Country guide west

This capital plan builds resilience  20 | New lawsuits threaten Roundup  48

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

Brother & sister act

Sarah and Jack Leguee at the forefront of Canada’s newest farm demographic  12

Succession Shocker The share of farms with a succession plan is slipping  26

Publications Mail Agreement Number 40069240

CROPS GUIDE New tools to diagnose crop pests  35 Stop overspending on wild oats  40

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6 MACHINERY

Spreading it around New product launches give farmers even wider choice of innovative fertilizer application equipment.

Inside country guide / Vol. 136 Issue no. 4 / MARCH 1, 2017

Business

35 CROPS GUIDE

10

our next employee y The solution to your labour shortage may be just waiting for you to give her a chance.

20

capital plan a The Semeniuks 10-year land and equipment plan helps them make better decisions.

26

s uccession shocker The percentage of farms with a succession plan is going down. That’s right… DOWN!

32

t he effective leader Maybe in the old days being a leader meant throwing your weight around. But not now.

44

t rumping it out Can the new U.S. president force our machinery makers to move south?

48

oodbyE glyphosate? g Cancer lawsuits in U.S. threaten to topple the world’s top herbicide.

52

uilding a new APF b Ottawa is re-tooling Growing Forward. Here’s what farm groups think you need.

35 Step one:

Identify the enemy

40 The more you

spend, the less they work

42 Weather

Guide Life 62 64 65 66

istracted driving D Health Hanson Acres Reflections

56

farm in tuscany a Could you make a success of a farm in Italy?

Even with massive EU grants, it isn’t easy.

60

HR — nine tips for innovation Anyone can increase their creativity and produce better innovations with these tips.

12 Brothers & Sisters

Like a small but growing number of farmers across Canada, Tom and Suzanne Pettit are a brother-and-sister team learning how to farm together in a new spirit of equality and trust. Like the other two brother-sister farms we profile this issue, the Pettits take care to keep the channels of communication open, and they ensure that each has areas of responsibility of their own. Thanks to that recipe, they are finding that their sibling partnership is scoring big points as they pursue their quality and financial goals.

Privacy Statement. At Glacier FarmMedia LP we are committed to protecting your privacy. Glacier FarmMedia LP will only collect personal information if it is required for reasonable purposes related to our business operations. As part of our commitment to enhance customer service, we may also share personal information with our affiliates or strategic business partners. For more information regarding how we collect, use and disclose personal information, please refer to our Privacy Policy at http://farmmedia.com/privacy-policy, or write to: Privacy Officer, Glacier FarmMedia, P.O. Box 9800, Station Main, Winnipeg, MB R3C 3K7.

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3

EDITOR’S NOTE

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

EDITORIAL STAFF

The other side of the success story At Country Guide, we do get criticized for seeming to print only stories about successes, not failures, but we don’t get as much flak as you might think… and we all know the reason why You can see it again in the lineup of stories we bring you this issue.

For the next generation of Canada’s farmers, “average” won’t cut it.

Our future farmers must run farms that score an A if not an A+ in every category… or they will face tall odds against success in their careers.

This doesn’t mean they need to be perfect. But it does mean they can’t fight with even one hand tied behind their back.

So when we bring you a story about successful farm management, there’s always an implied subtext that says every skill and attitude that builds success has an opposite that leads somewhere else.

This isn’t lost on our readers, who read as closely and carefully as readers in any industry.

For example, not everyone needs to be as adept at working a financial spreadsheet as Robert and Angela Semeniuk (A capital plan, page 19), but everyone needs to see how skills in this area will help them succeed, and everyone has to feel motivated to give them just that bit more attention for having read the Semeniuks’ experience.

The same goes for the brotherand-sister teams that field editor John Grieg describes in his features this issue. On one level, these are stories about a demographic change in Canadian agriculture, with more brother-and-sister teams farming together as equals.

Just as much, however, it is a story about the behaviours and attitudes that are driving their successes.

Despite the geographic distances between their farms, and despite the differences in their family and

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MARCH 1, 2017 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

commodity back stories, it’s what these farms share that is most impressive, including systems that ensure good communication, and giving each partner defined areas where they have the responsibility and authority to make decisions.

Again, the subtext is that when we went looking for success, this is what we found. So if you don’t see these traits when you look in the mirror, maybe you might ask why.

Yet it’s in the story “Succession shocker” (page 22) that we come closest to defining failure. As you’ll read there, when Canadian farmers are asked what factors are most important to their success, succession planning is in the top three of their responses. But too many farms are failing to transform those words into an actionable plan.

I hope you’ll take time to absorb as much as you can from Elaine Froese’s observations and recommendations. There’s wisdom for all generations here… and a subtext about the cost of not being successful.

2017 can seem just another year, with moderately volatile weather, moderately volatile prices, and moderately volatile politics.

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

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 FarmMedia 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.

Country Guide, incorporating the Nor’West Farmer and Farm & Home, is published by Glacier FarmMedia LP. Head office: Winnipeg, Manitoba.

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At Country Guide, we think 2017 is shaping up as a year when on a lot of farms, deferred decisions will finally be made, or they will finally be left to be always unmade.

Subscription inquiries:

For many of our readers, it will be one of the most pivotal years in their lives, and in the lives of their farms.

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The editors and journalists who write, contribute and provide opinions to Country Guide and Glacier FarmMedia LP attempt to provide accurate and useful opinions, information and analysis. However, the editors, journalists, Country Guide and Glacier FarmMedia LP cannot and do not guarantee the accuracy of the information contained in this publication. Use or non-use of any information is at the reader’s sole risk, and we assume no responsibility for any actions or decisions taken by any reader of this publication based on any and all information provided.

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machinery

Spreading it around New fertilizer applicators rush onto the market

By Scott Garvey / CG Machinery Editor

I

n 2016, farmers were introduced to several new machines capable of meeting their fertilizer spreading needs. Among them was the new self-propelled F4365 spinner-spreader from John Deere, a highcapacity machine designed primarily for large operators and custom applicators.

The F4365 sports a 330-cubic foot New Leader dry spreader box, and can apply up to 1,100 pounds (499 kilograms) of fertilizer or 6,600 pounds (2,993 kilograms) of lime per acre. It also has the ability to variable-rate apply up to four different products in a single pass, with spread widths of 60 to 90 feet.

Under the hood, the F4365 gets one of Deere’s PowerTech PSS 9-litre diesels mated to an IVT transmission. That gives it a 46-m.p.h.

(74 km/h) road speed and maximum application speed of 30 m.p.h. (50 km/h).

“Service providers and large-scale producers can cover more acres faster, and in greater comfort, with the ability to variablerate apply up to four different fertilizers in a single pass,” says Dave Mulder, product manager with John Deere Crop Care.

Inside the CommandView III cab operators get some updated features, such as an improved seat swivel and cameras that show the field, dry box and rear spread pattern.

But for those looking for

something that can apply product across a 40- to 60-foot width without the need to maintain another self-propelled machine, Loftness, based in Hector, Minnesota, thinks it has the answer with its pull-type RC800 high-clearance row crop model. It’s an eightton, single-axle spreader with 44-inch underframe clearance to accommodate in-season applications. The RC800 includes a variable tread width from 80 to 120 inches, which should handle virtually any row-crop spacing.

At the rear are dual stainless steel spinners, which the brand claims can deliver product evenly by using a 100 per cent overlapping triangular spread pattern. The RC800 has a positive mechanical conveyor drive, rather than a friction drive wheel, and can be equipped with a hydraulic conveyor drive for variable-rate applications.

To give the RC800 some resistance to product buildup and corrosion, flat surfaces are minimized throughout, and the hopper interior has no gussets, plates or other obstructions for fertilizer to catch on.

Loftness recently introduced the RC800 which can provide a 40- to 60-foot spread pattern.

Photo: Loftness

Saskatchewan-based SeedMaster introduced its Nova Flex granular applicator attachment earlier this year, which allows the brand’s Nova SmartCarts, built for use on air drills, to do double duty as part of a fertilizer applicator. The newly designed applicator bar hooks up to any Nova air cart just as a regular air drill does, and the combination can then fall apply or top-dress granular fertilizers.

“The Nova Flex fertilizer and nutrient applicator really came out of the idea that people were sinking $300,000-plus into floaters, when they already have a highly accurate, highly technologically advanced metering system and holding tank in their yard,” says Trent Meyer, director of sales and marketing at SeedMaster.

“What it allows you to do is to time your fertilizer application, if you choose not to apply 100 per cent at seeding. With new products coming out from the fertilizer companies, this really is a cost-effective way of utilizing the assets we have on the farm.”

Continued on page 8

New from John Deere is the high-capacity F4365 dry box applicator.

Photo: Scott Garvey

6

MARCH 1, 2017 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

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machinery

When connected to a Nova SmartCart, the Nova Flex applicator is capable of delivering 350 pounds (159 kilograms) of product at working speeds up to 10 m.p.h., and the Zone Control feature of the Nova carts allows for up to 10 independent control zones across the Flex bar to reduce application overlap. Inside the tractor cab, operators use the same monitor, so they don’t have to learn to use yet another system.

“Not everyone’s going to apply multiple products at the same time,” Meyer says. “But at the end of the day there is the opportunity to do that (with the Nova Flex).”

Salford was another brand to introduce something new in applicators in 2016 with its completely new 20-ton fertilizer spreader that uses a 66-foot air boom. According to Dave King, the company’s director of sales and marketing, it’s meant mainly to appeal to western Canadian growers. Salford expects this machine should create new interest in the market for dry product spreaders across the Prairies, especially among those who want to apply some fertilizer in the fall to minimize the spring workload.

Development of the new spreader — a prototype of which was first displayed at Canada’s Farm Progress Show in Regina in June — was the result of Salford recently taking over both the BBI and Valmar

The Nova Flex fertilizer applicator mates to any Nova SmartCart and allows growers to apply granular fertilizer other than during seeding.

brands. That allowed the company to integrate technology from both firms and create the new, high-capacity air boom spreader.

“The units that were here in the past had less technology and features,” King notes.

“And the sizes weren’t big enough. Today, we’re offering a lot higher technology in spreaders. As a general rule, when you get to about 25 m.p.h. with wind, an air boom will perform better than a spinner.”

King adds that the brand is considering offering models with even larger boom widths in the future as it continues to refine the spreader’s design. CG

IT PAYS to Study Ag

Salford introduced a prototype 20-ton air boom spreader during Canada’s Farm Progress Show in Regina in June.

Photo: Scott Garvey

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MARCH 1, 2017 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

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1/27/17 9:53 AM

BUSINESS

Your next employee The solution to your labour shortage may be just waiting for you to give her a chance

By Helen Lammers-Helps

T

here’s a labour shortage on Canadian grain farms. And if industry predictions are correct, it’s only going to get worse… a lot worse.

Following a three-year study, the Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council (CAHRC) reported in 2016 that several factors will combine to create a growing shortage of domestic labour for farms.

With an anticipated growth in global demand for food, an aging workforce and fewer rural youth, it’s anticipated that 114,000 primary agriculture jobs are at risk of going unfilled by 2025.

In other words, Canada’s farmers may not be able to find employees to take one out of every four jobs that are available.

In fact, it may be even worse for the grain and oilseeds sector, which may see one of the largest labour gaps of any commodity group. While technological improvements have resulted in huge productivity gains on grain farms in recent years, and while these gains do help to offset the labour shortage, it will be a challenge to maintain this rate of productivity gain into the future, says Debra Hauer, manager of labour market information at CAHRC. Farm businesses have many unique challenges when it comes to recruiting and retaining staff. These include seasonality, variability in hours, competition with other sectors for work, remote locations, and a lack of workers with the right skills and experience.

Again, the numbers are worrying.

At 18 per cent in 2014, according to the CAHRC report, agriculture has the second highest turnover rate of any Canadian sector.

Michelle Painchaud, a Winnipeg-based human resources business consultant who specializes in agriculture, has seen this problem first-hand. “Almost every farmer across the country laments about finding labour,” she says. “This is a truly challenging issue and one that we need to address quickly.”

The agriculture industry needs to be proactive in looking for solutions to the labour shortage. A survey of farmers as part of the CAHRC study indicates the labour gap is already costing farmers lost revenue and has resulted in farmers cancelling or postponing expansion plans.

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MARCH 1, 2017 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

More women employees Is it possible that women could help ease the labour shortage on grain farms?

The 2016 labour force survey indicates that of the 117,000 hired farm workers, only 42,100 or 36 per cent were female. Is part of the labour pool being underutilized?

Here’s a look at some of the factors at work in this dynamic. Over the past few decades in Canada, women have increasingly pursued agriculture programs at the university level. Today they make up 60 per cent of university ag graduates.

When it comes to employment, one-half of those who work as on-farm professionals or in occupations requiring college education are women, according to the 2011 National Household Survey. (Note that women only accounted for 27 per cent of farm employees who worked in management jobs.)

But we don’t see the same trends at the diploma level.

At the University of Guelph’s Ridgetown Campus, for example, only 40 per cent of this year’s class is female, and that number drops to 30 per cent for the University of Manitoba’s ag diploma program.

Plus, when we look at the number of students in Ridgetown’s ag diploma program who are taking elective courses in field crop production and machinery maintenance (which would indicate an interest in work where those skills are required), those numbers drop to 23 per cent and 16 per cent, respectively.

But before we jump to the conclusion that women are less interested in field crop production and machinery maintenance than their male counterparts, the experts tell us we should ask whether there could be other explanations, such as not having had prior exposure to these subject areas, a lack of female mentors, or feeling uncomfortable being outnumbered by their male counterparts.

Painchaud says there are many reasons why women are under-represented on farms. Some of these barriers include the working conditions, industry reputation, sexism on the farm, and farmers not wanting to allow flexible working hours to accommodate women who still carry the brunt of responsibility for childcare.

Jeanne Bernick, a business consultant in eastern Iowa sees a similar situation in the U.S. She says there is a groundswell of women coming back to agriculture after graduating from ag programs in university. Many of them are going into ag business, but they are underrepresented on farms.

Both also say the age of the farmer can play a role, with farmers under 40 generally having more flexible attitudes about women working on the farm.

Bernick and Painchaud have authored a book called Ceres Rising to provide women with the tools they need to succeed in agriculture.

Bernick is blunt about the situation. “Although physical strength is no longer required due to technological

changes, some farmers haven’t changed their mindset; they haven’t made the leap yet,” she says.

Marg Rempel has farmed near Steinbach, Man., for more than 40 years and has always been involved at the ground level, and she has no qualms about hiring a woman. And she doesn’t think other farmers do either. “They are used to working with female agronomists and have spouses who haul grain and run the combine,” she says.

Rempel has had trouble filling a seasonal position to do field work at her farm and knows the unpredictable hours due to the weather are a barrier for women, especially single moms, who are also responsible for childcare. A lack of childcare in rural areas exacerbates the problem, she says.

Sharon Hart, an owner of Blythe Brae Farms, a large cash crop operation near Woodstock, Ont., has known a number of women who have worked part-time combining, drying corn, planting and looking after equipment. “It can be a great job for someone who wants to work part-time and perhaps pick up another job or travel in the winter and summer,” she says, adding, “In many cases the hours could be arranged so they could share with another operator.”

Hart says the need for training is greater than ever before. “You can’t just put anybody on a tractor or combine and expect them to do good work. We find that having another qualified employee show a new person the techniques has paid off.” As planting and harvest are very busy times, they also try to make reasonable hours for people so that they are at their optimum when working.

While hiring more women could help fill the need for more workers on grain farms, a more diverse workforce has other benefits as well. Anne Burnham, who manages the farm market and bakery at their farm near Cobourg, Ont., finds a diverse staff is advantageous. “A diversity of ages and genders is best,” she says, and she finds they bring a range of energy levels, experience and ideas to the job.

According to the CAHRC report, solving the farm labour shortage will require a co-ordinated effort by government, employers, and educational institutions. Policies, incentive, courses or other programs will be most effective, the report says, if they are accessible to all.

(Note: This article is the first in a series of articles that will explore the roles of women on the farm and strategies for recruiting and retaining female employees while building a cohesive co-ed farm team. ) CG

RESOURCES Ceres Rising — How Women are Leading Farm Business (2017) by Jeanne Bernick and Michelle Painchaud, available at www.ceresrisingbooks.com

I am a Smart Grower.

I still get up early the way my grandfather used to. As a farmer I’ve always had to find new and smarter ways of getting the job done, to work the land regardless of the weather or the economy.

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The tools we use in farming will always evolve, but the purpose behind our work hasn’t changed in a hundred years.

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2017-01-16 7:51 AM

The

BUSINESS

brother & sister

advantage

There can be a kind of magic in a brother-sister relationship that helps them run a better farm business

By John Greig / CG Field Editor

A

small but growing number of brother-and-sister farms across Canada are rewriting the rules on how families farm together in a new spirit of gender equality.

Even more than that, though, they’re showing the rest of the industry how to step up their productivity with new management strategies that let every member of the team not only contribute at their best, but also get a charge out of their work.

Country Guide talked to three brother-sister combinations to find the source of that magic. In every case, they may be farming together partly because of what might be called the accidents of genetics and family, but there’s no accident about how they use open communications and defined roles to drive their productivity.

Nor is it any accident that they’re building their partnerships on the fact that, as brother and sister, they understand each other better than anyone else in the world.

Misty Glen Holsteins: Tom and Suzanne Pettit For the Pettits, open communication is a must, but so is having their own areas of responsibility and expertise

A

t some level, every brother-sister story is unique, and that’s certainly true of Misty Glen Farms near Belmont, Ont., where Suzanne and Tom Pettit milk about 50 cows with a robot in an efficient freestall barn built in 2012.

They’ve been making most of the cow-related decisions on the farm since they returned home to farm from Ridgetown College in 1999. Their father had been milking cows at the farm since 1957 and was more than ready to sell the cows.

“When we came home in ’99, it was a battle to get Dad to keep the cows,” says Tom during an interview in the barn office. “He had some health issues and he was getting older, and he didn’t really want to milk anymore. I remember sitting at the table with him, trying to decide if I was going to go to college or not, and I said I wouldn’t go if he was going to sell the cows. But he said I had to go, because he never went to college.

“We made a deal. I would come home on weekends and do the chores and they would do them during the week.

“When we got home in ’99, the last day of our exams is the last day they milked cows. That morning was the last one, they were done. They’ve hardly touched a cow since then.”

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MARCH 1, 2017 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

The Pettits are an interesting case as their father was older when he married, and their mother was a widow with two children from her first marriage.

That meant that unlike most young farmers, where the parents are still heavily involved in the farm when the children come home from school, the elder Pettits — Murray, now 78 and Betty, now 79, were ready to move towards retirement.

“My wife’s dad is 61, and still heavily involved in their operation,” says Tom. “If you have someone that age involved, they are going to take some of the responsibility away from the kids, but you also have that mentor you can work with. For us, we dove right into operating the dairy side of things.”

“He was never really the cow guy,” Suzanne says of their father. That’s unlike his children who both liked dairy farming from a young age. Suzanne was making mating decisions for the cows when she was 10 years old.

They both liked cows, but that didn’t mean they got along as children.

You see, if their story is unique in some ways, it’s also absolutely ordinary in others.

“We didn’t like each other that much when we were kids,” says Tom. “We fought a lot,” says Suzanne.

Photo: David Charlesworth

Brother and sister Tom and Suzanne Pettit didn’t grow up thinking they’d farm together, but once they hit their 20s, they started seeing how well it might work. Today, they are consistently hitting their quality and financial targets, and they have learned how to help each other perform at the top of their game

“We fought a lot until late teens, until we went away to college. Then that changed,” says Tom. The brother and sister had the unique experience of attending college at the same time, despite being almost two years apart in age.

Suzanne took a year off school after high school. She had been destined for Western University in London, “for something I didn’t want to do.” After a year at home, she was certain that she wanted to farm.

“They (her parents) were kind of against that, so it was decided that I was going to Ridgetown too,” says Suzanne.

“Even that year you were home, things were a lot better between you and me,” says Tom. “A lot of it is just maturity and growing up. You see that a lot with brothers and sisters and brothers and brothers. They don’t get along growing up and once they hit 18 or 20 they realize that ‘hey, wait a minute, this is stupid.’”

“We were both headed in the same direc­ tion,” says Suzanne.

Now, 19 years later, Tom, 36 and Suz­ anne, 38, have together built one of the high­ est-producing herds in Elgin County, and they have already met some of their cow

classification goals. They worked hard in the old high-labour tie-stall barn to pay off the farm they bought after returning home, and then built the modern, cow-friendly, labour-efficient barn that has dramatically improved their lifestyle. They have increased their per cow production by more than 25 per cent since they moved into the new barn.

Their father is still consulted on financial decisions, such as the new tractor purchased last spring, but day-to-day decision-making has all fallen to Suzanne and Tom. They’ve established their individual roles, and they have a rapport that you can hear in the way they almost finish each other’s sentences.

“We generally keep things calm,” says Suzanne. “… Or comical,” says Tom. Suzanne: “We go with more laughing than yelling.”

Tom: “It’s better that way.”

Suzanne: “It works out better.”

Tom: “No more punching.”

Suzanne: “We got rid of that when we were growing up.”

Continued on page 14

COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA / MARCH 1, 2017

13

BUSINESS

Separate roles Tom and Suzanne gradually developed separate roles on the farm, even though they say they never sat down to divide up the work.

Now, it’s one of their chief pieces of advice to other brothers and sisters.

“Find what you’re good at in the operation,” says Suzanne. “It’s good to have your own bit, an area that’s yours. You can still have discussions, but have your own bit that you are in charge of.”

On the Pettit farm, Suzanne manages

the cows, does all the feeding, and maintains records. And while they discuss breeding decisions on cows, Suzanne will have the research done and the bull semen in stock in their storage tank ready to go.

Tom, meanwhile, is responsible for the equipment and the crops, and he does the day-to-day financial accounting as well.

Tom is also first in the barn in the morning and Suzanne does the late evening barn checks and last calf feeding so that Tom can spend time with his family. Tom lives off the

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farm with his wife Kris and daughters Maddie, 11 and Kadie, 9. Hours were longer and inflexible before the robot milked the cows.

“There’s no point in trying to do everything. I think that’s where most siblings get into trouble,” says Tom. “They both want to do the exact same thing and they don’t agree on it.

And they fight. We don’t run into that issue.”

His family helps out on the farm when they can. Kris is a registered nurse and came from a farm, so she understands the work and the demands that it makes. Tom

and Suzanne agree that it is important that Kris and Suzanne get along well.

Decision time So how are decisions made on the farm? It’s all about communication and discussion.

“We’ve never really had a disagreement about anything like that,” says Tom. “We just sit down and… when it comes to the cow thing, we’ve always been on the same page as far as the cows go. Do we need to get rid of this cow, or do we need to do

something to this cow? If there’s something wrong, we’ll sit down and make a decision.”

On a smaller farm with large overhead in a new barn, the decisions need to be well researched. The new tractor that arrived in the spring had been discussed for four years.

“If we didn’t get along well, it would make everything more difficult. You need to make the right decision and work together on it. If you’re always butting heads, the right decision doesn’t usually get made,” says Tom, who warns that it wouldn’t work

if one sibling was overly domineering, since resentment would build.

It’s also essential to work hard at succession planning, says Suzanne. Most brothersister situations will involve parents and succession, she says.

“Succession planning and figuring out how to handle that is an important aspect to keeping the entirety of the family in balance or else it can get kind of messy,” she says.

Continued on page 16

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15

BUSINESS Jockbrae Farms: Melinda Foster-Marshall and Mark Foster

M

ark Foster and his sister Melinda Foster-Marshall never thought they’d be farming together.

They had different personalities and routes through high school, but they have created roles and responsibilities and processes that are allowing their individual strengths to create a successful farming business.

Melinda has a degree in geological sciences from Queen’s University and was a self-described “book nerd” in high school.

She manages the dairy operation. Mark came home to farm soon after high school after spending some time working in construction, and he thrives by connecting with customers as the manager of their cropping and DeKalb seed dealership businesses.

The Fosters and their parents Jim and Lynda are each one-third shareholders in Jockbrae Farms where the family milks about 120 cows and cultivates about 1,600 acres near Carleton Place, Ont. Country Guide interviewed the Fosters in our April 2013 issue, and we returned this winter to catch up with Melinda and Mark on how it was going working together as brother and sister. Mostly, the extra years have only reinforced their initial insights, especially about the importance of giving each individual an area to be in charge of, and the over-arching need to create a structure that ensures good communication.

For the Fosters, that structure provides a foundation for the farm and the way it is farmed. “Communication is most definitely a challenge,” says Mark. “Melinda and I have daily phone conversations about that day’s events and what’s to come the next. Keeping in constant communication is key to success.”

Importantly, regular communication helps build transparency among the farm owners.

The shareholders also have regular meetings, complete with motions and minutes, so that everyone knows who is responsible for what and there is accountability for those actions.

“Bigger decisions are made with the four business partners discussing everything together. Every opinion is important and 16

MARCH 1, 2017 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

heard. All four of us stand behind a decision once it’s taken,” says Mark.

“Usually our disagreeing happens in our meetings. If we don’t agree, we ask questions,” says Melinda. “We always leave our meetings from a common ground.”

Day-to-day decisions are entrusted to the person in charge of each operation.

“It’s incredibly important for any partners, brothers and sisters or whatever, that they have their own defined roles, so dayto-day decision making can happen without having to discuss every single thing,” she says.

It’s also important so they can maintain their passion for the farm. “I discovered a love for the business at an early age, watching my mom and dad farm,” Mark says. “I knew I wanted to be a part of it all.”

Melinda, on the other hand, was not destined for a farming career. She says she had an affinity for agriculture having grown up on the farm, but she was headed for a career in the oil sector, likely in Western Canada. Then, during the summer before her last year of university, the family bought a second dairy farm, a nearby ongoing dairy operation.

Their business plan was built upon transferring 20 kgs of quota from the home farm to the purchased farm and selling off the remaining home farm quota to help support the purchase. Their plans quickly changed in the midst of closing the deal when Dairy Farmers of Ontario made a policy change disallowing quota mergers. For the Fosters this would necessitate milking in both facilities, managing two herds and doubling their land base. There was a lot to do during this transition period, so Melinda came home for the summer and starting making more management decisions.

She found she was challenged and excited by the level of decision-making that was needed on the farm.

“I told Dad in high school that if farming was an intellectual career, I think I would have enjoyed it,” she says. “Since then, I’ve apologized and said, ‘Sorry, Dad. I use all my faculties every day in managing this.’”

After they built up enough quota at the other farm they consolidated the cows,

Photography: Robin Andrew • Unposed photography

Just because they’re siblings doesn’t mean Melinda and Mark instantly agree on everything. But they have a system for finding common ground, and once they’ve found it, they commit

Working together as brother and sister might be even easier than making a partnership between two brothers work, Mark and Melinda think. But it still requires a balance of trusting each other to be there for the farm, but giving them enough space to be their own people

moving the purebred herd from home into the newer facilities of the second dairy they had purchased. It was a challenging time for the business, but the adversity and complexity of managing two dairies, doubling land base and starting a DeKalb dealership has served them well.Melinda, 28, now lives at that farm with her daughter and husband Allen Marshall, while her parents and Mark have homes at the family’s original farm. Mark, 30, is married to Kaitlyn and they have three children.

Mark handles the rapidly growing DeKalb dealership, which now requires at least one full-time person. He’s helped out by his wife who also does the books for

the farm, along with their mother. Their mother, Lynda, is the “controller,” who helps keeps the younger generation grounded.

Their father Jim, is now raising the heifers and is a “gopher” who helps out where it is needed, whether running for parts, driving a grain buggy or helping deliver a calf. Mark and Melinda have two older siblings who are about 40 and who both work off the farm.

This year they installed Lely robots to milk the cows, something Melinda says they would “do again in a heartbeat and should have done years ago.”

It was a big business decision, and when one of the partners has a significant proposal they have to bring a business plan to a meeting of the partners for discussion and approval. As the business has tripled in size in the past six years, they have had to create stronger accounting systems, with better expense itemization. That’s meant they have the ability to quickly sort out precise expenses

on which to build business cases, which leads to better informed decision making.

Managing the resources needed to handle the growing DeKalb dealership has also been challenging. Their full-time employee and operations manager Scott Sergeant also helps with the dealership, as well as taking on more crops responsibilities.

Mark has driven growth of the DeKalb dealership. “He’s the type of individual everybody likes and looks up to. He’s a good salesperson and supports his product,” says Melinda. “But, we would not be where we are today without the support of our community, neighbours and employees.”

Melinda believes there are advantages to being a brother and sister farming together.

“I think it is easier for us to maintain our brother and sister first relationship than it would be for two brothers, because two brothers, from a stereotypical standpoint, might be harder-headed and might not be

able to come to the same playing field. It requires one of two partners to back down and empathize with the other in order to get things moving.”

It took a while for them to recognize each other’s decision-making styles, but they have come to have confidence and trust that they each have the best interests of the business at the core of their decisions.

“It’s amazing where life takes you,” says Melinda. “But I’m very happy that I am able to farm with my brother, and it’s an honour to be able to work and learn from our parents on a daily basis.”

“I am really glad it has worked out,” says Mark. “We have to respect that we are each individuals, with goals and aspirations, and realize we need to work for the good of the farm.”

Continued on page 18

“It’s all of our responsibility to speak up for agriculture.”

Emmett Sawyer, Agvocate 4-H Member and Farmer

Be somebody who does something.

Be an agvocate.

Learn more at AgMoreThanEver.ca.

COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA / MARCH 1, 2017

17

BUSINESS Leguee Farms: Jack and Sarah Leguee Photography: William DeKay • THE WESTERN PRODUCER

Off-farm work and a five-year plan helped this brother and sister team prepare for the nonstop challenges of farming

L

eguee Farms has also found a balance that allows it to grow and succeed in Saskatchewan in grains and oilseeds. Communication and defined roles enable the family to run a large business together, and also to live nearby and have harmony during family get togethers.

Unlike Misty Glen, Jake and Sarah Leguee’s father Russ is still heavily involved in the everyday operation of the farm. That means they have the advantage of his years of experience and operations knowledge, while allowing Russ, who is still in his 50s, to grow his hobbies, including tractor pulling.

Jake and Sarah never really went through a decision process to determine if they would farm — they both say they always knew they would be back home farming, as long as the farm business was large enough to sustain them and their families.

The farm has continued to grow, topping out at the current 12,000 acres. “I knew when I was in high school that I wanted to farm,” says Sarah. “Mom and Dad and I talked about it quite a bit, and we came up with a fiveyear plan.”

Sarah, the eldest, was the first to exercise the family plan of working off the farm. She got her education at Old’s College in Alberta, studying egg production and egg business. Livestock was her first farming choice, but she got hired on at a John Deere dealership and a truck shop, working in service and parts.

“I learned how to deal with customers, how systems work,” she says, and she also learned to see the value of bringing those skills back to the farm.

Sarah, 31, encourages other young women, including those she’s coached in basketball, to expand their horizons before they come back to the farm.

Jake, 28, also worked off the farm for a while after completing his agronomy degree at the University of Saskatchewan, becoming an agronomist for a local crop retail company. He also continued to work at the farm and “I decided I couldn’t do two full-time jobs,” he says.

By that point the farm was growing enough for him to return home and continue his focus on agronomy.

Jake has recently added a DuPont Pioneer dealership to his work.

There was never much question that Sarah would take an active role in the farm. She always been encouraged by her parents, and her mother and grandmother had played active roles in the farm before her. She also always had the same roles available and responsibilities given to her as her brother. “When we were growing up, Dad didn’t treat me any different. Mom drove the

18

MARCH 1, 2017 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

combine and drove the truck. Dad never made me do something because I’m a girl,” she says.

Their younger sister Amber Nikolejsin is a nurse, but she will help on the farm and run a grain cart when needed.

As with the Pettits, the fact that Sarah and Jake have different skill sets has helped them find roles on the farm where they can have some control.

Sarah, with her Class 1A truck licence, spends more time managing the shop and keeping the hired help busy. She helps with maintenance including creating record-keeping systems for the farm that now includes multiple units of similar equipment such as combines.

Their father was trained as a heavy equipment mechanic, and Sarah says she continues to learn from him.

“If there’s a way to do something that seems impossible, he’ll probably find it,” she says.

Sarah was heavily involved with cattle when the farm was more diversified. The cattle were sold around the time she graduated. She says she’s learned to appreciate the grain farm, but still manages to get her cattle fix by helping friends.

“I spend more time in the office than Sarah does,” says Jake, who looks after marketing and finances, examining cost of production and financial ratios. As the family agronomist, he’s also in charge of creating cropping and nutrient plans.

Their dad is the day-to-day manager, with years of experience in the logistics of seeding, harvesting and getting the grain to market. He’s the glue that brings Sarah and Jake together and he continues to help make strategic decisions on the farm.

“He’s very involved,” says Jake.

Communication and input are important on the farm, with regular meetings planned for discussion,

BUSINESS Of course, everyone wants to say it’s all sunshine and rainbows,” says Sarah. But she and Jake agree it’s important they not let anything simmer although Jake admits it is hard to get those in during seeding and harvest. The family gets together every Friday evening at their parents’ house for pizza.

That includes Jake’s family, wife Stephanie and year-old son Asher, as well as their sister Amber, her husband Erik and son Dax who come in from town.

“We can sit around and have a drink and have some pizza,” says Sarah. “We don’t have to hang out because we have to, we hang out because we want to.”

The family also all enjoys curling, including playing together on the same teams.

Sarah lives on the same quarter section as her mom and dad and Jake lives on the next quarter over, so they live close together, along with working close together.

Decision-making When decisions need to be made, it is important to get everyone’s input.

“We’re in contact with each other a lot to decide what the right plan is,” says Jake. “We let each other know that we’re not happy about something. If someone is left out of decisions, we bring it up.

If you let it simmer it creates resentment, then it comes out in a not-so-nice a way.”

“Of course everyone wants to say it’s all sunshine and rainbows,” says Sarah.

“We do argue here and there… When we work up to 14 to 15 hours, tempers can get a little higher, but I think we get along fairly well.”

Jake and Sarah say they don’t know if working with a sibling of the same sex would be different. “I’ve never had a brother,” says Jake. “It is what it is. I’ve never really had anything different.” CG COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA / MARCH 1, 2017

19

BUSINESS

A capital plan The 10-year capital acquisition plan they’ve created for their farm gives the Semeniuks a decision-making boost, plus more resilience

By Maggie Van Camp / CG Senior Editor

I

ited their overall strategic plan, including their 10-year capital acquisition plan. It gave them a guideline, a sort of roadmap to follow. “We knew what we needed to do and how to change to get through it,” says Robert.

A few days after the untimely snowfall, and after they’d done another round of number crunching, Angela called to set up a meeting with their bank’s loans manager. Once the manager saw the numbers, he was completely onside.

Robert grew up listening to his dad during the 1980s. “He always said not to hide anything from creditors.”

The couple says knowing the numbers builds confidence so it’s easier to talk to their lending institutions, and to develop a good working relationship. And it’s easier to sleep at night. “We’re in a high-capital business and a high-debt business,” says Robert. “Making sure our creditors know our business is our job, our responsibility.”

Photography Hayley Prusko

n early October, Robert and Angela Semeniuk woke to deep snow blanketing their picturesque farm at Smoky Lake, north of Edmonton. Their hearts sank. Silence had descended on a scene that was supposed to be humming with harvest, leaving more than half of their canola in the field.

But on that cold, grey fall morning, the Semeniuks didn’t crawl back into bed with a groan and pull the sheets over their heads. Instead, they turned on their computers, called up their spreadsheets, and started crunching new numbers.

They poured over Angela’s monthly updates of 18-month cash-flow statements as they drank their coffee. By the time their two children, Tristan (9) and Gabrielle (11), came for breakfast, the Semeniuks knew fairly accurately where their 4,000-acre grain farm would be financially on August 31, 2017.

By the time the snowplow had cleared their road, they had looked at their annual budget and also revis-

20

MARCH 1, 2017 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

In return, the couple expects their bank to understand their business and how RAS Family Farms strives to be better than the provincial average in production, financial management and marketing. “They need to be a partner in our business,” says Robert.

Beyond their cash-flow statement, developed with their crop planning budgets, they also have a marketing plan and overall annual budgets, including a breakdown of the payments of loans and leases. Soon they hope to connect and directly link all these spreadsheets under one platform.

The vision and mission statements they wrote a decade ago have been an overarching guide, even when they made major changes. “Funny, every decision we’ve made, if you go back, it follows that vision. Even though we don’t always look it up or refer to it, it’s what drives us,” says Robert.

Planning has been the top contributor to their success. More specifically, this is a farm where planning, goal-setting and the numbers decide instead of emotions, says Angela, a chartered professional accountant. “If you take the time to plan, it focuses your future and will help you see the light at the end of the tunnel.”

“It’s given us something concrete to focus on,” Angela adds. “It doesn’t have to be 100 per cent correct right off the start, it’s evolving… But you have to write it down.”

The CAP The original idea of a farm capital acquisition plan (CAP) came during the first few years they farmed, when Angela worked with the local municipality. Part of her job was to create a five-year capital acquisition plan, (for buildings, replacing graders, etc.) and the councillors then reviewed this document and incorporated it into their yearly budgets.

After Rob and Angela took the CTEAM program seven years ago, Angela decided to create a 10-year capital acquisition spreadsheet for RAS Family Farms to connect to their annual budget and their overall strategic planning. “Anyone can do it,” says Angela, “You don’t need to be an accountant.”

The 10-year CAP is a spreadsheet strategy of how they will buy or lease equipment and land. It’s based on the farm’s needs and approximate costs, equipment turnover rates and their budget, all guided by their overall strategic plan Continued on page 23

Alberta farmers Robert and Angela Semeniuk use a 10-year capital acquisition plan to keep on target with key production and financial objectives for their farm. The plan forces them to closely look at the impact of land and machinery expenditures on their cash flow… and their creditors love it COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA / MARCH 1, 2017

21

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Of course, grain farmers can’t depend on the kind of predictable income that a municipality gets to work with. Farm income varies, and the timing of expenses has to be variable too. For instance, the Semeniuks use a lot of used equipment so they have to be able to replace when good quality deals become available, not necessarily when a machine is due to be replaced. It all means they have to be flexible. “It (their CAP) is very much a living document,” says Robert.

For example, although they have a goal of replacing combines every five years, lately they’ve been doing it every three to four years because of trade-in values, the Canadian dollar value, interest rates, availability, and new technology.

However, year-end income tax position doesn’t come into play with their machinery purchasing decisions. They’ve set up proper lines of credit and calculate how much they’d save in income tax versus paying interest.

“Why spend money on capital (that you can only depreciate for half the first year anyway) when you can pre-buy (other direct inputs)?” asks Angela.

It is important to them to stay on top of their equipment needs. The Semeniuks carefully track the repair and maintenance costs of all their equipment so they can see the trends and then red-flag anomalies, particularly if one starts to cost them.

Their machinery turnover spreadsheet contains the basic details about the piece, things like its age and the year it was purchased, the purchase price, where it was financed, whether it was a loan or a lease, and the terms including payments per year, interest rates, and any additional notes about the deal.

Their CAP acts as a guideline and forces a level of accountability, all backed up by these numbers. They update it at least once a year, so that when things come up, it can help them determine if a purchase makes sense, knowing that it’s easy to get enticed by a good deal, some new paint or new technology. Having this plan forces them to take a step back and look at the impact of the potential purchase on their financial plans and consider if there’s a better way to do it.

It’s a black and white voice of reason in a business full of green and red opportunities. “I’m always talking about doing someContinued on page 24

O-52-01/17-10686444-E

COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA / MARCH 1, 2017

23

BUSINESS

Start planning Having and updating a formal written business plan helps farmers invest in what works to achieve their specific goals, and positions their farms to seize new opportunities.

According to Agri-Food Management Institute and Farm Management Council’s commissioned research Dollars and Sense: Measuring the Tangible Impacts of Beneficial Business Practices on Canadian Farms, top farmers from across Canada and all sectors write down their business plan, follow it and review it annually. In fact, they’re 50 per cent more likely to have and follow a formal business plan, monitor and use their costs of production, assess and manage their risks, and have a sound financial plan that includes budget goals.

However, according to a recent AMI Ispos Reid survey of Ontario farms, only about a fifth of farmers (i.e. 19 per cent) have a written formal business plan.

AMI executive director Ashley Honsberger says developing a business plan can be a way to start some important conversations and may help unite people around a common vision. “Starting with a blank slate is tough,” says Honsberger.

AMI is trying to make it easier for farmers to do a basic business plan, which is often the first step to other planning such as succession or human resource plans.

There are many business plan templates available online with varying degrees of complexity.

Honsberger suggests that farmers without a business plan can start the process by doing some self-analysis on the AMI business scorecard found at www.takeanewapproach. Or you can also go to AMI’s new website, www.pledgetoplan.ca, to order a resource kit that breaks down the tasks by season.

24

MARCH 1, 2017 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

thing,” admits Robert. “This adds a level of patience… and yes, accountability.”

Plugging the numbers into a spreadsheet not only forces them to avoid knee-jerk purchases but also to look at different options.

For example, if it’s time to replace a tractor, Angela can quickly compare the purchase price to leasing options and they can see the impact each choice will have on their cash flow. “Numbers don’t lie,” says Robert. “It has to make sense. And sometimes you have to say no, even if it is on the (CAP) plan.”

When Angela lists their machinery inventory, about half is leased, including two combines, a large front-wheel assist tractor, their sprayer and the tank part of their air drill. It took months to make a decision about replacing their seeding equipment because they looked at multiple options. It was a huge capital investment, and Angela compared five different combinations of leasing and purchasing and how each had an impact on the payments and their overall cash flow.

They also work closely with their local equipment salesman, who knows their general plans but not full disclosure. He knows enough of their plans to keep an eye out for good used equipment they’re planning to replace. Plus he knows the couple will need more details and options before they decide to go ahead. “You still have to shop around,” says Robert.

However, having a CAP doesn’t mean they’re handcuffed by numbers. If a good

deal comes along before they are planning to replace, it can still happen. They just have a process in place that forces them to stop and see the impact this detour from their CAP will have on their farm’s financial position.

“It’s sometimes annoying when I want to buy something,” laughs Robert. “Even when I come up with crazy scenarios to convince us that we should buy it, you can’t make the numbers up. They don’t lie. ” Although Robert is a self-professed gadget guy, he says with new technology it’s often difficult to see the value in the numbers. For example, sectional controls on a sprayer provide directly measurable savings, but syncing the grain cart to the combine, even though it increases overall harvest efficiency, is difficult to define in dollars.

Plus, it’s next to impossible to forecast 10 years from now and budget based on what new technology will be available and how much it will cost.

Strategic plan A decade after first writing a strategic plan, the Semeniuks are starting to work on a major revision. Meantime, however, farmland prices have soared in Alberta, and farmland availability has declined. So instead of expanding, they switched the plan to diversify into more direct contracts and specialized crops.

Today, the Semeniuks grow wheat and malt barley (on direct contract), and sometimes oats, peas and canola — both commercial and specialty oil varieties. “We need to grow specialized crops to stay competitive,” says Robert.

“Not having the Wheat Board control everything has opened up more direct marketing opportunities for us,” adds Angela.

Until the beginning of last year, they also had a five-year-old sideline business: custom applying fertilizer. However, the numbers spoke again, and they decided to shut down that enterprise.

Although this enterprise helped with summer cash flow, it wasn’t contributing to their farm’s bottom line. It was time to replace the floaters, but with the current competition putting downward pressure on the number of acres available to spread and the margins per acre, the floaters wouldn’t pay for themselves.

The Semeniuks hope to start planning another additional enterprise with the

10-year strategic plan they are working on this winter, along with a clear eye on expansion. They also hope to eventually buy some land from retiring landlords, increasing their owned:leased ratio and locking in more of their production base.

The next strategy will also involve succession to potentially accommodate another generation. That generation would be the fifth generation of the family on their farm. “The land is our retirement, or our legacy,” says Robert. CG

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BUSINESS

Succession shocker The percentage of farm families with a succession plan is going down. That’s right — DOWN! — even though those same families still see succession planning as crucial to success

By Maggie Van Camp / CG Senior Editor

T

he day I caught up with famed farm family coach, Elaine Froese, she had already had two conversations with families who cannot bring sibling partners to the table. Phrases like “avoidance of conflict,” “bullying” and “silence is a form of violence” tumble out of her.

“Procrastination and conflict avoidance are the root of the issue for farm families being stuck,” says Froese.

And more farm families are getting stuck.

Compared to five years ago, the percentage of farms with a farm succession plan has dropped from 20 to 16 per cent. The 2016 Agri-Food Management Institute survey of Ontario farmers found 84 per cent of the farms lack succession plans.

Yet on those farms, succession planning was in their overall top three goals, right after profitability and debt reduction.

One stumbling block is that succession planning involves talking about death and finances, topics that families often avoid. Even thinking about losing a loved one can be painful and terrifying, and discussions about estate plans can be loaded with a whole other basket of emotions.

As well, the younger generation knows the farm is loaded with value — financial, traditional and emo-

The big mistake is to try to keep emotions out of your discussions about the future of the farm, Froese says. Hopes and dreams have to be part of the conversation. But also use proven methods to keep the talk civil and positive

tional — and they know it’s something the parents have worked so hard on, so they’re intimidated by the thought of actually asking for it. And some parents, who maybe are finally feeling financially stable, are frightened that talking about transition will rock the boat again or take it in a riskier direction.

Young farmers are always asking Froese for tools to get the succession conversation started. “Some young farmers are scared to talk to their parents out of a sense of respect and not wanting to seem pushy,” she says.

However, these young farmers have so much at stake.

They need things to be discussed openly, and they cannot keep their plans on hold forever.

Often, says Froese, they simply want to explore the timelines for the plan.

To help farm families struggling with succession, Froese and Megan McKenzie, both from Boissevain, Man., have joined forces to develop a new online course, called Getting Farm Transition Unstuck. It’s available at elainefroese.com/unstuck/ and costs about $750.

Although many farm production or tax specialists say the best course of action is to deal with the business and keep the emotion out of it, over the years of helping families Froese has found the exact opposite to be true.

“Deal with the emotional factors affecting planning first, and then you’ll have a great foundation for being clear on expectations, creating timelines for agreements, and a commitment to action,” she says.

Before plans can be effectively created there must be transparent, honest, clear conversation that attacks specific issues, not the people, Froese says. A foundation of trust and understanding is required for each generation to negotiate what they want to see happen with the future of the farm.

Negotiating succession can’t be approached like bickering for the best deal on a used tractor, Froese continues. Instead it requires giving and taking with respect, and it requires expressing emotion, plus seeing the needs of the others. To be able to do this well takes an underContinued on page 30

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MARCH 1, 2017 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

BUSINESS 8 do’s and don’ts of succession conversations In her long career helping farm families, succession specialist Elaine Froese has found certain words and actions can help launch the succession process, while others can quickly distract or even permanently stop the process.

Don’ts 1. Don’t wait for a crisis before you start the conversation. It might be too late to make adequate plans, and family members may not feel emotionally able to talk.

Pick a positive, comfortable environment during a period of relative calm.

2. Do not gossip. Instead of talking through other people, speak directly to the person involved. Better still, have formalized discussions to unpack tough issues.

3. Do not try to read people’s minds.

Assumptions create confusion and mistrust. Look each other in the eye and ask deeper “What if?” questions.

4. Do not expect the other person to start

the conversation. Either generation may get things going. Keep in mind that it’s just a conversation. It does not need to reach a conclusion. Initially, think of it more as an information-finding mission.

5. Do not expect your advisers to come up with all the solutions. “They can give guidance, but ultimately the choices are yours as the owners to make the decisions that work best for you,” says Froese.

6. Do not use abrasive comments or language. The next generation needs to show up with respectful behaviour and gratitude for the opportunity being given, says Froese. Strong words can shut the conversation down. “Do not use ‘you always’ or ‘you never’,” she says.

7. Do not assume or enforce an age restriction. Age is not an indicator of passion. It depends on what each person brings to the discussion.

8. Do not keep family secrets or surprises.

It’s a sign of family trust and respect to let the non-farming children hear the passion and vision for the farm business plan. They’re very astute as to the players, personalities and issues, and can be a great resource for creating solutions.

Let them decide the level of involvement they want. “They probably have other skills that can translate to great support for the farm, for example, internet research, strategic thinking, systems and process management,” says Froese.

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MARCH 1, 2017 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

The do’s

4. D o clearly state why you’re initiating these talks. This might include why you want to get involved in helping make transition plans, for example, out of concern that proper plans are in place and understood. Stress the importance and benefits of this conversation to everyone.

1. D o know the retiring farm couple’s income stream needs. Where do they want to live? What’s the size of their personal wealth?

2. D o know the financial viability of the farm and share it with the next generation. How many families, and at what lifestyle income level, can this farm business support? The older generation should share farm financial information with the next generation.

Froese says knowing about debt servicing, cash flow and input costs is a great education in reality for teens.

5. D o use someone else’s story to get started. Real stories can be big motivators. Froese finds it helps to normalize the fears and the apprehensions families feel when they ask for help. She lets her clients know she has seen this many times before and they’re not alone.

3. D o come with a workable vision. The older generation couple should start by agreeing together before they even talk to successors. Froese says farmers often reject thinking about the future because of fear of getting older and change.

6. D o listen actively, and carefully respond to concerns. It’s important to keep moving forward. Start it up softly with “I’ve been thinking… ” statements.

7. D o ask more powerful questions.

“What do you want...?” or “What if?” questions. Froese suggests keeping notes on your phone or on paper as new solutions strike you and actively look and compile transition ideas from advisers, magazines and examples of other successful farm transitions.

8. Do understand debt. How much debt can the next generation have and still sleep at night, as they are going to be shouldering the debt of buying out some assets. Some assets will be gifted, but don’t expect it all to come your way. The non-farm heirs can have assets like land that they lease to the farm kids with long-term rental.

Recommended Reading: Crucial Conversations by Kelly Patterson

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BUSINESS

Resist the urge to jump into decision-making mode, says Froese. Instead, view your first discussions as opportunities for gathering information about your family’s hopes and dreams

standing of constructive conflict behaviours, such as seeing things from another’s perspective, expressing emotions, adapting, creating solutions, reaching out, reflective thinking, and delaying responses, which Froese says is different than stomping away mad to the shop.

Froese tells families to resist the urge to jump to the decision-making stage. Take some time for easier information-gathering conversations. “Farmers love to wheel and

NEW

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MARCH 1, 2017 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

deal, but they are not fond of disclosing their fears, wants, needs and emotions,” she says. “That’s where good facilitators hold the sacred space of deep sharing of core values.”

Talk openly about what the business means to each family member. Also, talk about the fun memories on the farm or ranch, about the legacy created by hard work and sacrifice.

Help everyone share the hopes and dreams for the future.

As you go forward…

Do choose successors based on their skill sets and their passion to manage farm risk, not gender or birth order.

“This is 2017; daughters can run farms,” says Froese.

Also encourage potential successors to work for a non-family member for a few years.

Do start by setting down a timeline. “Deadlines make people think,” says Froese. For instance, consider saying, “We need to know by the time you are age 27 whether you are going to be a committed member of this farm team. Would you like to start owning some equity, or would you like to do an enterprise project to

get started farming, such as cropping, custom spraying or owning livestock?”

The goal, says Froese, is to start with a business plan that the young farmer can tweak and manage to get some “skin in the game.”

Do have a family meeting with the non-farming heirs shortly after the process starts. They’re curious and engaged, and might be willing and able to help. If they are concerned about who is getting the best deal, ask if they’re willing to take on the risks that the farming siblings are taking on. How much is enough? What do they realistically expect the farm to give them?

But do know that money does not equal love. Some folks are never happy no matter how much they are given, and each person needs to be clear about what money means to them. They may also need to learn to accept that a farm kid who has toiled alongside their parents for years deserves a chance to take over.

Equally, the child who is going to carry on with the farm is not responsible for the wealth of the siblings, but could be raised in a culture of making sure everyone is doing well. In one family, for instance, they have prom-

ised to be a financial safety net for an urban sibling who has been divorced.

“There are many ways to distribute wealth,” says Froese, “but one of the best ways is with a warm hand as parents, so you can explain your intent for the gift, and the recipient can say thank you and grow the gift.”

Some individuals will never be happy no matter what is decided. If there are some in your family, at some point you will have to let that angst go.

Do consider hiring a facilitator, though. As the family detective, facilitators like Froese use private conversations to find out everyone’s expectations. But remember, conversations about inheritance expectations are easier when life insurance and good financial personal wealth plans are in place, and when the founders don’t need a huge income stream ongoing from the farm.

And do also have patience. You will need many conversations and explorations about how each passionate person perceives their role within the bigger-picture legacy for the farm “This is a long process of unfolding ideas and putting a new business plan puzzle together,” says Froese. “It’s not a Roundup quick-fix solution.” CG

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BUSINESS

The effective leader Being effective as a leader doesn’t come from throwing your weight around. Instead, with John Knapp as proof, it starts by discovering what your team members bring to the table

By Lisa Guenther / CG Field Editor

I

t’s not every government department that has a deputy minister who makes a point of having coffee with staff in the morning. But then, not every deputy minister is John Knapp.

Knapp retired from Alberta Agriculture in 2013, but he’s still active in the leadership field. He wrote a book, titled The Leader’s Practice Guide, which was published the year after he retired. These days he coaches executives and speaks about leadership as a consultant with Tantus Solutions Group, which is headquartered in Edmonton.

He had taken the wheel at Alberta Agriculture in 2008, and he knew he needed to be available to staff, on their terms, so they could talk to him about whatever was on their minds.

Readers should know that I got a first-hand look at Knapp’s leadership style when I worked in various roles including as a web editor for the ministry. It seemed to me at the time that I was also getting a first-hand understanding of what it means to have an employer who thinks seriously about what it means to be a leader, which may colour what I write below. But my primary links are to farming, and I do find his leadership strategy spurs a lot of thinking, not just in me.

Knapp himself began his 36-year career in public service as a district agriculturalist. “As a D.A., you basically were there to serve everyone who came in. And the three areas you worked on most were crops, livestock, and farm management,” he recalls now.

I first met Knapp when I was hired to process grasshopper control and drought applications with Alberta Agriculture in 2003. BSE had just slammed the beef industry, and Knapp was director of the rural development division, which handled the drought and BSE

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programs. I was still finishing university, and Alberta Agriculture had given me my first professional job. Even then Knapp made an impression on me with his practice of meeting and talking to us informally.

The message for farmers is that availability fosters trust, and trust is a cornerstone in the foundation of good leadership, in Knapp’s opinion.

“It’s almost impossible to lead well without trust,” says Knapp. “If people don’t trust you, they will begin to sign off. They’ll begin to work to rule. They won’t be as creative as they might otherwise be.”

Knapp tells me that part of a leader’s job is to think carefully about the environment they’re working in and try to think about ways to make themselves available.

“There are different ways to be available, and they need to suit the context,” he says.

Coffee first thing in the morning suited the building we worked in because the atrium was a central place, adjacent to the cafeteria on the main floor. Many people had to pass by or through it to get to their offices.

In a field setting, being available might be showing up in the pickup with coffee and having a chat with people, Knapp says. It can also mean occasionally taking a break and doing informal stuff with the team, but it must work for the employees, instead of being solely on the leader’s own terms.

Leaders who make themselves available take calls as often as possible and return calls quickly, Knapp says.

What might not seem important to the leader could be urgent to the employee, he adds. “In fact, without some kind of go-forward from you, their work may come to a standstill. So it’s very frustrating for them.”

That concern for others struck Knapp early in his career when he noticed how profoundly leadership qualities — good or bad — affected him and his colleagues.

Knapp thinks he started to subconsciously relate to good leaders right back in his 20s. He noticed the leaders who seemed to care about people and were focused on the well-being of the team.

Their actions were intended to support the team and to help team members grow. These people understood the concept of being a servant leader, he says, which means they acknowledged a duty of care to the people they led.

Conversely, he also saw a few poor leaders. He noted which behaviours demoralized and demotivated people, as well as actions that created angst, stress, and suffering.

“Those were signals of how not to behave,” says Knapp.

Photography: Lionel Trudel.

Leadership that doesn’t rely on the leader having all the answers A big part of a leader’s job is to listen carefully, Knapp says. Even employees in entry-level positions will know more than you in some areas. A leader needs to integrate information from those people, and turn it into a decision that “walks forward.”

“The worst thing you can do is procrastinate forever and try and do an opinion poll on every single issue in front of you,” he says.

But, he cautions, your team will only react well to assertive leadership if it’s paired with an effort to listen, think, and balance different points of view, Knapp says.

Balancing thoughtfulness with action can be tricky.

Knapp suggests thinking through the potential pros and cons of different directions early on. Doing this allows a leader to enter discussions with a piece of their own analysis, he explains. “And then the input of others tends to influence that analysis to a degree.

But you don’t arrive at the table with a blank sheet of paper, having no idea where this might head.”

Leaders also need to sense what would be acceptable to others, since trying to force an utterly unacceptable decision on others won’t wash.

On the farm, family members and employees are part of a team, Knapp says, and the same tactics work that work in corporations and associations “People just won’t do it,” says Knapp, before he adds a warning: “If they don’t like what you decide, they can simply walk away.”

Also be aware that employees don’t always voice their dissent. They may not be inclined to speak out, especially if they’re unsure how their leader would react. That means leaders must be sensitive to the body language, facial expressions, and tone of others in the discussion.

If the leader isn’t watching how others are reacting, they could be blind to the fact that people are verbally agreeing with a decision while their body language says the opposite.

Continued on page 34

COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA / MARCH 1, 2017

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BUSINESS

If that happens, Knapp says the leader might want to acknowledge that the proposed direction isn’t going over very well. The leader could then suggest a fiveminute break before the group gets back into it and tries to get on the same page.

A big decision shouldn’t feel like a fatal march over a cliff, says Knapp. It’s better to stop at the cliff ’s edge and take a look before marching onwards.

Humility, brevity, directness How does a person pull off this type of leadership, which requires admitting they don’t have all the answers? Knapp says attitude is the key.

If a leader believes they have a duty of care to

Upping your leadership game Want to grow your leadership skills? John Knapp suggests you start by watching the leaders you know who are effective, and those who aren’t so effective as well.

Taking courses and reading about leadership are both useful, Knapp says, but getting into the habit of observing leaders in action is worth cultivating.

Also learn to pay attention to your instincts instead of your fears. Knapp urges people to trust themselves when it comes to leadership behaviour. “You’re probably right if your instincts are telling you to listen more than you talk, to be humble, to try and weigh everyone’s input before you come to a decision, and to explain the rationale for why you made your decision.”

Fear leads to secrecy, but your instincts will lead you to communicate to steer a course that will generate respect, Knapp says With those two assets in hand — i.e. your observations of good leaders, and a trust in your own instincts — it can then be time to study the details of good organizational leadership.

Learn how organizations work. Read widely, and take leadership courses. Good leaders with good intentions can fail if they don’t know and follow good governance principles, Knapp says. “If you’re going to be a leader, that’s a core understanding you need to have.”

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others, they will approach leadership with a degree of humility, Knapp explains. “Not humility which means you’re subservient. Not humility which means you can’t make a decision. But humility that appreciates that you’re only one part of the process.”

Some of the biggest leadership failings Knapp has seen were due to the leaders’ lack of humility, which made people unable to relate to them.

But he’s also seen leaders with plenty of humility, who were focused on the issues and the people behind those issues. They try to move forward in a way that works for everyone involved, he says. And Knapp thinks that attitude might provide the base-level confidence to go forward in an atmosphere of uncertainty.

It’s different on the farm While core leadership principles apply across industries, there are aspects unique to, or emphasized more, in agriculture. Humility is one of them, Knapp says.

“It’s part of what I call rural egalitarianism — this idea that we all work hard and we support each other.

We work together and we’re equals,” Knapp says, and he goes to expand the idea, saying the concept of people taking turns to lead is stronger in agriculture than society in general.

Given the reduced farm population and number of ag service boards, commodity groups, breed associations, and other ag organizations, “the odds are very high that you’ll serve once, or many times, as a leader in your community or your organization,” says Knapp. “So almost everyone who wants a turn gets a turn to be a leader.”

That reality underscores the need for people to carry humility with them when they become leaders. People will respect their leadership because they retain humility, and they’re less likely to damage relationships.

Humility isn’t the only leadership trait emphasized in farming culture. Long-winded leaders are frowned upon in agriculture, perhaps more than other sectors.

“I think there’s a notion in agriculture that brevity is elegance,” says Knapp.

We’ve all watched leaders talk around an issue or be oblique about their intents, Knapp says, which leaves everyone guessing what they really meant. “That doesn’t wash in any setting, but it especially does not wash within the culture of agriculture, where people are looking for directness.”

Beyond that, Knapp says it’s also important to be calm. People relate better to someone “who seems to wear the mantle of leadership easily,” he says.

“You can add energy to a situation. You can drain energy from a situation. And those who display these highly emotional, frenetic, driven behaviours, they tend to drain energy from others around them,” says Knapp.

On the other hand, leaders who are calm and purposeful tend to give energy to people, and also help people find the best in themselves, Knapp says. They project a “we can do it” vibe, even when everyone’s in for a long haul. CG

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Crop rotation — Alternating between crops that are non-susceptible to specific pathogens can help prevent the development and spread of disease.

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Timely irrigation — Avoid irrigation (where possible) during the flowering stage of your crop.

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In 2016, it was the perfect storm for cereal growers across much of the Prairies. Everything was in line for one of the worst fusarium head blight (FHB) outbreaks in Canadian history.

The “disease triangle” was complete: there was a susceptible host in a high number of crops seeded to cereal, there was pathogen present over virtually all of the Prairies, and the weather was ripe for disease development.

“Outbreaks of FHB are highly influenced by the environmental conditions,” says Barbara Ziesman, provincial plant disease specialist with the Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture. “That is the case with all crop diseases. However, while there are different factors that facilitate the spread of the FHB pathogen, in years when we have epidemics that have high yield or quality losses, the weather during flowering tends to be the tipping point for the development of the disease.”

Fusarium head blight is a fungal disease that affects wheat, barley, oats and other small grain cereals, as well as corn. There are many species, but the big problem on the Prairies is Fusarium graminearum, which causes FHB. It creates shrunken kernels officially designated for gradng as fusarium-damaged kernels (FDKs), and the mycotoxin deoxynivalenol (DON or vomitoxin) which is harmful to both livestock and humans.

Huge losses FHB is an expensive problem for Canadian growers, resulting in $50-$300 million in losses annually, depending on disease severity. While it can reduce yields, downgrading causes the greatest financial hit. A recent Alberta government study looked at the cost of downgraded Canada Western Hard Spring wheat due to fusarium. A 0.4 per cent disease count downgrades the crop from a No. 1 to a No. 2 grade — which, depending on the price of wheat, translates into about a $52/acre loss. A further increase in FDKs can mean a downgrade to No. 3, for a $62/acre loss, or $65 if it drops to feed.

Fusarium head blight is a hard disease to tackle. Today there is no single or combination of tactics that will eliminate it.

“Growers need to use the best of every tool they have in order to get the highest level of protection against fusarium,” says Ziesman. “They should seed the most resistant varieties, use the most diverse crop rotation possible and the best timing for their fungicide application in order to best manage a disease that is very difficult to control.”

Rotation, rotation, rotation As with all diseases, the best way to reduce inoculum in or on the ground is through crop rotation. That can be a tough sell for some

Fusarium Head Blight (FHB) Disease Cycle

Courtesy Saskatchewan Agriculture

farmers — finding crops for a long, diverse rotation that will still have a solid economic payoff is difficult.

“A single-year-rotation — such as wheat/canola/wheat — is simply not enough and will exacerbate the problem in years where the crop is more susceptible due to weather conditions,” says Kelly Turkington, plant pathologist with Agriculture and AgriFood Canada in Alberta. “Producers are doing a good job of doing everything else they can to reduce the impact of the disease, but the most important thing they can do is widen their rotation.

There is no point in growing a high-yielding, relative high-value, easy-to-grow crop if at the end of the season you find out you have been downgraded several times due to FHB.” Ziesman says it’s not only the rotation, but the order of that rotation, that can influence the proliferation of the disease.

“When you are considering your rotation, choose crops that are not susceptible or less susceptible to fusarium head blight,” she says. “For example a beneficial four-year rotation could start with a cereal crop, then an oilseed, followed by a different cereal and then a pulse crop. A diverse crop rotation will have benefits across the entire rotation.”

“I think people need to start thinking of crop diversity the way they think of compound interest,” says Randy Kutcher, a plant pathologist with the University of Saskatchewan. “It’s not appealing in a single given year but if you look over the long term it can really pay off. If we were to find a way to extend rotations Continued on page 6 

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Fusarium head blight — breaking the disease triangle  Continued from page 4

for six seasons we’d have very little disease, if any. But that’s not currently realistic. But we need to find ways to increase our crop diversity as much as possible.”

Choose variety wisely Choosing a variety that has the highest level of resistance to FHB will also help reduce your risk. The challenge is that there are currently no varieties with a complete resistance package. Because of that, growers need to look at resistant varieties as a way to reduce their risk for infection, not as a source of immunity to the disease.

“We have yet to find varieties that effectively help manage FHB as the experience producers have had with stripe-resistant wheat and blackleg-resistant canola,” says Turkington. “Those varieties can largely prevent the impact of disease, whereas moderately resistant varieties against fusarium help reduce it, not eliminate it. But even that reduction is a very important tool in managing a disease that is very difficult to get on top of.”

Last year, FHB was very tough on durum, especially in Alberta.

The best durum varieties are rated as moderately susceptible.

While a few have moderate resistance, most are moderately susceptible to fusarium.

“We currently do not have any good genetic sources for resistance in durum,” says Anita Brûlé-Babel, a University of Manitoba professor of plant science who co-ordinates a large FHB screening nursery for breeders across Canada.

“Breeders are working to develop more resistant varieties through crosses with related species, but it’s a long process.

We have more resistant choices in Canada Western Red Spring wheat, we have some pretty good winter wheat varieties, but with durum we currently have no resistant varieties.”

Kutcher says there is just one relatively strong genetic source for managing fusarium.

“I understand most resistant varieties likely have included the genetic marker Fhb-1,” he says. “Wheat breeders have probably been using that gene for more than 30 years, and they haven’t been able to collect that many additional genes to provide total resistance. It takes time and this is a particularly difficult pathogen to conquer, so growers need to use the best varieties currently available, which are only moderately resistant to FHB in CWRS, in combination with other disease management strategies (diverse rotations and fungicides).”

“If you wait until you see disease, then it will be too late to reduce much of the damage with a fungicide,” says Brûlé-Babel.

“Fungicides available today are suppressive in nature, and are most effective when applied at the right time under those moist conditions. If your crop is off to a good start, and environmental conditions are favourable for disease, a fungicide application may help reduce FHB, especially in a more resistant variety.”

Little hammers Turkington adds that field location may be a consideration with the dispersal of the pathogen as most of the inoculum comes from within a field or immediately adjacent fields. “Growers may be able to reduce the amount of inoculum their crops face by avoiding planting next to fields with a significant history of FHB.” Residue management is another way to potentially reduce the risk of carryover of infested residues. Fusarium graminearum survives in old cereal and corn residues, which can take a long time to degrade. That breakdown can be sped up by leaving a finely chopped residue. Growers should chop their residue as small as possible and distribute it as widely as they can to speed decomposition, while combining this with rotations of at least two years between FHB-susceptible crops.

Even with all of these tools, Turkington doesn’t see fusarium disappearing any time soon.

“The pathogen is now too widespread, decomposition of infested residue isn’t sufficient enough with the typical rotations we see, while resistance and fungicide application only provide suppression, especially when the weather is favourable,” he says.

“Host resistance will be a long-term solution but there is more work to be done — so right now we have to do whatever we can to manage the disease to reduce downgrading and keep marketing options open.” ■

Be a weather watcher Despite the proliferation of a pathogen and the widespread seeding of a susceptible host, nothing will happen unless there is moisture during flowering. If there’s rain or high humidity at this stage, an application of a foliar fungicide can help mitigate some of the losses. To help growers decide if the conditions are favourable for disease, risk maps have been developed in some areas of the Prairies.

Both Saskatchewan and Manitoba have extensive risk maps that monitor and report weather conditions across each province so growers can assess their risk for fusarium development.

Alberta is currently developing a risk map with an anticipated summer 2017 launch date. These maps are highly local and combined with scouting can help a grower know when to spray.

6

While fusarium (left) cuts yields, the biggest financial loss is due to downgrading.

BAY E R C R O P S C I E N C E / CO U N T RY G U I D E S P EC I A L S U P P L E M E N T

Fungicides and FHB — effective in the right place, right time There’s been a bit of a shift in the rule of thumb for deciding the best time to spray | By Jennifer Barber

›

Protect the flag leaf — that’s always been the traditional message for disease control in cereal crops. But due to the current spread of fusarium head blight (FHB) across the Prairies, protecting the head and grain quality is becoming more important.

A fungicide is one part of the strategy to reduce FHB infection. If applied correctly, you can expect a 50-60 per cent suppression of the disease. But to get that performance from the fungicide, timing is everything.

“When you see fusarium on your crop, it’s too late to treat it,” says Troy Basaraba, a field marketing specialist with Bayer Canada. “If you have an awesome-looking crop with a thick canopy, and the weather is warm and humid as that crop is coming into flower, a fungicide is a great risk management insurance policy to get the most of that crop when it is most susceptible to disease.”

But when is the best time to spray?

Consider damage, not just yield Bayer’s field marketing group recently conducted 11 field-scale, replicated trials to help determine it. Fungicides were applied at early head emergence, first-flower and late-flowering times. They found that while optimal head timing — when the first anthers become visible on the head — does give the greatest yield advantage, waiting until more heads are visible can help reduce damage from the FHB. “The rule of thumb was always that ideal timing would be an application at first flower to get the best yield response,” says Basaraba. “We are finding if you push it until you see the most heads coming out of the boot, so the most tissue is available to the fungicide, you can do much better on fusarium control.”

While yield is important, fusarium-damaged kernels (FDKs) and the mycotoxin DON can have the greatest effect on profits.

A high-yielding crop with a large number of FDKs is going to be dramatically downgraded at the elevator, and depending on DON levels, will be much more difficult to market.

“Standard recommendations for fungicide application talk to growth stage — suggesting application starting when 75 per cent of the heads on the main stem are fully emerged,” says Kelly

Turkington, a plant pathologist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in Alberta. “But for a fungicide to work in this scenario, it needs to be applied directly to the head. If the fungicide is applied at that timing, then 25 per cent of the heads are still completely or partially in the boot and left unprotected. Even if you had perfect coverage of that initial 75 per cent, you can have a large percentage of your crop exposed to fusarium, resulting in FDKs and high levels of DON.”

Bump up the water Turkington agrees with waiting for as many heads as possible to become available, and then bumping up water volumes to ensure better coverage to increase the odds against the disease.

“We are finding that the more tissue available to fungicide, the better,” he says. “Current research from the U.S. is suggesting that sprays up to a week or more after first flower can be just as effective. Ensuring good head coverage is key to get the most out of your fungicide application when there is a high risk for fusarium development.”

A fungicide is also at prime effectiveness for two to three weeks following application. Given the real issue of late-season disease activity of fusarium, a later application of fungicide can also help protect the crop longer into its vulnerable period.

“A timely application of fungicide will improve your odds against the disease, but with fusarium, if you are only doing one thing at one time then you aren’t doing enough,” says Basaraba.

“Fusarium is truly a disease that requires an integrated, multifaceted approach in order to minimize the effects of the disease on yield and grain quality.”

To allow for greater application flexibility, Basaraba suggests staggering wheat planting so your wheat fields don’t all flower at the same time. The other aspect of this is that some of your crop may also flower — the key time for infection — during weather conditions that are less conducive to disease.

“To get the best control possible out of a fungicide it is all about waiting until your crop is ready,” says Basaraba. “Using the best equipment, optimal rates and water volumes will help you get the most out of your fungicide. But proper application timing is absolutely critical for the highest level of control.”

Continued on page 8 

disease & yield man agement guide

7

Fungicides and FHB — effective in the right place, right time B:11.25” T:11”

 Continued from page 8

Wheat

FUSaRIUM heaD BLIGht tIMING GUIDe although there is generally a seven day window to apply Folicur ® eW or Prosaro® for fusarium head blight (FhB) protection, data indicates that growers who apply early (between Day +1 and Day +2) will receive the greatest return on their investment (see chart below).

high risk of FhB infection if high humidity, heavy dew, rain and night temperatures above 10ºC occur between days -7 and -3.

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Make arrangements with custom applicator, or make sure your field sprayer is ready to go with correct spray nozzle setup.

at day 0, 75% of the heads on the main stem are fully emerged.

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OPtIMUM tIMe tO SPRaY FOLICUR eW OR PROSaRO.

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FUSaRIUM heaD BLIGht tIMING GUIDe although there is generally a seven day window to apply Prosaro® for fusarium head blight (FhB) protection, data indicates that growers who apply early (between Day +1 and Day +3) will receive the greatest return on their investment (see chart below).

high risk of FhB infection if conditions of high humidity, heavy dew, rain and nightly temperatures above 10°C occur between days -7 and -3. Unlike wheat, which flowers after it has completely headed, barley begins to flower in the boot. While the disease can infect the barley head prior to total head emergence, it is important to wait until most of the heads have emerged to attain maximum coverage.

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T. 1 888-283-6847 F. 1 888-570-9378 BayerCropScience.ca or contact your Bayer CropScience representative.

Always read and follow label directions. Folicur® and Prosaro® are registered trademarks of the Bayer Group. Bayer CropScience is a member of CropLife Canada.

8

C-51-03/13-BCS13059-E

BAY E R C R O P S C I E N C E / CO U N T RY G U I D E S P EC I A L S U P P L E M E N T

3-27-2013 2:19 PM CALMCL-DMX7993 Marsha Walters

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Leaf diseases and FHB — one application or two?

While leaf diseases may look bad, it can be OK to wait a bit and spray at the right time to hit fusarium | By Jennifer Barber

›

Fusarium head blight is getting lots of the attention these days, but what about leaf diseases? Should growers still try and manage foliar disease and FHB separately?

The answer is complicated.

“There are a number of common leaf diseases out there — septoria leaf blotch, tan spot and spot splotch, to rusts and bunts,” says Randy Kutcher, a plant pathologist with the University of Saskatchewan. “But from a fungicide perspective, you need to decide on the value of the potential yield loss from that leaf disease before you take away from your FHB management. For example, leaf spot diseases may be visually unappealing, but they may not have a huge impact on yield and quality compared to FHB.” Traditionally, fungicides are applied at the flag leaf stage to manage leaf disease — about one to two weeks earlier than the optimal application timing for FHB management. Fortunately, however, in most cases a delayed fungicide application to tackle both issues will reduce the yield impact of the leaf disease, while allowing for FHB suppression.

“There were times where a grower would go in with a fungicide at the flag leaf to address leaf disease and then go in again at heading for fusarium control,” says Troy Basaraba, a field marketing specialist with Bayer Canada.

“What once was a fairly common use pattern has really dropped off, as in the end we saw little economic advantage in terms of grade and yield versus just a head-only treatment. If the flag leaf looks good, it’s best to hold off and then get both leaf disease and FHB control with one fungicide shot on the head.”

Kutcher agrees that delaying the leaf disease application to manage FHB will usually pay. Kutcher was part of a research team that conducted a study at five locations in Saskatchewan and Alberta over a three-year period, to look at fungicide timing for leaf disease control. While they found that a delayed fungicide application may sacrifice a bit of leaf spot control, it didn’t have an impact on yield and often improved the kernel weight.

“The results showed that two fungicide applications were effective at reducing both leaf diseases and FHB,” says Kutcher. “However, it was not cost-effective. Under the conditions of our study there was almost never an economic advantage to those two passes.”

He says two passes might only possibly make sense in cases of early and heavy infection of leaf disease when the flag leaf ends up looking crispy by grain-filling stage, which is far too late to spray.

How bad is it?

“Scouting is also a pretty important component of managing leaf disease,” says Michael Harding, research scientist, plant pathology with Alberta Agriculture and Food. “While sometimes leaf disease may look bad, it’s only superficial. What is really of a concern are high levels of leaf disease that threaten the flag leaf or the upper canopy. Growers should ask themselves, ‘Is this risk for disease a real threat to my crop yield?’ If not, most growers can wait to address leaf disease and FHB together.”

Continued on page 14  10

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The changing landscape of canola disease The diseases that attack brassicas are showing a remarkable ability to adapt to whatever we throw at them | By Claire Stanfield

›

There was something like 20 million acres of canola grown on the Prairies last year. Anyone with a basic understanding of crop disease can see that’s one giant inoculum party, right there.

“Once any crop gets to a significant size, there are always going to be pest challenges that come along with that,” says Clint Jurke, agronomy director with the Canola Council of Canada.

Challenges, and changes. “Blackleg has changed in the last decade,” he says. “It’s capable of overcoming resistance. It’s the same with clubroot. I don’t believe they’re insurmountable problems, but it does take some strategizing.”

What kind of strategizing largely depends on the disease in question, your geography and your willingness to take tough decisions and play the long game when it comes to slowing down or breaking disease cycles altogether.

Outside of the seedling disease complex, which all canola seed treatments are designed to protect against, and which can be mitigated by seeding to ensure strong stand establishment, the most significant diseases canola growers face today are sclerotinia stem rot, blackleg and clubroot.

Here’s the state of play for each, and what you can do to protect your crops.

Clubroot marches on

Clubroot and blackleg may be getting the headlines, but sclerotinia remains the big yield-robber.

12

“Clubroot is continuing its advance,” says Stephen Strelkov, a professor in the agricultural life and environmental sciences faculty at the University of Alberta.

Indeed, from its first discovery near Edmonton in 2003, clubroot can now be found in that province from Yellowhead County, next to the Rockies, to Bonnyville on the Saskatchewan border. In Saskatchewan, crop symptoms have been found in north- and west-central regions. In Manitoba, clubroot symptoms have been observed in canola crops in five RMs, spores found in high enough concentrations to cause infection in another eight RMs, and in low concentrations that bear watching in nearly 40 more.

Not bad for a slow-moving, soil-borne water mould.

“It’s moved faster than we anticipated,” says Strelkov, adding that there were 2,443 confirmed infestations in Alberta alone in 2016, compared to only 12 in 2003.

Of course the trouble with clubroot is that, once established, it’s there to stay with no chemical controls. And it can hit hard: as a rule of thumb, the percentage yield loss from clubroot is about half the percentage of infected plants. So a 20 per cent infection would mean a 10 per cent yield loss.

Choosing resistant varieties is the first line of defence, but be aware of the limitations of this strategy. “Initially, we had one major pathotype here and breeders put a lot of effort into that,”

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says Strelkov. “But we’re finding new strains, new pathotypes in fields, and that resistance is being overcome.”

The good news is that resistance will never go away entirely, but an R rating today can easily slip to S over time and that’s what plant breeders are trying to address. But it’s not easy and it won’t be fast. “Of the new strains, there are 13 different variants and no easy way to identify and classify new pathotypes,” says Strelkov. “So it’s becoming a much more complex situation than it was even three years ago.”

Yes, cleaning equipment between fields is a pain, especially during busy seasons, but think about this: one gram of soil can contain a million clubroot spores, and one piece of field machinery can carry about 200 pounds of dirt out of a field.

“Even taking off just the big chunks of soil can help reduce risk,” says Strelkov. And if you know you have a clubroot field, try to work it last.

Blackleg resistance labelling?

Forewarned is forearmed If you farm in an area where clubroot is low, start to include resistant varieties regularly in your rotation to slow the disease down. It’s a wet-season pest, so actively scout for it in wet years to get a clear handle on whether you’ve got it, what the spore load is, and if you need to step up your game.

If you farm in known clubroot areas, even heavily infested ones, resistant varieties are a must, but you also need to do more.

“If you see those distinctive clubroot patches, try to grass it over or use soil fumigants,” suggests Strelkov. “Neither compare to the ease of using resistant varieties, but they can be effective.”

Equipment sanitation between fields can minimize pathogen spread two ways: from bringing disease from infested fields to clean ones, and from bringing a new pathotype into a field where another one already exists.

“The diversity of blackleg resistance is changing,” says Clint Jurke.

“In the late 1990s, early 2000s, we had two pathogenicity groups, PG2 and PG3, of blackleg here. Today, Canada is recognized around the world as having the most diverse blackleg pathogen.”

Luckily, our short growing season means damage is more limited than it is in a place like Australia, where managing this disease through resistance genetics is getting trickier all the time. There, resistance ratings for blackleg include the specific resistance grouping so growers can select a canola variety that has a different type of blackleg resistance than what was used last in a given field.

Jurke says the increasing diversity of blackleg in Canada has prompted an industry-wide effort to develop something similar here. “We’re right on the verge of bringing in a new blackleg resistance labelling system,” he says.

Part of that effort is developing better methods for Continued on page 14 

In Manitoba, clubroot symptoms have been observed in canola crops in five RMs, spores found in high enough concentrations to cause infection in another eight RMs, and in low concentrations that bear watching in nearly 40 more.

There were 2,443 confirmed infestations in Alberta in 2016, compared to only 12 in 2003.

disease & yield man agement guide

13

The changing landscape of canola disease

Leaf diseases and FHB — one application or two?

 Continued from page 13

 Continued from page 10

identifying the specific avirulence genes in the blackleg pathogen that are in a given field. Jurke envisions the day when growers can submit canola residue for testing, find out exactly what they’re dealing with, and select a variety with the right resistance for that field.

Until then, the best way to manage blackleg is the least favoured — rotations. “Moving a field out of canola for two or three years will totally get rid of it,” he says, adding that you’d have to have almost epidemic proportions to warrant taking a field out of canola for that long.

If the idea of a three- or four-year rotation just doesn’t sit well, be prepared to pay. “If you’re in a two-year rotation, that’s high risk,” says Jurke. “So if you’re going to do it, then don’t cut corners anywhere else — not on seeding rate, not on weed and disease control. Know you’re going to invest in inputs and management.”

Finally, think about variety rotations — switch it up every year to keep blackleg on its toes. “That’s the secret to success,” says Jurke. “You have to have diversity in the field.”

If a grower does choose to address leaf disease with an early fungicide application, the key is to be careful with the choice of chemistry. Strobilurins are used for effective control of leaf disease. A growing body of research has shown that if a strobilurin is applied at head timing, it actually has the potential to increase levels of DON. For leaf disease control, and to avoid this pitfall, strobilurin-containing fungicides should be applied at early flag only.

“Our recent results indicate that for the best control of leaf spot diseases and stripe rust in central Saskatchewan, the ideal timing is actually around anthesis, which is similar to the currently recommended FHB timing,” says Kutcher.

“If you seed at a typical May seeding date, most of the time our results indicate you can fairly effectively manage leaf spot diseases, stripe rust and FHB with fungicide application at early-flowering stage. If you are able to get your crop in earlier, such as in southern Alberta for example, you may see signs of stripe rust early in the season. In that case, if stripe rust is expected to be severe, it may be prudent to apply fungicide earlier than anthesis and apply a second application at anthesis to manage FHB. But, if a grower plans to hit two birds with one stone — they have to make sure they are using the right stone.”

Managing without a fungicide

“We’ve invested so heavily in blackleg and clubroot research in the last few years, but sclerotinia stem rot is still the one that takes the most yield, year after year,” says Jurke.

A fungicide spray between 20 per cent and 50 per cent bloom is still the best solution for sclerotinia. While the economics of preventative spraying can be tough, the massive canola acreage means inoculum is everywhere, so you need to be vigilant and ready to act.

“Crop rotations have barely any impact on sclerotinia,” says Jurke. “This is essentially a weather-dependent disease — the wetter it is, the greater the disease. Even growers who are on very long rotations are still at risk for sclerotinia in wet years.

“We need genetic tools to determine if the pathogen is actually in the field, and we need to come up with better forecasting for outbreaks.”

“When assessing your risk for leaf disease, you need to factor in several things,” says Harding. “You need to look at your crop history, the field history and the crop rotation. For example, if on a single field you had peas, then wheat, then canola — you’ll have a lower risk for inoculum in the soil. If you had canola, peas, wheat and another cereal, then you have a higher risk. As with all crop disease — rotation is critical.”

Disease will live in the crop residue, so the stubble of the preceding crop will have an impact on what you can expect the following year.

“Because we grow so much wheat, no crop is ever very far from a wheat field,” says Harding. “So even if you escape the inoculum in your stubble, it can still be blown in from a neighbouring field.”

The good news is that most often, varietal resistance is the first line of defence against leaf disease. There are many high-performing varieties that convey high levels of resistance so that the risk of leaf disease can be greatly reduced, if not eliminated.

Fertilizer is also an important way to reduce disease risk. Excessive nitrogen can result in a lush, dense plant stand that can encourage leaf disease if the weather conditions are wet or humid.

Good advice never gets old

Keeping fungicide for the long term

Genetic resistance is great, and it works. Until it doesn’t.

Strelkov and Jurke are both pretty excited about the resistance work being done now with blackleg and clubroot.

Jurke says that Ag Canada is working hard to find resistance genes for sclerotinia and that’s only a few years out.

“I’m optimistic,” he says. “The research going into these diseases is such high quality, and new genetic tools that are coming are going to be great.”

But genetic resistance can’t become a crutch because disease will always defeat it — it’s the nature of the beast.

Thorough scouting, proper disease identification, seeding practices that lead to strong establishment and, yes, rotations are still important. These are effective tools in the disease management toolbox and they shouldn’t be ignored because something new and shiny has come along.

As Jurke says, the challenges aren’t insurmountable, but you need a strategy, and you need to use all your tools if you’re going to be successful. ■

With very few products effective on both leaf diseases and FHB, the concern becomes annual applications of the same chemistry and the very real risk of losing that chemistry to resistance. Fortunately, fusarium is a low-risk pathogen for the development of resistance.

“Fusarium infecting the wheat head cycles once a year and the triazole fungicides used to combat FHB have been classified as a medium-risk fungicide group,” says Basaraba. “However, in Canada, with our single growing season and long winters, it would be very difficult for fungicide resistance to develop. But we still need to be cognizant of the potential for resistance development.”

“So far it has not been an issue, but we are aware of it,” says Harding. “The key thing to keep this chemistry working is to use it at recommended rates so the disease has little opportunity to survive the application and select for resistance.”

Kutcher says that being cognizant of all the diseases in your wheat crop will help you develop an integrated pest management plan that takes into account fungicide chemistry, disease development and application timing.

“You want disease control that is cost-effective, that will maintain your yield and your crop quality,” he says. “For the best control of leaf disease, along with mitigation of FHB, a single well-timed fungicide application will usually do the trick.” ■

Sclerotinia still rules

14

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PG. 40 T oo many farmers are spending too many dollars on wild oat control, and they’re still losing too much crop yield. Now, weed scientists say, it’s time give integrated weed management a chance.

Step one: Identify the enemy Step two: Identify the best means to combat it.

Here are some ways to help determine the treatments for weeds, insects and diseases

By John Morriss / CG Production editor

I

s that cow cockle or cocklebur? It’s easy to tell when it’s grown so much that it’s already cost you yield, but not so easy when it’s first popping out of the ground.

And once you know for sure, what are your control options?

Insect control is even trickier. Is that critter eating my crop, or is it eating the ones that are?

The answers are out there, but how quickly you find them depends on how much time and money you’d like to spend. Here’s some of your print, online and app options.

Provincial Guides to Crop Protection The provincial Guides to Crop Protection are the “bibles” for best practices in managing weeds, diseases and insects, and for choosing the control products that are registered in each province.

Alberta’s guide, often referred to as “The Blue Book,” focuses mainly on protection products and uses. The Manitoba and Saskatchewan guides also contain extensive sections on agronomic practices such as integrated weed management, assessing the need to spray, rotating products to avoid resistance and product use safety.

The PDF versions are available for free download on the provincial agriculture department websites. Saskatchewan and Manitoba’s are available in separate sections on weed, insects and diseases. Print versions of Manitoba’s ($9.82) and Alberta’s ($12) are also available by mail or at department offices.

• Agronomic and product use information — yes • Registered product selection and tank mixes — yes • Weed, insect and disease ID — no • Cost — PDF free, fee for print in Alberta and Manitoba Continued on page 36

COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA / MARCH 1, 2017

35

crops Guide Manitoba Agriculture — weeds Manitoba Agriculture maintains a website with an extensive list of weeds, including photographs at various growth stages. It recommends general control and prevention practices, including the best herbicide groups.

• Agronomic and product use information — yes • Registered product selection and tank mixes — herbicide groups only • Weed ID — yes • Cost — free at www.gov.mb.ca/agriculture/crops/ weeds/

Manitoba Agriculture — insects Manitoba Agriculture also maintains a website with an extensive list of insects in field and horticultural crops, with detailed descriptions of their behaviour, economic thresholds and general control methods.

• Agronomic and product use information — yes • Registered product selection — yes, general • Insect ID — yes • Cost — free at www.gov.mb.ca/agriculture/crops/ insects/

Monsanto’s Weed ID App Monsanto has developed a smartphone app that allows you to identify from a list of 48 weeds, with updates expected. You can select characteristics of the leaf, stem, flower and root, and the app provides a photo and a description of the weed. The app also has a mapping feature — you can identify the locations of weeds in your fields and save the information in your database.

• Agronomic and product use information — no • Registered product selection and tank mixes — no • Weed ID — yes • Cost — free download at iPhone and Android app stores Alberta Invasive Species Council The Alberta Invasive Species Council’s website has information on species of plants, animals and fish in the province. It identifies weeds listed as “Prohibited Noxious” and “Noxious” and regulated under the Alberta Weed Control Act. There are photos and descriptions of each along with general recommendations on prevention and management, but not specific chemical control.

• Agronomic and product use information — no • Registered product selection and tank mixes — no • Weed ID — yes • Cost — free at www.abinvasives.ca 36

MARCH 1, 2017 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

XID Services U.S.-based XID Services offers a weed identification guide with more the 6,200 photos plus line drawings of 1,225 weed species of the U.S. and Canada. It is available on DVD or a flash drive which works on Windows computers only. XID says the guide is the largest reference available for North America, and has a fully illustrated glossary of botanical terminology, county level distribution maps and page references to over 50 of the most commonly used weed reference books.

• Agronomic and product use information — no • Registered product selection and tank mixes — no • Weed ID — yes • Cost — US$49.95 plus $5 shipping from weed-id.com Continued on page 38

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crops Guide Savvy Farmer Savvy Farmer is an online data warehouse which maintains data on 1,900 registered agrochemical products (including generics and co-packs), 450 active ingredients, 900 crops, 1,400 pests, 30 application methods plus label rates and chemical groups, giving a total of more than five million treatment options. The data is updated frequently.

Savvy Farmer allows you to enter the weed, insect or disease to be controlled, and receive a recommendation including all registered products including generics, as well as tank mixes.

Savvy Farmer offers a free version called “Savvy Search” which allows you to enter the pest to be controlled and receive a list of all registered control solutions including labels and MSDS. There is also a paid upgrade data service which allows access to more detailed information such as tank-mix treatments, generics finder, application methods, rates, PHI, active ingredients, formulation, residual activity, toxicity, modes of action, and over 2,000 pest identification photos.

Savvy Farmer will soon be launching its weed identification app called “Savvy Weed-ID.” This app

Dow AgroSciences DowAgroSciences has a website with photos of Prairie crop and pasture weeds, with brief comments on growth habits and control.

• Agronomic and product use information — yes, brief • Registered product selection — Dow products only • Weed ID — yes • Cost — free at www.dowagro.com/en-ca/canada/weedid-guide/all-weeds

38

MARCH 1, 2017 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

allows you to quickly identify over 350 weeds, and also provides registered treatment options to control the weed.

• Agronomic and product use information — yes • Registered product selection — yes • Weed and insect ID — yes • Cost — Savvy Search version — free. Data services prices vary based on the type of data requested. Contact Savvy Farmer at contact@savvyfarmer.com. More details at www.savvyfarmer.com.

AgChemExpert AgChemExpert is an online service with a continually updated database of all registered agrochemicals in Canada, including all label and tank mix information.

Dropdown menus allow you to enter the crop plus the weed, pest or disease to be controlled and receive a recommendation on the possible control options, including all products.

The base version comes with CropWizard, which includes product-selection tools, resources and additional support features. The standard package adds pest information, ACE Tips for product use and optimization, a crop scouting form and other tools.

AgChemExpert also contains a section by spraying expert Tom Wolf, with articles and videos on sprayer technology and operation.

AgChemExpert is available through Univar’s CropWeb network.

• Agronomic and product use information — yes • Registered product selection — yes • Weed and insect ID — pending • Cost — Base version $499.99 per year, standard version $699.99 www.cropweb.com/agchemexpert CG

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know are coming. Young wheat gets an important head start. And you get higher yields. Ask your retailer about EVEREST 2.0. A herbicide you can count on.

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crops Guide

The more you spend, the less they work If you want to keep using herbicides, give them an occasional rest and try a winter cereal or a heavier seeding rate Julienne Isaacs

N

eil Harker says that when you no longer have the big hammers in the tool box, it’s time to use the little ones.

For the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) weed scientist, wild oat herbicides are the big hammers, and the little ones are integrated weed management practices.

Harker says that although western Canadian producers spend more herbicide dollars on wild oats than any other weed, those herbicides are becoming less and less effective. Due to so much selection pressure, resistance to Group 1 and Group 2 herbicides is on a steep rise.

“I see resistance happening where producers are using these groups over and over again. There are farms in southern Alberta where we have resistance to Group 1 and Group 2 herbicides, as well as some Group 8 herbicides,” says Harker.

Wild oat is a difficult weed to manage at the best of times. The summer annual spreads by seed, but has variable germination and lies dormant for three to four years, or in special circumstances up to 10 years.

In less competitive crops like flax or field peas, wild oat can gain a swift foothold, but even in more competitive crops like barley or canola, producers can see a yield loss of 20 to 30 per cent, says Harker.

We’ve talked about integrated weed management for decades and the message is the same, but it’s the only solution to managing weeds.

It’s repeated often but it can’t be emphasized often enough.”

Hugh Beckie, AAFC

40

MARCH 1, 2017 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

Try winter wheat Harker recently published results from a four-year directseeding study looking at the impacts of crop life cycle, crop species, crop seeding rate, crop usage and herbicide combination on wild oat management and canola yield.

The study, which ran from 2010 to 2014 on eight sites across Canada, found that integrated management systems that combine a variety of cultural practices against weeds and limit herbicide use prolong the life of the herbicides.

“We wanted to see if some of these other methods could be as good as using 100 per cent wild oat herbicide in canola-wheat-canola-wheat rotations,” says Harker. “We found that in terms of wild oat emergence, biomass, canola yield and wild oat seed numbers in the seed bank, some of those treatments were just as effective as herbicides.”

For example, putting winter wheat in the rotation so that it gets ahead of wild oat in the spring means that for “a whole year you don’t need a wild oat herbicide,” says Harker.

The researchers also found that doubling seeding rates for crops like wheat, rye, triticale or barley can be extremely effective against wild oat — especially when used in combination with a winter cereal.

Harker also cites a research study that suggests Group 1 and Group 2 herbicides are good for at least 10 years of applications, meaning that after 10 years producers will start to see some resistance developing.

Herbicides like glyphosate can go for about 20 years before resistance starts developing, but selection pressure increases with the number of acres receiving the herbicide.

Hugh Beckie, an AAFC research scientist and specialist in herbicide resistance, says most western Canadian growers currently have wild oat resistance to Group 1 and Group 2 herbicides.

There is still no documented wild oat resistance to glyphosate, but Beckie believes Canada is at risk for resistance developing in a variety of weeds including green foxtail, cleavers and wild oat.

For several years, Beckie has done risk assessments for herbicide-resistant weeds in tandem with weed sur-

WEED MANAGement

veys in Prairie provinces, comparing management practices in producers’ fields with and without resistance.

“Those with good rotations had better resistance.

Other practices like weed sanitation, mowing uncontrolled weed patches and cleaning equipment meant a lower probability of resistance,” says Beckie.

Modes of action Currently, mixing modes of action is the most common advice producers hear when it comes to managing weed resistance.

Mixing modes of action means slowing resistance, says Harker, but eventually this practice will select for multiple resistance. In other words, it’s a short-term solution that could seriously downgrade land quality.

Beckie says use of a burndown product like glyphosate, or residual products like Avadex or trifluralin (both Group 8) can help reduce the weed population pre-plant.

But the only lasting solution for wild oat control lies in the use of integrated weed management practices.

“We’ve talked about integrated weed management for decades and the message is the same, but it’s the only

Mowing that patch before it went to seed might have been a better strategy that using an ineffective herbicide.

Photo: Manitoba Agriculture

solution to managing weeds. It’s repeated often but it can’t be emphasized often enough,” he says.

“Producers realize that it’s important, but because of time pressures, they tend to rely on herbicides — the big hammer. We just keep telling them, use best management practices as consistently and frequently as possible.” CG

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COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA / MARCH 1, 2017

41

Crops GUIDE weather NEAR NORMAL

MILDER THAN NORMAL

**

**

NEAR-NORMAL TEMPERATURES AND PRECIPITATION

Occ asi snowonal

**

sno Cold wy M ar

MILDER THAN NORMAL AVERAGE PRECIPITATION

er Mild ery w sho pril A

British Columbia

NEAR- TO BELOW-NORMAL TEMPERATURES NEAR- TO ABOVE-NORMAL PRECIPITATION

ild lls M spe l t pri we A

March 19 to April 29,

• Mar. 19-25: Fair overall apart from scattered coastal rain and periodic snow or rain elsewhere. Seasonable to cool.

• Mar. 26-Apr. 1: Milder with highs in the double digits at many locations. Fair but intermittent rain west, snow and rain inland.

• Apr. 2-8: Sunny and highs in the teens most days but a couple of cooler, windy days bring rain, changing to snow at higher elevations.

• Apr. 9-15: Cool and mild air masses collide and bring variable weather from sunny and mild to cooler and wet conditions. Blustery.

• Apr. 16-22: Mainly sunny and pleasant apart from scattered rain on two to three days. Gusty winds.

Frost patches higher levels.

• Apr. 23-29: Seasonable to milder. Brisk winds. Sunshine exchanges with showers. Occasional rain or snow higher elevations.

Alberta

• Mar. 19-25: Cool but with periods of milder, thawing conditions. Mainly sunny apart from rain or heavier snow on a couple of days.

• Mar. 26-Apr. 1: Changeable. Brisk winds cause thawing and freezing. Sunny skies interchange with heavier snow or rain.

• Apr. 2-8: Cool, wet, windy days are offset by sunny, mild days and highs in double digits. Chance of heavier snow in places.

• Apr. 9-15: Weather disturbances bring a few unsettled, snowy or rainy days. Variable temperatures from mild to cool.

• Apr. 16-22: Generally pleasant with milder temperatures. A couple of cooler, windy days bring rain and some snow and frost.

• Apr. 23-29: Changeable and windy as mild sunny days alternate with rain. Chance of heavier snow/ frost mainly central and north.

42

Saskatchewan

e abl e g n ow Cha vy sn mes hean at ti r ai

MARCH 1, 2017 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

National 2017 highlights

• Mar. 19-25: Clashing winds bring mild and cold days and variable conditions. Sunny but heavier snow or rain on two or three days.

• Mar. 26-Apr. 1: Cool but a couple of milder days send highs into double digits. Blustery. Fair but heavier rain or snow in many places.

• Apr. 2-8: Changeable with temperatures fluctuating from cold to mild. Sunny skies interchange with rain.

Chance of snow. Brisk winds.

• Apr. 9-15: Mild on several days but cooler blustery winds bring some rain. Risk of snow and frost on one or two nights. Windy at times.

• Apr. 16-22: Sunny on many days apart from scattered shower activity. Blustery. Chance of snow mostly central and north.

• Apr. 23-29: Changeable with gusty, shifting winds.

Seasonable to mild with rain on a couple of days.

Patchy snow and frost.

Manitoba

M sn ild ra ow in

ch

• Mar. 19-25: Changeable conditions as cold days interchange with milder ones. Occasional snow mixed with rain south. Blustery.

• Mar 26-Apr. 1: Sunny aside from a couple of unsettled days with rain or snow, heavy in places. Windy. Cooler, snowy north.

• Apr. 2-8: Fluctuating weather brings rain or snow on two to three days this week. On sunny days highs are seasonable to milder. Windy.

• Apr. 9-15: Mild on several days but cooler northwesterly winds bring some snow or rain on a couple of occasions. Snowy, cooler north.

• Apr. 16-22: Warmer and often pleasant days are interrupted by a couple of cooler, wet days and gusty winds. Chance snow and frost.

• Apr. 23-29: Changeable as sunny mild days alternate with cooler, blustery ones and rain. Chance snow and frost.

March 19 to April 29, 2017 A cool weather pattern is expected to delay the arrival of spring in many parts of Western and Central Canada.

As a result, March will see several cool spells along with several episodes of heavier snow or rain from British Columbia eastward across the Prairies and into Ontario and Quebec. A milder and somewhat drier circulation is likely to return to these provinces in April due, in part, to a weakening La Niña. These changeable conditions will lead to highly variable temperatures and weather situations through the forecast period.

Meantime, in Atlantic Canada, a southerly circulation at high levels should translate into relatively mild but often unsettled, wet conditions across eastern portions of the country.

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 month-long Country Guide weather forecast during the winter months when we’re publishing every two weeks.

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C-52-01/17-10707122-E

BUSINESS

Trumping it out Will a protectionist administration in the White House force our ag equipment industry to move south?

By Scott Garvey / CG Machinery Editor

I

t was a stunning move. Ford’s CEO and president Mark Fields appeared on CNN in January to announce that his company was scrubbing its long-planned construction of a US$1.6 billion assembly plant in Mexico.

Instead, Ford will invest U.S.$700 million in a Michigan facility and boost its workforce in that state by 700.

It looked very much like Ford had succumbed to pressure from incoming U.S. president Donald Trump, who has been threatening U.S. companies that move production outside that country. Any goods that they tried to import back into the U.S. from those plants, Trump said, would get slapped with a 35 per cent tariff.

Trump had also issued a stream of tweets criticizing Ford (sometimes falsely) over its international supply chain and production.

What made the Ford announcement so surprising was that there wasn’t any real substance to the threats.

There was no firm government policy in place to prevent Ford from building the Mexican plant to take advantage of lower manufacturing costs. And there were no clear policies to entice them to stay.

“It’s literally a vote of confidence in the pro-growth policies he (Trump) has been outlining,” Fields said during the televised interview, although he couldn’t point to any specific one when pressed.

On the same day as the Ford announcement, General Motors took the unusual step of sending out a threesentence press release to explain its Mexican production. That was in direct response to being mentioned in another loosely accurate Trump tweet that vilified it for building one model of Chevy Cruze in that country.

“General Motors manufactures the Chevrolet Cruze sedan in Lordstown, Ohio,” reads the release. “All Chevrolet Cruze sedans sold in the U.S. are built in GM’s assembly plant in Lordstown, Ohio. GM builds the Chevrolet Cruze hatchback for global markets in Mexico, with a small number sold in the U.S.” So far, most of what we know about Trump’s policy

44

MARCH 1, 2017 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

Peter Clarke is president and CEO of Seed Hawk.

Photo: Seed Hawk

intentions comes in the form of short statements via similar Twitter storms. He has refused to pay much attention to the mainstream media, avoiding them in a manner reminiscent of Stephen Harper’s last administration here. Clearly, though, CEOs of U.S. auto manufacturers are already feeling the pressure.

The auto industry isn’t all that different from ag equipment. All the major ag machinery brands build equipment outside of the U.S., and at least some of the equipment ends up for sale in North America. For

Dealers look over new combines during a product launch in the U.S. Will Trump’s trade policies force them to charge farmers even more for new equipment?

Photo: Scott Garvey

President and CEO of Ford appeared on CNN to announce Ford will scrap plans to build a plant in Mexico and instead move the investment to Michigan.

Photo: Ford

example, AGCO’s new Global Series utility tractors are built in China. Their Fendt brand tractors are assembled in Marktoberdorf, Germany. John Deere builds some utility tractors and components in Mexico. And the list goes on.

And much of the production from Canadian shortline manufacturers heads south. How might a protectionist stance in the U.S. affect Canadian brands? So far, no one can really be sure. There seems little that the Canadian firms can do but watch and wait.

“I’m actually quite surprised Ford made that stance already with-

out the administration in place,” says Peter Clarke, president and CEO of Saskatchewan-based Seed Hawk, a seeding equipment manufacturer and division of Swedish-owned Väderstad. “There’s a lot of rhetoric going around, so it’s really early to tell what the administration is going to do. I think we wait to see the administration in place.”

In a statement in its official “Industry Advisor” newsletter published in early January, the U.S.-based Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) echoed that sentiment. “The first few months of the new administration should yield significantly more insight as to what a Trump presidency will mean for manufacturing, agriculture and the entire economy,” it reads.

Early on, Trump’s campaign team downplayed fears his antiNAFTA stance could hurt Canada by implying any threats were really just aimed at Mexico. Now, however, there’s no sign of any special treatment in store for Canadian manufacturers.

The Globe and Mail reported that in a conference call with reporters, Trump’s White House press secretary, Sean Spicer said: “(Donald Trump’s) commitment is to the American worker, and to American jobs, and to American industry, and American manufacturing.”

According to the Globe, Spicer went on to say: “He’s been very clear throughout the campaign that his goal is to put America first, to restore America’s manufacturing base, and so it’s not a question of a particular country vis-a-vis the United States. It’s a question of where America’s place is going to be and where American workers are going to be in his agenda. And that’s first and foremost.”

That makes it clear that if Ford had been planning a facility in Canada instead of Mexico, the end result would probably have been the same.

If the Trump administration does go forward to implement a 35 per cent duty on U.S.-based brands that import production for sale in the U.S., what immediately comes to mind is CNH Industrial’s air drill manufacturing facility in Saskatoon, Sask. It builds all the Case IH and New Holland brand air seeders for the North American market.

Will CNH be taxed into relocating that facility?

So far it’s unclear under exactly what conditions such a duty might apply, and there is the long-standing bilateral free trade agreement in ag equipment that ensures Canadian-built equipment can flow south without any impediment, although Ford for one doesn’t appear to believe that NAFTA, which allows automakers to build some components and vehicles in all three North American countries, will be sufficient to protect it under a new U.S. administration.

Can Canadian machinery brand executives, then, depend on the trade agreement that protects their firms? And what happens to their equipment exports if the U.S. imposes a broad range of new tariff barriers?

“From an ag perspective, much more equipment moves northbound than southbound,” notes Clarke. “So I wouldn’t expect too much impact on Canadian manufacturers, particularly shortliners anyway.”

“The markets we sell into — Seed Hawk and probably the others across Western Canada — are niche providers of products, so in Continued on page 46

COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA / MARCH 1, 2017

45

BUSINESS

spite of any tariff decisions, which I think are unlikely, the product would continue to sell.”

And the value of the U.S. dollar has been on an upward march ever since Trump’s election in November. Some economists have pointed out that this could complicate his efforts to reinvigorate American manufacturing, since a high greenback makes U.S.-made goods more expensive in export markets.

That is a problem that U.S.-built ag and construction machinery already faces in spades. Conversely, the exchange rate gives

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

1

Canadian brands a cushion to soften the impact of any potential new duties.

“We’re sheltered a bit in terms of our action — or reaction — because of the strong exchange rate,” Clarke says. “It’s very favourable to southbound trade. If we were sitting at a level dollar, we might be thinking differently. But the gap is considerable.

It’s influential in terms of our sales into the U.S. and I don’t expect that to change too swiftly in the future.”

The reality is that U.S. ag machinery

brands might need to be more worried about Canadian retaliatory tariffs.

“Big manufacturers like Case IH and John Deere have been hit hard already with foreign exchange rates,” Clarke notes. “I’d be more concerned about any reactionary response from the Canadian government for trade going northbound that would impact them.”

Despite all this uncertainty, markets have responded very positively with significant gains on stock exchanges, including Ford shares which rocketed up over 3.5 per cent

the same day it announced the Mexican investment reversal.

“That (market uncertainty) was accounted for in the runup to the election,” believes Clarke. “There was some instability then.

From a U.S. (investor’s) perspective we have a president whose behaviour we may not like, but he’s going to take the country in a direction we like. There’s some stability in that.

I’m not surprised markets have been fairly stable through the last couple of weeks.”

While rhetoric still dominates discussion

around trade and commerce with the U.S. in the near term, it seems more than likely there will be at least some changes to the status quo.

Could a move toward protectionism inside the White House fundamentally change the pattern of global trade, especially given that the U.S. remains one of the largest consumer markets in the western world?

And, by abandoning pending deals like the TPP, and if it redraws existing deals like NAFTA, would such U.S. moves put an end to the globalization trend, or at least stall it?

“Definitely, it would,” says Clarke. “That’s going backwards in time in terms of policy and thinking. I think Mexico is going to take a harder hit than Canada will in the short term. But he (Trump) might be just as handtied as any other president would be.”

In the end, how would protectionist U.S. trade policy affect thinking in the boardrooms of Canadian ag equipment manufacturers?

Says Clarke: “It would change the dynamic of decision-making going forward.” CG

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BUSINESS

Goodbye glyphosate?

A flood of cancer suits in the U.S. threatens to topple farmers’ most valuable herbicide

L

ast September I warned readers of a growing public backlash against glyphosate herbicide, and I wrote of the co-ordinated attack on glyphosate by Avaaz, an online activist community that is claiming credit for the refusal by European regulators to renew the licence for glyphosate, instead only granting an 18-month extension to the expiring licence.

But now glyphosate is facing an even greater threat, this time coming at the hands of U.S. personal injury lawyers. These law firms are seeking to represent persons who have used or been exposed to Roundup herbicide and have since developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma or other types of cancers.

The crux of these cases is stated in the U. S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation filing: “Roundup, a widely used glyphosate-based herbicide manufactured

by Monsanto Company, can cause non-Hodgkin lymphoma and that Monsanto failed to warn consumers and regulators about the alleged risks of Roundup.”

Plaintiffs are coming forward from across the U.S. claiming their cancers were caused by their exposure to Roundup. Some of the plaintiffs are field crop farmers such as Larry Domina and Robert Dickey of Cedar County, Nebraska, and Royce Janzen of York County, Nebraska. All three regularly used Roundup in their corn and soybean operations and all have developed nonHodgkin lymphoma.

A fourth Nebraskan, Dodge County agronomist Frank Pollard is also named in the May 16, 2016 lawsuit. In his work as an agronomist, he was exposed to Roundup in storage, in the mixing for application, and in fields after application.

Plaintiff Lynda K. Patterson of Illinois attributes her stage-4 cancer diagnosed in 2014 to the use of Roundup in her garden and landscaping over more than a decade.

Jack McCall’s widow has also launched a wrongful death lawsuit against Monsanto. McCall had used Roundup for 30 years on his 20-acre fruit and vegetable farm near Cambria, California. He died in December of 2015 from a rare form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

In the McCall lawsuit, a claim is even made for the death of the family dog which had died a few years earlier from lymphoma.

48

MARCH 1, 2017 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

By Gerald Pilger

The lawyers The McCall case is being handled by Baum Hedlund Aristei & Goldman, a consumer law practice out of Los Angeles. In a November 2016 interview, Robin McCall, the firm’s director of public relations and marketing stated, “So far, we represent about 140 people since we started accepting cases in February of 2016. We expect to represent at least 500 people in this litigation and continue to get new cases every week.”

When I attempted to contact McCall in early February, Baum Hedlund Aristei & Goldman attorney Brent Wisner provided the following information: “We presently have around 200 clients and we are reviewing many more each day.

“I know that, among the various firms litigating these cases, at least 3,000 people have retained counsel. Not all of those cases are filed, but at some point, whether in state or federal court, the cases will be filed.”

The email continued: “Over 130 Roundup cases have been filed across the nation in both state and federal courts. In October 2016 the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) decided that all of the Roundup cases filed in federal courts would be centralized under one judge for purposes of the determining liability against Monsanto.

So far at least 49 cases have been transferred or are in the process of being transferred to U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria of the Northern District of California in San Francisco. The MDL is officially named In Re: Roundup Products Liability Litigation, 16-MD-2741.

“The litigation is proceeding ahead aggressively. To date Monsanto has produced several millions of pages of documents, and depositions of Monsanto employees are being conducted at a fairly quick pace. The Court decided to bifurcate discovery on the issue of general causation. That means the first phase of discovery is focusing on whether Roundup exposure causes nonHodgkin lymphoma. So, for now, there is a massive effort underway by numerous law firms to review the documents, take depositions, and prepare our experts on the issue of general causation. Once that is comContinued on page 50

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BUSINESS

pleted, we will turn to the issues of specific causation, and our clients will have a chance to tell Monsanto how this product has fundamentally changed their lives.”

In late February, the two sides also appeared in federal court in San Francisco to provide expert testimony on how to evaluate the scientific information that will be at the core of the case.

Make no mistake, these are not nuisance lawsuits by small, fly-by-night law firms. Domina Law Group represented the Nebraskan landowners against the Keystone XL pipeline,and it won a $1.26 billion verdict for cattle ranchers against Tyson Fresh Meats (later overturned in appeals court). Domina Law is representing corn growers in lawsuits against Syngenta over the five-year Chinese ban of U.S. corn due to the contamination of corn shipments with a Syngenta variety not approved for sale.

Domina Law has partnered with Weitz & Luxenberg of New York in the Roundup suits. “Weitz & Luxenberg is the leader in asbestos and mesothelioma litigation with $8.5 billion in asbestos verdicts and settlements in 36,000 cases,” according to the firm’s website.

In September and October of 2015, Weitz & Luxenberg had already begun initiating personal injury lawsuits over Roundup in California and Delaware, and the firm has since filed cases in other states and federally.

Weitz & Luxenberg’s website also states: “Monsanto, however, fails to disclose that use of and/or exposure to Roundup can cause serious health consequences.”

The website goes on to invite cancer victims who have had exposure to Roundup to contact the firm.

“If you have been exposed to glyphosate, Roundup or both, and have developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma or another type of blood cancer, you may be entitled to compensation from the product’s manufacturer.

Further, if a member of your family died because of Roundup or other glyphosate-containing products, there might also be compensation for loss of consortium and wrongful death.”

The Schmidt Firm, PLLC is another national plaintiff law firm actively recruiting clients for their action against Monsanto. Their website states: “The Schmidt Firm, PLLC is currently accepting Roundup-induced injury cases in all 50 states. If you or somebody you know was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, you should contact our lawyers immediately for a free case consultation.”

The WHO Ruling The common link among all of these cases, and all of the law firms, is the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classification in March 2015 that Roundup is probably a carcinogen (class 2A).

In fact, Domina Law Group even stresses on their website that if you have been diagnosed with cancer and believe Roundup is the cause, you should act immediately because: “Your time to recover from 50

MARCH 1, 2017 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

your non-Hodgkin lymphoma may almost be up — you must act now! The WHO (World Health Organization) released its findings on July 29, 2015, that the herbicide glyphosate is a probable carcinogen for humans. Glyphosate/Roundup have been linked to non-Hodgkin lymphoma. If you have been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma the time to file your case to recover for your cancer may expire on July 29, 2016. You must contact a lawyer today before time runs out.”

The 2A classification has given personal injury lawyers the ammunition they need to sue Monsanto, the company which first marketed Roundup herbicide.

If they can prove that Monsanto knew or should have known Roundup could pose a risk to human health and failed to warn consumers of the danger, the payday could be astronomical.

And the stars may be lining up in the plaintiffs’ favour. After all, the combining of all U.S. federal cases for determination if Roundup actually causes cancer has been transferred to California federal court. It is important to know California became the first state to officially label Roundup as a carcinogen based on the IARC classification. The California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment has already added Roundup to its list of chemicals known to cause cancer, birth defects, or other reproductive harm.

Despite scant scientific evidence, can a fair trial even occur when public sentiment is strongly against Monsanto, GMOs, and glyphosate?

Nearly every major regulatory body in the world including European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), Germany’s Institute for Environment and Human Security (BfR), and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have concluded that glyphosate is unlikely to pose a carcinogenic risk to humans.

Unfortunately, little to no attention is being paid to the value glyphosate adds to agriculture. It does not matter that glyphosate has enabled farmers to zero till.

Or that glyphosate has enabled farmers to reduce their use of other, much more dangerous pesticides.

While the IARC ruling should prompt scientific review of glyphosate and its effects on human health, it should not be the sole evidence needed to determine the safety of glyphosate. After all, in the same IARC Class 2A classification as glyphosate we also find high-temperature frying, emissions from household combustion of biomass fuel (primarily wood), consumption of red meat, and very hot beverages.

Even shift work is included in the 2A classification as a probable carcinogen. Yet we do not see warning labels on frying pans, fireplaces, or coffee makers.

The pending litigation is potentially the biggest issue facing farmers today. A verdict against Monsanto has the very real potential of paving the way for the banning of glyphosate altogether. CG

SOIL CONSERVATION COUNCIL OF CANADA CONSEIL CANADIEN DE CONSERVATION DES SOLS SOIL CONSERVATION COUNCIL OF CANADA CONSEIL CANADIEN DE CONSERVATION DES SOLS

The face and voice of soil conservation in Canada Le visage et la voix de la conservation des sols au Canada

SCCC Winners!

L. B.Thomson Conservation Award Recipient

I

n early January this year, the Soil Conservation Council of Canada (SCCC) announced the winner of its annual L. B. Thomson Conservation Award: Mr. Adam Hayes, Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA).

“Adam is particularly deserving of this award as he has committed more than 30 years of his career to understanding and promoting soil health and conservation practices in Ontario,” says Alan Kruszel, SCCC’s newly elected chair.

Hayes studied crop science at the University of Guelph and there he became interested in soil conservation. He was hired as one of 26 Soil Conservation Advisors with OMAF in the 1980s. “At the beginning, we were learning more from the farmers than they were from us,” says Hayes.

Adam Hayes, L.B. Thomson Recipient (L) and Alan Kruszel, SCCC Chair

Hayes continued his work with soil and farmers at OMAFRA and also

spent many years serving on the SCCC board. “It is still frustrating to see soil degradation in the province, but I think the majority of Ontario farmers are trying to do a good job,” he says. Hayes is also pleased to see the recent renewed government interest in soil conservation.

As for the L. B. Thomson Conservation Award, Hayes says it was a surprise. “It is certainly a great honour to receive the award,” he says.

Photo Contest Winners Once again, the SCCC ran a Healthy Agricultural Landscapes photo contest to showcase sustainable farming practices in Canada. Receiving more photo entries than the previous year, two winners were selected in four categories. Those winners are Donna Rogers and Carrie Woolley; both from Ontario. The winning photographers receive a one-year free membership to the SCCC and a $100 gift card. Stay tuned as the 2017 contest will be announced later this year.

MARK YOUR CALENDARS FOR SCCC’S 2017 SUMMIT! SUMMIT ON CANADIAN SOIL HEALTH August 22-23, 2017 – Delta Hotel, Guelph, Ontario Join leaders from agriculture, academia, government and others as we search for innovative solutions to the many challenges facing Canada’s soil resources, and work towards demonstrating how they will benefit agriculture, the economy and the environment.

VISIT SOILCC.CA FOR MORE INFORMATION

info@soilcc.ca

204-792-2424

www.soilcc.ca

@soilcouncil

BUSINESS

Building a new APF After a decade of “Growing Forward” programs, Ottawa is developing a new five-year Agricultural Policy Framework this spring. What should be in it?

By John Greig / CG Field Editor

C

anadian farmers are watching as the negotiations for the next Agriculture Policy Framework (APF) gyrate to completion, paving the way for the launch of the new, five-year plan in the first quarter of 2018.

This new document will be immensely influential, defining how federal and provincial government ag spending will be allocated for the following five years.

And it will also be immensely complex. Not only will it set the terms for the government’s business risk management programs, it will also fund market and business development and innovation projects for farmers and the food and agriculture sector.

For the past two five-year cycles, the program has been called Growing Forward. That name will change for the next five-year plan.

Farm lobbyists are heading into the discussions with a clear new objective. Ron Bonnett, president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, says the goal is to get governments (federal and provincial) to see agriculture as a strategic investment, “not as a hole to throw money into.”

The lobbying strategy for farmers is clear to CFA’s Ron Bonnett, who says investing in agriculture is investing in a strong economy Yet building resilience in a volatile industry is also an essential goal of farm organizations.

“That would go a long way in protecting us with business risk management,” says Dan Mazier, president of Keystone Agricultural Producers in Manitoba (KAP).

The overall package has created inequities in funding across industry sectors and jurisdictions. In some provinces, like Ontario, it is administered by the provincial government and organizations. In Manitoba, it is delivered by the federal government. Different provinces have different program success levels, and accessibility.

Those varying outcomes have resulted in different 52

MARCH 1, 2017 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

levels of consternation and affection across the country. But the largest request for the next APF is the same across the country.

Two Agri-Stability choices Under the first Growing Forward, when a farmer’s current year program margin fell below 85 per cent of the farm’s reference margin, AgriStability helped cover the spread.

In the Growing Forward 2, the margin for the next five years was slashed to 70 per cent, greatly reducing the chances that grain farms in particular could ever get meaningful payouts Now the question is: What will happen for the next five years?

Farm groups want more money injected into the program so the payouts would pump meaningful help to farms in need. Ottawa, meanwhile, is telling farmers: if they want more funding for AgriStability, they may have to accept cuts in other ag programs?

“People are frustrated with the AgriStability program,” says Bonnett. “It went from income stability to more of a disaster-type program.”

If your margin falls by 15 per cent, that’s a hit to your stability but it is manageable with some help. That’s how the first version of AgriStability was triggered.

More recently, the drop has had to be 30 per cent, Bonnett says. That’s a disaster, he says, and is usually created by unpredictable factors, like a drought, or an extraordinary collapse in the markets.

The current program is also more unpredictable due to its complex calculations of the reference margins. Accountants have been unable to predict when clients will qualify for the program, says Keith Degenhart, vice-president of the Alberta Federation of Agriculture (AFA). “(Former Conservative Agriculture and Agri-Food Minister Gerry) Ritz said he wanted it bankable and predictable, but it wasn’t,” said Mazier.

The program has been useful to some farm sectors, especially those with faster boom-and-bust cycles, and to producers who farm mainly one commodity.

Hog farmers, many of whom contract out their crop growing or rent their land, have one main source of

income and therefore it is easier to qualify for an AgriStability payment.

In Alberta where rotations have tightened so farmers can plant canola more often, it can be helpful, says Lynn Jacobson, president of AFA. But should Ottawa favour farms that are inherently less stable? Farms that have diversified have better ability to average out the ups and downs in markets or weather, but they are also less likely to trigger a payment than their less-diversified neighbours.

In Saskatchewan, Todd Lewis, president of the Agriculture Producers Association of Saskatchewan (APAS), says they surveyed their members in the summer, who said AgriStability and its large drop in value is their biggest concern with GF2.

“As a start, to get it back to the prior levels and trigger mechanisms would help,” Lewis says.

However, there’s not a lot of optimism that the levels will be restored to 85 per cent.

“I gather there is very little appetite for that by the government,” says Degenhart.

But maybe the program could be incrementally improved, so farmers will re-enroll.

That could include tinkering with expense criteria so that the program will actually pay out when farmers believe their income has fallen to 70 per cent of previous averages.

Mark Wales, an Ontario Federation of Agriculture board member and former president, still uses the AgriStability program as a horticulture producer. He’s also involved with national APF consultation through the Canadian Horticultural Council. He attended the November national consultation meetings and says the leading concern was about AgriStability.

“It works far less than it did, but it does work,” Wales says. “It’s not what it once was, but there are no other alternatives.

You can’t go to your insurance company and buy such coverage.”

Wales says the government is hearing about the need to increase funding for AgriStability, or whatever it will be called in the new APF, but “then they say if you want to put more into AgriStability, where are you going to take it from?”

Governments have made no financial commitments yet to the next APF and until that is known, farm organizations are just making requests within unknown parameters.

What should be new in the next Ag Policy Framework?

Canada’s farm leaders aren’t expecting any major changes of direction in the next Agriculture Policy Framework, but they are pushing to get important refinements in place by the July federal-provincial agriculture ministers’ conference.

Support for beginning farmers Several farm organizations are seeking more support for new farmers. That includes better access to current programs, which sometimes are available to young farmers who haven’t had time to build up the reference margins to qualify.

Some sort of regional average of similar producers would work. Also helpful would be a discounted rate for beginning farmers to enrol in the programs.

Keith Degenhart of Alberta Federation of Agriculture says a mentoring program would make sense too, bringing together farmers who want to retire and others who want to farm, along with a program to help fund beyond-family succession planning.

Market development Farm leaders say the APF should also put more emphasis on market development.

With the impending implementation of the Canadian-European Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), says Bonnett, this would also help farmers open new markets. Such a program could also target areas where future bilateral trade agreements could be signed, such as with Japan following the death of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Greater flexibility to move funds In the volatile, fast-changing agriculture sector, priorities can change rapidly, so farmers are saying the APF must have more flexibility to change as needed. There was some ability to move funds in the GF2, but it happened slowly and not as predictably as the agriculture sector would have liked.

Labour as a target for improvement

Farmers who hold mortgages for beginning farmers could be given preferential tax treatment for doing so, says the Canadian Federation of Agriculture’s Ron Bonnett.

With 60,000 jobs open in Canadian agriculture, causing $1.2 billion in lost economic activity, the Ontario Federation of Agriculture’s Mark Wales says there is room for programs that attract and train more workers.

Large strategic investments

Communication and technology

The national federation is also pushing the argument that since agriculture and food is the largest manufacturing sector in Canada, it deserves the kind of strategic investments that governments make to spur growth in the auto and aerospace sectors.

Agriculture needs to do a better job communicating to consumers about the value and safety of new technologies, Bonnett says. Projects that proactively communicate about technologies while they are being researched and developed could be part of APF.

Such injections could be made within the purview of an agriculture policy framework, as long as they didn’t pull funds from other programs.

Climate change and carbon taxes

“We need these types of investments to get us in front of the pack,” says Bonnett, noting that Dominic Barton, the chair of the prime minister’s team of economic advisers, has identified agriculture as a driver of future economic growth in Canada.

The next APF should include funding to help farmers adapt to lowercarbon-producing practices and to figure out ways that farmers can be compensated for sequestering large amounts of carbon in their soils.

Federal government policy is now to impose carbon taxes of some sort across the country.

Continued on page 54

COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA / MARCH 1, 2017

53

BUSINESS Agri-Invest The AgriInvest program — a partial replacement to the old Net Income Stabilization Program (NISA) — is relatively popular with farmers. The program is a savings program for managing small income declines and investing in risk-reducing activities on the farm. The government provides one per cent matching funding.

“It has worked out fairly well because it is predictable,” says Lewis, who farms grains and oilseeds near Gray, Sask. Banks recognize the funds saved in an AgriInvest fund.

Bonnett has used AgriInvest funds on his farm to increase tile drainage.

“We need to get farmers to think about that fund strategically,” he says.

Some are advocating for higher government matching funds, but some are concerned that if too many outside of agriculture knew about the program, it could be in jeopardy.

Mazier says that AgriStability and AgriInvest are programs that are relics of the old NISA-type policy. “We should throw them

out and sit down as an industry and decide what is our need,” he says.

Risk and recovery There are several other programs under the business risk management section of Growing Forward2 and, for the most part, farm organizations look for those programs to continue, with some tinkering.

Funding for crop insurance programs gets the most support. These programs have worked well, and have expanded across the country.

T h e Ag r i R i s k p ro g r a m p a i d f o r research and projects that aimed to reduce risk for farmers.

The program has helped beef farmers in Alberta create risk insurance programs, for example.

“Beef has not been part of the AgriRisk portfolio for a long time,” says Degenhart.

“They are now very positive about being part of AgriRisk.”

However, Wales says the program — which is aimed at farm organizations, not

directly at growers — has been difficult to understand. The Canadian Horticulture Council is looking at what risk management programs could be created for horticulture producers in the event of a recall or a need to destroy product.

The consensus generally appears to be that the AgriRisk program has support.

Agri-Recovery The AgriRecovery program was the portion of Growing Forward 2 intended to help in event of disasters. However, it has worked for some parts of the country and not for others.

On the Prairies, where weather events are widespread and devastating, the program has paid out more quickly and more broadly than in other areas.

In Ontario, Wales said the OFA is helping growers apply for help after the regional drought this past summer.

“It is a laborious process. It can take many, many months to trigger a program that has had limited benefits,” such as in the

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2012 drought in Ontario. The only costs then awarded to livestock producers were to move breeding stock to where they could get more feed. Wales raises beef cows and calves as part of a diversified livestock and crops farming operation in southern and eastern Ontario.

A future AgriRecovery program should be more transparent, he says.

Mazier, in Manitoba, says the program does pay out well, but not if disasters occur in rapid succession. He points to floods in Manitoba in 2011. In the aftermath farmers got AgriRecovery funding. However, in 2014, some farmers were flooded in order to keep water away from urban areas during a second flood and they didn’t get support.

“It was absolutely ridiculous and I’m not happy with the hurt and what went on there,” he says.

All the rest The business risk management portions of federal/provincial agriculture policy have taken up the vast majority of time, plan-

ning and words due to their critical nature, their complexity and the help they deliver to farms in times of crisis.

However, the innovation and market development parts of the policy are also critical and, as the industry has had fewer crises over the past five years, there has been more time to talk about those areas.

Bonnett said he was impressed that at the Canadian Federation of Agriculture board meeting in October, there was intense discussion about risk management programs, but there was more time spent on what strategic investments could be made through the program.

The amorphous non-BRM programs covered broad areas including research, innovation and climate change, and the priorities often were determined by province. More funding was switched to areas that would benefit all producers or a group of producers instead of one producer. Satisfaction with results often also varied by province.

Most provinces administer the GF2 pro-

grams, but some, like Manitoba, do not and there a producer has to go through the federal government to get funds.

Mazier says that there have been concerns about streamlining the process and actually finding someone to talk to about an application. “It has generally been very slow and cumbersome,” he says.

In Ontario, there was no communication about why a project was rejected.

“They need to make it clear and transparent about how I apply for something,” says Wales. “Nothing gets a producer as frustrated as when they are turned down and are not told why.”

Farmers will know broadly what the direction will be of the next federal-provincial policy framework for agriculture in July.

More details will flow out over the rest the year. Farm organizations hope that they will know all the details by the fall, giving the industry time to gear up for the new program, so that there aren’t gaps in funding as one ends and another starts as there have been in the past. CG

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55

BUSINESS

A farm in Tuscany Could you make a success of an Italian farm?

B

ehind them lies the whole grandeur of the Tuscan countryside. Before them is Casanova, the farm that is the pride of them all. They stand there, three generations of Conte men; grandfather Santo, current owner Bartolo, and grandson Raphael who is preparing for a future on the farm.

There will be no shortage of challenges ahead, but the Conte family is prepared to meet them as they always have, with courage, optimism and innovation.

Some 50 years ago, grandfather Santo purchased Casanova from one of the noble families of Siena, the ancient city 40 minutes drive away that is a match for Florence when it comes to art and architecture.

After the Second World War, farm employees flocked to the cities, which meant the aristocratic landowners were left with vacant farms, forcing them to sell. Santo had come from Sicily as a 14-year-old and worked his way up, purchasing first a tractor and then finally the farm.

That stubborn Sicilian mentality was the asset that made a go of Casanova. Then, when Santo had a heart attack in 1989, Bartolo left the military to go back to the heavily indebted farm. His wife Wiebke Buchholz (called Vicky by all the locals who can’t pronounce her German name) joined him in 1999 and they’ve operated the farm together since.

Lined by typical Tuscan cypresses, a long white gravel road today leads from the rolling Crete Senesi (literally, “gray clay” named for the area’s soils) and takes you up

56

MARCH 1, 2017 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

By Marianne Stamm

to the beautifully landscaped, centuries-old farmhouse with its swimming pool.

Pure white cattle graze on the hill opposite the house; a new mother licks her calf in the comfortable barn.

It all fits together, just like the way the agriturismo (farm bed-and-breakfast) and the cattle breeding enterprises fit together as the two main pillars of Casanova.

How to farm in Italy Unlike so many agriturismos, which consist mainly of farm buildings with an olive grove, Casanova is, by Italian standards, a large working farm, based on 400 acres, and the Conte family has raised purebred Chianina cows for over 50 years.

Chianinas are a heritage breed that trace their roots back to the ancient Etruscans who lived in the region 2,000 years ago. They ask little in the way of care besides feed, says Wiebke. The 30 cows, together with the 1,100-kg steer that Santo is particularly proud of, roam the 100 acres of pastures along the Crete.

Conte also grows 40 acres of barley and 100 acres of hay for feed. He crops 175 acres of durum wheat, at an average yield of 3.5 tonnes per hectare (51.5 bushels per acre). The wheat is shipped to a local stone mill.

Some is made into Santo’s wife Nona Paola’s traditional homemade pasta, pici, and served to guests as the Primo before the Secondo of grilled Chianina beef. More pasta

is dried to sell — to guests and to Wiebke’s German relatives and friends, and sold in local co-operative stores.

The climate south of Siena is ideal for durum. Italy produces nearly as much durum wheat as Canada — an average of four million metric tonnes.

Bartolo waves his hand over the steep hillsides which are a deep green in spring, covered in wheat and barley. A hot dry summer follows — earning it the name “Accona — Italy’s desert.” Usually there’s enough rain from November to spring to fill the kernels. The largest farmers sell their wheat to Barilla, one of Italy’s premium pasta makers, whose products can be found on Canadian supermarket shelves. Increased pasta exports are making up for decreasing Italian pasta consumption.

Farmers like the Contes market their durum on the farm and in co-operative stores dedicated to local produce, which are favoured by Tuscany’s many tourists.

“To produce straight grain a farmer needs a minimum of 50 acres,” Conte says. Only a very few own all their land. Wheat is still a lucrative crop, he believes, adding that farmers are still profiting from higher EU subsidies for wheat in comparison with other crops. Without those subsidies farmers couldn’t compete against durum from Canada with its lower production costs. (Bartolo says Barilla prefers Canadian durum to the Italian, because of its higher protein content.)

Wheat subsidies are being lowered annually, and are now tied to production practices such as crop rotations.

It was not uncommon for Tuscan farmers to plant wheat 15 years in a row, enabled by heavy clay soils and low disease pressure. Newest EU agriculture policies only allow cereals two years in a row in the crop rotation. The new policies along with lower prices are changing the face of the Tuscan hills.

Bartolo, l, with son Raphael and father Santo overlooking the hills of Tuscany.

A new machinery shed got 10,000 euros in EU grants, but the permits cost 12,000.

Having always followed a one-year rotation of cereals with other crops, the Conte farm finds that subsidies tied to production practices are only advantageous. Last year the EU introduced a subsidy for each cow, whereas in the past it was tied to calves, meaning that feedlots had an advantage over cattle producers.

“The Germans make agriculture policy in the EU,” Continued on page 58

COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA / MARCH 1, 2017

57

BUSINESS

Bartolo says with a pointed look at his German wife.

After 30 years as an EU member, Italy still doesn’t really have an agriculture policy worth speaking about, he says. As long as their currency was the Italian lire, farmers did well. That all changed when the euro came in. It is difficult for an Italian farmer to compete with the French and German farmers, he adds. “German and French farmers have two legs, the Italians limp along behind.”

A country of co-ops Although the steep hillsides would seem a natural fit for no-till farming in order to reduce erosion, Bartolo says that’s not feasible in the heavy clay soil and the dry, hot climate. The main harvest period is in June, after which the fields are worked. They then lie barren in the heat until seeding in November. Without working the fields, the soil would be too hard for the seed drill, he says. He has three 150-hp Massey Ferguson track tractors in his shed, and the fields are worked parallel to the ridges, with track tractors to minimize pressure. Conte stresses the importance of correct placement of water draws, adding that water erosion is rarely a problem except in extreme years.

Bartolo was vice-president of the board of directors of the local bank in Asciano, a high honour for a farmer, Buchholz says. He resigned together with the president two years ago when bank shareholders approved a merger with a larger Sienese bank instead of with the smaller bank Bartolo and the director believe would have been more beneficial for farmers and locals.

As Italian banks are forced to adopt new EU banking laws, financing has become more difficult for the Contes. New loans are dependent on secure income generation, as compared to net worth of the farm. Until Italy has its economic problems solved, things will remain difficult, Bartolo says. More and more farmers are banding together as co-operatives to apply for funding.

That accounts for the butcher shop in Siena. Bartolo was instrumental in forming the co-operative of six farmers that in 2011 opened a meat store, the Macelleria Senese, in Siena as an outlet for the Chianina meat they all produce. The cattle are raised according to strict criteria such as having access to the outdoors at all times.

Slaughtering happens in nearby Cortona, in a stress-free environment.

The co-operative hires a butcher who cuts the carcasses in the shop. Each member spends one weekday selling at the shop. “The presence of the farmers ensures the customer that this really is a direct-sales business,” Wiebke explains. The shop also delivers meat to a few restaurants and agriturismos that value the local Chianina beef. “Those that are just looking for cheap meat will go elsewhere,” says Wiebke.

The AgriTurismo The bed-and-breakfast is Wiebke’s project. It was a slow process to build it to what it is today — offering six 58

MARCH 1, 2017 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

modern rooms for up to six persons and homemade meals, a swimming pool and a fishing pond. When Buchholz first came to Casanova, a row of cedars got in the way of the stunning view that guests raved about.

They had been planted and cared for by Santo, and when the family wanted to cut them down, each one became a major battle, as were almost all changes Buchholz implemented. Wiebke’s German heritage clashed often with Santo’s Sicilian approach.

She could count on her mother-in-law Paola’s backing though. The rooms are furnished with antiques that the Conte relatives had stored in the old barn and forgotten. The barn itself was renovated into a cozy dining room where guests enjoy traditional Tuscan homemade breakfasts and dinners by the fireside.

Paola is the heart and hands of the kitchen. Only recently has Wiebke mustered the courage to cook meals for guests, as Paola is getting older. Paola still makes the pasta though, although she admits she uses a machine now instead of forming it by hand. That Wiebke speaks German, English and Italian is a valuable asset for her international guests.

“There are two paths for Tuscan farmers to take in the future,” Bartolo says. Either they expand into large industrial farms or produce for niche markets such as the Siena butcher shop. For him, he says the land made the choice. “A farmer here can only produce for quality, not quantity, because of the climate and topography.”

Besides, local policies that rule out any new buildings on a farm (protecting heritage) make expansion more difficult. The old hayshed that Santo built years ago began collapsing. It took Bartolo four years of wheedling with authorities to get the building permit for a replacement shed. He received 10,000 euros from EU subsidies towards the building. It cost him 12,000 euros for the permits.

Their biggest problem is land taxes, Bartolo says.

Italy charges land and income tax, similar to Canada.

Land taxes in Italy are higher than income tax, though, and they vary widely according to municipality. “The whole state household has to be paid,” Bartolo says dryly, adding: “Although everyone pays into state health care, we still have to pay privately when we’re sick, because state medicare is so poor.”

Corruption is also a problem. “We have a saying: The law applies to the common person. For friends it is interpretable.”

Despite the challenges the Contes see ahead, 16-yearold son Raphael is planning for a future on the farm. As a child he was never far from his father’s side. Currently he is attending an agriculture college in Siena, the same one his father attended. Whether he really will take over the farm one day remains to be seen.

Until then, Bartolo and Wiebke continue to work hard to keep Casanova a profitable and encouraging enterprise. For inspiration they go for a drive along the top of the Crete. Even for Italians, the Italian landscape is a thing of beauty. CG

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

benefits of Collaboration

By Liz RoBeRtson, M.A. CAFA exeCutive diReCtoR

Collaboration: the action of working with someone to produce or create something.

T

he Canadian Association of Farm Advisors (CAFA) believes collaboration is a win-win with benefits such as: • the opportunity to create something; • the opportunity to share resources; • the opportunity to learn CAFA’s objective is to increase the skills and knowledge of farm advisors to better assist their farm clients. To achieve this, we recognize and acknowledge that no single farm advisor has the knowledge and resources to truly serve the needs of Canada’s complex agribusinesses.

We encourage and promote multidisciplinary collaborative advisory teams for better solutions for our farm families and businesses. It is far more productive — and cost-efficient — when a farm’s accountant, lawyer, banker, financial planner or others work together as a team.

We have multidisciplinary advisory teams working together with one or more shared clients, with members on the other side of the province or across the country. Each says

how much better teamwork is for everyone involved. At our Farm Update Series, CAFA members share their expertise with others in a collaborative learning environment, so everyone benefits.

CAFA also works collaboratively with other associations and looking to work with more: the provincial institutes of agrology, with whom we share some members, the Agri-Food Council in Alberta, the Agrifood Management Institute in Ontario, the Ontario Soil and Crop Improvement Association and the Junior Farmers Association of Ontario. Nationally, CAFA works with others including the Canadian Association of Agri-Retailers, the Canadian Agriculture Human Resource Council,

Farm Management Canada, the Canadian Agri-Marketing Association, Canada’s Young Farmers Forum, Canada’s Outstanding Young Farmers, Ag in the Classroom, Farm and Food Care, 4-H and provincial farm lobby groups.

By working collaboratively with such organizations, everything we do is enhanced by their specialized (and complementary) services and resources: better solutions, access to more resources and always, discovering ways to improve.

Canadian farmers have a wealth of resources and services available to assist with everything from farm management and family communication issues through contracts, human resources and farm transition planning. When these advisors work as a team, they create better solutions.

When the industry works together as a team, they create something unstoppable — great Canadian farmers!

As Ken Blanchard, author and management expert once said, “None of us is as smart as all of us.”

CAFA is Canada’s only national network of Certified Agricultural Farm Advisors. To learn more about CAFA or to hire the professional services of a CAFA member, please visit www. cafanet.ca or contact us directly at info@ cafanet.com or 1-877-474-2871

CAFA MeMbers Are the Most vAluAble And trusted FArM Advisors in CAnAdA March 23, 2017 Farm Succession Update, Ottawa. Finally, an information day in Eastern Ontario focusing on farm succession! Plenty of great insights and a unique networking opportunity. http://www.cafanet.ca June 8: Woodstock, ON: CAFA’s ever popular Farm Update. Details announced soon.

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HR

By Pierrette Desrosiers / work psychologist

Nine tips for innovation Innovation can be successfully harnessed on today’s farms. Here’s how

S

ome farmers seem to have a talent for developing new markets, new products, or new and better ways of getting things done. They innovate.

Is that talent something they were born with? More to the point, can your enterprise promote innovation and creativity? Does environment contribute to innovation, and can you, as a leader, support the creativity of the members of your farm team?

The research is very encouraging.

“I am not a creative person,” one farmer told me. Many people think the ability to innovate is something they were either born with or without. However, we now know that this is untrue.

Experts agree that certain conditions can increase the likelihood of innovation. As a leader, you can create these conditions by the way you challenge your team. Or you can do the opposite, creating an environment where your team will underperform for innovation.

Are you setting an example of emotional involvement and commitment to innovation?

Goran Ekvall, emeritus professor of organizational psychology at the University of Lund, has identified the key climatic factors that influence organizational creativity: 1. Challenge: Are employees challenged, emotionally involved, and committed to work? Do they love their jobs and have realistic goals according to their abilities and knowledge? Tip: Ask them how they feel about their tasks. On a scale of 1-10, have them rate how interested they are in the work they do, and how capable they feel of doing those jobs.

2. Freedom: Do you allow them flexibility, or do they have strict guidelines and roles, with no

60

MARCH 1, 2017 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

room to redefine their tasks? Tip: Be sure to adjust your supervision to their maturity and competence as workers. Be sure to give them some choice in their work, for example, in deciding when or how to do a task.

3. Ideas and time: Do employees have time to think through new ideas? Do you allow time for innovation? Are there resources to try new ideas? Tip: Allocate time, money and equipment to support creative ideas. Ask what they need, and negotiate.

4. Dynamism, or the eventfulness of life in the organization: Do you celebrate together?

Tip: Find occasions to celebrate. Ask your employees what events they would like to celebrate. Ask them to organize those events.

5. Trust and openness: Do people feel safe speaking their minds and offering different points of view? As a leader, do you react with openness and interest? Tip: You don’t have to accept every idea, but be sure to listen with openness and encourage people to suggest new perspectives.

6. Playfulness and humoUr: Is the environment relaxed? Does your team have fun and make jokes sometimes? Do you laugh as a group, or does it always have to be serious? Tip: Promote a little bit of fun. It will stimulate a more creative atmosphere.

7. Conflicts: Do you have a way to solve conflicts as they arise?

Are plots, traps, power struggles, slander, or gossip common? Or are relationships more mature, able to deal effectively with diversity? Tip: As a leader, be sure to manage conflict properly, in a constructive way.

Develop a win-win culture. Don’t let conflict remain unresolved.

8. Debate: Is it all right to express disagreement and to have lively debates about issues, or do

we always have to think the same way? Tip: Promote a culture of, “let’s talk about it” and, “tell me what you think.” Be sure to encourage employees to play the devil’s advocate.

9. Risk-taking: Is it okay to fail?

What happens if new ideas don’t work? Are the employees blamed?

Are you able to take a calculated risk? Tip: Don’t penalize failed ideas. Instead, use them as jumpingoff points for the next innovation.

Innovation-friendly climates are not accidental. Creativity cannot emerge without time or resources.

Nor can it emerge when a person is too stressed or afraid of the consequences.

What about incentives, like monetary rewards for new ideas?

Such approaches are risky and difficult to evaluate. Moreover, creativity does not appear on command at the promise of money. However, a leader can provide the right conditions for innovation.

So, if you want your team to generate unique ideas, first you must establish the right conditions.

It is like preparation for reaping a bountiful harvest; you must “sow the right seeds in a rich soil and fertilize well.” 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

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life

Distracted driving On the farm or on the road, turn that cellphone off!

By Helen Lammers-Helps

F

armers know safety is important.

So why do so many of us overlook one of the leading causes of injury and death? Distracted driving is a contributing factor in 80 per cent of vehicle collisions, leading to four million car crashes in North America each year.

And in case you’re skeptical, those aren’t numbers that someone just dreamed up.

They’re straight from accident reports, as compiled by the Canadian Automobile Association (CAA).

As smartphones have become commonplace, collisions due to distracted driving have increased dramatically. In Ontario, the number of deaths from distracted driving has doubled since 2000, with another person injured in a distracted driving collision every half hour, according to the Ontario Ministry of Transportation.

“Distraction” in this case means anything that draws your attention away from your primary task of driving. One of the worst offenders is texting while driving.

You are 23 times more likely to get in an accident when texting while driving compared to when you are focused on the road, says Kristine D’Arbelles, manager of public affairs at CAA. It’s easy to see why texting while driving is so dangerous. If it takes you five seconds to type or read a text, at 55 miles per hour that’s like driving blindfolded for the length of a football field.

While most of us wouldn’t think of drinking and driving, texting and driving has been shown to be as much as five times more dangerous than impaired driving, emphasizes D’Arbelles.

Even though texting is illegal across Canada, and fines and penalties have increased in recent years, driving and texting is still a huge problem. In a recent survey of Ontario high school students, half of Grade 12 students admitted to texting while driving.

Nor is it just the teenagers who are texting. “It’s as much the 20- to 55-year-olds,” says Dean Anderson, strategic adviser for agriculture at Workplace Safety & Prevention Services, a not-for-profit organization 62

MARCH 1, 2017 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

that provides health and safety expertise in Guelph, Ont. If you’re the type of person who has a hard time ignoring the flashing lights or pings on your phone, D’Arbelles recommends turning it off or putting it somewhere where you can’t reach it.

Also be aware that it isn’t just texting that’s a problem. Even when talking handsfree on a phone, your odds of being involved in a collision are about four times higher compared to when you are focusing solely on your driving, says Anderson. “That’s because when you’re talking on the phone you’re using the same part of your brain that you use for driving,” he explains.

D’Arbelles agrees. She says this is what’s known as cognitive distraction. Anderson goes so far as to say he thinks the government made a big mistake when they allowed phones in vehicles.

His own organization has a policy prohibiting employees from using smartphones, even for hands-free calling when driving.

Anderson says he is aware of other companies that have similar policies.

Smartphones aren’t the only form of distraction. Reaching for a loose object makes you nine times more likely to be in an accident and applying makeup while driving increases your risk of an accident by a factor of three.

Other forms of distraction include fiddling with the GPS settings, eating, driver fatigue, and children or pets requiring attention.

Set the destination on the GPS before you start the car, ensure the children have what they need before you put the car in gear, and don’t eat messy foods on-the-go, advises D’Arbelles.

Distracted driving can also be a problem for operators of tractors and combines, says Glen Blahey, a specialist at the Winnipegbased Canadian Agriculture Safety Association, a non-profit organization that promotes farm safety. Blahey says operators who rely on autosteer can run into trouble if the electronics fail or when there are physical obstructions such as excavations or hydro towers.

“Farmers become dependent on the technology and become inattentive,” he explains.

10 tips to reduce your risks 1. Review maps and directions prior to driving.

2. Stow and secure loose objects in their proper place before starting out.

3. If you want to let people know you are on your way home, send a text before you leave.

4. Set the destination on the GPS before setting out. Look at a map before you leave so you have an idea of where you are going.

Pull over in a safe location if you need to adjust the GPS settings.

5. If you are tempted to check your phone’s messages, put it where you can’t reach it.

6. When taking a long trip, stop every few hours to check messages or catch up on social media to prevent FOMO (fear of missing out) which doesn’t only apply to teens. Besides, taking breaks also helps with fatigue.

7. Use apps available on iTunes or Google Play to disengage your phone while driving.

8. Institute a farm policy that no one is allowed to use their phones while driving.

9. Model good behaviour for teens.

10. Take the pledge to put an end to distracted driving at www.caasco.com/focus.

Anderson agrees. Although there aren’t any statistics available yet, he is hearing anecdotal evidence, such as the case of a young man who drove the combine into a drainage ditch when he was texting his girlfriend. Another farmer told Anderson he drove a hundred feet down the road with no hands after failing to turn off the autosteer after a long day in the field.

Distraction during the hectic planting and harvesting seasons is a serious problem, says Blahey. When farmers are distracted by

the urgency of getting work done they overlook normal precautions, so the number of severe injuries and fatalities goes up, he says.

While it may sound funny, the number of pedestrians who are injured while texting is also on the rise. Despite what we think, we actually aren’t very good at multi-tasking. Next time you are in town for parts or when you’re attending a conference in the city, you’d be wise to put away your phone while walking. Anderson says as many as 20 people are hit by cars in a day in Toronto because pedestrians are paying attention to their phones and not their surroundings.

D’Arbelles predicts the day will come when texting and driving will be as socially unacceptable as impaired driving is now. The penalties have been stiffened with all provinces having fines and demerit points for distracted driving infractions. Enforcement has been ramped up with police officers dressing as homeless people on street corners or riding buses to catch people in the act of texting.

Awareness campaigns by government and safety organizations will continue to get the word out. As people become aware of friends and family who have been seriously injured or killed as a result of distracted driving, societal norms will change.

However, there’s no need to wait for society to catch up. You can create a safer environment for your family and employees by implementing policies to reduce driver distraction now. CG

Watch out for distracted drivers While farmers should give their full attention to their driving when operating farm machinery on roads, you would also be wise to make allowances for other drivers who may be distracted, says Dean Anderson of Workplace Safety & Prevention Services.

When pulling onto the road and entering a lane of traffic with farm equipment, leave more space since other drivers may not be paying attention, Anderson recommends.

With the difference in speed between cars and farm equipment, cars will close the gap very quickly, which may have deadly results if the other drivers are distracted.

Even if farmers are in the right, having farm equipment damaged when a car runs into the back of it could result in costly downtime, or worse, says Anderson.

Also, when driving at night, Anderson recommends ensuring that lights and the Slow Moving Vehicle sign are clean and visible.

Consider having a vehicle with four-way flashers follow you.

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63

GUIDE LIFE health

By Marie Berry / lawyer & pharmacist

yes, your eyes are getting old

A

s with any part of your body, your eyes change as they age. Often, in fact, eye conditions are attributed to old age. It is estimated that 500,000 Canadians are affected by macular degeneration, plus 2.5 million by cataracts and 250,000 by glaucoma.

These conditions seem to occur in older people more often. They are conditions that develop over decades, however, and eventually you notice them because your eyesight isn’t what it used to be.

occur which, at the very least, are bothersome. Most noticeable is your decreased ability to read fine print, a condition called presbyopia. With age your eye is less able to focus close up because of a loss of accommodation, like an old elastic band losing some of its spring. Magnifying reading glasses are often worn, but you may eventually need multifocal glasses.

Older people also often have an increased sensitivity to bright lights and they react to car headlights when driving at night, glare from

As you get older, you’ll be bothered more by the glare of headlights, and you’ll find it harder to read small print too. But don’t hesitate to get checked out, especially if you notice any pain Glaucoma is an increase in pressure in your eye ball, which eventually reduces your peripheral vision.

Luckily it can be successfully controlled by a variety of eye drops.

Macular degeneration results when cells die in the macula, a pea sized group of cells at the back of your eye ball that is essential to vision. Macular degeneration causes a loss of your central vision, and unfortunately once the cells have died vision cannot be restored.

Cataracts are the hardening of your lens resulting in cloudy vision, almost like frost on a window. Cataract surgery removes your old lens and inserts an artificial lens, thereby restoring your vision.

With age, other eye problems

bright sunlight, or even bright lights when leaving a dimly lit room like a movie theatre. And, the older you are the brighter the light you may need when reading. These effects are the result of the loss of strength of the muscles that control your pupil size and its reaction to light.

Anti-glare coating on eye glasses may help, as will wearing sunglasses outdoors.

Dry eyes also become more problematic with age. Wearing contact lenses, low humidity, and prolonged visual tasks such as working at a computer screen which reduces your blinking, seem to worsen dry eyes. With age, tear ducts do not produce as many tears to keep eyes moisturized. More women than

men are affected and it is thought to be because of hormone changes that occur with menopause. Artificial tears will alleviate the dryness and, thanks to the wide variety of these products, you are sure to find one that suits you.

You want to protect your eyesight regardless of your age, and it is especially important to do so when you are young to make sure you have the best possible vision when older. You know to wear protective eyeglasses whenever doing anything that could damage your eyes, including working in dusty environments.

But don’t smoke, because smoking can cause changes in your eyesight. Also avoid ultra violet light exposure. As well, some conditions can contribute to vision loss, for example, diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity, so you will want to keep good control of them.

If you experience any changes in your eyesight, don’t ignore them.

Get them checked, especially if you experience eye pain, increased light sensitivity, or fluctuating vision.

After all, you only get one pair of eyes in your life! CG

Marie Berry is a lawyer/pharmacist interested in health and education.

Next Issue Next issue, we’re going to talk about a personal problem that no one ever mentions! Hemorrhoids are extremely common but some people are especially bothered. We’ll discuss some remedies, including both drug and non-drug approaches.

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MARCH 1, 2017 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

GUIDE LIFE Hanson Acres

By Leeann Minogue

“L

ate winter storms are always the worst,” Jeff told Elaine over the phone.

“It’s warm enough to melt, but cold enough to freeze.

Makes the roads icy. And the snow is really pouring down.”

“We’ll be fine,” Elaine said.

“Really, it’s not that I want to stay here,” Jeff said, for the third time.

Elaine laughed. “It’s okay.”

“I have to go. Jed’s already on the ice for our nine o’clock game.”

“Have fun.”

“I was hoping you’d say that.

Jed’s got rye.”

Jeff was curling with friends in the last bonspiel of the season, two towns away. In this weather, Elaine was glad he was spending the night. He didn’t have a lot of time to spend with friends, and she had some reading to do before her Monday meeting.

Elaine had already put Connor and two-year-old Jenny to bed, so she picked up her thick document about Canadian trade policy and settled back into her favourite chair.

She’d just found her place on page 32 when the lights went out, the fridge stopped humming, and the radio stopped playing.

Elaine didn’t panic. She just waited. The power had gone out a few times since she’d moved to the farm. Jeff and his father had set up a generator in the shop. It always flipped on after a few minutes, turning the power back on automatically.

Elaine waited. And waited.

She started to worry.

There must be something wrong.

Elaine remembered Jeff complaining about the generator, the last time the power was out. If he was home, he’d know how to fix it. She considered going out to take a look, but she couldn’t leave her sleeping kids alone. What if one woke up? Besides, she didn’t have the first clue what to look for in a not-working generator.

She didn’t even know what to call it.

Was it “stalled?” “Dead?”

Hanson Acres

A thump in the night Most times, the rural countryside lives up to its peaceful old stereotypes She considered calling Jeff. But what could he do about it from 60 miles away on an icy road? And if he was already drinking rye he couldn’t drive anyway.

Jeff ’s parents lived on the farm, but they weren’t home either. Dale and Donna had gone to Yorkton to spend a couple of days with Donna’s sister, and they wouldn’t be back until Sunday.

Elaine considered calling the nearest neighbours. But they were probably in the dark too. Besides, she didn’t think they had a genera-

she was the only person for miles, not just the only person in a house on a street filled with other people.

“Mommy? I’m thirsty.” Elaine laughed at herself. It was just Connor. “Why is it so quiet? And why are all the lights off?”

“Don’t worry,” Elaine said, taking him to the kitchen for a drink.

“We’re having an adventure. The power’s off, but it will be just fine.”

“We could use the flashlight on my backpack,” he said.

Elaine grinned at him and went to find it. Connor was proud of the

There was a noise in the hall. Elaine jumped tor. Would they know more about fixing one than she did?

Then she thought of Mark Edwards. He’d been working for the Hansons for almost a year now, and Jeff said Mark could fix anything. But was it fair to ask him to drive over on a Friday night?

Elaine decided not to call anyone. It wasn’t much below freezing. The house would stay warm enough for the night. She could pull out a few extra blankets and call Jeff in the morning.

But what would she do now? It was too early to go to bed.

They had some candles, but where were they? If she could find the matches, would candles even give her enough light to read?

There was a noise in the hall.

Elaine jumped. She hadn’t grown up on a farm, and she wasn’t used to being alone — especially not when

LED light he’d been given at the last farm show. He used it on the school bus when he was on before the sun came up.

Soon Connor was back in bed and Elaine was on her own again, this time armed with the LED light. She remembered she had an electronic version of the document she was reading stored on her iPad. She could read that without WiFi or power, at least until her battery wound down.

By 11, both kids were still sound asleep and Elaine had learned more than she’d thought she’d ever want to know about trade policy. She almost hoped someone would ask her some hard questions about it during the Monday conference call.

Elaine shut off her iPad and found her way to the charger in the corner to plug it in. Then she Continued ON page 66

COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA / MARCH 1, 2017

65

GUIDE LIFE smacked her forehead with her fist. “Duh.” She couldn’t charge an iPad with the power off.

Soon she had brushed her teeth, found the extra blankets, covered the kids and put on her pyjamas. She’d crawled under the covers and moved into the middle of the bed for a change when there was a knock on the door.

Well, not a knock, she thought. More like a thump.

Who would pound on the door at 11 o’clock?

Should she answer it?

It could be someone with car trouble. If Jeff was home he’d answer, in case someone needed help. But she had two small kids with her.

When Elaine was growing up in the city, her mother had told her hundreds of times not to answer the door to strangers. But did that rule apply here? In this kind of weather? If it was someone in trouble, they’d have to walk miles to the next house.

But maybe things had changed in rural Saskatchewan since someone had been shot on a farm on the other side of the province last fall.

Maybe things weren’t as safe as they used to be.

Should she call Jeff? What could he do? The police?

She heard more pounding.

If someone who shouldn’t be here wanted in badly enough, they’d find a way in somehow.

Elaine compromised. She held her phone, ready to dial 911, and headed for the door.

The window in the door was coated with a layer of frost. Anything could be on the other side. She took a deep breath, twisted the lock, then opened the door just enough to shine Connor’s LED light out through the crack.

There was a tall, thickset man on the step.

And, dear God, his face was covered with a balaclava.

Elaine slammed the door, fumbled with the lock, and swiped at her phone. Just as she hit the “9”, her phone rang. She looked at the caller ID. Mark Edwards. He’d be as helpful as the 911 operator, and he was probably closer than the police. “Hello?”

“Elaine? Sorry I scared you.”

Elaine heard the voice coming through her phone, but also from the other side of the door. Suddenly the porch light came on, and the radio started playing.

She opened the door again to find Mark pulling off his balaclava.

“I was driving by on my way home when I noticed the power was off. I knew Jeff and Dale were both away, so I thought I’d take a quick look at that generator. CG Leeann Minogue is the editor of Grainews, a playwright and part of a family grain farm in southeastern Saskatchewan.

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MARCH 1, 2017 / COUNTRY-GUIDE.CA

Reflections

by Rod Andrews retired Anglican bishop

“W

hat makes us who we are?” Is it the place we were born, the community we live in, the language we speak, or our family traditions? What defines our identity? Is it the amount of money we have, who our relatives are, or how many Facebook friends we have? How do religion, race and tradition distinguish us from others?

Six Muslim men were shot and killed while at prayer in their Quebec City mosque. One of them, Azzeddine Soufiane, 57, owned a grocery and butcher shop. Originally from Morocco, he invested his money in a business to support himself, his wife and three children aged 6, 12 and 16.

Soufiane’s store was filled with exotic scents: spices, olives, dates and bread. Newcomers to Canada gravitated to the store. The sights and scents reminded them of their homeland. Soufiane offered advice and assistance. He did more than serve his customers. He helped them integrate into a new country. He was generous. “Sometimes we left without paying.” Friends described him as “greatly loved and respected.” Another friend said he “had a permanent and contagious smile.” The president of his mosque, Mohamed Yangui, said “he was a man of principle and tolerance. He loved everyone and everyone loved him.”

Ben Amor was one of his customers. He watched Azzeddine carefully weigh five grams of spices. The grocer told Ben “I would not want to answer in front of God for giving you less than you pay for.”

The ripples of goodness which flowed from this man’s life were suddenly terminated in bloodshed. Apparently this enormous act of violence was committed in the name of God. Something is incredibly wrong here…

How can religion, meant to bring peace, cause bloodshed and death?

The question “what is the place of religion in making us who we are?” was investigated by philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah in the CBC series “Ideas.” Appiah’s theory is that there are three components to religion: what we do, who we do it with, and what we believe. He argues that many people emphasize belief over practice and community. This leads to misunderstanding and conflict in the field of religion.

When the men were killed, and others injured, at prayer, Canadians expressed shock and horror that such events could happen here.

Religious leaders spoke with a common theme. The Catholic bishops of Saskatchewan said “we condemn violence, particularly violence in the name of God, whose name is peace… such inconceivable violence violates both the sacredness of human life as well as the respect due to a community at prayer and its place of worship.”

Moses asked, “Who am I?” God replied, “What is that in your hand?” Moses answered, “It is just a shepherd’s staff. It’s what I use to lead sheep through the desert.” Perhaps God asks us the same question. “What is that in your hand? What are you good at? What are you able to do?” You may respond, “I am a farmer, I am a student or I am retired.” That is part of who you are. What can you do?

Most of us have picked up more than a few skills along the way in life. Maybe it is carpentry, twisting wrenches, making potato salad or helping a neighbour program his computer. Whoever we are, whatever religion we follow, we are asked to be merciful, to work for right relations with one another and to do what makes for peace.

“What is that in your hand?” Your answer may define who you are.

Suggested Scripture: Micah 6:6-8, Matthew 5:1-16 Rod Andrews is a retired Anglican bishop. He lives in Saskatoon.

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