The Rural Voice - March 2023

March 2023

Rural Voice

The

THE MAGAZINE OF AGRICULTURAL LIFE ... $2.50 PM 40037593

MILK REFILLS ON THE FARM

New milk dispenser and cheese plant make room for a new generation of dairy farmers

BUILD YOUR TEAM Team building increases efficiency and profitability on family farms

SETTLER COLONIALISM What does it mean for settlers to be in meaningful solidarity with Indigenous people?

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Contents The

Rural Voice THE MAGAZINE OF AGRICULTURAL LIFE

Published monthly by: The Rural Voice, Box 429, Blyth, Ontario, N0M 1H0 Telephone: 519-523-4311 Fax: 519-523-9140 E-mail: info@northhuron.on.ca Website: ruralvoice.ca Publisher: Deb Sholdice

14

23 Columns

Lisa Boonstoppel-Pot . . . . . . . . . . . . .4 Keith Roulston . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6 Kate Procter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8 Jeffrey Carter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10 Mabel’s Grill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12 Recipes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36 Gardening . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .38 Markets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .44 Woodlots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46 Agrilaw . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .48

Departments Ruralite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 Advice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40 People . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50 Business Centre . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52 Classified . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .54 Advertisers Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .63

Newsletters National Farmers Union . . . . . . . . . .58 Perth County Pork . . . . . . . . . . . . . .59 Grey County Federation . . . . . . . . . .60 Bruce County Federation . . . . . . . .61 Perth County Federation . . . . . . . . . .62 Huron County Federation . . . . . . . . .64

18 MARCH 2023 • Cover Photo Marja DeBoer-Marshall, Oxford County Photo by Jeff Tribe

Editor: Lisa Boonstoppel-Pot rveditorlisa@northhuron.on.ca Contributing writers: Keith Roulston, Kate Procter, Jeffrey Carter, Rhea Hamilton Seeger, Arnold Mathers, Donna Lacey, Melisa Luymes, Anne Mann, Nancy Fisher, Carolyn Crawford, Bonnie Sitter, Jeff Tribe, Amanda Brodhagen and Hetty Stuart

• Deadlines: April Issue – March 7

Advertising Sales: Shelley Kroes rvads@northhuron.on.ca

14 Farming With a New Vision

Production co-ordinator & Telemarketing: Joan Caldwell

May Issue – April 11

The Marshall clan welcomes a new generation by diversifying into cheese production

18 Team Work on the Farm Dave Kerr talks relationships at Young Farmer Summit

23 Culling Strategies

Dairy goat farmers discuss farm goals and how culling can help them meet those goals

26 Stand in Solidarity

Settler and Indigenous can stand together because struggles for freedom and fairness are universal

Advertising & editorial production:

Dianne Josling

PUBLICATIONS MAIL AGREEMENT NO. 40037593 RETURN UNDELIVERABLE CANADIAN ADDRESSES TO CIRCULATION DEPT. PO BOX 429, BLYTH ON N0M 1H0 email: info@northhuron.on.ca Subscriptions: $25 (12 issues) $45 (24 issues), includes HST Back copies $2.75 each.

Make cheques payable to: NORTH HURON PUBLISHING CO.

36 Irish Recipes for March

From bread to potato leek soup, the Irish have good food to share

42 Grazing Beef on Cover Crops Having beef cattle graze on cover crop stubble is great for the cattle and provides fertilizer for the land

All manuscripts submitted for consideration should be accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope. The publisher cannot accept responsibility for unsolicited submissions. The opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of the publisher. Editorial content may be reproduced only by permission of the publisher. The Rural Voice makes every effort to see that advertising copy is correct. However, should an error occur, please notify The Rural Voice office within 30 days of invoicing in order to obtain a billing adjustment.

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HURON COUNTY FEDERATION OF AGRICULTURE 519-482-9642 ofahuron@tcc.on.ca www.hcfa.on.ca

2 The Rural Voice

KINCARDINE OFFICE Ph: 519-396-3007 Website: www.lisathompsonmpp.ca Email: lisa.thompsonco@pc.ola.org

Ruralite

“

Keeping the status quo is fine,

but it is not going to keep your business going into the future.

”

•

Efficiency “A five per cent

~ Marja DeBoer-Marshall on expanding her family’s dairy

increase in skills and

business into cheese and milk sales. Story on page 14

knowledge in a group of

Aphorisms

(a short, pointed sentence that expresses a wise or clever observation)

● The nicest thing about the future is that it always starts tomorrow ● No one has more driving ambition than the teenage boy who wants to drive a car

March Inspiration “Agriculture is the noblest of all alchemy; for it turns earth, and even manure, into gold, conferring upon its cultivator the additional reward of health. ~Paul Chatfield

average people will increase productivity and efficiency by 35 per cent.” ~ Dave Kerr, speaking on the value of training farm families to be teams at the Young Farmer Summit.

See page 18

Humour • WRINKLES: Something other people have...similar to my character lines.

• INFLATION Cutting money in half without damaging the paper • COMMITTEE A body that keeps minutes and wastes hours

•

Neil’s One-Liners (Wisdom from McGavin Files)

• We seldom think of

Crowdie Cheese

Creating value-added products and capitalizing on the homegrown movement is what is allowing a new generation at Golspie Dairy to find their groove on a traditional dairy farm. Crowdie cheese anyone? See page 14 ~Photo by Jeff Tribe

what we have but always think of what

•

we lack.

March 2023 3

Lisa B. Pot Lisa B. Pot is editor of The Rural Voice, and farms in Huron County

Merging business and family

E

veryone had their coffee plus a treat from the breakfast table and was nicely seated around the tables at Bingemans Park conference centre for a day of learning.

It was all very comfortable and casual with jeans and hoodies predominating the fashion scene and the age group ranging from 20 to 40.

This was the Young Farmer’s Summit and everyone was quite happy staying in their seats, thank you very much.

The first speaker wasn’t. He made everyone get up as a “social experiment” and share something they were passionate about in the agricultural industry.

I let out a sigh but I got up, looked around and shook hands with a man who was also outside the mean age range. I offered this: “My favourite thing is going to the barn at night, lean against a bale and listening to the cows chewing.” I could have said a dozen things. But that’s what came out.

Turns out he was a former dairy farmer and admitted that while he didn’t miss the business, he remembered that as being noteworthy as well.

Nice! A little connection with a stranger.

Then speaker Dale Kerr called everyone back to their tables and explained that we, as humans, had “overridden” a natural sense of social anxiety that every animal goes through when they meet another species.

Kerr said when he told us to get up and share, many of us were thinking, “I don’t want to do it. I’m not going to do it! What if they don’t like me?”

It’s more natural to be closed

4 The Rural Voice

down and withdrawn when meeting someone new than open and be gregarious, he said.

However, amongst animals, humans have the ability to override that natural impulse to guard one’s self and connect with one another.

Not only that, it’s a key factor in how families need to interact when running a family farm.

It’s quite a thing to expect farm families to not only function socially as a unit, but to work together as a business team for the success of their farming operation. They see each other every day, constantly blurring the lines between work and family.

Kerr had a lot of advice on successfully merging the two and one suggestion was “stay in your lane.”

Immediately I thought of a pool where swimmers are practicing their strokes. One is doing freestyle, another backstroke and another kicking their legs on a flutter board.

Each one is practicing and specializing on their own skill and technique, separated by very visual and hard plastic lane ropes and painted stripes on the bottom of the pool.

Farmers have no such visuals.

They have to create their own “lane ropes” with respect, communication, structure and clarity. That means a whole lot of talking about goals, expectations, roles and operation procedures. It means sharing about what you know, what you want to do and what you want to learn.

It doesn’t require fancy clothes or board rooms ... work jeans and crop coats will do just fine.

But it does require sharing even when you are feeling anxious and guarded and respect when you feel you’ve been hurt or unheard.

I suspect, of all the multitude of skills people need to be farmers, these social skills might be the hardest of all to learn. Not only learn, but be intentional about applying every day.

As more families delve into succession planning and embrace a multi-generational business model, I thought Kerr had much wisdom to share about what it means to be both family and business partners.

You can read all about it in this issue. ◊

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March 2023 5

Keith Roulston Keith is former publisher of The Rural Voice.

He lives near Blyth, ON.

Amazing changes over my career The headline in one of the farm papers that come to our place caught my eye: “Hensall Co-op tops $1 billion in sales for the first time”.

That $1 billion figure tends to catch your attention.

I have a long history of dealing with co-operatives and could never have imagined a figure like that in my relationship with any of those.

None, of course, are quite as aggressive as the Hensall Co-op.

I started out, as a farm kid from the Lucknow area, with the Lucknow District Co-op. In those days they had a store on main street of the village before moving south of town.

There was a fertilizer plant near the

railway station that sprang into action each spring to supply farmers. My uncle, who lived with us, took a job there one spring and injured his back and never farmed again.

Later I moved to Blyth where we started The Rural Voice in 1975 and I dealt regularly with the Belgrave Coop as one of the best advertisers with the magazine and our newspaper of the time (now long part of history) for several years, developing a relationship with the Co-op’s manager. Later Belgrave was absorbed in the Teeswater Co-op before it grew into the current Huron Bay Co-operative Inc. with branches throughout mid-western Ontario.

But none of these co-ops matched the aggressiveness of the Hensall Coop when I began dealing with it. It currently has operations of various kinds in 25 different southwestern Ontario sites (33 facilities alltogether) plus Manitoba.

“One of our biggest strengths is that we have multiple business divisions,” says President Henry Vander Burgt who says the co-op’s board of directors under-estimated

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6 The Rural Voice

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sales for the year that ended last July.

As well as the many divisions that serve farmers there’s the new “Screaming Chef” division of prepared meals now available in two major grocery chains in Ontario.

One of the few disappointments was in the volume of shipments of dry beans and IP soybeans out of its locations. The goal is to ship 70 containers a day from its Hensall, Mitchell, Exeter and Bloom, Manitoba locations but because of a shortage of shipping containers and labour troubles at major ports, this goal wasn’t achieved.

It’s a long, long way from the coops I grew up with. Still, compared to some of its commercial competitors, even Hensall seems small.

But then I’m an oldtimer in farming. Recently I was reading an article on the price of farmland.

When I was born, soon after my father returned from World War 2, my parents had just bought a farm in Kinloss Twp. for $3,500. Not per acre – for the whole 100-acre farm.

Two decades later they sold it to my sister and her husband for double that price.

Now, according to the article, the price of farmland is $16,000 per acre, in Bruce County and $21,000 in Grey County. And that’s for a bare acre, not including the house and buildings.

Of course for farmland to have gained so much in value, prices from crops must also have increased. Now producers can confidently expect to gain 240 bushels of corn off every acre of their land.

“As agronomists we’re seeing some incredible genetic gains happening,” says Deb Campbell, owner of Agronomy Advantage Inc. “Whether it’s faster than what we’ve seen in the previous 10 years, time will tell. But certainly, in the last five years, the genetic gain in corn, soybean and canola has been phenomenal.”

The world has changed in terms of the expectations of both farmers and their co-ops during my 50 years covering the farm scene. We’ll need every bit of these improved yields if we cover up more farmland with urban development. People need to eat!◊

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March 2023 7

Kate Procter enough food to feed themselves and their families.

2022 represented a milestone year for Feed Ontario, an organization that was formed in 1992 when 12 food banks got together with a goal of reducing poverty to the point where food banks were not needed in Ontario.

“The purpose of the organization was twofold: to support local food banks in providing essential services to their communities and to advocate for strong public policies that eliminate food insecurity and poverty in the province,” states Feed Ontario’s Hunger Report published in 2020.

If you talk to anyone who works at combating food insecurity, they will tell you, food banks are not a solution. Food banks have been compared to paramedics. They provide immediate assistance in an emergency situation – but they do not solve the problem of long-term food insecurity. Food insecurity happens when income is not adequate to cover basic expenses such as food, housing, and clothing.

Kate farms, hikes, canoes, and plays guitar in Huron County.

Don’t expect others to eat what you don’t want to Just before Christmas, I was working with some people who volunteer locally. We got chatting about our local food bank, North Huron Community Food Share. I have been aware of the vital role that the local food bank plays – but the increase in need in our local community was still shocking.

It is no secret that everything is more expensive, interest rates are up and the cost of basic living is higher.

But just how people in our community are affected really hits you between the eyes when you look at the increase in the number of people who cannot afford to buy

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The Hunger Report found over the past 30 years since their inception, the number has gone from 12 to 1200 “hunger-relief organizations”, supporting over half a million people across the province. This past year has seen food bank use expand at a faster rate than ever before. The report noted that food banks across Ontario experienced a 42 per cent increase in visits over the past three years.

In Huron and Perth counties, we have also seen increases in food insecurity, in spite of being one of the top food producing regions of the country. Marilyn King, Chair of the North Huron Community Food Share reports a 73 per cent increase in family numbers accessing their services between October 2021 and October 2022. This represents an increase of 20 to 40 families each month. “In 2018-2019 we served 1384 families/3349 individuals. In 2020-2021 there were 2079 family visits/4218 individuals. In 2021-2022 there were 2045 families and 4471 individuals. So far in the 2022-23 year (six months), we have had 1255 families and 2452 individuals.”

These numbers are made up of children, a 27 per cent increase, a 35 per cent increase in single people, and a 56 per cent increase in twoperson families. Of the people who access the services, there has been a 47 per cent increase in the number of people who are experiencing homelessness. “80 per cent of our families are renters. There is only subsidized housing for 20 per cent, so most are paying the skyrocketing cost of rent,” says King. But it is interesting to note that the number of people using the food bank who own their own home has also risen 30 per cent from 2021.

The dollars involved with stocking the food bank also tell the story. King reports that total food cost for the 2020-2021 year were $88,277.

Current food costs since June 2022 are $95,338, compared to $38,437, for the period from June 2021 to Dec. 2021.

Allyson Fradella, from Statistics Canada, has written a very interesting and detailed report – Behind the numbers – what is causing growth in

food prices — that breaks down why some of this is happening. She suggests a perfect storm of events have raised the prices of food at the fastest pace since 1981. Supply chain disruptions due to COVID-19, poor weather in production areas, increasing input prices, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and higher retail operating costs have all played a role.

From the farm to the end user, a series of increasing costs have made food more expensive. Pesticides are up 33.9 per cent, energy is up 27.8 per cent, and agricultural wages are up 8.3 per cent.

None of this is easily solved.

Which takes us back to our local food bank, where we can at least help our neighbours get through these tough times. I asked King what she wishes people knew about the Food Share. “In some ways funds are better than donations. There is always an element of cleaning out your pantry and donating items too outdated that you will not eat yourself but expect others to. We can’t give out food past the best before date.”

“We are increasingly the grocery store for more and more of the population. Research says that only 25 per cent of the food insecure use food banks, so we have a lot of hungry folks in our area,” she says.

In conversations had with the clientele, King found that people relying on Canada Pension Plan (CPP), Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP), Ontario Works (OW), Canada Child Benefit (CCB) or being paid minimum wage, do not have enough money to live.

There are multiple ways to pull together as a community. North Huron Community Food Share is just one of many places to donate and volunteer. The Huron County Food Distribution Centre has a mission “to provide food security for all people by supporting local food banks and aid agencies in Huron County and area.”

Their current fundraising drive is looking for 400 people to donate $50 monthly in order to cover the costs of getting food distributed throughout Huron and Perth Counties. ◊

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March 2023 9

Jeff Carter Jeff is a freelance journalist based in Dresden, Ontario.

The case for meat, Part II In last month’s column, I talked about growing interest in small to medium-sized abattoirs and meatprocessing facilities.

There has been modest growth in this area in recent months. In addition, Ontario’s feedlot capacity has grown by perhaps 10 per cent, according to Jim Clark, executive director of the Ontario Cattle Feeders Association.

Ontario’s cow-calf industry, however, hasn’t kept pace. Clark puts the annual shortfall at around 300,000 animals, a situation that requires feedlot operators to either look to the dairy industry or outside Eastern Canada to source feeder cattle.

There are roughly 700,000 dairy cows between Ontario and Quebec.

With dairy producers now able to determine the sex of offspring, their industry could become a valued source of quality bull calves for beef production, Clark suggests.

As it now stands, however, many of the animals sourced for Ontario feedlots are being shipped north to Ontario from U.S. states east of Mississippi, notably Virginia. Much of the beef produced in Ontario is either consumed domestically or is exported to various points around the world, including Japan, the biggest export market for the Ontario Corn Fed Beef brand.

The dynamics of the system are driven primarily by supply and demand dynamics, although other factors are at play. For people involved in the business of primary agriculture any shift in focus, such as from cropping to an investment cowcalf production, cannot be implemented successfully without with a great deal forethought and expense.

10 The Rural Voice

The dynamics of the marketplace are another consideration. Beef production has been profitable in recent months but anyone with historical knowledge of the industry knows there have also been lean times, some lasting for years.

Factoring in as well has been the decline of the North America beef herd, a result of drought but also related to the growing consumer preference for less expensive chicken as a meat protein.

Playing into the situation, too, is the image of cattle and other ruminants being a liability when it comes to things like the environment and climate change. I’d like to challenge that perception.

Simply put, it’s not the cow, it’s the how – a slogan that has gained some traction within regenerative farming circles.

I’ve come to this point in a roundabout fashion but it is important, I think, to have first put the situation in perspective. Bringing about positive change to anything so complex as the food system takes time.

A good beginning, when it comes to ruminant livestock, is the recognition that they can contribute to climate change mitigation by reducing carbon emissions or even building soil carbon reserves – despite the simplistic argument behind cow burps.

If I were to be granted three wishes from the blue fairy to change the beef and food industry: I’d ask for an immediate shift to grassfinished production from grain-fed models; that folks in the Global North would moderate their consumption of beef; and that those same people would begin to place more value and respect on what they put into their mouths.

Change, unfortunately, doesn’t come with the wave of a wand.

That said, there is an initiative, supported by the federal government through the Farmers for Climate Solutions organization, to move toward a more sustainable and less energy intensive agricultural system.

Climate Solutions is working three areas, nitrogen management, cover cropping, and advanced

grazing systems. Cattle and other ruminants have a role to play in each.

In the area of nitrogen management, ruminants provide an opportunity for nitrogen cycling, reducing or even eliminating the requirement for commercial nitrogen fertilizers which are among agriculture’s most prolific contributors to atmospheric carbon loading.

Cover cropping also has soilbuilding potential and many cover crops can be used as a source of feed for ruminants and other livestock.

Advanced grazing systems can be divided into two different areas, grazing systems that are a component of a rotational cropping system and perennial grassland systems.

Forages in rotation have the potential to build soil carbon or perhaps maintain an equilibrium.

Perennial grasslands are important in two respects for climate change mitigation as outlined by University of Alberta researcher Ed Bork.

Bork said land that has been in grass or pasture for decades represents a long-term storage sink of soil carbon – as long as it is properly managed, not overgrazed. When long-term grasslands are disturbed through cultivation, a large part of the stored carbon is immediately released to the atmosphere.

Consequently, perennial grasslands should remain in place, Bork says.

Cropland can also be converted into perennial grassland and with the right technique, a significant amount of carbon can be sequestered over time. Bork talks about adaptive multi-paddock grazing, more commonly known as mob grazing or intensive rotational grazing, as having potential. This involves heavy grazing events conducted in short bursts, interspersed with lengthy rest periods for recovery.

Now back to my blue fairy wishes. My first wish was to eliminate grain-fed beef production in favour of grass-fed production.

Another possibility may be to keep grain in beef finishing diets – for arguably superior eating quality – but change the way the grains are grown, eliminating the use of commercial nitrogen fertilizers entirely. ◊

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March 2023 11

Mabel’s Grill The world’s problems are solved daily ’round the table at Mabel’s Grill.

George Mackenzie and Dave Winston were preparing to order at Mabel’s Grill, the other morning, when Dave set his menu aside and started: “You know I hate to complain ...”

“Oh, oh, here comes the big but,” chuckled Molly Whiteside as she arrived with her pad to take their orders.

“Hey, I resent your comments on the size of my butt,” grumbled Cliff Murray as he arrived at the table.

“No,” laughed Molly out loud, “I wasn’t talking about the size of your bottom, it’s just that Dave was beginning to complain about something. Well, what was it, anyway/” “Oh, it doesn’t matter,” said Dave haughtily as he picked up his menu.

“Come on, you’re only going to

bring it up again later when I go back to the kitchen anyway,” Molly chided.

“I was just going to say I know it hasn’t been a bad winter, all told, but I’m ready for spring,” said Dave.

“I think we can all agree with you there,” agreed Cliff.

“Yeah, I just bought a nice spring dress for my daughter and I can hardly wait for her to wear it to church at Easter, come April,” said Molly.

“It’s been a pretty good winter, though,” said George. “I mean Christmas got kind of messed up but we had hardly any snow on the ground most of January,” “Now he’s going to tell us about winters in the 50s,” chuckled Dave.

“Hey, I’m not that old,” grumbled George. “I was thinking back to the 1970s and even then I was only a kid.

Some of those winters we got weeks off school because the buses couldn’t travel. I remember one year when they had to put a bulldozer out to widen out the road. I’m telling you, we had winters back then.”

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same country,” Dave said with a wink at Cliff. “I guess that was before climate change.”

“Climate change!” George sneered. “We’ve just had a few easy winters lately, that’s all. We’ll get our share of bitter winters again.”

“But we’ve got to go back to the school memories of old guys to remember when we had them,” chuckled Dave.

“Enough with the insults, okay?” grumbled George.

“Alright, I’ll just take your orders before you gents come to blows,” Molly said, and waited until the guys made their selections.

“I’ve got to go to the Co-op and get some bird feed after breakfast,” grumbled Cliff. “We have a squirrel who hangs upside down to get to the suet. It’d be funny to watch him if he didn’t scare all the woodpeckers and chickadees away and steal half the suet.”

“Sounds like too much trouble just to watch the birds eat,” Dave said dubiously.

“Yeah, I have a cat that comes up from the barn and chases the squirrels away,” said George. “Now that can be fun!”

“Sounds hilarious,” Cliff said sourly.

“Here’s your order,” said Molly as she delivered the tray with a plate for each of them.

“So how much did these eggs cost?” George asked, looking at his bacon, eggs and toast as she was turning to head back to the kitchen.

“I don’t know, whatever they’re charging at the grocery store, I guess,” replied Molly. “Why?” “Well the wife was home with the flu and she was watching TV and the guy on the show said the price of eggs was so high, he keeps hens at his California place and flies their eggs to his place in New York,” “Oh, I’m sure that is a big saving,” scoffed Molly.

“So this guy’s a TV star with houses on both coasts and the price of eggs is more than he can afford,” sneered Dave.

“Well, I mean, the price of their airfare is nothing compared to the price of eggs,” mocked Cliff. “I mean the poor guy can probably barely survive! ◊

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March 2023 13

Dairy

Making their own path in dairy land • By Jeff Tribe

To bring another generation of farmers in, the Marshalls choose cheese over quota Marja DeBoer‐Marshall stands with husband Laurence DeBoer and father Ron Marshall as the next generation of farmers with a new vision — increasing sales with an on‐farm milk dispenser and cheese plant.

T

he Marshall clan is expanding through diversification into an innovative whole-milk dispensing machine and cheese production facility rather than upping numbers of dairy cattle and quota in order to move a five-generation farming operation into a sixth.

“Keeping the status quo is fine,” said Golspie Dairy’s Marja DeBoer-Marshall. “But it’s not going to keep your business going into the future.”

The Marshall family began farming north of Woodstock in 1874 and is closing in on 150 years of continual operation. But with Ron and Wendy heading toward retirement and the inevitable decision on whether there was a family member willing to continue given a transitional agricultural landscape, that streak came into question.

Enter son Laurence and daughter-in-law Marja, considering ongoing financial viability with a 30-cow milking herd.

“We didn’t want to get out and couldn’t get bigger, so we had to make our own path,” she explained.

The couple met at the University of Waterloo, she taking Political Science and Global Affairs, he in Biology.

Graduating in 2015, Laurence moved back home with the intention of going full time. Marja continued off-farm, her background including an organic vegetable farm, small 14 The Rural Voice

cafe, milking dairy goats and helping with kidding, and finally, marketing and then cheese-making with Mountain Oak Cheese, where she assisted with everything from cheese-making to packaging. “Basically all parts of the process.”

The arrival of the couple’s daughter Mavis and associated maternity leave gave Marja time to brainstorm and cost out their dream of on-farm value-added products including the dairy equivalent of a dispensing machine, combined with their own cheese-making facility. The process incorporated responsibilities including writing a business plan, meeting a variety of regulatory qualifications, and acting as general contractor for a 2,500square-foot food processing facility in a COVID-impacted construction world, all while caring for a baby.

“I don’t think I’d recommend it to others,” Marja laughed. “We joke that the cheese plant is our second child.”

Their ultimate vision aligns with an artisanal wave sweeping across Europe, the United States and now Canada, based on the principles of a family-focussed, community-driven and environmentally-responsible operation. Their model includes a Brunimat milk dispenser, the fresh dairy equivalent of an autonomous pop or junkfood vending machine. There are several milk dispenser

manufacturers in Europe, says Marja, this Swiss company being the one willing to ship internationally. There are a handful of dispensers operational in Canada, she continued, to her knowledge units in British Columbia, Cape Breton and Saskatchewan.

“But this is the first one in Ontario.”

Their dispenser features two 200litre tanks of chilled milk, one whole, one chocolate from which customers can refill glass bottles, either their own or classically-shaped branded containers purchased from Golspie Dairy.

“It’s its own unique product,” says Marja, milk containing the same fat content which comes out of a cow.

“You can’t get that at the store.”

The milk dispenser is an integral component to the business, however secondary processing is where her true passion lies.

“We built this facility because I want to be in there making cheese.”

The plant features a receiving room for their own milk, transported by special tanker along a purposebuilt laneway under DFO regulations, a batch pasteurizer utilizing a lower temperature as part of a “gentler” process, a processing room with a larger cheese vat and smaller vats for lactic-style (made slower with less rennet) cheeses.

“You end up with a different texture to your cheese,” Marja explained.

There is an aging room where cheese is allowed to age naturally, flipped, brushed and wiped regularly, a smaller room for bottling and processing product, a small packaging room, and shipping and retail areas.

The infrastructure is supported by a raft of regulatory compliance, says DeBoer-Marshall.

She had to write both SOPs and SSOPs, standard operating procedure and standard sanitizing operating procedure documents, including record-keeping components. Marja also was required to get her plant milk and cream grader certification in order to receive milk at the plant, as well as food-handler training.

“It is important, you need to

know, but it is a lot of work,” she said.

DeBoer-Marshall also had to meet local municipal public health regulations and additionally, their provincial equivalents, the latter through OMAFRA. Federal public health compliance is being considered for the future to allow products to be shipped nationally, rather than their current provincial boundaries.

The regulations add another layer

of complexity, says Marja, but a perfectly understandable one.

“It gives you that assurance, that trust,” she said. “People know they are getting a unique product that not only tastes great and is nutritious, but is also safe. We need to do everything in our power to produce and sell the safest and best-quality products we can.”

Golspie Dairy’s first commercially-available cheese will be named Crowdie, a lighter, fluffier

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option made from milk, offering its attendant lower Marja DeBoer‐Marshall fat content. It is similar, says Marja, to cream cheese stands among shelving in and a favourite of their young daughter who “eats it the partially completed by the spoonful”. It has a spreadable texture. “It’s cheese storage room at basically the best thing you can put on a bagel.”

Golspie Dairy (right) and Marja is also planning to make British-style shows off milk from the on‐ cheese, similar to cheddar with attendant sharpness.

“It has a bite to it with that nice, crumbly farm, dairy vending machine (below) texture.”

Her ultimate goal is to make a Stilton-style cheese, a creamy blue with an understated flavour profile.

Going from plan to operational plant is a process that encompassed two years. Construction began in December, 2021 after a year’s planning and paperwork. Following meeting the myriad regulations and testing of the first batches of milk, chocolate milk, and Crowdie at The University of Guelph, the facility opened on December 17 of last year.

The milk dispenser offers public access seven days per week with the retail area open Thursday, Fridays and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the beginning.

Paraphrasing, there is the hope that if they build the dairy facility of their dreams, people will come.

Golspie Dairy does offer unique, undeniably farmfresh products, however the challenge may be establishing a sustainable customer base willing to make the short trip outside of Woodstock down a gravel road, to access them.

“There are no guarantees in life,” said Marja. However, she is encouraged by how much excitement their impending opening generated on both the company website (golspiedairy.ca) and Facebook page, along with demand following that opening.

It has been an incredible amount of work, mental and physical, and there is a realization that work is just beginning. However, the process of creating one’s own career within the model of a sustainable family farm, designing and building a facility, producing and selling products to their local community, and receiving positive feedback on those same products, has been incredibly rewarding.

“I think that feedback can be just so heartening and helpful,” The Marshall‐DeBoer family is said Marja, tired, but productively so from the 24- expanding through diversification month journey required to get rather than expansion at the to this encouraging point “We family farm on 45th Line near could have just said, ‘to heck Woodstock (above) where a new with it, sell the farm and cheese‐making facility (right) is travel’. Or you can try.” ◊ Marja’s happy place.

March 2023 17

Management

Learning to work as a team Using active listening and creating psychological safety among family members will increase farm efficiency and personal relationships • By Lisa Boonstoppel-Pot •

F

amilies need to rethink themselves as “teams” when operating a family farm to utilize the expertise of each member because this increases productivity and efficiency, say relationship experts at Farm Credit Canada’s Young Farmers Summit.

Dale Kerr encouraged attendees at Farm Credit Canada’s Young Farmer Summit that each member of the farm team should have a sense of accountability and be dependable, allowing everyone to focus on their own work and encourage each member to excel in their tasks.

18 The Rural Voice

With a parking lot full of pick-up trucks and the conference room at Bingemans Park in Kitchener full of young farmers, Dale Kerr started off the day making everyone get up and share something they were passionate about with someone they did not know.

It was a social experiment revealing many people felt a little bit vulnerable and anxious being forced out of their comfort zone. “That’s normal…every animal goes through some level of social anxiety when meeting another species,” said Kerr, a hobby farmer, host of the documentary Hello, Goodbye and author of Living Lightly.

“Yet, as a human, you overrode the impulse to be closed and withdrawn to meet someone new and share something about yourself.”

That courage, along with creating safe groups where team/family members can collaborate while also encouraging one another’s gifts and skills, can create efficient farm families with meaningful work experiences.

Relationships are key, as another one of the day’s speakers – Danielle Wildfong – said the success of relationships is a key factor on the farm’s bottom line.

First, Kerr reflected that in generations past, the farm family was often hierarchical with an authoritative elder making all the decisions. It wasn’t an entirely unsuccessful method but family dynamics have shifted as they learn that each member has a valuable role to play.

Referencing data from Google’s study called Project Aristotle, Kerr revealed that the best teams aren’t necessarily the ones with the best players. Rather, the best teams often have average players who are encouraged and trained to make them better, which increases the skills and aptitude of the entire team.

“A five percent increase in skills and knowledge in a group of average people will increase productivity and efficiency by 35 per cent,” said Kerr.

To build these successful teams, certain traits are required: Dependability: There must be a sense of trust that each member is accountable and dependable, said Kerr. “So that if one member is out doing their job, you know they got it and nobody else has to worry about it.” This level of dependability is like a foundation to create more productive teams.

Structure and Clarity: Instead of being generalists, each member has a role or “lane” they stay in. “My job is

to know my area really well and educate myself to get better in my lane,” said Kerr. Along with that, each person should be able to articulate what their job is, and what their goal is. “In this way, they understand how their contribution gets the whole team to its goal.”

Meaning: “If your work has no personal meaning, you are likely to suck at it and it is likely going to suck doing it,” said Kerr. “That’s why I asked you to start the day by sharing something you were passionate about because what we are passionate about is what provides meaning to our lives.” Kerr added that farmers don’t often struggle to find meaning. Taking care of animals and feeding others is full of meaning, and being able to work on a farm that has provided for four generations tends to create people who are passionate about what they do.

Psychological Safety: “That is not just an academic, nerdy term for a research paper. It is a way of describing what it feels like to be yourself around a group of people,” explained Kerr. It’s important that members of a farm family team do not have to hide who they are; they feel accepted by everyone in the group. That allows each person to make mistakes because then mistakes aren’t life-threatening. Instead, they become opportunities to learn. When a farm family has psychological safety, then everyone is free to express, explore and grow. “That sure as hell wasn’t my family,” admitted Kerr. “My dad set a tone about mistakes and expectations and I’m sure he would defend himself to this day, saying he was doing the right thing. But it made me less open to making mistakes and less about talking to him about the difficulties and challenges we were having. That was not psychological safety. It is what breaks collaboration.”

Collaboration: This is a term that describes a group culture where it is safe to make mistakes and people are accepted for who they are and what they know. “It’s where leaders are not authoritarian but are facilitators who are proud to cover for the team,” explained Kerr. “A team leader

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should be thinking ‘who is going to take my job’ not from a place of defensiveness, but from a place of grooming the talent in the family.”

To build psychological safety and collaboration within the farm family, Kerr offered these tips: Active Listening: “Your eyes are your best listening tools. Not your ears,” he said.

Eyes are directly connected to the brain and are able to process more information than computers can. To really listen to a person, you need to look at them and really see them. “The brain controls motion and if you are not active in a conversation, it will tell your feet and body to move away from that person,” explained Kerr. Seeing someone’s upper body or feet turned away from you is a big clue they aren’t listening.

Take Turns: Conversation isn’t a dialogue by one person. It’s allowing every person to have a chance to talk and share what is on their mind.

Empathy: Empathy is the greatest tool to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and really understand what they are feeling and experiencing, said Kerr.

Detach the Ego: Humans have complex brains ranging from the reptilians/survival part to complex thinking parts adapted to life in a social context. Most times, people work with their logical brain but when they get threatened or perceive a threat, that primitive brain becomes agitated, defensive, reactive, protective and uses aggression, avoidance or paralysis as coping strategies.

Being aware of this and understanding how aggressive your ego can be goes a long way to defusing difficult situations and bringing your best self to the family team. ◊

20 The Rural Voice

Relationships are the new bottom line • By Lisa Boonstoppel-Pot •

D

anielle Wildfong wants to bring the older generations’ contributions and back the power of relationship to abilities, said Wildfong. society.

Relationships are risky and sometimes The Saskatchewan farmer and it’s very difficult to find the right balance counselor, who uses a multi-disciplinary in family between family relationships and approach to talk with farm families about business relationships. Most of it comes succession, roles, accountability, vision down to communication and lack of and strategy, told the crowd at the Farm clarity about expectations for each farm Credit Canada Young Farmer Summit that family member. back in the day, farms were bought and On the Wildfong farm, relationships sold based on a smile and a handshake. are treasured which is shown by inviting While business is much more staff in for coffee, for dinner and postcomplicated these days, relationships harvest drinks. “We take care of them like don’t have to be when communication, our family,” said Wildfong. equity, self-awareness and respect are the Showing appreciation can solve so underpinnings of farm family teams. many problems. “You want to remember Wildfong talked about one of her each member is compromising for each clients, an older farmer named Kenny who other. Show some appreciation. If you was a great believer in hard work and don’t, each member will start to question getting things done. He wasn’t perhaps the if they are worthy.” best communicator or listener. Kenny had The truth is, when a family or staff a son who didn’t feel heard on the farm. member feels empowered, it makes them So Wildfong encouraged the son to start want to work harder and create profit for weekly meetings with family and staff. the business. When you hold them back, it “Include Kenny so he can see you are makes them feel worthless.

In conclusion, Wildfong encouraged taking your role seriously,” advised Wildfong. Well, the first meeting was held everyone to live by their values, show up and Kenny knew he was supposed to be to conversations with their eyes, there, so he drove up with his quad, waved appreciate the other person and put and left. At the next meeting, Kenny relationships first because they are what stopped the quad, listened for a few makes or breaks the bottom line. ◊ minutes, and then left. Now, he is a regular and has learned that taking time to talk and plan for the business is just as important as getting to the shed to fix a machine.

At the same time, the older generation needs “grace and space.”

They are used to showing up every day and getting everyone working so the new ways of doing things can feel threatening. Danielle Wildfong said employees and family members are The younger invited in for coffee and post‐harvest drinks because cultivating generation needs to relationships is the real growth that needs to take place on make sure they family farms. She spoke at Farm Credit Canada’s Young aren’t undermining Farmers Summit held in Kitchener in January.

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Developing a culling strategy based on your goals makes the difficult process of culling dairy goats easier say panelists Michelle Bowering (top left) with husband Dave was one of four panelists discussing how to keep goat herds thriving with strategic culling practices. ~Photo supplied by Michelle Bowering

G

oat arthritis and production goals topped the reason four goat producers keep or cull goats for their dairy goat herds.

Emily Franken of Teeswater, Willem Vendrig of Walton, Dave Passhier of Blyth and Michelle Bowering of Ilderon made up a panel of producers who provided insight into their culling style at Grey Bruce Farmers Week Goat Day held in early January.

First to speak, Emily Franken is the manager at Frankhaven Dairy Goats, where they milk 700 goats. The former dairy farmers had a steep learning curve making the switch and learned culling is a way of life when managing goats. Emily said the farm culls heavily on buck, keeping only the “top of the line” males. The rest are moved to the market pen because “I will not keep them in my herd and I will not sell them into anyone else’s herd either.”

However, one of the biggest reasons for culling is Caprine Arthritis Encephalitis (CAE), a debilitating, progressive and contagious disease in goats that leads to lameness, paralysis, pneumonia, mastitis and weight loss in goats. “As soon as it gets in their shoulder and hips, we ship them right away,” said Emily, revealing 70 per cent of herd culls are a result of CAE. Other reasons for culling in the Frankhaven herd include culling goats that only get pregnant seasonally as they are attempting to create a year-round milk production and encourage does to kid off-season. “As we keep culling for does that don’t catch year round, we hope offspring of the other does are better at coming into heat during the off season.”

Willem Vendrig said his family started milking goats in June 2017 and he also does most of the herd culling based on CAE. Though they also cull for production, having a young herd means they are trying to grow numbers and genetics will be viewed more closely once the herd grows.

“Temperament is also an issue. There is always one goat you want to strangle sometimes, so they tend to go,” he said.

The Vendrigs put some effort into staphylococcus aureus testing in an attempt to improve milk quality and weed out goats with infectious issues. In the end, he felt the costs of the testing was not a good return on investment as only three percent of the herd tested positive and were culled.

However, he also administered the California Mastitis Test in an effort to detect goats with high somatic cell counts (SCC). “When you have high SCC counts, as few as five goats can cause issues so we did this test and felt it was a cost-effective way to fix the problem.”

Dave Passchier is co-owner of Par-Chier Farm outside of Blyth where he farms with his parents on 200 acres of land. Currently milking 1,100 goats in a rotary parlour, they have technology to automatically identify and record milk production data on each goat.

Their barn is designed as one large pen with all lactations of goats mingling together. Computer feeding allows high-producing goats to access more feed.

• By Lisa Boonstoppel-Pot March 2023 23

The Passchiers have a duration milking herd, meaning they milk does two to three years before rebreeding them. They cull based on each does’ milk production and ability to thrive in the duration system. “Our culls are based on a combination of milk production and feed costs so that we end up keeping those more efficient animals,” said Dave. Other culling considerations include breeding and health issues.

Michelle Bowering was the only member on the panel to have a CAEfree herd, which changed her culling practices dramatically. “It took us a lot of years and expense to get that way,” she shared. They are a closed herd to protect their CAE-free status.

Production is the primary reason Michelle culls goats. Any doeling that produces under 2.5 litres or any does producing less than 3.5 litres per day is culled. Milk components are also considered so The goats at Frankhaven Dairy Goats near if a doe produces over Teeswater enjoy natural ventilation and deep five litres of milk but bedding under manager Emily Franken’s (top right) only averages 1.6 per care but culling is necessary to control for disease cent for butterfat, she and improve production. Four dairy goat breeders may also be culled. shared their culling strategies during Goat Day at “We also cull for Grey Bruce Farmers Week. Below, moderator feet and legs and Marlene Paibomesai, a dairy specialist with udders. I do not like OMAFRA led the discussion with panelists (below, the long udders,” left to right) Emily Franken, Willem Vendrig, Dave admits Michelle. “I just like coming into Passchier and Michelle Bowering. ~Franken photos the parlour and seeing supplied by Emily Franken. Panel photo supplied by all nice, little udders.”

Howick Mutual Insurance Since all the does are fed the same ration, fat goats are also culled as they aren’t efficiently transforming feed into milk production. Any goats with twisted hooves, “go quickly”, said Michelle.

She admits that culling practices change over the years, depending on what the farm goals are that year.

When they did have CAE, disease was a major culling point. Once it was eradicated, they could focus on production, udders and feet and legs.

During the group discussion, other culling points were raised: Technology “Before we built our new barn, we did not have as much technology and a lot of culling was based on visuals.

However, with technology you learn that the does you thought were high

24 The Rural Voice

producers, are not always as good as you thought,” said Dave.

Emily shared that they use manual milk metres on their farm to test for production. “I complain about them a lot because I want a new parlour with technology to keep our production numbers current and to create benchmarks. That would make culling easier,” she said.

“We have a lot of issues keeping ear tags in goats,” said Willem. “We had all new ones and I think 50 per cent are now missing again.” Finding a good management software is difficult because they are all based on dairy cow herds, he added Age and Older Goats The average goat age of the ParChier herd is around five years, said Dave. “We have a few that are eight years old but none that are 10.”

Since Willem and family started their herd in 2017 with young stock, their herd isn’t very old. “We tried to learn goat farming in steps and we knew kidding for doelings is easier,” he said.

Emily said they try to breed for

longevity and do have a doe in their herd that is 17 years old. “She is a beauty!” laughed Emily. Does stay if they are healthy but once they are at the age to have issues, they are routinely culled.

Production Michelle: “We average 3.4 litres a day. I would like to see it higher but that’s what it is.”

Willem: “We feed Total Mixed Ration (TMR) and are not feeding pellets right now, we are averaging 2.2 litres per goat. We used to feed more pellets but we find when we don’t push for that extra litre, we have less issues as the goats are healthier with shinier coats.

Hopefully, it will improve longevity.”

Emily: “We average three liters across the year. As we kid out yearround more regularly, our production should improve. Also, we put in more preventative measures for CAE, we won’t have to cull good milking goats due to disease so that should increase milk production as well. Getting up to 3.5 litres is our

three-year goal.”

Dave: “We average 3.3 litres a day.”

Conclusion Culling can be a difficult process and for Willem, there was a time when they kept goats with health issues in an attempt to cure them. He has since learned that that rarely works and it’s best to cull decisively.

Dave recommends dairy goat producers set herd health and production goals with a mind of where they want to be in five years.

Then, give yourself some grace when the ups and downs of the dairy goat industry itself makes survival more important than goal-setting.

Keep an eye on your butterfat, advised Michelle. Production is important but you can’t just make decisions based on volume.

Emily repeated Dave’s advice that goal setting is key. “You have to strive to meet your own goals when building a cull strategy,” she said.

“What is an issue in your goat herd may not be an issue in another person’s herd.” ◊

March 2023 25

Community

Striving for authentic solidarity

Phil Henderson (right) believes settlers should stand in solidarity with Indigenous people as they protest wrongs (above) against their people.

Raised In Saugeen Anishinaabek territory in Grey and Bruce Counties, Phil Henderson says Indigenous freedom struggles are fundamentally struggles over life itself and therefore, should be shared by settlers

“I

support Wet’suwet’en strong” – that’s one of the many examples of solidarity slogans brandished on signs carried by non-Indigenous people at Indigenous sites of protest across Canada. Since the publication of the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission into Indian Residential schools in 2015, observers say there’s been a surge in settlers eager to ally themselves with Indigenous peoples’ struggles.

Based on anecdotal evidence, more settlers have registered for online courses in Indigenous history and culture, such as the University of Alberta’s “Indigenous Canada.” More have joined protest marches and barricades like the 1492 Land Back blockade at Caledonia, Ontario where residents of the Six Nations of the Grand River opposed a settler development initiative on the disputed Haldimand Tract.

In the name of reconciliation, municipalities, universities, farm organizations and other institutions and groups are increasingly adopting territorial acknowledgments in recognition of Indigenous peoples lands. Many are reaching out to local Indigenous communities in support of their efforts to address urgent

26 The Rural Voice

• By Gary Kenny • social, economic and environmental crises in their midst.

Surely that’s a good thing – more robust settler solidarity support for the struggles of Indigenous people for full recognition of their sovereign rights. But what do settlers in Canada understand about allyship and solidarity with Indigenous peoples to actually mean?

In an essay, “Solidarity as a Settler Move to Innocence,” researchers Miranda Grundy, Jessica Jiang and May Niiya define solidarity broadly as the relationship between groups that share common interests, objectives and responsibilities. Solidarity, they add, signifies that the nonIndigenous ally is informed about and committed to supporting Indigenous struggles.

That sounds like a foundation you can build a house on.

But here’s the rub. The definition conceals a paradox. How can settlers engage in genuine solidarity with Indigenous peoples, the writers ask, when their very existence – and their prosperity – is rooted in settler colonialism and the occupation of what were sovereign Indigenous lands; lands that were appropriated through dishonoured treaties or stolen outright?

Vancouver-based writer and activist Harsha Walia puts it more bluntly. Canada is a colonial nationstate, she says. As a country its “state and corporate wealth is largely based on subsidies gained from the theft of Indigenous lands and resources.”

Many if not most of the social, economic, cultural and other rights, freedoms and pleasures Canadians enjoy today have their origin and evolution in that unearned advantage, she adds.

It’s a fact that many Canadians seem unaware of, or if they are aware, aren’t comfortable talking about.

Solidarity with Indigenous peoples, to be authentic, needs to be grounded in an understanding of the dynamics of settler colonialism, says Dina Gilio-Whitaker, a member of the Colville Confederated Tribes whose territory spans parts of British Columbia and the states of Washington, Oregon and Idaho. She defines settler colonialism as a distinct form of imperial practice that seeks to eliminate Indigenous populations from their native lands and replace them with an immigrant, non-Indigenous population.

On arrival in Canada, for example, early immigrants from Ireland, Scotland, Germany and other European countries imposed new social, economic and political structures on pre-existing Indigenous populations.

Supported by governments of the day, GilioWhitaker says, their purpose was to control land and the resources on and beneath the land, and to maintain that control.

Settler colonialism isn’t merely an historic event that occurred in the 18th century. Says Gilio-Whitaker, “it’s state-based and structural,” and its endgame is always the same: the elimination of Indigenous sovereignty in order to possess their land.

“Settler privilege” is the term Indigenous people and their allies apply to the unearned advantages of which Walia, Gilio-Whitaker and others speak. As one Indigenous activist put it, settlers “swim in a sea of settler privilege” and are mostly

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unaware of it. It blinkers them to the kind of solidarity that best supports the struggles Indigenous peoples identify as priorities.

Phil Henderson has thought deeply about how his privilege as a settler has challenged his understanding about what it means to demonstrate authentic and meaningful solidarity with Indigenous peoples. Raised in Saugeen Anishinaabek territory in Bruce and Grey Counties, what he’s learned is derived from numerous interactions with Indigenous land and water keepers and academic study.

A research fellow at Carleton University’s Institute of Political Economy, Henderson’s academic work has included investigations into alliances between settlers and Indigenous nations in Canada. He’s also participated in protests by Indigenous land defenders, including the Wet’suwet’en in their opposition to the Coastal Gaslink pipeline in British Columbia.

One thing meaningful solidarity is not, Henderson says, is an act of charity. “We’re not – or at least shouldn’t be – acting from a place in which we as settlers stand outside of or above the freedom struggles in which Indigenous peoples are engaged.” Those struggles should be seen as our struggles as settlers, too, he adds, because they “are fundamentally struggles over life itself.” Henderson explains: “The slogan ‘water is life’ – derived from the Lakota phrase ‘mni wiconi’ is a universal claim. We all need water to live.” Indigenous peoples who live close to the land and water and depend on them “will be the first to suffer from further expansion of capitalist industry,” Henderson says.

“But,” he adds, “they won’t be the last.” As despoliation of the planet’s land and water worsens – from unchecked carbon emissions, the clear-cutting of forests, reckless and irresponsible mineral extraction, and other industrial exploits that threaten the ecological integrity of the planet – non-Indigenous populations will suffer as well.

It’s that recognition, Henderson says, that can invite Indigenous and

non-Indigenous people alike into a kind of mutual solidarity.

“Supporting (Indigenous) struggles is (also) supporting a struggle that affirms life for all people, he adds.

Scholar, community activist and settler Sheelah McLean views allyship with Indigenous peoples as radical, transformative action. In her article, “We Built a Life from Nothing,” published by the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives, McLean says settlers “must be able to position (themselves) as active and integral participants in a decolonization movement for political liberation, social transformation, renewed cultural kinships and the development of an economic system that serves rather than threatens our collective life on this planet.”

But standing in the way of that goal, she adds, is “the myth of liberal individualism.”

She tells a story to illustrate.

McLean’s immigrant grandparents came to Canada from Europe with little money or possessions. Their assimilation into the dominant British society of the day was facilitated by churches, community groups, public schools and other expressions of institutional and social life. With hard work and ingenuity, McLean says, they built a good, secure life for themselves and for future generations like her own, and they were proud for having done so.

Yet, in the same historical timeframe that her ancestors benefitted from their privileged position as white citizens, McLean adds, Indigenous people faced policies of genocide. They were dispossessed of their land to make way for European settlement. They were subjected to racist and sexist federal Indian Act legislation and forced to endure the violence of residential schools.

“The political economy of white settler status has been handed down from one generation to the next, McLean says. “The access my ancestral family had to land, citizenship, public education, mobility rights, bank loans, and government relief during times of

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The emergence and sustainability of the middle class in Canada “has been, and remains, predicated upon the ongoing settler colonization of Turtle Island,” Henderson says.

“That is to say, that the establishment of capitalism is possible only through processes which continuously reproduce irredeemable suffering as they displace, disappear, assimilate, or murder countless Indigenous people(s) in order to establish and maintain the settler colony.”

“Like most Canadians”, McLean says, “my identity as a middle class white settler was formed through various national narratives that reinforce the myth of meritocracy – the belief that success in life can be attributed to personal merit such as hard work and natural talent.”

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So what does all this mean for settlers aspiring to authentic allyship and solidarity with Indigenous peoples? Says McLean, it means “questioning all the assumptions we have been raised within a society built on imperialism, private property, (which includes slavery of Indigenous and black peoples), and capitalism.”

Genuine allies recognize and struggle with their privilege, GilioWhitaker says. They choose “to stand for and with Indigenous and other marginalized communities by taking tangible, ongoing actions to dismantle systems of oppression.”

Given the devastating cultural, spiritual, economic, linguistic and political impacts of colonialism on Indigenous people in Canada, any serious attempt by non-natives at allying with Indigenous struggles must entail solidarity in the fight

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against colonization, Walia says.

Settlers need to “understand how they have a shared interest in Indigenous liberation.”

As aspirational allies, Henderson says, always keep in mind “that colonialism is a structural way in which social relations are organized; it’s how our society is organized basically from top to bottom.”

That might seem daunting, he adds, because it means that anticolonization often feels like it’s about “everything.”

And in a real way it is, he says.

“But that means that it can and must be combated from everywhere, and that makes the entry to doing anticolonial work much lower.”

So, in short, Henderson advises, “figure out where you are in terms of whose territories you’re on and in terms of the social relations you’re a part of (where you work, pray, socialize, etc.). Then see what you can do from where you are to ensure we get to where Indigenous nations are saying we need to be.”

And “pay attention to the organizing that’s already underway (and it’s almost always already underway),” Henderson adds.

“Respond to the calls to action that are out there, and as you build relationships and trust you can begin advancing the struggle further.”

As settlers, our reality is one in which we are implicated in dispossession Henderson says. It’s “a fact of social life lived under conditions not fully of our own choosing.” But, he adds, “we can choose to struggle for something better; to remake our social structures so that they actually enable the flourishing of each to be bound up in the flourishing of all.”

“Indigenous nations continue to have that ethic at their core,” Henderson adds. “That’s part of why I think the Indigenous freedom struggles are one of the central struggles for a more just world for everyone.”

Note: Google “Indigenous Ally Toolkit” for a resource that can be helpful for knowing how to be an ally in the common struggle for a more just world. ◊

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Recipes by Carolyn Crawford

Try these Irish recipes for March

L

ast summer I had the opportunity to go to Ireland with my best friend since high school, Yvonne. The purpose of our trip was to take her mother, Nuala’s, ashes home to their final resting place in Greystones, Ireland which is just south of Dublin. The first day we attended the funeral mass and “afters”—a social time spent with the family in the Burnaby Pub with food and of course, drinks. Except for it being in a pub, it was much like a “funeral lunch” served here at home.

We were served a delicious squash soup and sandwiches with tea.

After the funeral, we headed upward along the east coast of Ireland to Northern Ireland namely the Belfast area where we saw the Titanic Museum, continuing north to see Carrickfergus Castle, visit cousins in Larne, see the Giant’s Causeway and then swung back down to the south for a visit to another cousin’s place in Kinnitty (spending the night in a 13th century castle!), crossing over to the west coast to follow the Ring of Kerry before returning to Dublin.

One thing was common wherever we went—good food! Ireland has no shortage of meats, cheeses, breads, and farm produce in general. A full Irish breakfast consists of one farmer’s sausage, two eggs, fried During a trip to Ireland, Carolyn Crawford enjoyed potato and leek soup (left) and an Irish breakfast served at Kinnity Castle (bottom left). Wheaten bread is a staple in Ireland and Mary Lawless wrote out her recipe for Carolyn to take home after serving the dense, dark bread which reveals it is made with Irish wholemeal flour.

36 The Rural Voice

potato, fried tomato, fried whole mushrooms, two “rashers” (like our back bacon but theirs is smoked where ours is pickled), white blood pudding and black blood pudding.

All this was served with two slices of wheaten bread.

Wheaten bread is whole grain, wholemeal Irish soda bread. I have tried to recreate it here but even Yvonne’s Irish mother had difficulty with it “tasting as good as home” because the wheat flour here is different.

In larger milling facilities, Canada’s wheat flour loses about five per cent of the wheat germ and bran during the milling process which removes both ingredients and re-adds them to maintain the term “whole wheat.” Ireland calls their flour “wholemeal” flour. While Ireland’s flour is more naturally processed (nothing removed or added), the reason Canada mills flour this way is to make the flour more shelf stable.

Smaller flour mills, such as Arva Flour Mill, and 1847 Stone Milling Flour Mill, are now offering such wholemeal flours with a warning to refrigerate or freeze their wholemeal flours to safely store them and lengthen shelf life.

Canada is the fifth largest

producer of wheat in the world with over 50,000 wheat farms producing approximately 30,000,000 tonnes of wheat annually. Surprisingly enough, Canada ships some wheat to Ireland!

Irish flour companies such as Andrews Flour, Marriage’s, and Odlum’s all claim to have Canadian wheat blended into some of their flours. Grocery chain giant Tesco even has a “Very Strong Canadian Blend Flour” for sale. Canada’s prairie provinces produce a higher protein, higher gluten wheat variety that cannot produce the same results in the soils or climates of other countries.

Traditional bakers and bakeries in Ireland can boast that their unique wheaten bread is made with pure Irish wheatmeal naturally milled and ground. If you can acquire some wholemeal flour, you can produce a remarkably close facsimile to this truly Irish bread. There are some British import stores that sell it here in Canada but of course it is more expensive.

When we visited a family friend, Mary, in Ireland, she was kind enough to write her Wheaten Bread recipe on the back of an envelope and share it with me. Of course, she served it to us with Irish country butter, her homemade jam and tea.

Yvonne always jokes with me about tea because when we visited her mother, here in Ontario, I would want the first pour of tea from the pot. Tea in Ireland is made a little stronger and brewed to be strong.

Whether tea bags or loose tea is used, Nuala would heat the pot (often metal) on the stove to brew for several minutes. A strong, dark coloured tea is the result. But it complements the Wheaten Bread— so if you make the bread, have a cup of strong tea with it!

I have also included my 4-H Ontario Heritage Club recipe for making Irish Soda Bread with our all-Canadian wheat. Most soda bread recipes will use some all-purpose flour with the whole wheat flour in the recipe. Note that in this recipe, there is a 50-50 ratio of whole wheat to all-purpose flour. You can make it completely with all-purpose flour making it a white bread, but you

should not use all whole wheat flour.

If you use only whole wheat flour, your bread will turn out too dry.

Using at least half all-purpose flour also balances out whole wheat flour’s lesser gluten content giving your bread a lighter density.

Irish Soda Bread (Ontario 4-H 1983) Ingredients: 250 ml (1 cup) whole wheat flour 250 ml (1 cup) all-purpose flour OR 500 ml (2 cups) all-purpose flour 7 ml (1 ½ tsp) baking powder 5 ml (1 tsp) baking soda 2 ml (1/2 tsp) salt 25 ml (1/4 cup) sugar 175 ml (3/4 cup) raisins or dried currants (optional) 250 ml (1 cup) buttermilk Directions: Preheat oven to 190C (375F).

Grease a baking sheet. Combine dry ingredients in large bowl and blend thoroughly.

Add buttermilk, stirring just enough to moisten dry ingredients.

Turn out on floured counter and knead for about a minute to form a round smooth loaf.

Place on greased baking sheet.

Cut a cross in the top about 5mm (1/4”) deep.

Bake 50 minutes. Cool before slicing. omething that goes well with Soda or Wheaten Bread is Potato and Leek soup. I found this recipe on the Irish Central News site and tried it. They got it from an American site called The View From Great Island in Newcastle, New Hampshire. Wherever it comes from, the recipe looked good enough for me to try! I did not purée it like they suggest. Nor did I add peas. It was very quick to make but, like any soup or stew, it is more full flavoured when reheated the next day.

Traditional Irish Leek and Potato Soup Yield: Serves 6 Ingredients:4 tbsp butter 1 onion, chopped 3 large leeks, trimmed, sliced, thoroughly rinsed and dried (I only used one as it was rather large) 2-3 russet potatoes, peeled and diced 3 ½ cups chicken stock (or vegetable stock)

S

½ cup frozen peas (optional) Salt and fresh cracked black pepper Sour cream thinned with milk with chives or green onions to garnish Directions: Melt the butter in a large soup pot and sauté the onions, leeks, and potato for about five minutes or until everything is tender.

Add the peas to the pot just long enough to defrost them. Peas are added to create a greener colour. If you do not want it to look green, do not add them (I did not).

Working in two batches, process/purée the soup until your desired consistency. It can be smooth, or chunky. (We left it chunky.)

Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Serve piping hot with a drizzle of sour cream and a sprinkle of chives or chopped green onions. rish coffee was invented by a chef, Joseph Sheridan, from Limerick who served it to travellers in western Ireland on a rather chilly night in 1942. To warm up his guests, he added Irish whiskey to their coffee.

Irish Coffee (From Irishcentral.com) Ingredients: 1 ½ oz Irish Whiskey 5-7 oz hot coffee or 2 shots of espresso 1-2 tsp brown sugar Fresh whipped cream Directions: Run hot water over a glass mug until it is at room temperature or hotter, and then dry it (pouring hot coffee into a cold glass could cause it to crack).

Add brown sugar to the mug. Pour in whiskey.

Put a spoon in the glass mug and pour in coffee leaving room at the top for whipped cream. Stir until sugar is completely dissolved.

Remove spoon and set the whipped cream gently on top. Do not stir (drink stays warmer longer with the cream sitting on top).

I leave you with an Irish toast: May your troubles be less. May your blessings be more. And nothing but happiness come through your door!

Slainte! ◊

I

March 2023 37

Gardening Rhea Hamilton‐ Seeger is a skilled cook and gardener who lives in Goderich.

Attracting birds and insects

Well it is the time of year for me to pore over my plant catalogues and native guides to see what I can add to the garden — so much to plant and so little land!!

We have a few birds at the feeder this winter and I read that bird feeders only supply up to 40 per cent of local birds’ needs in the winter.

The rest of their diet comes from locally growing berries and seeds from native plants. Which I find shocking as we lack natural food sources for our native birds. This makes one pause and wonder what are they eating? It also explains the reduction in bird species and numbers we are seeing today. Plus the leaves and plant material we so love to hustle off the garden and out of our yards supply much needed food and habitat for both winter birds and the songbirds that return in the spring.

So my list this spring is aimed at plants to feed the birds and I am hoping some of the neighbours will pick up on that theme and run with it too. One can only hope.

We did plant a couple of nannyberry and chokeberry shrubs last spring for the birds and we have a pair of lovely older serviceberry trees. They saw a lot of action as the fruit was ripening. We tried a couple of berries, which were delicious, but a busy crowd of robins, thrushes, and catbirds soon cleaned them up and there were a few nuthatches in the branches.

We plan for continuous bloom for pollinators as well as for birds like the hummingbirds. Maybe we should be looking at the backbone of our gardens and insert a variety of native fruit-bearing shrubs to attract the birds and insects. Why insects you may be thinking? A lot of birds feed

38 The Rural Voice

their young insects with the most desirable being caterpillars; soft bodies and high in protein. Another reason to ban all sprays from the garden and lawn.

Like all garden plans you have to consider your light – full sun, part sun, shade etc. And of course soil type.

I have a young friend with two small children who adores the birds and would love to attract more to her yard. Due to some basement work done late last fall, her small front yard has been ripped up and is awaiting restoration this spring.

Rather than choosing lawn, she is looking at native shrubs and perennials and a few low growing ground covers to attract the birds and insects.

Her challenge is that the area faces south and has no shade. We also need to have to have a serious look at the soil. It has been turned topsy-turvey and some of the backfill used around foundations has surfaced. She is going to need some good compost to beef it up. I reviewed some test results that permaculturenews posted about the five best ways to prepare beds for tree and shrub planting. It was quite detailed and involved five test plots. The best results came from flipping the sod, covering with cardboard/newspapers and then manure and straw. This is a lot of work but has the best soil fertility results. In our case the soil is flipped so we just need to get some “card” then manure and straw on it as soon as possible once the snow has melted.

Now to the plants. The first plantings will be small trees or shrubs to offer privacy and some backbone. Birch are considered among the key trees in the environment here along with oak and cherry. Key trees offer both food, and habitat for insects and birds.

Willows are among the first shrubs to bloom in the spring offering important food for insects coming out of hibernation and that in turn feeds birds. The prairie willow is a small to medium shrub and offers lovely pussy willow-like flowers.

Depending on the height the family wants we can look at any one or two of the four Serviceberry plants

available for this area. Downy Serviceberry (Amelanchier arborea), Mountain (A. bartramiana), Shadblow (A. Canadensis) and Low Serviceberry (A. humilis). They vary in height from 10 to 12 feet to low growing shrubs. All have great fruit.

Nannyberry or sweet viburnum (viburnum lentago) has lovely white blooms and great structure for a large shrub/small tree. One can never go wrong with an alternate leaf dogwood (Cornus alternifolia); great layered shape, blooms early and is attractive to a whole host of pollinators.

Bush honeysuckle (Diervilla lonicea) is a great choice for a low growing shrub. I saw it for sale at a local pop-up garden centre and was tempted to buy it but declined until I knew if it was native. I know the lovely honeysuckle we had at the farm was an aggressive interloper and I did not want to make the same mistake. This native bush honeysuckle has yellow trumpetshaped flowers in early spring and

great fall colour. It grows up to three feet high and if you want it to fruit you need a nearby plant to pollinate.

Check the tag carefully when buying, as there is also a Japanese bush honeysuckle that will take over your garden!

Then there are the perennials.

Birds are drawn to scarlet, orange, red or white. I sometimes go wild on plants and don’t think about the colour as I love it all. We do have a growing list of great native plants and these ones are for sun to partial shade and don’t mind a bit of dryness: wild columbine, wild geranium, Canadian anemone, Hairy penstemon, Butterfly weed, harebell, tall cinquefoil, and of course all the varieties of goldenrod. Try a few grasses as they provide a bit of support for the other plants and some great movement in the fall.

This is only the beginning and it is fun to do the planning and even better to see it all unfold. Hope there are a small handful of natives that make their way into your gardens. ◊

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March 2023 39

Advice

• By Lisa Boonstoppel-Pot •

Focus on response, not events for better outcomes

F

Evan Shout

armers are successful entrepreneurs who can be lured by shiny equipment to make unwise financial decisions for their farms, warns Evan Shout.

Instead, young farmers should focus on the R not the E in the R Factor decision-making process.

E+R=O stands for Event plus Response equals Outcome and reveals that the key to producing outcomes is not events of circumstance, but how they choose to respond.

“Let’s say the event is seeding for 24 hours. You may have a lack of a butt in the seat. It might rain. There could be breakdowns and safety concerns. The list can go on forever.”

The problem is farmers are focused on the event which almost always has a “we can’t” message. Instead, they could focus on the response by increasing staff, better planning, more lights, shifts, bigger equipment, robotics …whatever it takes to get the seeding done in 24 hours to create the desired outcome.

“Being an entrepreneur is focusing in the R, not the E,” said Shout, who is a farmer coach and president of Maverick Ag Ltd, a business risk management and consulting firm focused on insurance and data analytics. He also sits as

40 The Rural Voice

Chief Financial Officer at Hebert Grain Ventures, a 32,000 acre grain and oilseed operation in southwest Saskatchewan. Shout spoke to young farmers at Farm Credit Canada Young Farmers Summit held in Kitchener February 2.

Shout believes management is the “new thing” in agriculture as his own life trajectory points out. He grew up a farmer but his dad felt there was no money in farming and told him to get an education. Shout became an accountant, realized he hated office jobs, so he returned to the family’s 400-acre farm. When he married and had two children with special needs, Shout realized central Saskatchewan was too remote and he went back to accounting working right up to partnership level, before turning it down to be the CFO at Hebert Grain Ventures.

Shout believes in the power of small adjustments to make big changes. Small, consistent efforts add up and statistics from the farming community shows there are lots of areas to make improvements. A study done by The Executive Program for Agricultural Producers (TEPAP) in Texas reveals amongst American farms: – only 25 per cent apply performance appraisals – only 60 per cent do budgets and track profit and cost centres – only 25 per cent track key financial and operational ratios – only 20 per cent have a policy for dividing earnings and withdrawing capital From there, Shout delivered data and numbers and advice at highspeed. Here are a few pointers Shout offered to encourage young farmers to pay more attention to financial considerations on the farm: – If you are not deep into your operating credit, you are not farming hard enough. “If my interest on my operating loan is 6 per cent but I make 25 per cent return on equity, do I care if I go into my operating line,” he asked.

– Maintain your working capital

versus spending it on unnecessary shiny equipment. Having working capital allows farmers to buy and sell their products at the right time, instead of being forced to sell to provide cash to the operation.

– Focus on equipment optimization, not acquisition. Having a capitalization plan dictates when a farm can afford new equipment based on usage and need. Sometimes having an extra employee in the seat is more economical than buying a second, or larger, piece of equipment.

– Manage what you measure: There should be regular discussion on data regarding repairs, maintenance and supply costs. What is the cash balance, available cash, borrowing base and burn rate? At Hebert Ventures, they meet every Friday to discuss financials.

The other subject Shout was passionate about was human resources. Like other industries, agriculture is facing a labour shortage. Shout believes it is worse in agriculture because many farmers lack human resources skills. He shared that at Hebert Ventures, they use a Journeyman farm concept which has employees move from operators (three levels), to management, to junior and senior partners to managing partners.

“We need to provide a career path in agriculture,” said Shout. “My last name is not Hebert but I own a portion of this farm. We have nonblood members that own this farm.”

Having an equity interest in the farm makes employees hard-working and committed because when the farm makes money, they make money. It’s also the reason Hebert Venture never lacks for resumes when they are hiring.

Borrowing a Steve Jobs quote, Shout said “It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do. We hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.” Make use of your people, pay them well, and don’t be stingy with overtime. It creates respect among the employees and their spouses. ◊

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March 2023 41

Advice

• By Amanda Brodhagen •

Cover crops can maximize returns for beef farms Beef cattle grazing on cover crops can benefit the neighbour’s crop field and the beef farmer looking to feed animals

T

his year the Beef Day panel at Grey Bruce Farmers Week focused on grazing cover crops and walking producers through a chart that can be used as a tool to calculate the cost of production along with a potential return to their bottom line.

The first farmer on the panel, Steve Sickle, farms at the north end of Brant County between Brantford and Cambridge. He said that he farms on some hill ground and therefore needs to use cover crops.

He runs 23 cows on 25 acres of permanent pasture, but also has access to 185 acres of grazing on cash crop land. He likes to calve between March and April.

“I’m trying to graze my cows except for those 45 to 60 days that I’m calving,” he said. He notes that he’s only started doing this in the last five years thanks to some mentorship and learning to think outside the box on what makes him money and also works on his operation.

During the presentation he showed some of his cows grazing on crop residue, in this case corn stalks adding that they’re on his neighbour’s land who sees a benefit to the cows being there.

“They’re getting rid of the carbon and turning it directly into manure,” he said.

Sickle’s cows are rotationally grazed on pasture in the summertime and he uses a poly wire and a pigtail post to graze the crop ground. His main fencing tool is a four wheeler.

“I’ll be honest, I don’t use the four wheeler that much anymore. I’ve got a 17-year-old daughter and a 12-yearold son they’re the ones doing the fencing.”

The second farmer on the panel was Mike Buis who farms just outside of Chatham. His herd consists of 225 spring calving and 75

42 The Rural Voice

Steve Sickle

James Byrne

fall calving commercial cows, mainly Angus Simmental crosses. He retains all of the calves and finishes and markets them for retail. Buis has been actively grazing crop residue for 19 years.

In the winter, he grazes 500 acres of cover crops, including 100 acres of a neighbour’s farm.

Buis tries to get cows out in December and leave them out until about May, depending on when crops get planted.

“Most years we can graze cover crops for 200 days,” he said.

“The stocking density varies from half a cow per acre to one acre per cow,” he said.

Grazing in the winter isn’t an issue Buis said as the cows graze through the snow quite easily. “They know their feed is under there and they’re not afraid to get it!” he said.

The third panelist was James Byrne, Beef Cattle Specialist, for the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. Byrne’s presentation was interactive using a chart to help the audience understand how to calculate the costs of cover

crops — both growing and grazing.

The benefits of growing cover crops is nothing new. They help store carbon, reduce nitrogen in nutrient losses, improve organic matter and drainage are a few examples Byrne provided.

“One of the ways that you can extract value from that cover crop is to go along and graze it.” he said.

“But when you’re grazing you need to consider the cost of the grazing.”

Byrne shared a chart that farmers can fill out as a process before they consider growing cover crops to better understand the estimated return.

“The longer that you keep those ladies grazing, the cheaper your winter feeding costs become,” he said.

Sidenote: Jack Chaffe, Beef Farmers of Ontario president and Perth County beef farmer provided an industry update, with a noteworthy statistic that the industry hasn’t seen in years. He said that the latest Statistics Canada figures provided show that the Ontario cow herd increased by 3.2 per cent. ◊

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March 2023 43

Markets Scott Krakar is a Grain Merchandiser with LAC Inc., Hyde Park, 519‐473‐9333

Brazil sets record high corn export commitments At their latest interest rate announcement meeting, the Bank of Canada once again raised interest rates. This increase was a continuation of the aggressive rate expansion period that began in early 2022, in an effort to lower inflationary forces.

At their press conference briefing after the announcement of higher rates, the bank specifically stated that

44 The Rural Voice

they will now look to pause interest rate hikes, for the time being at least, and observe whether the increase in rates was sufficient to bring down inflationary pressures.

While a consensus among pundits is generally not found, a thought that seems well presented is that the bank may have a strategy of holding rates steady now, for at least the balance of 2023. While some analysts report that the bank may cut rates in late 2023, it seems likely that the bank will be cautious in lowering rates too early as they do not wish to repeat the effect that occurred in the 1970s, a time that similarly experienced high inflation.

So what happened in the 1970s?

Interest rate hikes brought down inflation, similar to what we are experiencing now, and while this was occurring, central banks were quick to lower rates along with the lower inflation, just to see inflation spike to a higher level as the economy was stimulated with the falling interest rate environment shortly thereafter.

Therefore the thought is that at the

earliest, assuming today’s interest rates are high enough to produce their desired effect, rates will likely not be lowered until some time in 2024. Furthermore, if rates do decrease into the future, the expectation is that they will likely not return to the emergency levels (near zero) that they have been for quite an extended period. A moderation of rates toward the middle of the range of where they have been and where we are now currently is assumed longer term.

Ukraine grain exports have essentially normalized compared to longer term seasonal averages, despite the ongoing conflict. This demonstrates the great success of the Black Sea Grain initiative signed between the Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and the United Nations which allowed the reopening of vessel traffic from Ukraine. During the months of September and October 2022 the Ukraine actually shipped higher volumes of corn and wheat compared to the five-year average pace prior to the invasion.

During the month of December, Ukraine loaded and shipped the highest volume of grain since the beginning of the conflict, exporting more than three million metric tons of corn and 1.6 million tons of wheat.

The shipping agreement, originally signed in July of 2022, has been key in allowing international shipping from the important exporting nation and is due to expire in mid-March.

Some are showing concern that the shipping agreement may not be extended upon expiration. The decision on whether to extend the agreement will likely depend on the development of the war. Fears today centre around a potential escalation of tensions with Western nations sending tanks to Ukraine. Russia is showing its disapproval of this military assistance and escalation talking points have been frequent from the Kremlin. Many political watchers suggest that Russia will in all likelihood ramp up its offensive.

There is speculation that Russia will target more agricultural infrastructure in an effort to do major harm to Ukraine’s main economic

engine, which is agricultural exports.

While this threat is real and could happen, it is the short-term, nearby conditions that the market is focused on today. In respect to wheat, the market focus is current demand and the U.S. Hard Red winter wheat is the most expensive in the world. The Black Sea dominates the world export market and will do so for some time as they clear large surplus production.

Most grain market talk and price movements have been centered around the weather conditions in Argentina. The country has been experiencing major drought and heat, and this has left their crops in poor condition as they wait for rains. This has created a choppy marketplace as weather forecasts change frequently. While there have been some widespread showers at times when the crop desperately needed it, the drought remains and much precipitation is required to stabilize and improve conditions.

If weather models show a moderation of the crop conditions and the crop is viewed to stabilize, market focus will then shift to weather conditions in other regions, such as the second crop corn production in Brazil.

Currently 12 per cent of Brazil’s second crop corn is planted, compared to 24 per cent planted this time last year.

Brazil, while turning dry now also, has seen good production expectations. Currently Brazil has record high corn export commitments for this time of year, at 8.9 million metric tons. Brazil has now emerged as a major shipper to China, demonstrated by 18 per cent of Brazilian corn exports in December, shipped to China. Estimates are for Brazil to ship 15 million tons of corn to China this year.

In January record corn exports were shipped from the nation, with 6.4 million tons exported to various destinations. These record high exports were two-million metric tonnes above the previous record export of 4.4 million metric tonnes that were shipped in January 2016. It is not only the corn crop that will be big in Brazil, as the soy crop is also expected to be record sized. ◊

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March 2023 45

Woodlots Donna Lacey is a forester with the Saugeen Valley Conservation Authority

Will fallen ash trees contribute to forest fires?

Through much of my younger years many early winters were spent gathering firewood to heat our house and workshop. While this definitely felt like work at the time, and I am certain there was complaining, I hold many of those memories as positive ones. We worked together in the forest, often digging the previous days wood out of the snow to throw on the trailer.

With the tractor, our forest was quite easy to navigate. There was a decent trail network that joined the neighbour’s forests for use during sap gathering. There were very few young trees coming up on the forest floor to get in the way taking the tractor right to the individual trees we were cutting. However, I do recall one particularly nasty young tree that was in the line of access. This nasty young tree was flattened by the previous tractor trip. When reversing the tractor back into the working area, this nasty sapling came up the back of the tractor and pinned my sister to the dash, luckily she was able to shove the clutch to a stop before real damage was done.

We didn’t have much deadwood on the forest floor as we salvaged trees that were in decline for firewood, or claimed them once they were down, before rot set in. While it may be safer to have an open forest floor, and much easier to navigate through, I now know that this is a sign of an unhealthy forest. All forests require regeneration through seedling growth into sapling, and finally full tree form. Another, often overlooked, important element of a healthy forest is downed woody debris. Downed woody debris is needed in all sizes of material, from

46 The Rural Voice

small twigs and large trunks to debris created by EAB salvage stumps. harvests or through the natural tree Humans have a tendency to fall following mortality, is not “clean-up” the forest as we like normal for our forests. Normally, a things to be neat and orderly. Many tree falls, possibly bringing down a people like to pile all their sticks into few other trees with it. Occasionally, areas for wildlife habitat. While this flooding, windstorms or a tornado may be great for providing shelter for will occur which may wipe out an wildlife, this may limit other entire stand in one moment. opportunities for wildlife trying to Outside of occasional weather inhabit the forest. Some sticks placed events, only disease and insect in piles is a wonderful and beneficial infestations will bring trees down this idea. Other sticks left on the floor in rapidly. Typically, these catastrophic random locations provide hiding diseases and insects are introduced places for small creatures. These species, not native to the area, like sticks that are left on the forest floor EAB. These abnormal conditions will also break down more readily as create an imbalance within the forest. they will remain moist throughout In this instance, let’s only look at the most seasons and will have the downed woody debris created.

Many species that feed on benefit of many insect species decaying wood will eventually build working away at using the wood as up their populations to assist in the food or shelter for new generations. breakdown of this material. Humans Sticks that are in piles will break may assist by removing material for down more slowly, as only a few lumber, firewood, or other uses. As pieces or ends will be in contact with the ground. the fallen material is made smaller, This delayed decay is also true for more of it is touching the forest floor, larger pieces of wood. Tree trunks breaking down more readily. that are elevated are very much the The big question is; is there a same. This elevated wood will decay greater fire risk in these forests? The slower, and logs may retain value answer is not straight forward, as longer. There is a chance that, in some species, logs left a little more elevated will start to decay with a fungus that will produce the spalted wood that is sought after by wood turners and other woodworkers alike.

While these fungi are important for breaking down woody material, they are also food for other species. It is also more recently understood that fungi help trees communicate with each other. Let’s not forget that some species of fungi also kill trees, they aren’t all friendly.

Lately, I have heard from many concerned forest owners or neighbours of forests that are quite worried about the amount of downed woody debris following the Debris in the crevices of roots or stumps can destruction caused by catch fire and smolder before continuing to emerald ash borer (EAB) follow the root underground, spreading from infestations. The amount of one root to another.

there are many variables that contribute to forest fires. The forest fires that are shown on the news are typically wildfires in coniferous forest stands. These forest stands often have a large amount of debris on the forest floor, many years of accumulated needle drop. Our healthy deciduous forests do not usually have an abundance of leaf litter piling up on the forest floor, just a nice amount for nutrient cycling and habitat.

While ash twigs and bulkier firewood may burn rather easily when dry, wet wood that has newly fallen is more difficult to ignite. Fires in our deciduous forests may be started by a natural cause like lightning, or by human error. These fires tend to burn through the leaf litter and fine twigs on the forest floor. Often there is an accumulation of fine debris in the nooks and crannies of live tree stumps. As the fire either creeps across the forest floor, or is started by lightning traveling down the tree trunk, it ignites the debris within the crevices of the stump. As this fire smolders, it slowly starts the exposed root flares on fire. This fire continues to follow the root underground. The fire may continue to spread from one root to another underground, with only puffs of smoke visible above the surface.

These puffs of smoke often give us the opportunity to extinguish the fire prior to any major damage taking place.

To answer the question of fire risk, wood burns; wet wood, more slowly than dry; small material more rapidly than large. Deciduous forest fires rarely have the opportunity to grow into large fires in our region. If you are walking in a forest and you smell wood smoke, and there is no campfire to be seen, please report it to the forest owner. If you are the forest owner and you have an unwanted fire in your forest, please call your fire department. In the forests that I manage, we have had two forest fires reported by hikers. I thank those concerned citizens for reaching out and helping us limit the damage through their early reporting.◊

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March 2023 47

Agrilaw John D. Goudy is a partner in Scott Petrie LLP Law Firm, and also farms north of London.

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parcels is the result of regulations in Ontario allowing for the creation of “strata plans” – “a mechanism to define and illustrate the boundaries of horizonal or vertical sections of a subdivision unit for title registration purposes.”

In the decision released last spring, Justice Myers ruled that the air parcels at issue (located in Toronto) were not yet “land” that is assessable for property tax under the Assessment Act because they had not been developed and made accessible from the ground. The purchaser of the air parcels (who was seeking a ruling that exempted it from property tax) intended to build structures on a physical deck within the “air parcels” some 27 feet above underlying railway tracks. The deck would become the base for future structures to be erected (some 3,500 residential units plus office and retail space), with the railway located beneath on the ground level. In order to attach the deck to the ground, the purchaser bought easements with the air parcels that would allow it to enter on the ground below in order to build the

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48 The Rural Voice

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deck and attach it to the land. Justice Myers found that, until the deck was in place, the air parcels are “just empty envelopes of space with development potential.”

The City of Toronto and the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (“MPAC”) both appealed Justice Myers’ decision to the Ontario Divisional Court. In a decision released in January this year, the Divisional Court reversed Justice Myers’ decision finding that he erred in law in his interpretation and application of the relevant provisions of the Assessment Act to the facts – the air parcels are indeed “land”, “real property” or “real estate” under the Assessment Act and, therefore, the owner of the air parcels is liable to pay property tax even though the deck intended to serve as the base for use of the air parcels has not yet been constructed.

The Divisional Court disagreed with Justice Myers’ opinion that, until the deck is constructed, “the air parcels are just legally defined limits of air rights.” Air parcels are already more than that in the eyes of the law governing property taxation. While Justice Myers had identified that air parcels can be defined and transferred as “land” or “real property” under the Registry Act or the Land Titles Act and regulated under the Planning Act as “land” or “real property”, he determined that the application of those statutes to the air parcels didn’t necessarily make them “land” as defined in the Assessment Act. However, as noted by the Divisional Court, the land registration and land use planning legislation together with the property tax assessment legislation form a legislative scheme that must be interpreted “harmoniously as a comprehensive whole.” The appellate court found “no convincing reason to presume that the Legislature meant something different when it used the word “land” in the Assessment Act than in all of those other statutes.”

In fact, the Divisional Court went on to find that the “interpretation of the Act favoured by the Application Judge in the present case would defeat the ‘strong policy reasons’ for

Agrilaw the expanded definition of land, which is intended to assess [for property tax purposes] ‘the total value of the land’.” Justice Myers’ decision effectively attributed no value to the air parcel, with all of the property value for property tax purposes residing in the underlying ground parcel until the air parcel is developed. The Divisional Court identified in this the possibility for the sort of avoidance of property taxes the Assessment Act is intended to prevent: If air parcels are not assessable, the owner of development land can avoid paying property taxes by stratifying the land and conveying the air parcel to another corporation. Until the air parcel is affixed to the ground, it is not assessable. And the ground parcel now has little value because the owner cannot build on the surface without trespassing into the air parcel.

There are property rights in air space whether it is actually used or simply has the potential for use. “Nobody can own the wind,” the Divisional Court writes, but the air space that was part of the underlying “real property” ground parcel did not cease to be “real property” for property tax purposes when it was severed from the ground as an air parcel (only to become “real property” again when affixed to the ground by the construction of the deck). In this particular case, the total combined purchase price for the three air parcels was over $43,000,000. The total combined assessed value of the parcels for property tax purposes is nearly $65,000,000. No wonder the purchaser looked for a way to avoid the taxman. No wonder the taxman appealed Justice Myers’ decision. ◊ ______________________________ John D. Goudy’s law practice includes real property and environmental litigation, expropriation law, energy regulation, and regulatory offences. Agrilaw provides information of interest to the farming community, not legal advice. Readers should consult a legal professional about their particular circumstance.

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March 2023 49

People

• By Lisa Boonstoppel-Pot •

4-H dream realized at Royal Winter Fair

A

50 The Rural Voice

Tyler Manning in the ring, showing Canhope Master Brianna. ~Photo by Cowsmopolitan Now that his 4-H career is over, Tyler intends to focus on his role at Canhope Holsteins, the family farm where they milk an average of 60 cattle. His current role is feeding the cattle alongside his father and preparing show heifers. He hopes to take over the farm with his older brother and continue the show-cattle legacy.

When reflecting on his career in 4-H, he feels the club is a great way to learn about the industry and meet like-minded people. Also, he credits the sponsors of the Classic, 4-H leader and parents of the 4-H member for what they do. “They do not get the credit they deserve and without them, we would not have the fun that we do,” he says. ◊

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4-H member since the age of 10, Tyler Canning has long chased the dream of being Grand Champion Showman at the Royal Winter Fair. In his final year of 4-H, at the age of 22, he reached his goal.

“My whole 4-H career feels surreal after I won grand showman.

There’s a lot of emotion. I can’t even tell you what those emotions are but I can tell you they feel good.”

It was with his senior heifer, Canhope Master Brianna, that Tyler first won senior champion showman before going on to catch the big prize of Grand Champion showman at the November 2022 event. A family member called The Rural Voice to share his achievement saying Tyler has been showing his whole life and deserved some recognition for all his hard work over the years.

Tyler says 4-H has been a huge part of his life and he’s had previous success. In 2019, his heifer ended up being third in the 4-H Dairy Classic, took fifth place at the Royal Winter Fair then went on to be nominated All Canadian Open and All Canadian 4-H. This year, with the Grand Champion Showman win, he has another feather in his cap.

It isn’t just about winning, though he admits he loves the competition.

Showing cattle is also a family legacy with his older brother also a successful showman and his father a cattle judge. He credits both, along with other judges and 4-H leaders for playing a role in his success. The relationship with the animal is also a big part of it. “You pick a heifer at the start of the year and build a bond with it throughout the year that keeps growing and growing,” he said.

4-H has also been a positive social experience for Tyler. “I have 4-H friends from when I was 10 that are still friends to this day,” he says.

Tyler was excited when two of those friends stood beside him in the ring with their calves. “To see them achieve their goals was incredible,” he says.

AMULREE

SHAKESPEARE

People

• By Gary West •

Knitting, red pepper jelly and pickled eggs

A

long time vendor at the Stratford market, Judy Burns, has decided that after 36 years, she has given up her space at the Stratford farmers market.

She was known by visitors from near and far as the lady who could can preserves and knit almost anything she put her mind to.

Judy sold her prize winning sweaters and hats every week of the year. Her knitting has been sold to people in Paris, Sweden, Ireland, Afghanistan and the U.S.A. Market visitors agree that Judy’s relish, red pepper jelly and the nine dozen pickled eggs she sold every Saturday, were the best they ever tasted.

Her crafts started selling in the

city’s “Bingo Hall” in 1987, where the fairgrounds once was before moving to their new facility in the Agriplex at the new Rotary complex facility.

Judy was not only a longtime market vendor but was a member of the board of directors of the Stratford and District Agriculture Society and market manager for a time. She has also been active with the Perth County Plowing Match Even though Judy has retired from her booth at the Stratford market, she still can be found with her husband Jim, enjoying golf and travelling.

She still knits for her family and friends in their new home in Stratford, a town where she has spent all of her life. ◊

Judy Burns has a smile for the camera after earning her retirement from the Stratford Market after being a vendor for over 36 years.

Licence plates go from trash to treasure

M

uch has been said over the Hamburg’s Erb Transport. memorable projects was making a last number of years about The family decided to craft them sign to commemorate the date of a reducing, reusing, and into something unique and start an citizenship ceremony for a New recycling. There is a young trio in online business. As time went on, Canadian.

Shakespeare that have been doing they added framed art, with every Every sign is made up of several exactly that with old license plates piece being an original. different license plates. They all over the last four years.

They have done portraits of dogs, have been part of something Jeremy, Tara, and daughter maps of Canada and clocks made different and had a story to go with Jaymee Witzel, have been creating from old plates. One of their most them. Some of those plates spent names and logos using years on old farm trucks license plates and sell them or hung on walls in farm online at “One Off shops. One came from a Shakespeare”. commercial bus from the The Witzels have 1980s. One of the plates, thousands of plates to be Jeremy has come across, able to offer unique was covered in brown mementos customers are house paint. Another had a seeking. paint spill from a It all began in 2018 with workbench, or the plate a spring cleaning that came from a quick assignment. Different items colour change on a were being saved for refurbished car. projects and others were in Jeremy will say that he jeopardy of being recycled has always enjoyed or thrown out. Included drawing, creating, was a milk crate full of collecting and repurposing and felt putting his artistic license plates that had been designs to work would collected from Jeremy’s make one persons “trash” long-haul trucking jobs Pictured in their Shakespeare workshop with art made from into another persons over a period of five years used license plates are (left to right) Tara, Jaymee and “treasure”. ◊ when he drove for New Jeremy Witzel.

March 2023 51

The

Rural Voice

Business Centre To place your ad call: 519-523-4311 or email: rvads@northhuron.on.ca

B U S I N E S S

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C E WELL DRILLING N 519-531-0355 TEESWATER, ON mike@steffenwelldrilling.ca T • Agricultural & domestic water wells R • Well Cleanouts • Pump Testing • Camera Inspection • Irrigation Wells E • Dewatering Services

Horse & Livestock Car, Utility & Recreational any design, hitches trade-ins welcome super after sales service

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52 The Rural Voice

phone: 519-485-5358 toll free: 1-877-247-7227 fax: 1-519-485-6129 jbelore@gmail.com

Profitable, Actionable, Advice Crop Planning SWAT Maps/Soil Sampling Variable Mapping/Scripts Cropwalker Newsletter

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REAL ESTATE

• Real Estate questions • Wishing a Market Value Analysis

(Free and convenient at your property)

ROTH DRAINAGE LTD

• Buying or Selling?

“Welcome to connect with me anytime”

Gladys Munro Realtor®

Direct: 519.389.8242 Office: 519.396.3300 gladysmunro21@gmail.com 926 Queen St. Kincardine, ON

Plastic Tile Installed, GPS Surveying, Excavator, Backhoe, Dozer Work, Weeping Beds Installed

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March 2023 53

B U S I N E S S C E N T R E

CLASSIFIED

CLASSIFIED

CLASSIFIED

CONSTRUCTION -------------------------------------------Liquid manure tanks, bunker silos, foundations and pads. All are 100% engineered. Serving Ontario since 1968. De Jong & Sons Ltd. 519-348-0523. tfn -------------------------------------------CUSTOM WORK -------------------------------------------Custom stone picking. Let us harvest rocks so you can harvest crops. Serving Grey, Bruce, Dufferin and Wellington counties.

Call Brendan Martin 519-503-1101. brendan.martin870@gmail.com 03-1W -------------------------------------------DAIRY -------------------------------------------Screened bedding sand, delivered.

Call 519-625-8242 or 519-2741490. tfn -------------------------------------------FOR SALE -------------------------------------------Rosco grain bins for sale – 19' and 14' diameter. Parts available. Used grain bins wanted for parts or reuse. Closed Sundays, 519-3383920. tfn -------------------------------------------For prices on forage peas, forage pea mixtures, barley, oats, spring wheat and mixed grain seed.

Contact Courtney Grain & Seed (2015) Ltd., 225 Hwy. 21, RR 1, Ripley. Phone 519-395-2972. Ask for Carmon or Mitch.

03-1 -------------------------------------------Alfalfa hay mixtures, pasture mixtures, top dressing for pastures, and a selection of organic grass seeds. All mixed to your personal needs. Also red clover for plowdown. Available at Courtney Grain & Seed (2015) Ltd., 225 Hwy. 21, RR 1, Ripley. Phone 519-3952972. Ask for Carmon or Mitch.

03-1 --------------------------------------------

FOR SALE -------------------------------------------Soybean seed for sale – Altitude R2, Beliveau R2X and Ramage XF Roundup Ready varieties.

Treatments and inoculants available. Call Mitch at Courtney Grain & Seed (2015) Ltd. 519-4406712.

03-1 -------------------------------------------Hawthorn Farm Organic Seeds – vegetable, herb and flower seeds, RR 3, 5961 5th Line, Palmerston, ON N0G 2P0. 519-343-3375, hawthornfarm.ca sales@hawthornfarm.ca tfn -------------------------------------------Standing Hay - 48 acres hay available for 2023 harvest.

Dornoch/Welbeck/Grey Rd. 25 vicinity. 519-363-6325.

03-2W -------------------------------------------LIVESTOCK BEDDING -------------------------------------------MIRACLE FIBRE Livestock Bedding.

Also, coarse wood mulch for horse and cattle walkways, wet areas around water troughs and bush lanes. Also available is dairy pack starter bedding. 519-669-2456.

Sittler Grinding Inc. Rick Sittler.

03-6 -------------------------------------------LIVESTOCK FOR SALE -------------------------------------------Full French Charolais Bull for sale.

519-323-3846.

03-1 -------------------------------------------LIMOUSIN breeding bulls, quiet, thick, semen tested, guaranteed breeders, delivery included. Select now for spring delivery.

OPEN HOUSE Saturday, April 8, 2023. Posthaven Limousin, John Post, 519-766-7178. www.posthavenlimousin.com tfn -------------------------------------------Rabbit breeding stock. High quality genetics available in Ontario. Order your PS40 bucks and PS19 does today. CuniON@tcc.on.ca tfn --------------------------------------------

LIVESTOCK FOR SALE -------------------------------------------Suffolks Purebred yearling rams.

British bloodlines, Genovis-tested, from MVNegative closed flock.

Florence Pullen, Clinton, 519-2337896.

03-1W -------------------------------------------Red Angus, Red Angus-Simmental and Simmental bulls on test. Watch them grow by googling “Ontario Bull Evaluation” Silver Springs Farms. James, Joan and Robert McKinlay 519-599-6236 03-2W -------------------------------------------McKague Charolais bulls, reg. purebred yearlings, polled and semen tested. Heifers available.

Wingham, 519-357-3808. 03-1W -------------------------------------------BLACK & RED SIMMENTAL BULLS, yearlings and two-year-olds for sale by private treaty. Performance, ultrasound and semen tested with BIO$ scores. Reports on Agsights website. Contact Dave Milliner, Dundalk, ON. 519923-9188 / 519-375-0122 or milliner.dg@gmail.com 03-3W -------------------------------------------RESTORATION -------------------------------------------The Olde Tyme Radio Centre – antique radios, clocks, gramophones, telephones; sold/restored. (vintage autoclock radio, speedometer, tachometer repaired). Belgrave 519-357-4304, www.oldtymeradio.ca tfn -------------------------------------------SERVICES -------------------------------------------Cronin Poured Concrete Ltd. Since 1976. Liquid manure tanks to 200'.

Heights of 8'-14' (1-pour). All jobs engineer specifications/inspections - guaranteed. Best firm quote in Ontario. Mark Cronin, 519-3489062.

Cell 519-274-5000. www.croninpouredconcrete.ca tfn -------------------------------------------INCOME TAX FILING FOR CORPORATIONS and late filers – for farms, small business, truckers and individuals. Will make house calls in the North Huron, Perth and surrounding area. Call Shirley in Wingham – cell No. 1-705-434-8187. tfn --------------------------------------------

• Tree Seedlings • Nursery Stock • Shade Trees • Native Species Order for Spring 2023 Now

888-226-6344

www.hrichardsonfarms.com

54 The Rural Voice

Limousin BULLS and Open and Bred FEMALES

For Sale By Private Treaty Please call to arrange a private viewing

25th Annual Open House - Sat. Apr. 1, 2023 At the farm 10:00 am to 5:00 pm

Smart Limousin

137606 Grey Rd. 12 Meaford 519-372-7459

www.smartlimousin.com or Follow us on Facebook

CLASSIFIED

CLASSIFIED

CLASSIFIED

SERVICES -------------------------------------------Custom Clover Seeding with GPS, $2.50/acre or $3 for pasture. Seed available. Call Kurt Beuerman 519525-0538 or 519-523-9234 (home).

03-2W --------------------------------------------

UPCOMING EVENTS --------------------------------------------

WANTED --------------------------------------------

25th Anniversary Barn Dance Jamboree/Campout, May 26, 27, 28, 2023 at the Blyth Community Centre Complex and Campground, Blyth, ON. Sponsored by the Barn Dance Historical Society. Details to follow on website early 2023. www.thebarndance.ca For more information call 519-357-6598.

03-2W -------------------------------------------Profitable Pastures 2023 webinar series March 7-9 at 8-9 p.m. EST. Visit https://ontarioforage network.ca/event/profitablepastures-2023/ to register. 03-1W -------------------------------------------PARTNER APPRECIATION EVENING and Conservationist of the Year Award on Thursday, March 16, 2023, Ironwood Golf Club, 2 kms. east of Exeter. Fellowship, light supper. RSVP at abca.ca or phone 519-235-2610 or toll-free 1-888286-2610.

03-1 --------------------------------------------

Dion threshing machine 22x38 or 28x48. International grain binder 905-983-9331.

-------------------------------------------Scrap Cars Wanted – 20, 30, 40 yd. scrap metal bins available. We sell quality used auto parts. Wanted to buy – scrap cars, trucks, farm machinery, heavy equipment.

Kenilworth Auto Recyclers. 519323-1113.

-------------------------------------------Young farmer looking for land rent, sharecrop, or custom work opportunities. Good environmental stewardship and professionalism.

Short and long term. 519-200-7845 or hundt.chris@outlook.com -------------------------------------------Farmland – Long or short term. Cash rent, share crop. Contact Paul at Hill & Hill Farms, 519-2333218 or 519-525-3137 or email: paul.hillhill@tcc.on.ca 03-6W --------------------------------------------

DANNY’S

Custom Painting & Sandblasting 86362 Harper Line RR 1 Lucknow N0G 2H0 (just north of Zion Road)

DONALD A ANDREW ACCOUNTING Accounting & Income Tax Services for FARMS, BUSINESSES & INDIVIDUALS 296 Ross St., Lucknow

Ph. 519-528-3019 Specializing in on Farm Pest Management Serving Southwestern ON, Golden Horseshoe, GTA Email: info@sgsltd.ca

519-692-4232

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Deadline for the April issue of The Rural Voice is

March 7, 2023 Call Joan at 519-523-4311 to place your classified ad

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March 2023 55

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March 2023 57

National Farmers Union – Ontario NEWSLETTER Phone: 1-888-832-9638 E-mail: office@nfuontario.ca Website: www.nfuontario.ca

Strong Communities.

Sound Policies.

Sustainable Farms.

Join us for the NFU-O AGM and Convention: “Finite: Land Access, Use and Ownership” Mark your calendars! The 2023 NFU-O Annual General Meeting (AGM) and Convention will be held on Thursday, March 23 and Friday, March 24 over Zoom. This year’s theme is “Finite: Land Access, Use, and Ownership”.

Ontario’s farmland is a finite resource under constant threat, with the loss measured at 319 acres per day in our province, according to the 2021 Census of Agriculture. Instead of showing itself as a champion of farmers and farmland protection, the Ontario government, through Bill 23 and the proposed carving up of the Greenbelt, is not just condoning landgrabbing, they are accelerating farmland loss, speculation, and ecosystem destruction for the benefit of corporate interests and at the expense of all Ontarians.

It’s vital that we protect our remaining farmland so that Ontario has a strong, viable and sustainable supply of food products grown, harvested, and processed right here at home. The NFU-O is proud to be the voice at the table for farmers in the

fight for farmland and environmental protections.

At the NFU-O’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) we will explore how we can protect farmland and develop vibrant, affordable communities.

Panels will unpack hot-button issues, such as the urgent need for the Ontario government to present, debate, and pass legislation to prevent the purchase of agricultural lands by private investment funds and pension plans and the power of citizen activism to fight back against urban sprawl and irresponsible development. We’ll delve into alternative models for accessing farmland, in a time where the barriers to land access for new and young farmers are steeper than ever, and propose a future with smart, liveable (and feedable!) density growth targets and permanently protected agricultural land and natural heritage features.

Our keynote address will detail the rich history of community land trusts and the specifics of the foundational work happening in

Toronto’s Little Jamaica neighbourhood to collectively address affordable housing, food insecurity and economic development, through a historic community land trust project.

In the interest of accessibility, the 2023 NFU-O AGM and Convention will be hosted virtually; however, we’ll be offering a series of regional in-person gatherings on the evening of Thursday, March 24, for all those hoping to connect with their fellow NFU-O members.

To find the regional gathering closest to you, please visit: https://nfuontario.ca/event/region-3convention-nfu-o-agm/ As always, our AGM agenda will also consist of reports from the NFUO Board, elections, and debates on policy resolutions.

For more information or to book tickets, use your phone to scan the QR code or visit: https://www. eventbrite.ca/e/2023region-3-conventionnfu-o-agm-tickets-529707648837.

A subscription to The Rural Voice is one of the benefits of being an NFU-O member 58 The Rural Voice

Perth County Pork Producers NEWSLETTER

Polly Hoekstra, President phoekstra@hotmail.ca / 226-580-0174 * The Rural Voice is provided to Perth County Pork Producers by the PCPPA perthcountyporkproducers@gmail.com

SHARC – a collaborative tool to help minimize disease risks In Ontario we are privileged to have the only geographic disease reporting and tracking platform in Canada.

The platform is called SHARC, Swine Health Area Region Control.

The platform is owned by The Ontario Pork Industry Council, and administered by Swine Health Ontario and Ontario Pork. SHARC is a collaborative risk management tool used by producers to make informed decisions about farm operations, based on available health data. The results are cumulative, resulting in a higher level of disease protection for all swine herds.

By signing up to SHARC, you are giving your herd veterinarian permission to share your herd’s health status for PRRS, PED, and Delta Corona Virus with the platform. This way, when your herd’s health changes, becoming positive or negative, other pork producers in the area will be notified via e-mail. If another SHARC-enrolled producer in your county has a change in disease status, you will also be notified so that you can make proactive changes to your biosecurity and protect your herd from disease.

Obviously this platform becomes more useful as more producers enroll.

Currently, 50 per cent of pig production, and 30 per cent of producers are sharing their disease status through SHARC. In the U.S., the swine health information centre has figured out that what drives PRRS for the year in the entire country is dependent on what happens with PRRS in the midwest during the fall. With insights such as this, farmers and industry can develop plans that will prevent the spread of PRRS and save the industry millions of dollars.

If 70 per cent of the production in Ontario enrolled in SHARC, it would

give us a complete picture of the disease status in the province, allow us to identify potential vectors of viral transmission, and interrupt them. For producers who have endured endemic outbreaks of PRRS, this sounds like a fairytale. But Dr. Kevin Vilaca of Southwest Vets observed that when PED was first found in the province, the increased biosecurity measures that farmers in the province took, not only stopped the spread of PED, it also decreased the transmission of PRRS. The SHARC platform offers a few other convenient features. When you login to your account you can access all of the previous lab results for your farm from the animal health lab, including the virus genotype. There is also a map of the province with a dot for every pig production site,

including hobby farms. Un-enrolled farms are black dots. The coloured dots show the disease status of the enrolled farms.

The map is a powerful tool for: • Deciding on good locations to build or contract another barn, • Find a safe location to locate diseased pigs or contaminated manure.

• Evaluate your risk of an outbreak.

To enroll in SHARC go to swinehealtharc.ca/enroll, select “producer” and follow the instructions. You will need to know your nine-digit producer number and the email that is registered with Ontario Pork. If you don’t know either of those things, you can contact Jessica Fox at Ontario Pork to look it up. ◊ – Submitted by Craig Holshof

March 2023 59

519-364-3050 or 1-800-275-9551 Grey County Federation Email: grey@ofa.on.ca Website: greyfederation.ca of Agriculture * The Rural Voice is provided to OFA Members in Grey County by the GCFA

Table Talk: Shifting Perspectives – FFCO’s AGM and Speakers’ Conference FFCO's annual general meeting and speakers' conference will be held at the Grandway Events Centre in Elora on Thursday April 13, 2023.

The members-only business meeting will begin at 8:30 am with the full program following afterwards to start at 10 a.m.

Platinum, Gold and Silver level members will receive a full voting package in the coming weeks. Nomination forms for the Board of Directors can be found below in this newsletter.

2023 Champion Award: Call for nominees FFCO is accepting nominations for its annual Champion Award. The award is presented to individuals, organizations or businesses who have taken initiative to help engage consumers about agriculture in our province. Nominees have used their skills to help inform consumers or correct misinformation about production practices, and done a measurable job of promoting our industry.

Nominations are to be submitted by March 11, 2023. If you know someone you think should be honoured, please review the nomination form.

2022 Food & Farming Champion Award winner John Drummond.

Become a Member Did you know?

• Your $350+ membership gives you access to a $50 FFCO resource credit annually?

• Corporate members can access free training and workshops?

• Your support makes our work possible farmfoodcareon.org

519-837-1326

info@farmfoodcare.org

GCFA 2023 Events MARCH 8 - Directors’ Meeting Public Speaking Finals APRIL 12 - Directors’ Meeting Shed Talk - Mental Health

JUNE 14 - Directors’ Meeting JULY 8 - Ag Night at the Races

AUGUST 9 - Directors’ Meeting Member Day - Storybook Park SEPTEMBER 13 - Directors’ Meeting Concert Series

* The Rural Voice is provided to OFA Members in Grey County by the GCFA.

60 The Rural Voice

OCTOBER 13 - GCFA AGM NOVEMBER 8 - Directors’ Meeting

Email: bruce@ofa.on.ca website: brucefederation.ca

519-364-3050 or 1-800-275-9551

* The Rural Voice is provided to NEWSLETTER OFA Members in Bruce County by the BCFA Reports show agritourism activities ripe for growth in Ontario

By Crispin Colvin, OFA Vice-President Ontarians have long been supporters of local food, buying directly from farmers at on-farm markets, visiting the ever-growing number of farmers’ markets in the province, or encouraging local retailers to stock local products.

In recent years, consumers have also increasingly been attracted to agritourism destinations, seeking out pick-your-own farms, corn mazes, sugar bushes and wineries in an effort to rediscover where their food comes from. During the COVID-19 pandemic, these venues were also popular ways for Ontarians and their families to spend time together in safe, outdoor environments.

At the Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA), we believe strongly in supporting our members and in helping to promote agriculture and the important role it plays in our lives, our communities and our economy.

A key part of that is building connections with like-minded partners.

Last year, the OFA partnered with the Ontario Chamber of Commerce and the Tourism Industry Association of Ontario on the 2022 State of the Ontario Tourism Industry Report. The report provides several recommendations for all three levels of government, covering topics such as the economy, labour, infrastructure and the future of tourism.

This partnership between the OFA and the Chamber of Commerce also plays out at the local level in various parts of the province. I farm near London and represent farmers from the municipalities of Middlesex and Lambton on the OFA board. The local federations of agriculture in my area have both done projects with the local chambers of commerce to support local business and raise awareness

BCFA MEETINGS March 27 April 24 May 23 June 26

August 28 September 25 October 27 November 13

of the key role agriculture plays in the local economy, which is great to see.

For the OFA, supporting our members also means finding out firsthand what matters to them. We know that many farmers engage in some level of direct farm marketing and that this has grown significantly during the pandemic, but we wanted to dig a little deeper to get a true sense of agritourism in Ontario from the farmers’ perspectives.

Last fall, the OFA conducted a local food and agritourism survey, which attracted 492 respondents who offer or would like to offer some level of agritourism activities. While 28 per cent had been selling directly to consumers for more than 20 years, 37 per cent had started in the last five years.

Over 40 per cent indicated selling value-added products, ranging from baked goods and wool to preserves and prepared meals, and 38 per cent indicated that although they don’t currently offer agritourism experiences on their farms, they would consider doing so.

Overall, we learned that the Ontario farms engaged in direct-to-consumer sales range in size and scope, but offer a diverse range of products – and that agritourism is an industry ripe for growth and economic opportunity.

For the OFA, both our own survey and the tourism sector report clearly show that we must continue to encourage all levels of government to provide the positive economic environment to help these farm businesses grow and succeed. This means removing red tape and unnecessary regulatory and financial burdens for farm businesses, investing

into rural infrastructure like transportation and high-speed broadband, and promoting career opportunities and improving recruitment and retention strategies in the sector.

It also means a responsible approach to land use planning that balances the housing needs of our growing population with the need to protect our farmland. After all, without land, there is no food.

At the end of the day, this will help create jobs and strengthen our rural communities, as well as boost local food production for all Ontarians.

These are messages we will continue to share with provincial decisionmakers in particular, but we’ve also been reaching out to municipal governments. Together with Farm Fresh Ontario, we recently presented these results to a meeting of municipal representatives, for example, to help them understand what farmers need and how they can support agriculture and farm-focused businesses.

We know that many of our county and regional federations of agriculture already actively promote agriculture and food production locally, and we encourage them to use these findings to consider new projects, whether through the OFA’s Revive Fund or other opportunities.

Agritourism is an important connector between urban and rural Ontario and for many Ontarians, it represents a key way they can support local food, reconnect with nature and learn about where their food comes from. For farmers, it offers new market opportunities for their businesses and being able to help shape consumer perceptions of farming and food production in the 21st century. ◊

Nominations open for Tommy Cooper Award The Tommy Cooper award has been presented annually since 1959 to the person making the greatest contribution to agriculture and rural living in Grey and Bruce Counties. Tommy Cooper was the Grey County Agriculture Rep from 1920 to 1959 and dedicated his life to agriculture. Anyone or any organization in Bruce or Grey County can nominate someone they feel has contributed significantly to agriculture over the years.

Nomination forms can be obtained by calling 519-364-3050 or emailing bruce@ofa.on.ca. Deadline for submitting is March 31, 2023

* The Rural Voice is provided to OFA Members in Bruce County by the BCFA.

March 2023 61

Perth County Federation of Agriculture Email: perthcountyfedofag@gmail.com Website: www.perthcountyfarmers.ca Office: 1-833-229-6834 Julie Danen, President: 519-801-9200

PCFA welcomes three new directors at the 2022 AGM The Perth Federation of Agriculture held their 2022 Annual General Meeting on January 25, 2023 at Stratford Axes. The highlight of the business part of the meeting was welcoming three new directors to the board: Sam Knechtel, Inge Koskamp and Pete Nyenhuis. Julie McIntosh also returned to the board for her second term.

Here is a little bit about our new directors: Sam Knechtel is a 4th generation farmer near Gadshill. His family has a mixed cash crop operation. He also has a humane hog finishing barn and does honey production. Sam is a Relationship Manager specializing in agricultural and commercial lending with Libro Credit Union.

Inge Koskamp is one of the owners of Koskamp Family Farm.

She resides just outside of Stratford, Ontario and is involved in the dairy (Holstein and water buffalo), broiler, and biogas industries. She farms together with her husband and five children (Andrew, Jacqueline, Theo, Philip, and Darien) who are the founders of their water buffalo dairy

Board members and attendees enjoyed axe throwing at the Perth County Federation of Agriculture Annual General Meeting held on January 25 at the Stratford Axes.

distribution business, Kampkreek Dairies. The water buffalo are raised and milked on farm, and they use custom copackers to help further process the products allowing them to distribute them to the masses.

Pete Nyenhuis lives on a pig farm near Sebringville with his wife Sanne

and three kids. He operates a farrowto-finish pig operation as well as cash crops with his parents and sister.

President Julie Danen also thanked retiring directors, Daryl Terpstra, Robert Martin and Sharon Weitzel for their many years of service to the board. ◊

Perth Stewardship programs seeks agricultural input!

Perth County aims to launch a program to support stewardship in the county and it is looking for agricultural input this winter. Their consultant, Mel Luymes, held input sessions across the lower tier municipalities this past February and there is one final session on March 1st that is online for anyone that can join. As well, there is an online survey still open. The input will be prepared into a proposal that will be open for public input at the end of March.

The survey, event registration and reports will be available at perthcounty.ca/stewardship so be sure to be involved in shaping our stewardship program! ◊ * The Rural Voice is provided to OFA Members in Perth County by the PCFA.

62 The Rural Voice

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Silver Creek Nursery ....................6 St. Lawrence Cruise Lines ..........38 Steffen Well Drilling ....................52 Stephen Thompson Accounting ..56 Stratford Agri Analysis................44 Superior Barn Painting ......Cover 6 SWO Diesel ........................Cover 6 Townsley Barn Painting ..............55 Triple P Consulting......................30 Trouw Nutrition ............Back Cover Upper Thames River Cons.Auth 49 Usborne & Hibbert Mutual Fire ..30 WD Hopper & Sons Ltd ..............63 Wedding Showcase ........32,33,34

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Ag Safety Week ........................2,9 Allied Associates ........................47 Argyle Marine & Small Engines..52 Armstrong’s Home Bakery ............6 Bau-Tec Industries Inc................56 Bear Tracks Inn & Restaurant ....56 Beekeeping ................................5,7 Belore Trailers ............................52 Bernie McGlynn Lumber Ltd ......47 Bervie Supply Energy Ltd............31 Bio-Ag..........................................55 Bushell’s Auto Sales ..................27 Canadian Co-operative Wool ....49 Chalmers Fuels............................49 Clean Fix North America ....Cover 4 Crafters Corners..........................57 CropQuest Inc ............................63 DeDell Seeds ..............................28 Design & Build ..................19,21,22 DL Distributing ............................52 Easy Lift Doors Ltd ......................12 Farm to Table ..............................43 Farmlife Facts & Finds ......Cover 5 Fieldwalker Agronomy ................52 Gaia Organic Seeds ....................39 Gerber’s Workwear........................4 Gladys Munro ..............................53 Grand River Robotics..................25 Green Valley Heating..................56 Greenville Liquid Plant Food ......50 GRK Products ............................29 Hanover Honda..............................8 Hardi ............................................48 Harold Jones Enterprises ..........53 Hayden Water Wells....................29 Hill & Hill Farms ..................Cover 2 Huron Commodities ....................28 JJM Concrete Grooving ..............15 Kenpal Farm Products Inc ..........41 Kingwood Bins ............................53 LAC ..............................................57 Lakeside Shelving ........................6 Lambton Heritage MuseumCover 5 Live Landscape ..........................39 Maple Leaves Forever ........Cover 4 Maple Syrup ............................11,13 Mapleview Agri ............................16 Mark Cook Drainage ..................53 Marquardt Farm Drainage ..........57 Martin’s Nursery ..........................39 Marvin L Smith ............................47 MNP LLP......................................45 Moore Hemsworth Insurance ....34 Nature’s Wave Inc ......................45 New Life Limousin ......................43

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March 2023 63

HURON

42 First Avenue, Clinton, Ontario N0M 1L0 519-482-9642 or 1-800-511-1135

County Federation of Agriculture NEWSLETTER

Robert J. Scott to be inducted to the Hall of Fame In 2023, the Ontario Agricultural Hall of Fame (OAHF) will induct 11 individuals who have made significant impacts on Ontario agriculture and beyond. One of these inductees was posthumously nominated by the HCFA. Robert J. Scott was from the Belgrave area. Robert James Scott (1900 – 1946) was one of Ontario’s greatest and most influential farm activists and was one of the most prominent men in Canadian agriculture during the 1930s-1940s.

He passionately worked to organize farmers into co-operatives where farmers would pool their resources.

By organizing farmers, they were then able to be more competitive, were no longer taken advantage of and had a strong, united voice to influence change. He led the United Farmers’ Co-operative of Ontario, advocated for many farm-related matters such as for fixed prices of commodities during the Second World War to guarantee an adequate food supply. He spoke up for fair railway freight rates for crops and was called upon for advice by Ontario Premiers and Prime Minister Mackenzie King.

At the time of his premature death, he was a director for the Ontario

Website: www.hcfa.on.ca Email: ofahuron@tcc.on.ca

Upcoming Events March 8-10 - London Farm Show, www.londonfarmshow.com March 21 - GFO March Classic, gfo.ca/abount/march-classic2023/ March 31 - MP-MPP Forum.

Huron County Federation of Agriculture

BOARD MEETING Robert J. Scott

Federation of Agriculture, Canadian Federation of Agriculture, Dairy Farmers of Canada, Ontario Stockyards Board and the Ontario Beef Cattle Producers’ Association.

The 2023 induction ceremony will take place on Sunday, June 11, 2023 at the GrandWay Events Centre, Grand River Raceway, 7445 Wellington County Rd. 21, Elora.

There will also be an option for guests to join virtually. Additional details regarding purchasing tickets or registering for the virtual option are posted on the Hall of Fame website https://www.oahf.on.ca At the HCFA Annual Meeting Robert J Scott will also be inducted to the Huron County Agricultural Hall of Fame. ◊

Your local contacts:

Monday, March 27 8:00 p.m.

HCFA Office in Vanastra

MP-MPP FORUM The HCFA is currently working on plans for the annual MP-MPP Local Politicians Forum.

If you have specific concerns you would like the Board of Directors to present please contact the HCFA office or a director to state your concern.

Farmer Wellness Initiative

24/7 counseling to farmers and farm family members, free all year round 1.866.267.6255 https://farmerwellnessinitiative.ca/; and frequently asked questions about FWI: https://farmerwellnessinitiative.ca/faq/

SAVE THE DATE! Huron County Federation of Agriculture

ANNUAL MEETING October 27, 2023 Watch for more details!

Lori Gordon For the last 10 years Lori has been the Office Administrator at the HCFA Office. Lori and her husband live on a farm in North Huron.

Margaret Vincent Margaret has been working as the Huron Perth OFA Member Service Representative for almost 9 years. In her role as a MSR she provides support to both Huron and Perth County Federations of Agriculture as well as answering member inquiries. She grew up on a dairy farm in Huron County where she currently lives and farms with family growing and raising grains, sheep and beef animals.

HCFA OFFICE The office is open on Mondays and alternate Fridays 9 a.m. to noon and 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Follow us on Twitter twitter.com/huronfedofag and Facebook at Huron County Federation of Agriculture

The Rural Voice is provided to all OFA members in Huron County by the Huron County Federation of Agriculture

64 The Rural Voice

PHOTO COURTESY OF KAI SORENSON

DISCOVER NATURE

Feature Exhibit: Return of the Swans, February 15 - April 14

Experience the annual Tundra Swan migration at Lambton Heritage Museum. Our feature exhibit includes hands-on activities and learning experiences. If conditions are right, you may witness thousands of Tundra Swans resting on the bog behind the Museum.

Migration updates at returnoftheswans.com or 519-243-2600

10035 Museum Rd Grand Bend

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In The Field: Is Waterhemp an annual or perennial weed?

Answer: Annual

In The Barn: True or False? Chickens have over 200 distinct noises they can make for communicating.

Answer: True For The Home: What is a dolly peg?

Answer: A traditional wood clothes pin For Your Health: True or False? Your body absorbs the calcium in dairy products more easily that what’s sourced from plants.

Answer: True

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