bin and leave screening for a rainy day.

ntercropping sometimes gets a bad rap from producers. For one thing, crop insurance often doesn’t cover intercropped mixtures, so if one or both crops fail, they’re out of luck. For another, yield benefits don’t always outweigh the extra legwork required at planting and harvest.

But the promise of intercropping is that some crops can be mutually beneficial, boosting overall yields, minimizing pest pressure and maximizing nutrients.

There’s no lack of crop combinations to choose from. Western Canadian growers have experimented with flax-lentil, peacanola, pea-mustard, chickpea-flax and lentil-flax combinations, to name just a few.

Recent on-farm trials in the U.S. have looked at winter wheat-soybean intercropping too.

Not all intercrop mixtures have data to back them up, but new research in Manitoba points to the benefits of pea-canola intercropping (or peaola).

Brent VanKoughnet, a consultant and owner of Agri Skills Inc., is heading up a field-scale, two-year trial of peaola intercropping for Manitoba Pulse and Soybean Growers (MPSG). The study, which began in 2015, looks at peas and canola grown alone and in combination.

“Anybody who talks about intercropping, they’d say the hope is that .5 plus .5 equals 1.2 — you get 20 per cent more than you would with each crop alone,” he says.

“Roughly, I got 60 per cent of a canola crop and 60 per cent of a pea crop in 2015, but I did it on the same acre.

“Crops can find their space and complement each other a little bit, rather than one competing the other out of existence,” VanKoughnet says.

Continued on page 36

COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA / FEBRUARY 1, 2017

35

crops Guide

Canola supports pea vines Across both years of his study, VanKoughnet found that harvesting the intercropped fields went more smoothly than harvesting the peas alone.

“The peas climbing the canola make the peas easier to harvest,” he says. “And the peas knit the canola together so there’s very little risk of wind shatter because they’re knitted with the peas. The combination works pretty well as long as maturity is close to the same.”

A peaola study led by Alberta’s Lakeland Agricultural Research Association from 2014 to 2016 also found that the mixture resulted in minimal lodging, which improved their ease of harvest.

The most potentially time-consuming task at harvest is separation of peas and canola. VanKoughnet uses a screen in the yard before putting the crops in separate bins, but some producers put the mixture in one bin and leave screening for a rainy day.

Todd Vanstone, a grain producer near Miami, Man., has intercropped peas and canola on a quarter section for four years.

He uses a Bench Industries grain cleaner to screen the canola from the peas.

Greg Bartley, MPSG’s research technician, says Manitoba producers who have experimented with peaola often have seed businesses already and are set up to clean seed.

It’s not the extra labour that’s been prohibitive for Vanstone. Instead, it’s the fact that Manitoba producers can’t get crop insurance for peaola. The last two years running, Vanstone had hail damage on the fields. This year, he had a windstorm, but despite the damage saw a decent harvest.

“I got into peaola after reading the research — there’s supposed to be a 20 per cent yield bump,” Vanstone says. “I’m trying to add some diversity to the soil as well.”

A three-year test in western Manitoba has shown encouraging results for a vetch/sunflower intercrop.

Photo: Scott Chalmers, WADO

It’s a tangled mess of plant material. I wouldn’t consider not having a fungicide.”

— Brent VanKoughnet, Agri Skills Inc.

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FEBRUARY 1, 2017 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

Nitrogen is tricky For maximum canola yields, it might be necessary to put some N down. But the perfect formula for N application isn’t clear.

In a zero-nitrogen application treatment of peaola, VanKoughnet found the peas generated enough N for themselves and brought along a reasonable canola crop to boot. When small amounts of N are added, the canola “thrives,” he says, while the peas become slightly less productive.

In Land Equivalent Ratio (LER) comparisons for VanKoughnet’s study, the high-

intercropping

The pea vines can support the canola and make it easier to harvest.

Photo: Scott Chalmers, WADO

est LER occurred in the zero-N treatment, with a total yield of 47.6 bu./ac., compared to canola alone at 44.5 bu./ac. and peas alone at 38.5 bu./ac.

According to Scott Chalmers, a diversification specialist with the Westman Agricultural Diversification Organization (WADO), the ideal N application rate is definitely less than 50 pounds per acre. When N is added, there is a higher proportion of canola to peas.

Chalmers has run peaola studies in Manitoba since 2009, when he began a three-year study looking at seeding rate combinations and crop characteristics in pea-canola intercropped systems versus single crops. This year, he started a new trial looking at nitrogen and phosphorus rates in peaola.

He’s also collecting data on 20 Manitoba and Saskatchewan producers’ peaola fields, tracking inputs, seeding rates, yield and LER. “What we’ve been seeing is that every time farmers apply N, it defeats what they’re trying to do with intercropping — the canola yield goes up but the pea yield goes

down. Anything you do wrong with the peas will hurt the system,” he says. “If you starve the system of N, the peas by nature will produce more than they need.”

Flea beetle benefit?

VanKoughnet says the risk of disease can often be higher in peaola, due to higher crop densities.

“It’s a tangled mess of plant material. I wouldn’t consider not having a fungicide,” he says. “For peas alone and canola alone you would (apply fungicide), and with this much more biomass you definitely need to treat it.”

If maturity of the two crops is roughly on par, this is simple. But in 2015, VanKoughnet’s canola got nipped with frost and was held back slightly, so staging was difficult.

“That’s just the risk — some years the crops don’t move along at the same stage,” he says.

When it comes to insect pressure, the picture is brighter. While he doesn’t have data, Chalmers believes the pea-canola mixture deters flea beetles. Vanstone says over his four years of intercropping, he’s had significantly fewer flea beetles in peaola than in canola alone.

More combinations These days, Chalmers is excited about a recently completed three-year study looking at a hairy vetch-sunflower mixture that yielded promising results.

In the study, hairy vetch did not affect sunflower yields and left a credit of over 60 pounds of N per acre, but the real benefit was to soil health. “We saw a 0.25 per cent organic matter boost in one year,” he says. “We couldn’t see any real economic benefit but in terms of intrinsic benefits there was the improvement of soil health, and there was a huge reduction of weeds.”

Chalmers says producers considering intercropping should have a clear goal in mind before they start. “Don’t do it because it’s in a report,” he says.

If producers know their primary objective for intercropping — nutrient management, soil and water management or habitat management — they’ll keep their priorities straight if they fail in a secondary objective.

“And if they’re successful,” says Chal­ mers, “they’ll realize economic benefits too.” CG COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA / FEBRUARY 1, 2017

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crops Guide

By Ellen Goodman / Cigi

Adding nutritional punch to instant noodles The go-to quick meal for university students could be improved with Prairie peas

Q

uick, easy and tasty, but a bit too high in fat and salt and a bit low in nutrition. Everpopular instant noodles could be improved, based on results of Canadian International Grains Institute research focused on developing new uses for Canadian pulses.

Since 2014 Cigi has been conducting a four-year project funded by Pulse Canada and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in consultation with industry to investigate the quality, functionality and nutritional value of pulses as a commercial food ingredient.

“We’re looking at the effects of processing and optimizing pulse ingredients for specific applications,” says Heather Hill, project manager, pulse flour milling and food applications. “Cigi has evaluated the use of yellow pea flour in instant noodles and breakfast cereals. Work on either pasta or extruded snacks is planned for 2017.

Yellow peas were selected to explore potential opportunities as ingredients since acreage grown is relatively high but use for food is limited.”

Deep-fried instant noodles are consumed in more than 80 countries and are valued for their low cost, easy preparation, favourable flavour and long shelf life, she says. However, instant noodles are also high in fat and low in nutritional value (protein, fibre, vitamins and minerals).

Cigi has been investigating how particle size of the pulse ingredient as well as post-milling heat treatment affects end-product quality, Hill says. “For noodle work we heat treated the yellow pea flour through an extrusion process to partially cook or gelatinize the starch or flours to not only change their flavour profile and offset any strong raw pea taste, but their functionality as well.”

Instant noodles made with 20 per cent yellow pea flour had a five per cent increase in protein compared to a retail sample.

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FEBRUARY 1, 2017 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

Yellow peas were milled into coarse semolina, heat treated, and then roller milled into flour. Non-heat treated yellow pea semolina was also milled and reground into flour. Each pea flour was then blended at a level of 20 per cent with CWRS flour for instant noodle processing. CWRS flour was also used to process a wheat control sample for comparison.

The right texture Results revealed that the wheat noodles had the most acceptable texture followed by those made with nonheated treated pea flour and heat treated pea flour, respectively. Acceptable texture is characterized by a firm bite, a common consumer expectation from the traditional use of wheat and the gluten it contains in the processing of noodles. Noodle elasticity was reduced in noodles made with the pea flours.

Many consumers, depending on the demographic, prefer a rubbery elastic sensation with a smooth surface when eating noodles. In addition, noodles made with the heat-treated pea flour had less pea flavour.

“The non-heat-treated pea flour had a slightly stronger flavour whereas the heat-treated pea flours had less flavour but noodle texture became much softer,” says Hill. “This is interesting because different markets value different attributes. Consumers (of instant noodles) in Asia would find texture is paramount whereas in North America consumers are more sensitive to flavour. It’s very important to know how processing changes certain quality attributes.

“We are now looking at the next steps, taking what we have learned in this work to continue with optimization,” she says, noting that different ingredients can be added to improve flavour and texture.

An important benefit found in the analysis of the instant noodles made with 20 per cent yellow pea flour was a three per cent increase in protein over the wheat instant noodles, and a five per cent increase over a retail sample, Hill points out. The finding is significant as further optimization can be done to increase protein levels to possibly achieve a nutrient content claim.

Levels of nutrients such as iron, niacin and potassium were also found to be higher in the noodles made with pea flour.

Hill adds that future plans include engaging a commercial noodle manufacturer to help direct noodle optimization and determine what nutrients are important to them in product development. CG

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crops Guide

When you need great advice Some tips on choosing the right person to help navigate the maze of new crop varieties and technologies

T

By Ron Friesen

here was a time when growing crops was fairly straightforward. You planted in spring, sprayed in summer and harvested in fall.

There weren’t all that many varieties to choose from. Chemical inputs were limited. The provincial guides to field crop protection were only a few pages long.

Today, there are scores of registered varieties and new ones every year. Crop protection guides are now thick volumes with dozens of brand names, and chemistries must be rotated to avoid resistance. New crops such as soybeans, pulses and corn require specialized management skills.

As a result, growers can have trouble keeping up with rapid advancements in technology. Even if they are up to date, they don’t always have the time to monitor thousands of crop acres using the new technologies.

The CCA program This is where professional crop advisers come in.

A new breed of agronomists called Certified Crop Advisers (CCAs) provides fee-for-service crop management and production advice, backed up by the CCA designation to give growers the assurance they’re getting a recognized level of expertise in crop consulting, says Curtis Cavers, the new chair of the Prairie Certified Crop Adviser Board, which administers the program in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta.

“As farms get larger and larger in the amount of workload and number of acres to cover, it makes economic sense to have an expert fee-for-service provider for this kind of work,” says Cavers. “That way you’re getting the best available service at the right time, as well as the best recommendations to maximize yields and profitability.”

The CCA program originated in 1991 through the American Society of Agronomy. It was introduced into Western Canada by the Canadian Association of Agricultural Retailers (CAAR), whose members often represent U.S. companies. Today an estimated 950 CCA members advise farmers on the Prairies, although not all act as feefor-service consultants.

The voluntary certification program qualifies agronomists to give farmers information about managing crops, soil, water, nutrients, and pests. It also provides assurance the information comes from a recognized, qualified professional, says Jim Weir, executive director of the Manitoba Institute of Agrologists.

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FEBRUARY 1, 2017 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

“It’s in farmers’ best interests to make sure they’re hiring someone with some qualifications to give them crop advice,” Weir says. “I wouldn’t like to get legal advice from someone who isn’t a lawyer. I’d be at risk.”

Larry Durand, an independent consulting agrologist in Humboldt, Sask., says some growers want to be sure they’re at the cutting edge and not missing out on new developments. Some, especially large operators, don’t have time to monitor thousands of acres. Some just want to try out something new but lack the expertise.

“Sometimes, frankly, it’s hard to keep up with all the new technology that comes out,” Durand says. “They might want a professional with the time to look at these technologies and decide which ones are applicable to different farming operations.”

Do you need help?

The first step in selecting a crop adviser is to decide if you actually need one. According to Alberta Agriculture and Forestry, producers should decide if they are satisfied that their yields reflect the level of inputs, and whether they are satisfied with their own crop management knowledge. Questions producers should ask themselves include: • Do you have a good knowledge of weed identification?

• Can you identify diseases and insects in your crops?

• Can you interpret laboratory results for soil testing?

• Do you know the best fertilizer management practices for different crops?

• Do you know what specialized varieties are best for your particular area?

If the answers to these questions are “no” or “not sure,” hiring an agronomist might be beneficial.

Now that you’ve decided to engage a crop adviser, where do you go to find one? Agri-retailers and chemical company representatives are good sources. So are crop production clubs and government extension personnel, and neighbours may be able to suggest names.

The best approach is to shop around because the field is limited, and everybody knows everybody else, Durand says. “If I were a producer, I would definitely ask other people in the industry.”

If you’re going to hire a crop adviser, you have the right — indeed, the responsibility — to question them first. Durand recommends an interview, either formal or informal, to sound out candidates and learn more about them. Questions could include: What is your experience? How long have you been in the business?

What’s your education? And — perhaps most important — what’s your production philosophy? Compatibility is critical.

“You might be concerned about keeping input costs down but your agronomist may want you to swing for the fence (maximize inputs). It might not be a good match,” says Durand.

crop advisers Agree on fees Signed contracts spelling out terms and expectations, while not mandatory, are a good idea. That way, everyone knows what they’re getting. Per-acre fees are a fairly standard method of payment but the amount will vary with the service. Durand says a one-time consultation can cost as little as 50 cents an acre. But a cradle-to-grave service on a high-value crop such as potatoes, where the agronomist might be out in the field several times a week, can run up to $12 to $15 an acre.

On the other hand, some services such as diagnostics or forensics (e.g. spray drift damage) may be charged per hour.

Durand also recommends making sure incidental charges, such as lab fees for soil or tissue-testing, are spelled out in advance. Are they included in the fee or are they over and above that? A producer doesn’t want unexpected surprises when the bill arrives.

Even though the adviser will provide the best service they can, Durand stresses there is no guarantee for a successful crop. The producer has to know that going in.

“Personally, I make it clear with clients before I start with them that I’ll make recommendations based on the best information I have at the time. But nothing is ever guaranteed. Agronomy is never black and white. It’s many shades of grey,” Durand says. “Once you lay out these things up front, most producers understand that all the best intentions don’t necessarily make a crop.”

Durand compares hiring a crop adviser to making an investment. You hope the money you put in will give you more money later on. Good professional advice can result in a few more bushels an acre or skipping an unnecessary fungicide application.

Higher yields plus lower input costs equal financial benefits.

Dispute settlement But sometimes complaints can arise. Producers may feel they didn’t get the right advice or the service was lacking.

Should that happen, CCA boards have an established procedure to follow.

Brent Flaten, past-chair of the Prairie CCA board, says written complaints can be submitted to a local or even international board for examination. If the board finds the complaint is justified, disciplinary action can be taken against the crop adviser. Flaten says the Prairie CCA board has received a few complaints in the past, although none resulted in discipline.

Flaten says CCAs must follow a high level of standards and ethics which are spelled out on the association’s website. They must follow generally accepted practices and cannot offer misleading or detrimental advice. If they do, there can be consequences.

“A lot of it is based on reputation,” Flaten says. “If

It’s in farmers’ best interests to make sure they’re hiring someone with qualitications,” says Manitoba’s Jim Weir somebody’s not giving the right information, word gets out pretty quick.”

At the same time, Flaten stresses the CCA board does not have the power to force settlements. That has to happen through the courts. If there is a financial settlement, professional liability insurance may cover it.

CCAs and P.Ags Although CCA is self-governing, it is not regulated by provincial legislation and does not have regulatory powers. That belongs to provincial agrology institutes. Institute members have a university education in agrology and possess a P.Ag (professional agrologist) designation.

CCA is a training program certifying that members have passed examinations and have the necessary skills to do their job.

Although agrology institutes and CCA are separate, they complement each other. Agrology institutes are provincially legislated bodies ensuring standards and compliance. CCA is a voluntary program targeting agronomists. It is a means of showing they are current in their field and receive regular, ongoing training. To be a certified CCA in Western Canada, you first have to be a P.Ag. “As soon as somebody starts providing knowledge and advice to a third party such as a farmer, the expectation under provincial law is that everybody is registered,” says the Manitoba Institute of Agrologists’ Jim Weir. CG

COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA / FEBRUARY 1, 2017

41

crops Guide

CDC Austenson (centre) with CDC Dolly (left) and Xena (right).

Austenson is prized for high yields and test weights and Xena for its good fusarium head blight tolerance.

Photo: CFIA

Halting the feed barley decline Many growers still take a yield penalty in hopes of a malting premium, but breeders say feed varieties offer advantages

F

eed barley has some tough competition. Once the second-largest crop by far on the Prairies, in recent years it’s had to compete for acres with canola and pulses. And while malting premiums are still tempting some growers, feed barley has to compete with cheap U.S. corn and corn gluten.

As for the formerly touted qualities of barley-fed pork, feeders have had to cut rations because barley and hogs are both susceptible to fusarium.

Consequently, over the last 20 years annual Prairie barley area has dropped by about half to roughly six million acres, about half of which is in Alberta.

Now, has it stabilized, or is feed barley still in decline?

Still a staple ration Across the Prairies, feed barley is still the cornerstone of most feed regimens.

In Alberta, an estimated 60 per cent of varieties planted are feed varieties and 40 per cent are malting barley varieties, according to Alberta Barley, the provincial promotion organization. Nearly two million acres were planted to feed barley varieties in 2015.

In Saskatchewan, 2.7 million tonnes of barley were grown in 2015. “Roughly 70 to 80 per cent of that we estimate to be feed barley,” says Brent Johnson, vicechair of Sask Barley and chair of the organization’s feed barley committee.

Most of Manitoba’s acreage consists of malting vari-

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FEBRUARY 1, 2017 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

By Julienne Isaacs

eties, but there’s momentum in the province to discourage competition from U.S. corn, says Manitoba Wheat and Barley Growers Association chair Fred Greig.

“Anything we can do as producers to displace other countries’ grain from our market, we for sure want to do,” says Greig.

Breeding priorities Most feed barley varieties are still much higher yielding than malting varieties, says Aaron Beattie, barley breeder at the University of Saskatchewan’s Crop Development Centre.

Feed barley is attractive to producers thanks in large part to good genetics, and Beattie’s team is ahead of the curve in breeding new varieties with strong agronomic qualities and disease resistance.

“When we think about feed barley we have a couple of main objectives in mind in terms of characteristics we’re trying to incorporate into those varieties — high yield is of primary importance, and good lodging resistance to ease harvest operations,” he says. “We’re also going for really high test weight in those samples and trying to incorporate some good disease resistance.”

Beattie’s program is responsible for some of the most widely grown varieties in Western Canada, including tworow varieties CDC Austenson and Xena — the former is prized for high yields and test weights, the latter for its good fusarium head blight tolerance.

feed barley Beattie says there are new feed barley varieties in the variety registration trial process right now, one of which has shown better fusarium tolerance than Xena, although more data is needed before the “resistant” label can be formally applied.

In Western Canada, because any variety can be used for feed, Beattie’s program uses two tactics in its approach to breeding feed barley. The first is to make specific crosses for feed-type barley, while the second makes use of existing breeding resources.

“We also have varieties that are initially intended for malting, and if they have good agronomics but lack malt quality they’re perfectly suitable for feed barley,” Beattie explains.

Although the yield of malting varieties is catching up to feed types, Beattie says he’d still give an edge to feed varieties when it comes to lodging.

Asian exports?

Domestic demand might be on a gradual decline, but there’s some evidence that new export markets could be opening.

Beattie says Canadian feed barley is prized in China for its naturally high protein levels (often 12 per cent and higher) compared to Australian feed barley, where protein levels can often drop below 10 per cent.

Johnson says feed barley is attractive to Asian markets because barley-finished pork has superior fat quality. SaskBarley is putting research into whether the same principle translates to barley-fed beef.

The organization is also interested in health benefits of barley for both animal and human consumption. “There is work in hogs showing that feed barley has use as a pre-biotic, reducing antibiotic use,” Johnson says. A large body of research also points to its health benefits for human consumption.

For the present, the feed barley market is still healthy in Western Canada — but the jury is still out on the future.

“I think feed barley will remain the main feed grain in Western Canada but U.S. corn will limit any upside and keep the market under pressure. And with increased wheat feeding we’ll see a slight year-over-year decline in domestic consumption for feed barley,” says Jerry Klassen, manager of the Canadian office for Swiss-based grain trader GAP SA Grains & Produits Ltd. Klassen is also a long-time feed grain and livestock market analyst.

Last August, Klassen was hoping the 2016 crop would come off well, with trade estimates between about 8.2 and nine million tonnes.

Feed prices in the major feeding region of southern Alberta were about $170/tonne delivered to the feedlot in mid-August, though those numbers had dropped to $130/tonne in Saskatoon. In Manitoba, feed barley prices were hovering around $175/tonne, close to corn, and demand had dropped overall.

Klassen said the western Canadian hog complex, along with the cattle herd, has remained stagnant or dropped slightly in numbers since 2010 — and with it, feed barley demand. Through the fall, the feed barley market was under pressure in Western Canada due to seasonally low cattle-on-feed numbers and aggressive farmer selling of old-crop supplies. For 2016-17, the industry is anticipating a yearover-year increase in domestic feed wheat usage along with potential imports of U.S. corn and corn gluten, he said. Alternative feed grains will displace barley in feedlot rations. CG

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Crops GUIDE weather NEAR NORMAL

l d al Co sion ca ow oc sn

snow Coldastal co n rai

COLDER THAN NORMAL AVERAGE SNOWFALL

MILDER THAN NORMAL

Sn o co wy sp ld ell s

NEAR- NORMAL TEMPERATURES NEAR- TO ABOVEAVERAGE SNOWFALL

e bl now a ri s s Va vy ime a t h e at

British Columbia FebruarySaskatchewan 19 to March

• Feb. 19-25: Quite cold this week with some higher wind chills. Fair overall but snow and drifting on a couple of windy days. Chance heavy snow in southern areas. Cold, flurries in the north.

• Feb. 26-Mar. 4: Temperatures stay on the cold side with some higher wind chills. Blustery with occasional drifting. Sunshine interchanges with occasional snow, heavier in a few regions.

• Mar. 5-11: Often unsettled and blustery this week with occasional snow, possibly heavy in places.

Some blowing snow. On a couple of fair days look for minor thawing in the south.

• Mar. 12-18: Sunny skies and seasonable to cold temperatures on most days but slight warming brings occasional snow and drifting on two or three days. Chance rain in southern regions.

Alberta

Manitoba

44

FEBRUARY 1, 2017 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

MILDER THAN USUAL NEAR-NORMAL PRECIPITATION

National 18, 2017

• Feb. 19-25: Seasonable to cold. A few blustery days with higher wind chills at times. Fair, but snow on two or three days this week, mixed with rain on the coast. Chance heavy precipitation.

• Feb. 26-Mar. 4: Seasonable to cold but some highs reach double digits in the southwest. Fair most days with intermittent coastal rain changing to heavier snow inland. Flurries, cold in the north.

• Mar. 5-11: Unsettled with occasional rain on the coast and snow to rain elsewhere. Chance of heavy precipitation and strong winds. Thawing in the south but cold, snowy in the north.

• Mar. 12-18: Temperatures vary from cold to mild under blustery conditions. A few highs in the double digits south. Sunshine alternates with coastal rain and snow or rain inland.

• Feb. 19-25: Generally cold with a few higher wind chills. Expect a couple of windy outbreaks with snow and drifting. Chance of heavy snow in places.

Bitterly cold with flurries in the north.

• Feb. 26-Mar. 4: Cold to occasionally seasonable.

Higher wind chills at times with blustery winds causing some drifting in the south. Fair apart from snow on a couple of days, heavier in the north.

• Mar. 5-11: Unsettled and windy on a few days this week as disturbances race by bringing occasional heavier snow and blowing. On sunny days expect slight thawing in the south.

• Mar. 12-18: Seasonable to cold under sunny skies and a few higher wind chills but expect minor warming and some thawing along with snow and drifting on two to three occasions.

**

M sto ild per rmy iod s

COOLER THAN NORMAL

• Feb. 19-25: Fair with seasonable to cold temperatures and a few higher wind chills. Windy at times. Snow and drifting or blowing in the south on two to three days. Very cold, settled in the north.

• Feb. 26-Mar. 4: Changeable weather as sunshine exchanges with occasional snow and drifting in the south. Seasonable to cold temperatures with some higher wind chills. Cold, flurries in the north.

• Mar. 5-11: Variable weather as sunny skies interchange with occasional heavier snow and drifting.

Windy. Risk of rain in the south. Some thawing.

Cold in the north with scattered snow.

• Mar. 12-18: Often sunny but snow and some rain falls on a couple of windy, milder days. Seasonable to cold but with some thawing in the south.

Continued cold in the north.

highlights February 19 to March 18, 2017 Winter is expected to maintain an icy grip on Western Canada well into March while relatively mild air will engulf many parts of Eastern Canada. Apart from a few snowy, milder days in the West, the cold dry air should result in near-normal snowfall amounts from British Columbia eastward to northwest Ontario. This weather pattern will produce changeable conditions over Ontario and Quebec with the possibility of a couple of heavier snowfall events from the Great Lakes into southern Quebec.

Meantime in far eastern regions of the country, disturbances moving along the Atlantic seaboard will send milder air and a few stormy, wet periods into the Maritimes and Newfoundland. However, precipitation totals there should end up near normal.

Prepared by meteorologist Larry Romaniuk of Weatherite Services. Forecasts should be 80 per cent accurate for your area; expect variations by a day or two due to changeable speed of weather systems.

Editor’s note

Where’s my weather page?

Look in every second issue for your monthlong Country Guide weather forecast during the winter months when we’re publishing every two weeks.

What’s your cultural intelligence quotient?

Creating an environment that welcomes and is open to other cultures actually helps boost farm performance

A

long with the country overall, our rural communities are becoming much more culturally diverse. The evidence is that this is a good thing for agriculture.

Research shows that diversity enhances innovation in the workplace. As well, agriculture relies on newcomers to fill the growing demand for workers in the industry.

However, diversity in the workplace also poses some challenges, including communication barriers, cultural differences, and perhaps most worrisome of all, our own personal biases.

Any of these can lead to misunderstandings and conflict, says Dr. Sara Mann, a professor in strategic HR management at the University of Guelph.

Interacting with people from different cultures requires what the experts call “cultural intelligence,” which Mann defines as the ability to interpret and adapt to others’ behaviour.

The good news, says Mann, is that we can learn to get better at it.

By Helen Lammers-Helps

First of all, let’s understand what we mean by culture, which includes the values, norms, beliefs, and customs that an individual holds in common with a group.

There is even a “culture of agriculture,” which can sometimes include a tendency to knock those who don’t farm. We do the industry a disservice, however, when we refer to people as “city slickers” or “citiots,” especially considering these are the same people whom we want to buy our products.

Mann says the first step is to become more aware of our biases. Then we should try to look at the situation through the other’s perspective.

Evelina Silveira, owner of Diversity at Work in London, Ont., which offers training and publishes Diversity and Workplace magazine, explains how different cultural norms can interfere with effective communication. While language barriers may be one cause of misunderstandings between those of different ethnic backgrounds, less Continued on page 46

Practical tips for an inclusive workplace (Source: Evelina Silveira, publisher of Diversity and Workplace magazine) Some employers may not be aware of the difference between equality and equity. For example, equality is giving everyone Sunday off as their day of rest. But if someone practices a religion that has Saturday as its day of observance, then giving that person Saturday off would be more equitable.

When planning events, be aware of restrictions around what foods may be eaten, whether alcohol is permitted, and the roles of men and women.

If there are language barriers, choose simpler explanations and use pictures or hands-on demonstrations to make it easier for workers to understand what needs to be done.

Too often we are careless with how we say people’s names. A person’s name is their identity and we should be respectful. Write the names down phonetically to help you remember how to say them correctly.

Don’t laugh if you are having trouble pronouncing

it, and don’t anglicize the person’s name or call them a nickname without their permission.

Canadians tend to be more casual when it comes to names. In high context cultures, hierarchy and following formal protocols are more important. Don’t use the person’s first name until they tell you to do so.

In the meantime, use the polite titles of Mr. or Mrs. Avoid making generalizations about a person’s culture. For example, if someone is from Romania, don’t say you have a friend from Poland. “It’s not the same thing,” says Silveira. “That’s like someone telling you that they have a friend who is American.”

Don’t assume that you know everything about the area where a person comes from. Our news reports likely don’t tell the whole story.

Also respect a person’s cultural norms. “Customs bring continuity when everything is new for an immigrant,” says Silveira. “It helps to hang on to something familiar.”

COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA / FEBRUARY 1, 2017

45

BUSINESS obvious but perhaps even more important are differences in how we communicate.

Silveira explains that while North Americans and Northern Europeans commonly speak in a very direct and open manner, the other 80 per cent of the world may actually find this manner of speaking rude.

“We may believe our way is better, but it is important to understand that these are just different styles,” says Silveira, adding that you may confuse the speaker if you interrupt a high-context speaker and ask them to get to the point.

Leadership styles also vary between cultures. “Much of the world is used to a more

4652330-1 FEBRUARY 1, 2017 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA DAS_Simplicity_FullRate_15-25x6-5_a4.indd 1

authoritarian or hierarchal leadership style,” says Silveira. Workers may have been closely supervised and may not have been allowed to be innovative, she explains, so it may take workers some time before they are comfortable with being left on their own to do work.

It isn’t that they can’t do the work that you are assigning to them. It’s that they are uncertain about what’s expected of them, and what they’re allowed to do.

It’s another example of why, when it comes to fostering a workplace where diversity is respected, leadership is important, says Silveira. There must be the same expectations for everyone from the top down, she says.

Importantly, she adds, “It must be clear that bullying and harassment will not be tolerated.”

“There must be clear communication from the top down and sideways,” agrees Lew Bayer, a Winnipeg-based corporate civility trainer.

Creating a culture of civility in the workplace is worth the effort, Bayer says. Research shows profits are 30 per cent higher, employees are 30 per cent more engaged and there is a 30 per cent increase in employee retention in these workforces.

“When understood and effectively harnessed, diversity enables us to work toward

common goals and contributes to growth and innovation,” says Bayer. “By building our cultural competence, we can bridge cultural challenges and learn to better understand ourselves and others, to prevent and rectify misunderstandings, and to communicate effectively across cultural boundaries.”

Striving to create a more inclusive workplace also has spinoff benefits for families and communities, since employees take these good habits out into the world with them.

“Incivility happens as a result of habit,” says Bayer. “When you teach civility, people start to think differently. They will understand reciprocity, respect, team orientation and problem solving.

They will become more engaged.” CG

RESOURCES The Winnipeg-based Civility Experts offers training in culture, diversity, generational or gender differences.

You’ll also find the free Cultural Compass Assessment Tool to help you determine where your farm business needs to improve. www.civilityexperts.com/

Canadian Agricultural Human Resources Council offers some workshops and online training. www.cahrc-ccrha.ca/

Diversity at Work — training, consultation, books and newsletters on fostering inclusivity in the workplace and serving diverse clients. www.yourdiversityatwork.com/

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BUSINESS

Thinking small Britain’s “Hands Free Hectare” project is developing the model that you may need to build tomorrow’s farm on

By Scott Garvey / CG Machinery Editor

The Harper Adams working group: (l to r) research assistant Martin Abell, robotics researcher Jonathan Gill and Kit Franklin, ag engineering and project manager.

Photos: Harper Adams

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FEBRUARY 1, 2017 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

A

s a kid, I can vividly remember one particular occasion sitting on the steps in my grandparents’ old farmhouse in the late 1960s looking at an issue of Country Guide.

One image from its pages still sticks in my memory. It was an advertisement showing Massey-Ferguson’s newest line of tractors.

Why did that mental image remain with me all these years? Well, I think it was because those beautifully designed machines represented what was the cutting edge of technology back then. In my mind — and in the minds of others — they, and other tractors like them, opened up a world of new possibilities.

Among all the technological advancements those tractors embodied, one of the best was their sheer size. They pushed commonly available horsepower to new highs. The steady growth in power being introduced by all the brands at that time increased farmers’ productivity and led to runaway growth in farm sizes.

Farmers who fit the “early adopter” definition back then quickly made use of that extra power and began to grow their operations. It turned out to be the start of what came to be known as the “horsepower race.”

Now, not only is that race over, but there are indications that tomorrow’s early adopters may actually head in the opposite direction.

“In the past decades, the historical trends in agricultural machinery were clear: bigger, faster, and wider,” said an editorial on agricultural trends in CEMA’s November newsletter. (CEMA is the association that represents agricultural machinery manufacturers in Europe.) “Average horsepower in tractors sold in Europe has continuously increased during the past years (i.e. just as it has here). But this trend is predicted to slow down in the next years and may even reverse in the future.”

One of the reasons for that, according to many industry watchers, is that big equipment often doesn’t mesh all that well with today’s focus on precision farming.

Now, Britain’s Harper Adams University and Precision Decisions, a private U.K. precision farming services firm, have launched the “Hands Free Hectare” demonstration project, which could be the model of agricultural production that will soon sweep the industry.

There is nothing big about the equipment involved in it. And that, organizers say, is the point.

The team will farm a one-hectare field entirely with small, autonomous machines through the 2017 growing season. The little robots will do all the work necessary to seed, maintain and harvest the grain crop.

“Automation is the future of farming,” says Kit Franklin, the Harper Adams project manager. “We’re currently at a stage where farm machinery has got to unsustainable sizes… we are seeing a number of issues, including reduced soil health through compaction which hinders plant growth, as well as reduced application and measuring resolution critical for precision farming.”

“Agriculture is suffering quite badly with soil compaction,” agrees Clive Blacker, founder of Precision Decisions. “But equally, we’re getting worse at precision agriculture in some cases as well. When you compare precision agriculture from a dairy perspective and an arable perspective, we’re miles apart.”

The dairy industry is actually leading precision agriculture in terms of achievability, attention to detail, and robotics, Blacker says.

“With dairy, you’re treating every animal as an individual. Compare that to the arable sector, where combines are getting wider and wider, but the yield mapping technology is still the same. So we get less yield data.”

It all means that today’s crop farmers are actually getting more distant with their data collection, instead of getting higher resolution, Blacker says. “So I think we need an about-turn in the arable sector to start looking at things in higher detail, the level robots could potentially offer and deliver, the way we did it tens of years ago with our own eyes… looking at things at a plant level, as the dairy sector inspires us to do.”

For grain growers, reversing the machinery size trend to gain precision means losing the economies of scale and the productivity gains that have pushed equipment to its current size.

Autonomy, however, makes the use of small-scale machines practical, letting farms

Automation is the future of farming,” says Kit Franklin, project manager for Harper Adams. “Farm machinery has got to unsustainable sizes.”

continued on page 50

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49

BUSINESS

Following Hands Free Hectare Harper Adams University and Precision Decision, the two partners running the Hands Free Hectare project, want to share their experiences growing a crop using only autonomous machinery. They are regularly posting updates on their Facebook page and on Twitter under the name @FreeHectare.

This one-hectare field in England will grow a grain crop next summer, worked entirely by robotic equipment.

run many small machines simultaneously rather than one or two big ones.

“At the minute we’re doing it with small machines,” says Blacker, of the Hands Free project. “But it could be done with larger machines if we so wished. But one of the big opportunities I see is the small scale.”

And don’t be fooled by the one-hectare field size of the demonstration project. What works in this field can work for commercial producers; they’ll just need more machines.

“We’re using a compact tractor,” says Franklin. “That’s a 38-horsepower tractor.

In terms of the implements, we’ll be sourcing them from the grounds-care market.

We might be adding a bit more smarts to it, adding section control to the sprayer for example, and upgrading it with higher-tech equipment.”

The researchers won’t have to spend countless hours in labs writing new software code and creating new systems to get machines capable of working on their own, although there will be a need to spend some time doing that. It’s mostly pulling together the mass of open-source (i.e. free) software code widely available on the Internet and using common hardware designed for automated control of anything from miniature airplanes in a hobby store to high-horsepower farm tractors.

“In terms of the technical equipment, the automation brain is based on drone code and drone autopilot,” Franklin explains.

“That’s where the work we do really comes

in, with the integration. We’re taking an offthe-shelf microprocessor with the drone code on it, and we’re taking an off-the-shelf tractor and integrating the two to make them work together.”

The smaller equipment has other advantages for the project as well.

“One of them is the safety aspect,” Franklin adds. “If it all goes AWOL, it will find a hedge or a ditch and it will stop or we can catch it in a hedge, those sorts of things.

Intrinsically, the smaller the machine, the safer it is.”

But getting grain growers to think small may still require some convincing.

“If we can get that across to farmers, that these are the benefits of using small machines, and we can get across to legislators that these machines are going to be good for the world,” Franklin says, “then there’s no reason we couldn’t see them happening commercially within the next five years.”

But that may depend to a large extent on a groundswell of demand from producers who will need to be not only early adopters but industry drivers, pushing manufacturers for field-ready robots.

“I think the major manufacturers have essentially sat on their hands for the last five or 10 years,” says Franklin. “I personally believe that if enough money and effort had been put into it 10 years ago, it could have happened then. So I think we’ve really got to drive it from the bottom up and say: this is the thing we want and there are advantages

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FEBRUARY 1, 2017 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

to it. Then, I think, they’ll catch up. I think we need to show them people want this.”

Really, it seems, that isn’t asking a lot from manufacturers. The technology already exists.

“As a team, we believe there is now no technological barrier to automated field agriculture,” Franklin says. “All the building blocks are there. The issue is when these robots are made in a research environment, they work when you do a demo, but they can be quite glitchy. What we need to do is get it to a point where the day we need to go spraying, the machine will always work. It’s getting that reliability nailed down.”

“We don’t have all the answers by a long shot, and we won’t get all the answers from this project,”adds Blacker. “But it’s giving us the opportunity to at least learn and prove the concept. And hopefully it will motivate a lot of people to start thinking this way.”

The whole point of this project is showing that technologically there is no reason this can’t be done, and by this time next year we hope to have done it, says Franklin. It’s not that expensive. The technology and the costs are not really the issue. It more comes down to legislation, public perception and farmers’ acceptance.

“This year it’s one hectare,” Franklin says.

“The hope is we can do it again next year and maybe grow it using a larger area. That’s the aim we have, to drive it forward.”

“That’s a large part of my project, I think, just to shout and say, ‘This can be done. Why aren’t you doing it?’” CG

Giving our business to India If we won’t grow our own organic food, these small farmers are more than ready to step in. In fact, they already are

By Gerald Pilger

O

nce again my perception of our agricultural industry has been rocked by international travel. This time it was a visit to India in December that challenged my perception of organic production and marketing.

First on my list was a cashew processor in Mangalore on India’s west coast. Canadians might be taken aback when they see the “organic” signs in the factory where cashews are shelled, peeled, roasted, graded, and packaged. After all, when consumers think of organic production in Canada, they typically envision an idyllic family farm where the entire production, processing, and packaging cycle is completed on the farm, with the food shipped either directly to a customer or to a farmer’s market or organic food store.

Yet here cashews were being sourced not from only local farms but even from Vietnam and Africa, and the finished products will be as likely to end up in a Canadian store as they are on a table in India.

Inside the factory, over 500 women spend eight hours a day, six days a week roasting, peeling, shelling, grading and packaging cashews. The legislated minimum wage for most of the workers is just US$4.15 per day, provided they peel or shell 15 kgs of cashews within their eight-hour shift.

Failure to meet this target drops the day’s wage by 22 per cent.

I won’t even go into the working conditions in the factory.

The next day I visited a spice farm near Goa and to my surprise, “organic” labelling applied here too. While 85 per cent of Indian farms are less than two hectares, this spice farm was 60 hectares and provides 6,000 man days of employment annually. It is one of the largest spice farms in India. And it is entirely organic!

What’s going on? We are told that organics is a First continued on page 52

COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA / FEBRUARY 1, 2017

51

BUSINESS World phenomena, and that organic production is unaffordable for most people in the world. Yet here I was in one of the poorest countries of the world, and I was surrounded by organic labelling.

And I suspect that both the cashew factory and the spice farm would disappoint many Canadian consumers who purchase cashews or spices based on their perception of what an organic farm must be like.

Organics in India In its fact sheet Introduction to Organics, the Ontario agriculture ministry defines organic farming as “a holistic system designed to optimize the productivity and fitness of diverse communities within the agro-ecosystem, including soil organisms, plants, livestock and people.

The principal goal of organic production is to develop enterprises that are sustainable and harmonious with the environment.”

The fact sheet makes it clear that “organic farming is a method of crop and livestock production that involves much more than choosing not to use pesticides, fertilizers, genetically modified organisms, antibiotics and growth hormones.”

Organic farming in India grew out of a similar desire to create a sustainable, holistic farming system. In fact, it was a small group of people from around the world who travelled to India in the 1990s for the spiritual teaching of H.W.L. Poonja who created the organic farming system there.

This group hoped such a holistic and self-sufficient system would improve the livelihoods of impoverished farmers in northern India, and in order to help drive the movement, they created Organic India, which has grown into a global distributor of India organic products.

An important difference between organic production in India and Canada is that rather than having to switch from conventional farming to organics, most India farmers have always been practising pesticide- and fertilizerfree farming.

U.S. organic food sales by category, 2005-14E $ billion 40 Fruit and vegetables

30

Dairy Beverages

20

Packaged/prepared foods Breads and grains Snack foods

10

Meat, fish, poultry

0

Condiments 2005 06

07

08

09

10

11

12E

13E 14E

Note: E=estimate.

Source: USDA, Economic Research Service using data from Nutrition Business Journal.

52

FEBRUARY 1, 2017 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

Instead, says Ajanta Industries (a processor and exporter of organic cashews), the challenge for farmers is to find the resources to pay for the certification process.

In 2001, however, Ajanta launched a program to assist with the certifications, and it now receives cashews from 2,664 farmers with a total of 5,000 hectares. More than 80 per cent of their raw cashews come from small farmers who work less than four hectares.

This is just one example of a number of close associations between processors and farmers in India. Some are formal co-operatives and some are contractual arrangements.

Organic farmers in India also created the Organic Farming Association of India (OFAI) in 2002, a very powerful lobby group that is recognized internationally.

In fact this organization is hosting the World Organic Congress in New Delhi in November 2017.

India now ranks 15th in the world for organically certified agricultural area with 1.49 million hectares of organic crops. On top of this, India has another 4.22 million hectares of certified forest and wild areas where minor organic products are collected.

This compares to Canada’s 0.9 million hectares of certified organic lands.

India also leads the world in the number of farms certified as organic with over 650,000 organic producers.

This focus on organics enabled India to export 263,687 MT of organic production worth US$298 million in 2015-16.

According to Indian government numbers, its organic products are exported to the European Union, U.S., Canada, Switzerland, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, southeast Asian countries, the Middle East, South Africa and others.

Commercialization of Organics India recognizes the growing global demand for organic foods and is responding to it in a huge way.

The world’s major food manufacturers are also responding to the growing demand for organics and are seeking to profit from it by acquiring organic producers, processors and brands. There has been massive consolidation within the organic industry, just as in the rest of the agricultural and food sector. As an example, the iconic Kashi brand is now a subsidiary of Kellogg. Dannon has acquired Stonyfield, Coca-Cola has acquired Odwalla and Honest Tea, and General Foods now owns the Lara Bar and Food Should Taste Good brands.

Dr. Philip H. Howard of Michigan State monitors industry ownership of organic brands, and he maintains an online listing with graphics showing the extensive mergers and acquisitions of organic brands at msu. edu/~howardp/organicindustry.html.

Meanwhile, conventional and organic farmers in Canada continue to fight amongst themselves over which system is more “sustainable” and “natural.” Is summer fallow or post-harvest glyphosate a more sustainable practice? The camps argue whether a natural pesticide or synthetic pesticide pose a greater health risk even when they have the same chemistry and are used

for the same purpose. They both make wild accusations about the safety and quality of the other’s produce, with claims that can mislead and confuse the consumer.

Demand for organic production continues to grow, and I wonder if those farmers who truly believe in the organic production model will ever be able to meet the demand they have created. Are there enough producers willing to forgo the higher yields that man-made fertilizers and chemicals offer? Or have organic producers backed themselves into a corner with the growing public expectation that no fertilizers, pesticides, or even modern breeding techniques can ever be used in organics, despite the fact that such management practices can improve the environment and increase sustainability?

If perennial cereals, which could be a boon to sustainable farming and the environment for both conventional and organic growers, were developed with a technique such as gene editing, would they be outright rejected by consumers and the organic lobby because they are not natural?

While Canadian farmers can’t compete with some of the organic production out by India, such as cashews, 50 per cent of the organic production that India exports consists of oilseeds. Canadian producers could certainly compete for some of this market. And given commod-

ity price outlooks and the market frustrations of selling conventional commodities in an oversupplied market, it is something that Canadian farmers need to consider.

Instead of looking at an all-or-none switch to organic production, I wonder if it is possible on a conventional farm operation to look at organic production simply as a speciality crop. Is it possible for a mixed-farm operation to rotate hay or pasture land which has not had applications of synthetic fertilizers or pesticides to organic crops for a number of years? Is the premium offered for organic production enough to justify the costs of certification for an organic rotational crop? Would conventional farmers be willing to follow the acceptable agronomic practices required for organic production in the same way they already modify and adapt farming practices and equipment for new speciality crops?

While Canadian farmers are not meeting our own demand for organic production, you can be sure someone somewhere will be willing to grow what consumers are seeking.

And don’t forget, organic is still growing. Indeed, it isn’t even limited to food any more. A new blue-jean manufacturer is now marketing their jeans as “made with: 100% organic cotton denim, social responsibility and transparent production.” CG

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53

business

By Gwen Paddock / senior Director, Agriculture, RBC

Create your foreign exchange strategy Can you afford to be exposed to the risks of volatile currency markets?

W

hen it comes to managing risk to their operations, farmers are well versed in the usual suspects — whether that’s risks in the field like adverse weather, disease and equipment failure, or whether it’s spiking interest rates, lack of adequate cash flow, or being over-leveraged. But one often overlooked risk is when dealing with foreign currencies.

Since agriculture is a largely export-focused industry in Canada, it is susceptible to volatility in exchange rates. Indeed, after cost of production, perhaps the most important cost for farmers to know is that of the dollar and its value against other currencies.

So, do you need a foreign exchange strategy, or can you improve your existing strategy?

Assess your risk It’s not a question of whether you will or will not have risk, but rather what is your risk.

The pur pose of a foreig n exchange (FX) strategy is not to make money, but to prevent losses.

The first step to protecting against the possibility of loss is to identify where your farm has exposure to foreign exchange risk. The most common areas are the prices of agriculture products (since many agricultural commodities are priced in U.S. dollars) and the prices of some inputs. Another area of potential exposure is bound up with capital equipment purchases.

The three Vs Once you’ve identified the areas of risk, determine how much exposure you have, and what your options are to mitigate or eliminate the risk, or

54

FEBRUARY 1, 2017 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

to transfer it to someone else such as a supplier or end-user.

Most Canadian farms and ranches will have exposure to U.S. dollar fluctuations on sales and/ or purchases, and it’s important to consider some key questions: • What are the potential losses or gains if the Canadian dollar rises, or falls, over the next few months, even if it changes by just a few cents?

• What do those potential losses or gains translate to as a percentage of sales and profits?

• C an any losses be passed on through higher prices, or trimmed out of operating costs?

Also, assess the three Vs: the amount of money that is exposed (volume), how quickly the exchange rate may move (velocity) and the impact of potential rate fluctuations (volatility).

Create your FX strategy While there is no single strategy for managing foreign exchange risk, the most important thing is to take a disciplined approach and apply it consistently. Two common ways of protecting against future rate fluctuations are by hedging forward contracts or via options.

On the other hand, some producers may choose to “go naked” and remain exposed to fluctuation risks. This can be a strategy in and of itself, and sometimes it can work in their favour. But given that no one can forecast the market, can you afford the risk of exposure?

One recommendation is to lock in your FX strategy at the same time as your selling price on the sale of commodities to manage foreign fluctuations and price risk. Whatever your approach, your

objectives will depend on the following factors: • The impact foreign exchange exposure has on your operation.

• Which currencies you’re trading in.

• Your risk tolerance and attitude towards the business.

• Your level of knowledge and comfort with financial markets and instruments.

• How much control you have over the farm’s financial management.

Once you’ve determined your objectives for managing foreign exchange risk, be sure to draft a written document that you can add to your overall business plan.

With objectives in place, it’s time to implement your strategy.

A foreign exchange specialist can help you decide which vehicles to use, including spot transactions, forward contracts and foreign exchange options. Find out the costs and determine which solutions are best suited to meet your goals of risk reduction.

As with your overall business plan and budget, your FX plan is of no use if it’s not producing the desired results. Make sure you review and track the performance of every vehicle. What is the result, and how does that compare with the result if you had not used that vehicle?

The information you gather will help decide if your current strategy is working to protect you against risk, and whether the savings justify the cost. CG

Gwen Paddock, senior director, agriculture at RBC is a specialist in agribusiness. Since earning her B.Sc. with a major in agriculture economics she has been working with agriculture clients. A farmer at heart, Paddock was raised on a beef cow-calf farm outside Guelph, Ont., and participated in 4-H and Junior Farmers. To find out more visit www. rbcroyalbank.com/commercial/ agriculture

Common foreign exchange myths Don’t let the following common foreign exchange myths steer you away from creating a solid FX strategy: 1. The market can be forecast.

• No one can predict exchange rates with absolute certainty.

• Dozens of factors influence FX rates.

• Forecasts are based on past assumptions that don’t always translate in future.

2. I should make money at foreign exchange.

• As a byproduct of your business operations, FX can have an impact on profitability.

• FX risk management takes resources away from your core business activity.

• While FX fluctuations can result in profits, they can also result in losses.

3. My operation is too small for an FX strategy.

• No business is too small to protect profits.

• Commonly used strategies are scalable for any size business.

• A strategy only requires you know your risks and options.

4. Quotes from big banks aren’t as competitive as FX boutiques.

• Ensure you’re comparing apples to apples.

• Timing is key; make sure dates, amounts and other critical terms are identical.

• Quotes must be firm.

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55

BUSINESS

Can you count on AgriStability?

A lot depends on the kind of operation you’re running, and whether you use family labour

S

ue and Jim started farming by buying 300 acres, with buildings. By renting additional land, they quickly expanded to 2,500 acres.

They supported this expansion with machinery that was mainly leased, and hired custom harvesting. They relied on a bank line of credit for much of their operating money.

The last five years were good, enabling them to build up equity at over $80,000 per year after-tax. (Most of this $80K was used for principal payments on their land and for improvements to their grain storage.)

Because they were still very thinly financed, they recognized that they had risk exposure, and to protect themselves, they bought crop insurance to protect 80 per cent of their yield and participated in the AgriStability program.

They were full of enthusiasm and were anticipating the purchase of some adjacent land that was being offered at a favourable price.

Then a bad year arrived. Crop yields dropped by 20 per cent and prices also took a hit, cutting their gross income to $400,000 from a previous five-year average of $700,000. The yield reduction was not enough for a crop insurance payment, although because their costs stayed about the same, their profit margin was drastically worse than their five-year average.

Since their income drop was so deep, they were confident that AgriStability would help see them through this rough situation. However, they were surprised to find that AgriStability would pay nothing. They had to confront their banker, landlord and equipment lessor on their own.

HOW AgriStability SETS PAYMENTS AgriStability payments are based on a comparison of a bad-year margin with past margins. Margin is eligible income minus eligible cost. Eligible income excludes non-farm income — for Sue and Jim, all income is from the farm and eligible.

Cost eligibility is a more complex matter. Money paid for items bought and promptly used up, like fertilizer on a grain farm, is counted. Items used over longer periods

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By Glen Mumey

of time, like machinery, are excluded. Wages of family labour are also excluded.

To find what AgriStability will pay, a farm’s bad-year margin is compared with its previous five-year average margin. That seems straightforward, but fine print was added in 2014. Now, the bad-year margin is compared with the lower of past margin or past costs. The logic seemed to be that one would not want to pay a farm that was still covering most or all of its costs. However, that 2014 condition has a peculiar effect, as we shall see. With it, payments to farmers are seriously affected by the proportion of their total expenses that are eligible expenses.

Eligible expenses (seed, fertilizer, hebicides, fuel, crop insurance, etc.)

$230,000

Ineligible expenses (machinery lease payments $70,000 + custom harvesting $60,000 + rent $150,000 + interest and property taxes $30,000 + salary to family $60,000)

$370,000

Total expenses

$600,000

ELIGIBLE EXPENSES ON THE S & J FARM To understand the AgriStability decision, we must look at Sue and Jim’s expenses, shown above. These are about the same every year, including during their bad year.

We can see that many of the expenses are ineligible, and not considered by AgriStability. This ineligibility then caused AgriStability to deny support to the farm.

HOW AgriStability SETS THE PAYMENT FOR Sue and Jim’s farm Since AgriStability looks only at eligible items, it sees their bad year as $400,000 eligible income and $230,000 eligible cost, leaving $170,000 for the bad-year margin.

That margin is low when compared to past margins, but it’s not so low compared to the five-year average cost of $230,000. In fact, according to AgriStability rules, the bad-year margin is too close to past average cost to qualify for payment. Hence, Sue and Jim get nothing.

CONSEQUENCES ON THE S & J FARM How bad is this situation for Sue and Jim? They are responsible for all expenses, not just the eligible ones.

Their total expenses are $600,000, and they have only $400,000 income in their bad year. They have a modest reserve deposit, but that is largely offset by required principal payments.

What can they do? They can cut their standard of living with reduced salary, although $60,000 pre-tax is not exactly a bonanza if they have a couple of kids in school. Maybe they can remortgage their land, or maybe they can get deferments from some of their creditors and landlords.

They probably have an established reputation for honesty and hard work, and very likely they will get by. But surely the situation is not a pleasant one, and probably their hope of buying the adjacent land is extinguished.

We wish them well. But, had they realized the limitations of AgriStability they might have planned differently. They might have included some price protection in their insurance package. They might have negotiated a longer term on their land payment, and retained a little more cash. They might have squeezed their costs and living standard more, despite their farm’s apparent profitability.

CONSEQUENCES ON OTHER FARMS Has this been a contrived example? Yes, in the sense that Sue and Jim are fiction, but not in the sense that similar circumstances are likely to prevail, especially on some kinds of farms.

For contrast, consider a large feedlot run with hired management and labour. Feedlots live hand to mouth, so nearly all expenses (feeder purchases, feed, hired staff, etc.) are eligible expenses. For an informative approximation, make all expenses eligible and use the income and expense experience in the same ratio as in the example we ran with Sue and Jim. With that ratio, we can set an example where the feedlot’s five-year numbers are $7 million eligible income and $6 million eligible cost.

In that version, the bad-year income drops to $4 million while expenses stay at $6 million. AgriStability recognizes a negative $2 million margin in this bad year.

That’s very low compared with past margin, and it’s also very low compared to past eligible costs. Accordingly, the feedlot is likely to get a payment in the millions.

Was this another extreme situation? Yes, but again, not on some kinds of farms. There are many farms with different cost structures — dairies, beekeepers, orchards, and so on. In general, for the individual farm, the ratio of eligible costs to total costs determines AgriStability effectiveness.

Farms that are more like feedlots, with a large proportion of expense items used up in the current year, will have high ratios. Those like grain farms that employ

more long-term inputs, such as land and machinery, will have low ratios. Also, farms that rely more on family labour will have lower ratios.

Spreadsheet experimentation by the author (copy available on request) suggests that when your eligiblecost over total-cost ratio drops below 0.7, much of the effectiveness of AgriStability has been lost. (The ratio for the Sue and Jim example is 0.38.)

THE AgriStability PAYOUT METHOD AND POLICY These differences in benefits have implications both for farm management and for public policy. For management, if your eligible cost ratio is low, you may still want to participate in AgriStability because premiums are very low. Participation might help in a severe catastrophe. But with a low ratio, you should look carefully at your risk situation and not count too much on AgriStability.

For public policy, one must ask, are there ways to stop AgriStability from tipping its payments toward some types of farms (i.e. farms more like the commercially run feedlot) and away from those more like family grain farms. One possibility is to broaden cost eligibility. True, some costs are difficult to measure, but approximating them may still lead to a better program.

Are there ways to stop AgriStability from tipping its payments toward some types of farms, and away from family grain farms?

A second possibility would be to revoke the 2014 condition, which meant baseline cannot exceed historic cost. While probably well intended, this condition is the major trigger of the uneven effect of AgriStability on different types of farms.

Either of these changes would, of course, increase program payouts and, therefore, its cost. But even if no more public money is allocated, other ways to economize, such as reducing the $3 million payment cap, might be introduced, to allow program benefits to be distributed more equitably.

If subsidization of farming is regarded as a good use of taxpayer money, AgriStability is not a bad program.

It discriminates against some producers, such as grain farms and family-operated farms, but at least it pays out to its beneficiaries at times when their needs are greatest.

And there may be ways of improving it.

For the potential users, it needs to be regarded as just one part of a risk control program, valuable on some farms and not so good on others. CG Glen Mumey is emeritus professor at the University of Alberta who has taught and conducted research in agricultural finance.

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hR

By Pierrette Desrosiers / work psychologist

A question of charisma Good leaders seem special. It’s a talent you can grow

P

e ople w ith char isma stand out. It’s a trait that we associate with leadership — that something special that makes an individual seem exceptional.

But it turns out that charisma has little to do with good looks, wealth, titles or authority, and although it can seem that individuals with charisma must have inherited it at their birth, we now have a better idea of its actual ingredients.

In fact, charisma isn’t what we would call a “natural” quality at all.

You aren’t necessarily born charismatic; you become that way.

This means you can actually boost your “charisma quotient” by cultivating the ingredients that go into making a person charismatic.

Chief among these ingredients is trustworthiness, says author David Hosager. “Trust has the ability to accelerate or destroy any business, organization or relationship,” Hosager says. “With greater trust comes greater innovation, stronger brands, increased retention of good people, higher morale, multiplied productivity, better results, and a bigger bottom line.”

The take home is clear. Be sure to walk the talk, but also take a hard look at the following questions.

Q: “Am I trustworthy? Do I keep my promises to everyone?”

Have a vision. As a manager or boss, give meaning to everything you do. Have a vision for both direction and content. Ideally, that vision or grand project must align with your company strategy and be consistent with your own personality. Therefore, take some time to reflect on your vision for your future and that of your farm. Write it down so you can articulate it clearly and consistently.

Find stimulating projects, and get out of your comfort zone. Individuals are capable of taking calculated 58

FEBRUARY 1, 2017 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

risks for their projects. Therefore, accept being unconventional, and invest in yourself emotionally and financially. At the same time, dedicate a good part of your time to your mission, projects or other causes that are important to you.

Q: “Where do I see my business in two, five or even 10 years?

What will it look like?”

Communicate your vision. You have to know how to communicate your project or vision as well as possible and be able to talk intelligently about an emotional subject.

Q: “Do my family and employees understand my vision?”

Know how to smile. Talk with your hands, express yourself clearly, be enthusiastic and dynamic, listen and do not judge. You must master your emotions. That does not mean containing them or not expressing them but rather knowing how to recognize and manage them — in short, how to use them appropriately depending on the circumstances.

Q: “How do I contaminate others?”

Emotions are contagious. As a leader, you have a huge impact on others, so be consistent. To evaluate your charisma potential, it is crucial to analyze, several times if necessary, the way you behave in your private life. Am I a charismatic leader with my friends? With my kids? If the answer is yes, you can then try to reproduce certain attitudes and behaviours outside the home that you adopt in your private life.

Be confident while remaining accessible and human. Undeniably, there can be a thin line between confidence and pretentiousness. Having a clear vision of the future and confidence in your methods and values doesn’t mean that you have to be stubbornly sure of yourself and deny

others’ concerns or even reject criticism. Furthermore, people who have charisma also know how to say that they have doubts, uncertainties, fears and desires, thereby making connections with others.

Q: “Am I at ease sharing my emotions?”

Practise it. It will benefit you.

Listen to, respect and think about other people. Above all, try to understand others before being understood. Develop a healthy curiosity about the people to whom you are speaking. Take an interest in them and respect differences.

Q: “When I communicate, do I really want to understand the other’s point of view?”

Recognize and value other people.

Charismatic people publicly recognize other people’s contributions.

They regularly give positive feedback and praise strengths. People really appreciate being recognized, and they feel heard, supported and respected when others show them empathy.

Q: “How do I recognize others’ contributions?”

Remember that, whatever you do, charisma resides in the way others perceive you.

How much charisma and what style of it do you have? Curious?

Take the test:

What is your charisma quotient? http://pierrettedesrosiers.com/outils_en.html 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. Contact her at: pierrette@pierrettedesrosiers.com. www.pierrettedesrosiers.com

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

Payday on the Farm

BY THOMAS BLONDE, B.SC. (AGR), CPA, CA, CAFA, PARTNER, COLLINS BARROW

Communication

W

hen it it’s time to pay yourself, your family members and other staff on the farm it can be surprisingly confusing. Should I pay wages or custom work or maybe dividends? Or is there another option? What is best? This article highlights the considerations for the most common options.

Wages Individuals who are paid wages are employees subject to monthly withholdings for Canada Pension Plan (CPP) and Employment Insurance (EI) premiums and tax which are typically required to be remitted to the CRA monthly. Depending on the province, workers compensation and employee health tax premiums may also be payable.

A T4 slip must also be prepared before the end of February the following year.

Wages can be paid to family members, including spouses and minor children. However, the wage must be reasonable for the work performed.

Contract Work If you pay amounts as custom work, you are not subject to any withholdings (i.e. CPP, EI, workers compensation etc.) and no T4

Ownership

Farm Family

Farm Succession Update 3 CIRCLE MODEL IN-DEPTH

THURSDAY, MARCH 23, 2017 slip is required. However, the recipient must normally register and charge GST/HST on income received. CPP and tax are still payable but on the recipient’s tax return rather than through monthly remittances.

The recipient must prove to be an independent contractor and not an employee.

The CRA has a list of criteria that they look at to determine if this is the case. For example, if the recipient only has one customer, it increases the risk they will be assessed as an employee.

If assessed as an employee, the business owner will be liable for unpaid payroll remittances and associated penalties and interest. Therefore, when in doubt it is often better to err on the side of caution and insist that these individuals be paid a wage as an employee.

Hilton Garden Inn Ottawa, Ontario

Dividends Dividends are an alternative method of payment if the business is incorporated.

No monthly remittances are required by the CRA for dividends but a legal resolution and a T5 slip must be filed before February of the following year to report the dividends paid.

A major advantage of dividends is that they do not have to be reasonable for the work performed. This provides an opportunity to easily split income among family members.

Toll free: 1-877-474-2871 Email: info@cafanet.com PO Box 270 • Seven Sisters Falls, MB • R0E 1Y0

February 9 in Red Deer, AB March 23 in Ottawa, ON.

Additionally, unlike wages and custom work, dividends are not subject to CPP premiums which would be 9.9 per cent of income between $3,500 and $54,900 (in 2016).

Of course, if no CPP premiums are paid there will also be no CPP benefit. Therefore, if a dividend strategy is to be followed, plans should be made to save for retirement through other means.

Also due to the nature of how dividends are reported, they will not generate RRSP room and may also limit your ability claim some tax credits (i.e. donations, medical expenses, Alternative Minimum Tax) and may also reduce your OAS, Canada Child Benefit and other income-tested benefits.

Rent Rent can be paid on assets owned outside the business — such as personally owned land rented to an operating company. No CPP premiums are payable on rental income but GST/HST is normally payable.

An advantage of rental income over dividends is that it can generate RRSP room and not affect tax credits and income tested benefits as much.

Loan repayments If you transfer an asset into the farm business, a loan will be created that can be repaid tax free. In fact, it may be possible to transfer in a qualifying farm asset (such as land or production quotas) using the capital gains exemption to create quite a large tax-free loan. Interest can also be charged on these loans, but any interest would be taxable income to the recipient.

Conclusion The above offers just a brief explanation of different remuneration options. There is not enough space to outline all complexities.

Whichever option you choose, be sure to talk to your accountant to ensure it is the right choice for your business.

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life

Rural distress As Jane’s story shows, spousal abuse is a stubborn fact of life for many country women

S

he was a rodeo queen with a wide circle of friends that included both men and women.

And she still loves horses, although she’s had to put her equestrian activities on the back burner until she recovers financially.

I catch her on the phone one evening after work. She is calm and thoughtful, pausing as she answers my questions. I wonder if she learned that carefulness by testifying in court.

For the purposes of this article, we’ll call her Jane Smith. That’s not her real name, but publishing her true identity, or even identifying which rural community she calls home could put her at risk. Because although Jane Smith might not fit the stereotype, she is a domestic abuse survivor. And it took her over seven years to walk.

There was not a stitch of me left, or anything personal or anything private left,” Jane says. “He really had taken everything.”

What does Jane wish that people in rural communities would learn about domestic violence?

“People should know it probably happens more often than they think,” she says.

Jo-Anne Dusel is all too aware of how prevalent domestic violence can be in farm country. Dusel worked at a shelter in Moose Jaw for 20 years before taking the helm of the Provincial Association of Transition Houses and Services of Saskatchewan (PATHS). Saskatchewan currently tops the provinces for per-capita rates of domestic violence, Dusel points out.

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By Lisa Guenther / CG Field Editor

“We have some work to do here,” she says.

Part of that work is making sure everyone — including employers, colleagues, friends, and neighbours — recognizes the signs of an abusive relationship. Marks and bruises are red flags. Calling in sick frequently is another, says Dusel.

And an abuser’s tendency to isolate the victim is a big flashing neon sign. If someone stops coming to town, or answering the phone, or if her partner takes over the phone conversation, speaking for her, “those are warning signs that are especially dangerous in a rural area,” says Dusel.

Jane’s ex (Larry Jones — also not his real name) started cutting her off from her friends shortly after they got together.

“If I was friends with any ex-boyfriends, he would just tell me straight out that he did not want me to talk to them at all,” she says. Jones’ rationale was that it would be healthier for their relationship, she adds.

But it didn’t end there. He started in on her other male friends, so she felt she had no choice but to end those friendships too. “Shortly after the male friends left my life, then he would start on the female friends.” He listened to her phone conversations and talked into them.

He combed through her phone records, questioning her about them. “And the questions would turn into fights.”

“Work was a little bit of a reprieve because I had support. They could see what was happening,” Jane says. But Jones would call her on her cell and work phone, sometimes 50 times a day, she says. If she was out meeting a client, he would drive down Main Street, find her, and come into the client’s place. Or phone the client. It was the same story when she met a client at her office.

“The front desk would tell him that I was with a client. And then he’d walk through the front door, and sit in my office and wait for me until I was done.” He kept

What if an employee is abused on the farm, or at home?

What is a farmer’s legal responsibility if one of their employees is suffering abuse? Or what if a family member is abused, or is an abuser?

Domestic violence can threaten the safety of the abused employee as well as others in the workplace.

All employers need to provide a safe working space, says Dr. Wendee Kubik. If, for example, an employee reports sexual harassment from someone else in the workplace, the business owner must take steps to make the workplace safe, she says.

“And if they don’t do that, they are liable.”

Provincial codes vary, but in Saskatchewan, for instance, all employers must develop a harassment policy to protect workers from harassment. That includes

showing up at her office even after he was told he wasn’t welcome, she says.

The stalking and control left her feeling naked, “like there was not a stitch of me left or anything personal or anything private left.

He really had taken away everything, mentally and physically.”

Employers need to make sure employees can talk about abuse without feeling ashamed or worrying about being fired, says Dr. Wendee Kubik, an associate professor of women’s and gender studies at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ont. Considering that Kubik grew up in Esterhazy and taught for years at the University of Regina, it’s apt that much of her research focuses on farm women.

Kubik also advises that it’s important to be understanding if an abused employee doesn’t come to work on a particular day.

And employers can connect employees with resources, keeping in mind it’s the employee’s decision to leave or seek help.

Dusel encourages employers to keep an eye out for signs of abuse as well. They should ask if the employee is okay, rather than making assumptions, she says. And both Dusel and Kubik say workplaces should have a safety plan to protect the abused employee and others in the workplace.

For example, if the abused employee is at the front desk, it may be best to move her elsewhere until the situation is resolved, says Dusel. Or if she is working in the back, the receptionist needs to know about the situa-

harassment from other employees, supervisors, customers, and patients.

And it also includes harassment outside of regular working hours, such as at conferences or work socials.

Employers can find information about how to respond to domestic violence, training opportunities, and prevention plans at www.makeitourbusiness.ca.

If an employer, or any other adult, knows or suspects a child is being abused or neglected, they are also legally obligated to report to police or a child welfare agency.

How should farmers or other employers deal with a worker they know to be abusive?

Assuming none of the situations above apply, they could look to the Canadian Football League (CFL) for inspiration. The

tion, as well as any protection orders, and be sure not to give out information about the abused employee’s schedule or whereabouts.

The receptionist should also be prepared if the abuser storms in and demands to speak to his current or former partner.

“There’s a certain way of responding that’s calm and rational and respectful to the person, because you don’t want to increase their agitation,” says Dusel. “But it really, really helps to think those things out in advance.”

Workplaces can get training to help them deal with domestic violence. PATHS is offering free seminars on preventing and responding to domestic violence at work, Dusel says, and will also do in-house training for workplaces.

It’s also vital that employers and coworkers know that the most dangerous phase is while a victim is leaving, and after she’s left.

Jane Smith knows this all too well. “It wasn’t physical until the very, very end.”

As his control unravelled, he became very unpredictable, she says.

As her relationship neared its end, Jane researched where she could find help from her office. But Jones discovered who she’d called and emailed, and confronted her about it. To this day, Jane doesn’t know how he found out.

They changed the locks and installed a security system at her office. “The girls at work were scared that he’d be outside when they left.”

CFL worked with the Ending Violence Association of Canada to develop a domestic violence policy. That policy covers players, coaches, and other employees.

The league doesn’t act as criminal investigators, but instead allows experts to intervene. It offers counselling to abusers when it’s deemed helpful, and provides referrals and support to victims. If there is a clear and documented case of violence or violation of a protection order, the CFL will impose sanctions. But the policy’s focus isn’t on being punitive — instead it aims to assess and reduce risk, mitigate harm, and promote positive change.

For more information, visit www. cfl.ca/2015/08/06/cfl-announcesviolence-against-women-policy/.

When it comes to domestic violence, many people ask why the victim didn’t leave, or why she didn’t leave earlier. But leaving is easier said than done, especially in rural areas. For one thing, more people have access to guns, heightening the danger.

“And that prevents women from leaving.

And sometimes it is safer to stay,” says Dusel.

People in remote areas also have less access to resources such as counsellors and emergency shelters, says Dusel. There are shelters in some smaller and mid-sized communities, she says. “But the location is less likely to be hidden. More people will know where it is. You’re more likely to run into people you know in that community. So there’s less of that sense of confidentiality.”

A couple of years ago Kubik ran a focus group at Kamsack, Sask., focused on domestic violence. Social workers, RCMP officers, and others on the front lines of the issue comprised the group. The area includes First Nations reserves, and lack of access to a car, or not having a driver’s licence, were problems. Other barriers included lack of affordable housing, not enough resources to treat addictions, victims not having access to a phone, lack of mental health services, and programs that don’t work well together. The general area includes many different cultures, and the focus group said racism was also a problem, Kubik adds.

The victim may also fear that the abuser Continued on page 62

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life The culture of violence It’s a very fine line between what society finds acceptable and what’s inappropriate in a relationship, says Jane Smith. She cites the romance novel 50 Shades of Grey as an example of the hairline dividing the sexy and romantic, and the controlling and inappropriate.

At first, her relationship with Larry Jones straddled that line, she says. Was he acting out of love and concern, she wondered. Her previous relationships had been unsuccessful, so perhaps he was right — perhaps this was a better way to do things, she thought.

Then the lines became blurred, and she didn’t immediately realize that the relationship was unhealthy, she says.

Both Wendee Kubik and Jo-Anne Dusel see a need for a culture shift to address domestic violence. Kubik says young boys need to be educated on how to treat girls and women, but she thinks this has improved in the last few years, with media and Internet campaigns.

Tolerance of other forms of abuse, from sexual harassment to stalking, feed the problem, says Dusel. The bottom line is that it’s an attitude that says women are less than men. And so-called “locker room talk” about groping women is no laughing matter, Dusel says.

“We do recognize the vast majority of men aren’t abusive. But they don’t know how to interrupt or stop or even respond to the men who are abusive,” says Dusel.

Jackson Katz is an author and lecturer who focuses on gender, race, and violence. During a 2012 Ted Talk, he argued that violence against women is not a “woman’s issue” or “battle of the sexes.”

“What about all the young men and boys who have been traumatized by adult men’s violence?” asks Katz.

Katz sees this as a leadership issue. The responsibility to take a stand shouldn’t fall on boys or young men. It should fall to adult men with power, he says.

You can view Katz’s Ted Talk at www. ted.com/talks/jackson_katz_violence_ against_women_it_s_a_men_s_issue.

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will either harm or neglect pets and livestock, Dusel and Kubik say. Jane experienced that fear first hand. “There were threats made towards the animals,” she says. Her friends and family contacted the RCMP because they were worried about her. But she didn’t want to endanger herself or her animals by talking to police while she was still living with him.

Things get even harder if there are children involved. In rural areas, leaving an abusive relationship often means leaving town.

Kids are cut off from friends, cousins, and the rest of their support network as the family moves to an urban emergency shelter or another town. It’s not like changing schools in the city, Kubik says.

If a farm is on the line, splitting up those assets is going to be complex and take time.

It’s also very visceral, Dusel says, especially if the farm has been in the family for generations. The emotion involved in breaking up that legacy adds to the risk of leaving. And an asset-rich farm family may be cash poor, Dusel adds, making it harder for the person leaving to survive financially.

Women who marry farmers usually move onto their husbands’ farms, Kubik says. That means moving into his community, where people already see him a particular way, and see the wife as a kind of outsider. That can lead to victim blaming, she adds.

Support systems vital Anyone who’s lived in a rural community has probably attended a fundraising dance for a family that lost their home to a fire, faced a health emergency, or suffered an unexpected tragedy. So why can’t tight-knit communities be an asset for domestic abuse victims, too?

Kubik hasn’t seen that happen personally, but says it’s possible. “If both of them are from the same community, she’s likely to have some supports.”

Neighbours can play an important role, especially if a victim is isolated on a farm.

“Let the person know, at a safe time, when they’re alone, that you’ve recognized that something’s going on, you care about them, and you’re willing to support them no matter what they do,” says Dusel. But that talk needs to be kept confidential. It’s especially dangerous if the abuser hears his partner is about to leave, she adds.

And it’s not just adult victims who benefit from community support. Research has established that children who grow up witnessing domestic violence are more likely to

become either perpetrators or victims, Dusel says, as they repeat what they’ve learned.

But some of those kids do break the abuse cycle as they step into adulthood. “It’s often linked to having at least one really good support person in their lives who shows them there’s a different way,” says Dusel.

That person could be the other parent, an aunt or uncle, a teacher, a coach, or any number of other adults who interact with children. Often these kids consciously choose not to repeat the abuse in order to spare their future families from the trauma they suffered as children, Dusel adds.

Jane knows how important it is to have people in your corner. Unless you have an incredibly strong support system, it can seem impossible to get out of that relationship, she says. Her partner became so controlling that even keeping a diary proved dangerous because he read it. A new, unhealthy, normal had taken over her life, she says.

“It is really tough to be able to come out of that cloud and see the whole picture,” says Jane.

The realization that she had to leave wasn’t like a “slap in the face.” But little things started to nudge her out of the cloud.

If she was home alone, her heart would race with fear when he pulled into the driveway and his truck’s headlights illuminated the yard. As time went on, he kept breaking his promises to get help, and she got fed up. She felt like she’d given him an honest shot at changing, she says.

One day, while still in the relationship, she went to the local RCMP detachment after work. She parked her vehicle at a different business and walked to the detachment so Jones wouldn’t see her vehicle there.

Shaking in fear, she rang the buzzer. No one answered, so she left. Later she realized the RCMP’s office closed at 5 p.m.

But while she was leaving Jones, there was an altercation, she says, and the RCMP got involved. “And at that point, I didn’t have a choice but to give a statement.”

Jane says she wasn’t thinking about fixing the relationship or having charges laid as she gave her statement. It was an emotional process, but a relief to let the truth out, she says.

Then the prosecutor decided to lay charges.

“And what followed was really disappointing. Really, really disappointing.”

Smith says no one prepped her to testify.

A victim’s services worker told her someone would be in court to support her, but she wasn’t told what the defense was likely to ask

or how they would make her feel. “They basically said just go in there and tell your story.”

In court, the defense painted her as emotionally unstable, or someone who was “straight-out lying,” she says, to sow reasonable doubt. It had been about a year since she left, she says, and she’d regained some of her confidence. But she thinks that confidence went against her, as she didn’t look like a stereotypical victim.

“Domestic violence is so complicated and the people in it change when they’re out. And it’s so hard to prove unless you have a bruise on your face.”

Her ex and his defence presented the judge with their own story.

“And there was my story and there was his story, and there was no proof.” The Crown did call other witnesses to back up her story. “And the defense tore them apart.”

Asked whether legal options have improved for victims of domestic abuse, Dusel says it’s a work in progress. “It’s not ideal. I think people are trying.”

In 2003, Ontario set up a domestic homicide death review committee, which looks for risk factors, patterns, and common themes in domestic homicides. The committee also looks for who knew about the abuse and could have intervened. That process has spawned targeted programs, such as Make It Our Business.

Saskatchewan recently started reviewing domestic homicides as well. The province also has domestic violence courts in Saskatoon, Regina, and North Battleford. Eligible abusers can plead guilty and go through treatment rather than the regular court system. A reduced sentence is contingent on meeting treatment requirements.

Dusel thinks those courts could change the attitudes that ultimately lead to domestic violence and homicide. She says there’s growing recognition that to prevent future abuse, abusers need help.

As for Jane, she’s been out of that relationship for three years now.

She’s still dealing with him in the courts, and she says he’s still trying to manipulate her life as much as he can.

“But it’s a hundred times better being away from him.” CG

Do you know your legal obligations if there are signs that an employee, neighbour or member of your extended family may be being abused, or if an employee is a potential abuser?

Resources Looking for more information and resources to deal with abuse in your community or workplace?

Ontario’s Neighbours, Friends and Family program has information on everything from safety planning to talking to both victims and abusers (see www.neighboursfriendsandfamilies. ca). Business owners can learn how to recognize and deal with domestic violence in the workplace at makeitourbusiness.ca. Saskatchewan employers interested in Make it Our Business training can contact Jo-Anne Dusel of PATHS at paths@sasktel.net or 306-522-3515.

Resources are available in every province. In Saskatchewan, visit abuse.sk.211.ca/ for a listing of legal resources, FAQs, and more. A map of, and contact information for, shelters across Canada is available at sheltersafe.ca.

Some animal shelters are now working with social service agencies to keep pets safe when their owners leave abusive relationships. Check with your local animal shelters or provincial SPCA for more information.

Dr. Wendee Kubik and Jo-Anne Dusel were part of a research team looking at domestic violence in rural and northern regions of the Prairies and the North West Territories. For more information visit www2.uregina.ca/ipv/index.html.

– Jen G., Standard, Alberta, AWC Delegate

! ay d. tod ite ter lim gis is Re ting a Se

Being here ignites the passion back into me. Learnt so many valuable lessons from presenters.

LISTEN, LEARN, NETWORK & GROW Open your mind to the endless possibilities. Prepare to be inspired. Acquire the life skills you need to reach your goals and live your life to your full potential. Network with women passionate about agriculture. This conference could be life-changing.

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HYATT REGENCY CALGARY, MARCH 6 & 7, 2017

COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA / FEBRUARY 1, 2017

Advancing Women Conference WEST 2017 / Country Guide / 7” x 3.357”

63

GUIDE LIFE health

By Marie Berry / lawyer & pharmacist

minor cuts and scrapes: Don’t let them get major

Y

our skin protects your body from the outside world while also regulating your temperature, so any damage to your skin can result in damage to underlying structures.

Everyone has had a cut or a scrape at one time or other. These usually only need to be covered with a self-adhesive bandage.

For larger or more serious wounds, you need to get medical attention. Deep wounds and large wounds may need stitches. Wounds that are especially dirty or that still contain whatever has caused them, may need debridement, that is, the removal of the foreign material. You may need a tetanus shot for puncture wounds such as a nail puncture, or animal or human bites.

If a wound is bleeding profusely or if underlying tissues are exposed, medical attention is a must. Additionally, if you have immune system problems, then any wound could be serious.

Minor cuts and scrapes include contusions (i.e. bruises), abrasions (i.e. scrapes), and minor lacerations or incisions. Contusions or bruises do not break the skin, but are caused by a fall or blow which causes the bleeding beneath the skin that produces the “black and blue” colouring. Abrasions or scrapes are the result of your skin being rubbed against a hard surface, for example a knee scraped by a fall from a bicycle.

There may be some bleeding, and most scrapes are very painful. Incisions are clean cuts with something like a kitchen knife, while a laceration is a more jagged tear in the skin, but both can bleed and be painful.

Before you treat any minor wound, make sure you wash your hands well because you don’t want to contaminate the wound with any debris that might be on your hands.

Ideally, all minor wounds should be cleaned. Soap and water will do the trick. Flushing the wound with warm water is also effective and may remove any foreign material from the wound.

At one time alcohol was recommended, but it stings and is able to cause tissue damage at the wound site. Now it’s best avoided.

If the wound is bleeding, you want to apply pressure to help stop it. Then, if bleeding doesn’t stop, have the wound checked.

The use of antibiotic creams and ointments is subject to more controversy because if you’ve cleaned the wound and covered it, then you shouldn’t need the antibiotic. If you do choose to use these products, remember that whatever creams and ointments you apply to a minor wound will eventually need to be removed, which can be difficult and painful.

Rather than automatically applying these topical products, keep tabs on the wound and watch for any signs of infection. Remember the acronym SHARP, that is Swelling, Heat or warmth, Aches or pains, Redness, and Pus. If you think the wound might be infected, have it checked because a prescription antibiotic might be needed.

Applying a clean bandage to the minor wound will protect the damaged area from further damage or contamination. Self-adhesive bandages are ideal for smaller wounds and they are available with easyto-remove adhesive which makes removing them less painful.

For larger wounds you may need a dressing held in place by adhesive tape, but make sure you choose a dressing large enough to cover the complete wound. Butterfly closures are ideal for pulling the two sides of a laceration

together, and specially shaped selfadhesive bandages are available for finger tips, knuckles, and even toes.

Because strands of gauze can be caught in a wound, opt for an easyto-remove dressing pad.

Regardless of the dressing you choose, remember to not touch it, because you want the dressing to remain sterile until it reaches the wound.

Blisters on your feet can be problematic, but film dressings like Opsite can protect your skin and reduce blisters. In winter, cracks in dry skin around fingernails can develop and often dressings, along with moisturizers, are used to alleviate these. However, cyanoacrylate dressings are more effective, and because cyanoacrylate is contained in super glue products, applying one of these glues to these wounds is an option, but make sure you let the glue dry before you touch anything.

Regardless of how minor you may believe a wound to be, it is still a wound and appropriate treatment is needed to keep it minor. And remember, if you have any risk factors for poor healing, for example diabetes, immune system conditions or bleeding problems, appropriate treatment is even more important. CG

Marie Berry is a lawyer/pharmacist interested in health and education.

Next Issue Head injuries can result from any fall or accident involving the head, and everyone from hockey players to children falling from a bicycle can be affected. One of the long-term effects of head injuries is a potential seizure condition, and sometimes later in life an individual may experience seizures but not have a diagnosis of epilepsy. Next issue, we’ll talk about these types of seizures and the medications used to treat them.

64

FEBRUARY 1, 2017 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

GUIDE LIFE Hanson Acres

By Leeann Minogue

B

y the time Elaine got to the third item on her list, Jeff was wishing he hadn’t answered when she phoned. Or, at least, he shouldn’t have admitted he was bored.

“You’re right,” she’d agreed. “It’s way too cold to work outside. But there’re a few things you could do in the house.”

Elaine had taken the kids to Sask­atoon for the weekend. She had a meeting, and Connor and Jenny were thrilled to spend a couple of days with Elaine’s mother. “She said we could go to the museum,” Connor announced.

“And the toy store,” his little sister Jenny chimed in.

With Elaine and the kids away, and with his parents spending their last week in a Yuma trailer court, Jeff had the house and the yard to himself.

Elaine’s job list wasn’t that long, so Jeff got to work. Step 1 was a trip to the shop for a few tools. He put on his warmest clothes and headed out, startled by the burn of the -39 C air. With just a few steps his coveralls were crackling with cold.

When the dog heard the shop door open he came running over to greet Jeff. The cats, of course, stayed curled up in their pile of old blankets.

Jeff looked around the shop. The Hansons’ new hired man had left the workbench messy again. Even the cordless phone was out of its cradle, which would annoy his dad to no end. “Have to clean this place before they get back,” Jeff thought.

He gathered the tools and started back to the house. Usually the dog followed Jeff everywhere, but today Buddy shot him a look that could only have meant, “You go outside in that if you want. I’m not crazy.”

Back in the house, Jeff fixed the dishwasher’s slow leak and tightened the squeaking bolts on Connor’s bunk bed. He took time for lunch and a nap before tackling the sticky closet door. By four o’clock he was

Hanson Acres

When it’s -39 C, and no one else is home Frostbite isn’t the only danger Jeff faces.

It may not even be the worst down to the second-last item on Elaine’s list: install the new lock on the front door.

With his mom and dad away, Jeff and Elaine had been more vigilant about locking the house when they were both gone. But last week, swirling winds in the porch had forced wet snow into the keyhole, making it impossible to force a key in the lock.

on the snowy step in his socks. No jacket. Jeff felt his pocket. No cellphone. Now what?

He thought of the attached garage, but the only way in was through the overhead door. Then he remembered the last thing on Elaine’s list: change the batteries to get the garage door keypad working.

Without the remote, he wasn’t getting into the garage. And the sliding

How would Elaine explain it to the kids?

He could just imagine it. “Your father died of stupidity.”

Elaine had picked up a different door handle at Peavey Mart. “That new sales guy helped me,” she said.

“This one has a code we can punch in, so we don’t even need a key.”

It was simple to install. In just a few minutes, Jeff had the old one off and the new one on. “Better check to make sure it works,” he thought to himself as he slipped out the door, pulling it shut behind him. Then he took hold of the handle, and found out it worked just fine. The door was locked tight.

But what was the code?

Damn. Jeff had looked at that page when he’d leafed through the installation manual. He’d taken note of the spot where he could find the default four-digit code when he needed it. But had he even read the numbers? If he had, they sure weren’t in his head now.

So there he was, standing out

doors that led in through the deck had been locked for months. Jeff started to panic.

“I can’t die of hypothermia right here on my own damn step,” he thought. How would he explain that to Elaine? And how would Elaine explain it to the kids? He could just imagine it. “Connor, your father died of stupidity.”

Jeff looked past the trees to the road, not sure if he was hoping that someone would drive by the farm and save him, or that none of the neighbours would see him.

Obviously, his family should never have left him home alone.

Then Jeff heard his cellphone ringing from where he’d left it — lying on the floor just inside the door. Inspired by the glowing screen, Jeff took off like a shot, runContinued ON page 66

COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA / FEBRUARY 1, 2017

65

GUIDE LIFE

Reflections

by Rod Andrews retired Anglican bishop

ning for the shop at top speed, although, given the slipperiness of socks on packed snow, his top speed was quite a bit slower than usual.

When he made it to the shop, Jeff went straight for the cats’ corner, where he yanked a blanket out from underneath the cat pile and wrapped it around his shivering body.

“Thanks for warming it up,” he told the indignant cats.

Next, he found a pair of mitts for his icy feet. And saying, “Finally your sloppiness pays off, Mark Edwards!” he reached for the cordless and dialled up the rest of his plan.

An hour later, Jeff was back in the house, feet in his thickest socks. By the time Elaine and the kids came home, he had a pot of chili simmering on the stove for their supper and he’d even tidied up the living room. “Nobody needs to know about that,” he thought, eyeing the front door.

Over supper, Connor and Jenny told Jeff about their trip to Grandma’s house. “She took us to the bookstore!” Connor announced, pleased.

“I got a book too!” Jenny said.

“Yes, but she can’t read,” Connor said, feeling very pleased with himself now that he could pick out a handful of smaller words.

Elaine talked about her meeting. “I knew everyone else on the board was pretty smart,” she told Jeff. “But those guys were prepared! I’ve got a steep learning curve to climb.”

Then it was Jeff ’s turn.

“How was your weekend?” Elaine said. “Did you find something to do?”

“I got through your list. Then I just watched a couple of movies.”

“Oh?” Elaine said.

“Yeah,” said Jeff. “Fixing that dishwasher leak didn’t take as long as I thought it would.”

“I heard you installed the new door handle.”

“What?” Jeff asked. How could she know?

“Thanks,” Elaine said. “We should write the code down and put it in the truck and the SUV. “Yeah,” Jeff said, wondering if he was imagining the mocking gleam he thought he saw in her eye.

“We wouldn’t want anyone to get stuck outside, not knowing the code,” Elaine said.

Now Jeff was sure she knew.

“How did you find out?”

“The guy at Peavey Mart called me before he gave you the default code.”

Jeff shifted from mystified to mad. “He told me he had to put me on hold while he opened another box.”

“He was looking out for me,” Elaine said. “How does he know who should be in my house?”

“He didn’t have to give you the whole story!” Jeff said.

Elaine just smiled. “I would have known something was up when I saw all that cat hair on the back of your shirt anyway. You didn’t take any pictures, did you? For my Twitter account?” CG Leeann Minogue is the editor of Grainews, a playwright and part of a family grain farm in southeastern Saskatchewan.

66

FEBRUARY 1, 2017 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

“R

od, will you supervise a poll for the municipal election?”

The weeks leading to election day were chaotic. My supervisor complained, “I feel like I have been run over by three of the four horses of the apocalypse.”

The four horses are mentioned in the Book of Revelation, the last book in the Bible. Revelation, full of symbolic and figurative language, is not easy reading. Many people try to fit prophesies from the book into contemporary situations. Things rarely work out the way they predict.

In November a writer in the National Post wrote about “The Trumpocalypse,” a linking of current events with biblical prophesy.

The writer implied the arrival of a new and different world order with the presidential election.

Why does the word apocalypse, usually used in a religious context, pop up in secular and political discussion? People view significant historical events as apocalyptic, particularly in years ending in three zeroes. We were told to expect the end of the world when the calendar turned 1000 AD, thus eliminating invaders, famines and epidemics.

Remember the anxiety when the calendar turned 2000? Airplanes were projected to stop flying in the air, but life continued with a few adjustments to our computers.

Many saw the tragedy of 9-11, when more than 3,000 people lost their lives in one day, as an apocalyptic event. I turned on the TV that morning to hear the horrible news. I did not know how to describe what was happening. I woke my wife Jacqueline exclaiming, “The world is coming to an end.” I knew that was not true but the situation seemed that desperate.

For some religious folk the word apocalypse means a significant turning point. A new job, a divorce, a new relationship, an unexpected life change. These could be apocalyptic in personal terms.

Hindsight sheds light on apocalyptic projections. In 1969 Dr. Paul Ehrlich wrote a book called The Population Bomb. Ehrlich attempted to demonstrate that the human species was reproducing faster than our ability to feed ourselves. He confidently predicted that by 1980 the world would be facing mass starvation unless we took radical steps to curtail the population. The book painted a bleak either/or scenario: stop having babies, or face our doom. But mass starvation and food riots failed to materialize.

On the Sunday after the recent American election the Rev. Jeff Seaton, minister of Trinity United Church in Vernon, B.C., preached about an apocalyptic week: “This election revealed that there is great pain, and there are great social divides in the United States, between those who embrace the possibilities of a rich and diverse and different future for the country, and those who hold tightly to an earlier vision of the country. And these issues don’t just exist in the United States; we see the same forces in the Brexit vote in Britain, and in political developments in Europe. In Canada, our political life draws from those two sources, and so these are issues for our common life as well.”

I think of politics as how we organize ourselves to live together, and I see religion as our search for God and meaning. A man came to my door promoting a get-rich-quick scheme. He assured me it had nothing to do with politics or religion. I replied, “If it has nothing to do with politics or religion, I am not interested.” He repeated his claim so I told him, “I am only interested in politics and religion.” He replied, “Nobody ever said that to me before.” He closed his briefcase and walked away.

Suggested Scripture: Joel 2:1-17, Revelation 6 Rod Andrews is a retired Anglican bishop. He lives in Saskatoon.

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