The Rural Voice - September 2019

September 2019

Rural Voice

The

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

BARN PRESERVATION Old barns may see new life as preservation group forms to protect these pioneer structures

IT COOLS AND CLEANS Westerhouts unveil an advanced air exchanger in new broiler barn that heats, cools and cleans itself

LAKE CARETAKERS A commission and coastal plan encourages farmers and cottagers to care for the Great Lakes

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Contents

29

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

24

Publisher: Deb Sholdice Editor: Lisa B. Pot rveditorlisa@northhuron.on.ca

16 Columns Lisa B. Pot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4 Keith Roulston . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6 Kate Procter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8 Jeffrey Carter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10 Mabel’s Grill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12 Viewpoint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14 Recipes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .45 Gardening . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50 Markets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .62 Woodlots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .64 Agrilaw . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .66

Departments Feedback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 Ruralite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 Crops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .53 News & Advice . . . . . . . . . . . . . .58 Business Centre . . . . . . . . . . . . .68 Classified . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .71 Advertisers Index . . . . . . . . . . . .79

Newsletters National Farmers Union . . . . . . .74 Perth County Pork . . . . . . . . . . .75 Grey County Federation . . . . . .76 Bruce County Federation . . . . . .77 Perth County Federation . . . . . .78 Huron County Federation . . . . . .80

34 SEPTEMBER 2019 • Cover Photo Jon Radojkovic of Ontario Barn Preservation. Photo by Lisa B. Pot.

• Deadlines: Oct. Issue –Sept.18 Nov. Issue – Oct. 16

16 Status of the Great Lakes Commissioners hear the good and bad about Lake Huron.

24 Ranching for Profit California teacher challenges beef farmers to think profitability versus productivity.

29 Preserving Old Barns Old barns may get new life with the formation of Ontario Barn Preservation society.

34 Wild Edibles Peter Blush sees the woods as a wild grocery store as he leads tours looking for edibles.

Contributing writers: Keith Roulston, Kate Procter, Jeffrey Carter, Rhea Hamilton Seeger, Arnold Mathers, Steve Bowers, Melisa Luymes, Anne Mann, Nancy Fisher, Dorothy Henderson, Bonnie Sitter, Gary Kenny, Jeff Tribe, Bob Reid and Geoff Dale Mailed by: McLaren Press Graphics, Bracebridge, ON Sales representative: Shelley Kroes rvads@northhuron.on.ca Production co-ordinator & Telemarketing: Joan Caldwell 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: $20 (12 issues) $35 (24 issues), includes HST Back copies $2.75 each U.S. rates, $65.00

39 First One to Heat and Cool Westerhouts install new heat exchanger that also cools.

42 Taste of Home Mennomex brings Mexican favourites to Mennonite community.

All manuscripts submitted for consideration should be accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope. The publisher cannot accept responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts or photographs, although both are welcome. 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.

Changes of address, orders for subscriptions and undeliverable copies (return postage guaranteed) are to be sent to The Rural Voice at the address listed above.

A division of North Huron Publishing Company Inc.

NH

ORTH URON

PUBLISHING COMPANY INC.

Feedback Letters to the Editor may be sent to The Rural Voice, P.O. Box 429, Blyth, On N0M 1H0

Memories of the pickle patch The Editor, We can identify with the article by Keith Roulston in the August issue of The Rural Voice on his vivid memories “way back when” in the pickle patch.

When dad bought his farm in McKillop Township in the 1960s, he was a new immigrant from Holland, with no money in his pockets. He also took the opportunity to grow pickles for Bicks. Keith talked about the OPPMB, and dad also had pigs in those lean years – about 50 sows. We sold the weaners in Brussels at the stockyards. I remember the herd getting “bullnose” and then we couldn’t sell them.

Dad dabbled with cucumbers for a number of years and the first year he said if we made over $2,000, the balance would go to buying bicycles for the three boys. Well, we worked hard, indeed. Every day. Rain or shine. As the new school year approached the picking took place after school, then chores. Well, when the first killing frost hit in midSeptember we were so relieved that we did not care if bikes were in the cards or not.

One day we came home from school and there were three goldcoloured Supercycles sitting there for us which dad had picked up at Canadian Tire store.

The pig situation had not improved significantly so the next year the cucumber acreage was bumped up to five acres. We never picked on Sunday so on Saturday the whole patch had to be picked. I remember Opa and Oma were over from Holland and we picked 75 big feed bags of cucumbers. We were done on time to get them to the grading 2 The Rural Voice

station in Dublin. Leaving them until Monday would have meant significant weight loss. The trip to Dublin was kinda neat for us boys as we would run over to Mrs. Coville’s house and she would give us a pop.

She was the strictest teacher we ever had but she loved her students and we loved her.

Anyway determination paid off and farming in Canada was, and is, a real blessing for our family.

Good article Keith! ◊ – Will Reinink, Wingham, ON

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“Most of us are human doings, not human beings.

Home needs to be home and work needs to be work.” ~ Dave Pratt, Owner of Ranching for Profit School, while speaking in Elmwood

There comes a day When they go the opposite way To discover who they are. ~Lisa B. Pot

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• Broken pencils are pointless.

• ELEVEN PLUS TW0: When you rearrange the letters – TWELVE PLUS ONE.

Returning to School Wisdom “You have brains in your head You have feet in your shoes You can steer yourself any Direction you choose.” ~Dr. Seuss

{

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“That old September feeling, left over from school days, of summer passing, vacation nearly done, obligations gathering, books and football in the air ... Another fall, another turned page: there was something of jubilee in that annual autumnal beginning, as if last year’s mistakes had been wiped clean by summer.”

•

~ Wallace Stegner, Angle of Repose

Why do you press harder on a remote control when you known the batteries are dead?

•

September 2019 3

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

Dialing into the concept of listening

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4 The Rural Voice

We were touring a friend’s house to admire their mid-century modernstyle renovation and had made our way to the storage area in the basement.

There, on a shelf, was a yellow telephone such as the kind I would have used to dial my friends back in the 1970s. It was a boxy model with a circle dialing mechanism, into which you would put your fingers and dial the seven digits that would connect you to the outside world.

“Oh, I’ve seen one of these,” declared my 12-year-old daughter.

“Do you know how you would dial a number?” asked my friend.

Whereupon my daughter took a closer look and realized that she did not know how to do it.

I was flabbergasted. I’ve heard tell of kids looking at old phones and record players and not knowing how to operate them but to see it happening was, well, aging. And funny! And such a good balancer.

Because there are times when I don’t really get the latest software app and it’s the 12-year-old who says, “oh, mom” and shows me how it works.

Now I have ammunition against her casual dismissal of my ineptitude; a common theme for those of us trying to keep up to the pace of technology.

On a deeper level, I wish I could have taken that phone home and let her explore it. Learn it. Let her ask questions. Use the prop as an opportunity for discussion.

We are recognizing that communicating and specifically, listening, has become a skillset that is being lost in this age of touch-screen communication.

We hear a lot of words in a day –

25,000 by some estimates. It would be impossible to really hear every single word. Still, we have not lost that intuition that pokes us during the times when we really need to listen.

Listening is something I always thought I did well. It’s a key component of my occupation, after all. Yet a small exercise at the Ranching for Profit workshop (see story inside) taught by Dave Pratt revealed otherwise. He told us to partner up and gave each of us two minutes to share something we were concerned about. As my partner told me about a time management issue he and his wife were having, I was already on it with several brilliant questions to “dig deeper” before offering very practical suggestions. I was most pleased with myself for “helping” my partner with his problem.

Then Pratt revealed the purpose of the exercise was not to help; not to ask questions (which he says is a way of controlling a conversation) and not to interrupt with well-meaning platitudes. It was to listen. To be quiet and listen to care.

“If someone comes to me with a problem, I will often say ‘That’s gotta be challenging’,” says Pratt.

“Then I go silent.” It’s in that silence that the person goes deeper and often finds the solutions to their own problem.

“Listen to understand, not to respond,” was Pratt’s advice because “not listening” is the reason most businesses (and relationships) fail.

It’s darn hard to be silent. Patient.

Calm. Despite its quiet nature, listening takes a lot of energy. When my daughter didn’t know how to dial the phone, my index finger was just a twitchin’ to show her how it worked as my mouth was already yacking away, telling her.

How cool it would have been to let her discover this “ancient” way of communicating. Though she wasn’t speaking, her body language was communicating embarrassment.

Listening is the way of the empath; the way of learning, connecting and ultimately, being successful in business, relationships and life.

That’s what Pratt said.

I heard it. ◊

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Keith Roulston Keith is former publisher of The Rural Voice.

He lives near Blyth, ON.

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6 The Rural Voice

Election brings farmers love, abuse With a federal election coming up this October, farmers can expect to be courted, and insulted. It’s already begun.

The courting began earlier this summer when Conservative leader Andrew Scheer promised, if he becomes Prime Minister, that he’ll scrap the Canada Food Guide which irritated livestock farmers when it promoted the idea that a healthy diet included less meat, dairy and eggs and more grains and vegetables.

The response was almost immediate as nutritionists leapt to the defense of the Food Guide, saying science was on their side. The Liberals, of course, were happy to amplify that criticism.

Scheer also struck out at the Liberals for, in his view, being too tardy in getting the cheques out to dairy, chicken and egg farmers in compensation for the market share they had taken away from them for the Canada-European Union (EU) Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement and Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for TransPacific Partnership.

That got under the skin of business writers like the Globe and Mail’s chief business columnist Barrie McKenna.

Business columnists are among the most vocal opponents of supply management.

All through the negotiations of these trade agreements they regularly voiced the opinion that dairy farmers, in particular, shouldn’t be protected.

I have a feeling that it’s about more than supply management being counter to free enterprise. “Real” business people are those who process farm products and they aren’t getting their raw materials as cheaply as they could if there were no supply

management. And of course, columnists are also consumers and most consumers are convinced they’re paying too much for food.

Farmers of other commodities are often unsympathetic to their supply management neighbours but don’t think you’re off the hook. McKenna ended his column by saying: “Next in line for government handouts may be pork farmers who have been hit by China’s recent move to suspend imports.” The suspension of imports, of course, is the result of a political game being played to punish Canada for arresting a Chinese business executive on an American warrant for fraud. Apparently, pork farmers (and wheat, canola and soybean farmers who also got caught in the political games) are just supposed to suck it up on behalf of their country.

Critics will accuse all major parties of “buying votes” with the taxpayers’ money for any programs that cater to a specific group like farmers. Political strategists understand that a few hundreds or thousands of votes in some rural ridings might make the difference between a party forming the government or not.

Of course, what’s vote buying in one person’s eye is listening to your constituents in another’s – generally based on whether you agree or disagree with the politician and the policy. Personally, I want a member of parliament who listens to the needs of his constituents and fights to represent their needs.

We’ll all have more than enough of politics over the next couple of months as politicians misrepresent what their opponents say and stand for and get down and dirty fighting for every vote. Each of us will have to weigh what matters and who will do the best job of running the country. Government financial support should be only one of many reasons a farmer chooses to support one party or another.

Farmers can’t prosper if the country as a whole doesn’t prosper.

But on the other hand, the country as a whole will suffer if we don’t keep farmers and rural communities healthy. Few things matter more than our citizens having good, healthy food. I think urban columnists like McKenna often forget that.◊

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

The current moment is the only one we have We live in an interesting time. Our society is full of contradictions that can be hard to get your head around – in fact they can give you a headache if you think about them too much.

And it can be darned discouraging.

As farmers, we all like to think that we have a better understanding of science than the average person and we use science every day to make decisions. I read a disturbing article outlining how people who want to promote their own agendas

are creating publications and conferences in order to give poor scientific studies platforms and credibility so it becomes increasingly difficult to weed out the good science from the bad. Choosing information from peer reviewed papers used to be the gold standard when it came to assessing which studies to believe – not so much anymore. That is discouraging.

Then if you listen with even half an ear to how we are being manipulated by this poor information that we share and like on social media, especially when it comes to elections, things get even more discouraging. If people who should know better are fooled – what chance do the rest of us have? We have more information, and more access to it, but figuring out what is good information is tougher and tougher.

This all got me thinking of getting rid of social media from my life all together. But… it is so darn handy. It reminds me there is a great big world out there, even in the middle of my busiest times. It lets me know of

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events going on in my community. It lets me see my friends’ kids, and lets me give a little cheer for the accomplishments and milestones they are passing. Even though my own kids have all grown taller than me, and come home usually to raid the fridge and maybe do some laundry, I’m still unreasonably amazed to see all the kids of my friends have done the same. How did we all get to be so old in such a short time? How did they all get to be so tall?

I belong to a Facebook group called the Ag Women’s Network. It is a cool group and lots of good info gets shared there. When you can’t leave the farm and do much socializing it helps to remember lots of other people are in the same boat … or, perhaps more fitting, tractor.

One day a few weeks ago someone posted a question: “If you could go back 10 years, what piece of advice would you give your younger self?”

I thought this was a great question and got me thinking what advice I would give my younger self. Then I got caught up in reading all the wisdom and thoughts shared by farming women of all different ages.

This blew away the cloud of discouragement and I decided that maybe I just needed to look in a different place to find good information. I’ve included some of my favorites – some that I’ve lived by for years, some that I wished I had.

• “Don’t sweat the small stuff. A clear head, time to ponder and react rationally will be more productive and cause less stress in the long run.

Took 20 years to come to that realization!”

• “Listen more and eat less. Eat fewer carbs and more protein.”

• “Recognize the value of what I had learned (and be ready to lead with it), stop worrying about wrinkles, menopause and retirement (they happen), if you can wear shoes with heels, do it, and open your heart and mind to what you want to do next – learn to drive a skidsteer, take a writing course.”

• “Instead of always looking at what still needs to be done, recognize your successes and achievements and

Kate Procter celebrate them.”

• “Don’t be so judgmental of other people, you really have no idea what is going on their lives! It is okay to relax – in fact, it is good for you!”

• “Chart your own course. It won’t be linear, but that’s OK – it’s the twists and turns that make life exciting.”

• “Compare less.”

• “Don’t work so hard. Be gentler on your body – you need it for a long time.”

• “Believe in yourself more.”

• “Save more money.”

• “Try different things, there is a whole world out there and you have your whole life to work – don’t work day and night.”

• “Don’t confuse having a career with having a life. You get to define what success means to you.”

I love all of these, and they reminded me of one that I have actually told my own kids: “Don’t be afraid of making mistakes – if you’re not making mistakes, you’re not learning.”

I also included two of my own: “Drink more water.” I wish I knew this one when I was younger. I was a bit bull-headed about this – figuring I would feel thirsty and I never bought into the whole hoopla about drinking so many ounces per day. When I actually tried it – I discovered that drinking more water made me feel better all over, and measurably reduced my need for painkillers to reduce headaches.

“Take as much time as you can to enjoy your kids doing simple things.

Show them happiness doesn’t come from a store.”

I was thinking about all of this as I walk the fields looking for weeds.

Since we can’t actually go back and instruct our 10-year-younger selves, the best we can do is use some of this wisdom and hard-learned truths to inform our future years. I modified mine to get the most from the moment that you are in right now because it really is the only one you have. You can’t change the past, and the future is uncertain. But the current moment – whether good or bad – is what we have. Savour the good, get through the bad, and things will always change. ◊

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Tales of fish caught aboard the Samwise If one needs to better understand life’s vagaries, try navigating a small boat by oar or sail.

It was his eldest sister who came up with the idea, building a small rowing skiff from a single sheet of plywood, a bit of spruce, screws and paint. All were enthused by the idea and so they set out.

Over the course of a couple of weekends, the six-foot vessel was set to launch, at the insistence of his son, down the slope of a tightly treed

space to the mouth of a narrow creek.

It was a tortuous passage, one which ended in the older builder taking charge, wresting the small oars from his son, and forcing his way under and through the overhanging branches to the wider water.

An inauspicious, even embarrassing start but better days were to come.

The little boat proved able, capable of holding an adult or a couple of young boys for an adventure on the sluggish waters of the river. He wasn’t concerned about the safety of his nine-year-old who was instructed to wear a lifejacket when on the water, though the mother of one the boy’s friends had other ideas.

So, the boat was shared by himself and his son and later by the youngest member of their family, a girl. They called the vessel Samwise, for its diminutive size but more so for the father’s love of J.R.R. Tolkien’s masterworks in which landlocked hobbits viewed travel on water with trepidation if not outright fear.

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10 The Rural Voice

They learned the basics of rowing – stroke easily at first and then put your back to it, hold a true course and, if travelling in a strong river current, keep the bow pointed upstream and manage your downstream progress with the oars.

They took Samwise to Algonquin where the fat man at the gas station just outside the park pronounced, he would never deem to step aboard such a vessel. Afterwards, they reflected that his boarding would have been a near impossibility in practical terms.

Undeterred, the two youngsters would row Samwise along a narrow beach and on occasion he’d take it himself, starting out with stars still overhead and waiting for the dawn’s first light on the mist-touched waters in the middle of the small round lake.

Then he’d fish, trolling the tree-lined perimeter for hours, looking for places where the waters plunged suddenly deep along granite outcrops.

It was nearing noon one day when he found himself unable to lift his line, his little five-dollar rod bent sharply, touching the water. Several seconds passed and then there was movement, transferred from deep in the dark stillness, and the line finally began to slacken.

Thus, began the conflict.

Thrice the fish cleared the water, before stubbornly returning to the depths, and then, after what seemed several minutes, resolution – and a decision to be made.

Fish are relatively few in the lakes of Algonquin and grow only slowly given their nutrient-poor environment. In the summer, the native Lake Trout lie deep in the waters, accessible only to those skilled or lucky in their capture, while native Brook Trout may be more available for those knowing where to look.

Smallmouth bass are an introduced species, occupying only the upper few feet of the lakes. The majority of those caught may weigh a pound or so but there are elders that will yield a pound of firm fillets, even two, filling the largest of iron fry pans. ◊

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September 2019 11

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

“Glad you’re not serving any of that fake meat,” George McKenzie called out to Mabel as he perused the menu during a break in the conversation at the morning coffee session at Mabel’s Grill the other day.

“I’ve had a few people ask for it,” said Mabel, “but I have so many farmers for customers that I know which side my bread is buttered on.”

“Now there’s an expression that will be banned when the animal rights people finally rule the world,” said Dave Winston.

“That plant-based junk seems to be everywhere these days,” grumbled George. “I try to switch channels when one of those ads comes on the TV but lately whatever channel I switch to has some other chain that’s advertising fake meat.”

“Yeah, I was going to boycott any chain that sells the stuff but then I wouldn’t even be able to go to Tim Hortons for a coffee,” said Dave. “If I won’t go in a restaurant with fake meat I’ll have to stay home to eat,” .

“Or come here,” said Molly Whiteside as she refilled Dave’s cup.

“Yeah, but I can’t take you folks along if I go to the city,” said Dave.

“The vegetarian meat took a bit of a hit on TV, though,” said Cliff Murray. “I saw this story where they had nutritionists saying meat is actually healthier because it’s natural while this fake meat is super processed, and processed food’s not good for you.”

“I must have missed it,” said George.

“It was on CBC a few weeks back,” said Cliff.

“That explains it,” said George. “I stopped watching CBC long ago.”

“Kind of makes sense, though,” said Dave. “If everybody’s running toward this plant-based meat stuff, CBC will decide it’s time to look at the other side. It should really be called the Contrarian Broadcasting Corporation.”

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“Well hopefully they keep pointing out this stuff isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” said Cliff.

“It’s taken years to brainwash people to be against meat so it’ll probably take years to make them see straight again,” said George.

“Wouldn’t that be something, for people to start looking at meat positively just when the vegetarians thought they were winning,” said Dave.

“PETA and those folks will be hoping this lone star tick spreads around the world,” said Cliff.

“What’s a lone star tick?” wondered George.

“It’s this tick they’ve found that, if it bites you, can make you allergic to eating red meat,” said Cliff.

“And they call it the lone star tick? Isn’t that ironic?” said George.

“Pardon?” asked Molly.

“Oh, I get it,” said Dave. “Texas is the lone star state and it’s a big beef producer.”

“So where’s this special tick found?” asked George.

“Well they first found out people got sick from it in Australia 30 years ago but it’s also in the southern U.S. now,” said Cliff.

“Good, it can stay down there!” said George.

“Remember we were talking a couple of months ago about farms where they were growing flies for feed?” asked Dave. “You don’t suppose PETA would start a tick farm and grow the things and spread them around so people would get sick of meat?”

“Wouldn’t put it past them,” said George. “They think God is on their side – even the ones who don’t believe there is a god.”

“Might be harder than you think to get them onto people though,” said Cliff. “I mean ticks live on plants and most city people aren’t around nature much to get bitten.”

“Maybe they drop them from drones or something on pedestrians as they walk to work downtown,” suggested George. “You’ve seen how big the crowds are when people get off the subway.”

“Or at sports events!” said Dave.

“Not a Blue Jays game though,” said Cliff. “They don’t get big crowds any more.”◊

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Viewpoint Gary Kenny is retired from farming and a career in international human rights and development. He lives in Grey County.

What would Wile E. Coyote think?

I once asked my brother-in-law, a metal sculptor, to craft me a weathervane. I specified a realisticlooking coyote howling at a crescent moon, and e-mailed him a photo.

My brother-in-law has a penchant for artistic interpretation. What I got looked nothing like what I requested.

On the top of our sheep barn is a stylized coyote with a squat body, four-foot-long neck, upturned head with jaws agape, howling into space.

Remember the Looney Tunes character, Wile E. Coyote, the hapless predator who continually schemes to catch the Road Runner

only to fail miserably every time?

My weathervane bears a striking resemblance.

I chuckled with my brother-in-law over the sculpture. For some Grey County residents, however, coyotes, and more to the point, coyote hunters, are no laughing matter.

Many landowners have complained about hunters with tracking dogs fitted with GPS collars who trespass on their property to dispatch a cornered coyote.

I am one of them. In February 2017, while hiking with my dog on our farm, I was startled by three nearby gunshots. They were fired, I later learned, a mere 150 meters away. Suspecting trespassing hunters, I ran to intercept them. Two had crossed from a neighbouring farm, following their dogs, and had shot a coyote. One gave me his name and I later called the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR). I was told the hunter could be charged if I would give evidence. I agreed to do so.

The following day two MNR field officers with a sniffer dog came to

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our farm and conducted a CSI-like forensic investigation. Evidence of the hunters’ presence and the coyote kill were detected. Charges were laid, the case went to trial, and the hunter was convicted and fined.

I was surprised to learn that the majority of hunting-related complaints MNR receives concern coyote hunters. Yet few landowners will give evidence, apparently fearful of rocking the neighbourhood boat.

For my part, I drew no pleasure from the entire affair. But – and the judge agreed – hunters who disregard the law, show no respect for private property, and may be putting landowners’ lives at risk, must be held accountable.

I don’t hunt, but I support hunting that is lawful and responsible. Every autumn neighbours hunt deer on our farm. They have standing permission, but they still check in every season – a shining example of hunters who respect landowners’ rights.

Coyote hunting is a highly emotional subject for many – for landowners who feel their rights are being disregarded by trespassing hunters; for landowners who have lost livestock and pets to coyotes; and for hunters who can’t seem to understand why anyone would object to hunting and killing what one called “worthless vermin.”

Coyotes are not vermin. They are hardy apex predators and play an important role in nature’s ecosystems. They have a right to be here – to hunt, reproduce, and live out their lives. Unfortunately, when human habitation rubs up against wildlife habitat, conflict can occur.

Stories of coyotes occasionally attacking livestock and pets are, sadly, real. Farmers who lose sheep or pet owners who lose dogs to coyotes have my sympathy. I too would be upset. But farmers and pet owners are ultimately responsible to ensure the security of their animals.

Yes, even with the best defences in place, occasional coyote incursions will occur. But this doesn’t mean that coyotes are inherently malignant. It’s unreasonable to blame wild animals for taking advantage of an easy meal.

An excuse that some coyote hunters utter in their defence is, “We have no choice but to follow our

Viewpoint dogs wherever the scent might take them.” They seem to be saying, in an entitlement sort of way, “We have a right to hunt coyotes wherever we please.” That’s not acceptable.

There may be situations in which a particular coyote becomes a problem and elimination is justified.

But hunts should be undertaken responsibly, in consultation with appropriate MNR officials and with the prior and express permission of landowners whose property may need to be accessed. Truth be told, some coyote hunters seem to kill coyotes more as a sport than a service to the community.

Landowners like me have a responsibility, too. If we are opposed to hunting on our property, we should sign the perimeters appropriately.

Wile E. Coyote, despite always being outwitted by the Road Runner and alternately blown up, electrocuted, and run over was, like real coyotes, indomitably resilient.

He always lived for another day to pursue his more cunning two-legged arch nemesis. I doubt he would have been amused at the thought of GPScollared dogs running him to exhaustion and dying by being ripped apart or shot by a human. .

The coyote hunter trespasser imbroglio may be heating up. Citizen groups appear to be forming and to be advocating for legislation to outlaw GPS-collared dogs. Members seem determined to circumscribe what they feel is the largely unrestrained behaviour of the coyote hunting community. Perhaps all hunters should be concerned that their hunting activities, too, could be further restricted.

I wonder if a better option might be for all stakeholders – concerned landowners, coyote and other hunters, MNR officials, local politicians, and reasonable animal rights activists to come together in a carefully mediated process to work out a mutually satisfactory solution.

All parties would have to be willing to set aside their raw emotions and listen to and appreciate the perspectives of others. Generally speaking, isn’t that how mature and sustainable resolutions to problems are reached? ◊

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Environment

Lake Huron, how are you feeling? • By Lisa B. Pot •

Hannah Cann

Rick Kootstra

Melisa Luymes

A panel of farmers, conservationists and coastal experts spoke to Canadian and American commissioners of the International Joint Commission about the health of Lake Huron and the Great Lakes in Goderich on August 7.

The public was invited to tell the International Joint Commission how farmers, cottagers and tourists have improved or failed Lake Huron at a special Great Lakes health meeting 16 The Rural Voice

Phil Beard

L

Mari Veliz

andowners, residents and farmers who live in the coastal fringe have confirmed that water quality is the most important issue to them regarding the health of Lake Huron.

Swimming and natural shorelines followed closely behind.

This is the kind of information commissioners from across Canada and the United States wanted to hear when they came to Goderich on August 7 for the International Joint Commission (IJC) Public) Public Meeting on the Status of the Great Lakes Water Quality.

Two Canadians and two Americans heard how farmers are addressing the water quality issue, as well as conservationists and lake lovers. The Commissioners toured the

Garvey Glen watershed earlier in the day before a panel of speakers revealed how Huron County is taking care of Lake Huron.

“The IJC was formed in 1909 to settle disputes on water flow, levels, rivers or lakes that straddle the border,” explained Pierre Beland, the Canadian co-chair of the IJC. “Our role is to make sure the government is on the right track and report what scientists and research boards have discovered. Also, to report on what various people around the Great Lakes have observed and how they think the government is fulfilling that mandate.”

In particular, the IJC wants to know what are the successes, challenges, and failures surrounding the health of the Great Lakes? What should the government focus on? annah Cann of the Coastal Centre in Goderich said the centre’s goal is to “create a coast of eco-conscious citizens.”

Using data from a survey which 260 people living in the coastal fringe (two kilometres from the shoreline) from Sarnia to Tobermory, Cann revealed that the stressors and threats people find most important are invasive species, pollution and altered shorelines.

“I can’t tell you how many inquiries we get about rocks in baskets (called Gabion baskets) and we describe to them why they are a plague on the lake from an engineering perspective and also for the heath of the coastline,” said Cann. (See Big Picture story next for more information on the work of the Coastal Centre).

Now at work developing the Coastal Action Plan, Cann said they are identifying sensitive areas like wetlands to see what is currently being protected ... and what is not.

“We have municipal interest in supporting threat analysis and best management guides,” explained Cann. A BMP guide to protecting Lake Huron waters was created and distributed for landowners in HuronKinloss.

“Our actions have ripple effects,” said Cann. “We have manipulated our environment so heavily and now that we are aware of the consequences, this is an opportunity

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18 The Rural Voice

to step forward and work together for environmental resiliency,” said Cann. ick Kootstra was also on the panel, giving the commissioners a farmer’s perspective as well as representing the Huron Soil and Crop Improvement Association (HSCIA).

“I think we all need to ask ourselves what our discharge rate is into the lake,” said Kootstra. “We can blame everyone else, but we have to look at ourselves.”

Kootstra says he has a farming mentor in Ohio who, through BMPs such as cover cropping and no-till farming, can take 16 inches of rain before his fields discharge water into the tiles. “When that water gets to the tile, his parts per million (ppm) of contamination is zero. How is he doing it? Can we do it here?” The Ohio farmer’s organic matter is eight per cent. Most farms in Ontario are around four per cent.

“Soil health goes hand in hand with good drainage,” said Kootstra.

“It’s like one hand holds the other.”

Taking it further, Mel Luymes then shared the success of the HSCIA’s drainage project behind Huronview in Clinton. (See the August issue of The Rural Voice for the full story).

Luymes explained that tile drainage is basically a plastic pipe with holes in it that takes excess water away from the field. It creates an ideal environment for plants that cannot thrive in saturated soil.

However, it can drain a field too quickly and lead to damaged and polluted waterways.

The drainage project installed controls in the drainage system by way of control gates and terraces.

“The whole idea is to slow water because then it does not erode,” explained Luymes. She said it was a very exciting project, aligning many partners who all have the same goal: water quality.

Phil Beard took the theme of collaboration and partnerships a step further by sharing the success of the Healthy Lake Huron collaborative.

Formed 10 years ago, the collaborative started addressing the sources of pollution running off from both rural and urban sources.

“The focus was to improve water

R

quality issues and watersheds,” explained Beard, general manager of the Maitland Valley Conservation Authority (MVCA). “It’s such a huge area that we decided to focus on five smaller watersheds first.”

One of those was the Garvey-Glen watershed in Ashfield-ColborneWawanosh which is a success story of landowners coming together to address water quality and storm water management. Farmers joined forces, realizing by improving water flow on their land through cover crops, minimum tillage, berms and grassed waterways, they were improving the health of the lake.

Since 2011, with thanks to government funding, the Healthy Lake Huron collaborative has completed over 500 BMP initiatives. ari Valiz, a Healthy Watersheds Manager with the Ausable Bayfield Conservation Authority said BMPs like good buffer strips along streams and creeks is important so that vegetation holds onto the banks to prevent additional erosion.

The whole goal is to focus on water: how to slow it down, spread it out and soak it in.

More conservation tillage, more cover crops, longer rotations, and practices that improve organic matter in soil are all items that need focus.

“When we look at the greater watershed scale, there are not enough of these things done in each field to make measurable differences,” said Valiz.

She believes collaboration is key.

When one organization learns a lesson, they need to transfer that information and learning to another.

Also, different places require different solutions.

Beard said the MVCA has created another five-year plan of work they want to do. Projects like: incentives for plans to improve soil health, mapping the flood plain that is used for cash crop and finishing priority watersheds.

Then, of course, there is the bottom line. Who will pay? This is a concern for everyone from landowners to farmers to taxpayers to conservation authorities. It costs money to improve land and protect the lakes.

M

When the meeting was opened to the audience, additional issues were brought to the attention of the commissioners. These included: • What are the concerns of First Nations communities? Commissioner Beland said consultations with First Nations people are helping the IJC understand how people interact with land and water. For instance, when releasing water in the spring (via dams) how does that affect the sturgeon’s spawning areas?

“We learned that when the leaves of the poplar trees are the size of a beaver’s ear, that is when the sturgeon come to spawn,” said Beland. “We are trying to integrate this knowledge and philosophy from the First Nations to learn how we are to survive in this world with climate change and increased population.”

• Our Great Lakes are a national treasure. “You need to understand their majesty and care about it. I would challenge everybody to drive around our coastlines ... they are a wonder,” said one member of the public.

• Geologic repositories of radionuclides: Two members of the public expressed concern about these repositories and asked that radionuclides (from nuclear waste) be added as “chemicals of mutual concern” in IJC reports.

• Phragmites. One person asked how he could, as an individual, help eliminate this invasive weed in waterways. He was encouraged to join an organization with knowledge on how to remove this plant correctly and then join in group efforts to eradicate this invasive species.

• Education. One member challenged the IJC to promote more education on the value of the Great Lakes and how to protect them at all levels of schooling.

In conclusion, the IJC’s American commissioner, Lance Yohe, encouraged everyone to keep providing feedback.

“The Great Lakes are having water quality problems. Our role is to report on the needs and the issues.

We need to be proactive,” said Yohe.◊

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Environment

Looking at the big picture for Lake Huron

The bigger the word in the word cloud above, the more it matters says Hannah Cann, Coastal Stewardship Coordinator as she shared the results of The Coastal Centre’s Coastal Action Plan questionnaire. ~ Image provided by The Coastal Centre in Goderich

Water quality is the top issue for people who live in the coastal fringe of Lake Huron reveals results of new lake health survey 20 The Rural Voice

• By Lisa B. Pot •

P

eople care and they really want to make improvements to water quality. They just don’t know

how.

That’s where the The Coastal Centre (based in Goderich) comes in, says Hannah Cann who serves as Coastal Stewardship Coordinator.

Formed in 1998 as an NGO, the centre focuses on education, outreach and restoration projects.

The Centre is currently developing an action plan based on discoveries from the Coastal Action

Plan survey. The results have just Cann. “But there are solutions such been released from the survey which as fencing cattle out of streams and asked specific Lake Huron health maintaining buffer zones around questions of people living in the creeks and streams.” Farmers should coastal fringe (two kilometres in leave at least 30 metres of natural from the shoreline) from Sarnia to cover beside waterways to slow Tobermory. Over 250 surveys were down water, trap sediment and answered. provide overhanging vegetation to The results indicated beaches, cool water down. invasive species, water quality and Neither is this is a farmer versus pollution are the main concerns. cottager situation. It’s about working When asked what ecosystems together. people thought should be the main While farmers need to work focus of an action plan, 90 per cent inland to slow water down, cottagers said beaches and dunes should be the have their own set of concerns which focus. Coastal wetlands and bluffs include beach grooming, Gabion were also considered important. baskets, removing dunes and the Invasive species were considered creation of waterbreaks, known as the biggest threat followed closely by groynes pollution and new development.

Groynes are rigid structures made Shoreline hardening, erosion, climate of wood, concrete or stone which change and recreation areas were also interrupt water flow and limit the identified as threats to Lake Huron. movements of sediment.

In terms of what feature of Lake “In Lambton county, it seems Huron is most important to residents every second cottage has one. What and landowners in the coastal fringe, happens is that groyne catches the water quality was the overriding sand on one side while the beach on concern. the other side gets eaten away,” Using the results of this survey, explained Cann. These structures the Coastal Centre is now developing create refractory waves that erode an Action Plan which will include sand. education and restoration projects.

Hannah Cann, They have already been involved in a wetland Coastal Stewardship Coordinator, restoration in Bruce the Coastal Centre County in partnership with the Saugeen Valley Conservation Authority (SVCA) to reduce the invasive species, phragmites.

Also, they have been involved with a beach restoration project in partnership with Huron-Kinloss.

“We try to identify the threats and stressers to water quality and then make unique suggestions and recommendations to communities to be more sustainable and resilient,” said Cann.

The focus is on practical solutions.

“It’s not a solution to stop all farming in the coastal fringe,” said

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The same thing happens with Gabion baskets. On a rehabilitated beach, the waves roll in, hit dune grasses and roll back in a natural

rhythm. When waves hit a rock basket, they smash and create a refractory wave of equal pressure which erodes sand.

All these manmade measures will eventually tilt or even fall over due to the erosion they create.

If cottagers understand the natural function of dune grasses, which have roots going down six metres and can replenish themselves when damaged, they would be more likely to choose this natural, cheaper and more effective method, believes Cann.

It takes awareness, education and funds. each grooming is another long-term disaster. While grooming makes the beach appealing to tourists, it is “terrible for beach ecology” says Cann.

Grooming dislodges any dune grass roots that could potentially regenerate and brings fine, fluffy sand (the kind of sand everyone wants) to the surface where it blows away. Eventually, what’s left is coarse sand on a depleted beach that becomes a low, wet beach. Tourists do not like wet, buggy beaches.

Cann also spoke to the incredible amount of alvars on the Lake Huron coastline, mostly up in Bruce County. These natural wonders are rocky areas with soil cover of less than 20 centimetres. They are often used as grazing land. However, they are home to rare plant species that don’t grow anywhere else.

These species can include rare plants such as Kalm’s lobelia (Lobelia kalmii), Pringle’s aster, juniper sedge (Carex juniperorum), lakeside daisy (Hymenoxys acaulis), ram’s-head lady’s-slipper (Cypripedium arietinum) and dwarf lake iris (Iris lacustris). Also associated with alvars are rare butterflies and snails.

“Alvars are extremely globally rare,” said Cann. Yet Ontario has them in abundance!

As the Coastal Centre educates people about the value of the Lake and its surrounding shorelines, people start to “own” the problem and place more value on it.

The Coastal Centre would like to see a monetary value put on “ecosystem services” as a way of evaluating its inherent value.

For whatever people value, they will protect.

That’s one thing the survey confirmed. When reviewing the

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22 The Rural Voice

comments, Cann said almost every response was about how people connected to the lake.

“They talked about going to the beach with their grandparents and wanting to be able to have a healthy lake to take their own grandchildren to,” said Cann.

As with other organizations, the Coastal Centre relies on funds to put its ideas and goals into action.

Currently, Cann is working on specific action issues that have arisen from the survey. These will include short, medium and long-term projects addressing plastics in the water, restoration of dunes and gullies, and BMPs for cottagers and farmers.

“Environmental services are not yet seen as vital,” says Cann. “We need funding for long-term solutions and that is hard to get.”

Whatever happens, the love of Lake Huron can be uniting force.

“We need to work together hand in hand and share our information back and forth to create mutual solutions across disciplines,” concludes Cann.◊

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September 2019 23

Beef Dave Pratt teaches cow calf farmers how to move past productivity into profitability

Is your farm a business or a hobby?

Dave Pratt, owner and instructor of the Ranching for Profit school in California, United States, came to Elmwood in Bruce County in August to teach beef farmers how to create a paradigm shift on their cattle farms.

K

nowing how to raise livestock is not the same as running a business raising livestock. Also, if you are a livestock farmer doing $10 jobs when you should be focussing on the $100-per-hour jobs, then you are working for a lunatic. That would be you.

Such was the no-holds-barred commentary Dave Pratt, owner of The Ranching for Profit School in California, had for beef farmers at the Inaugural Cow-Calf Management School offered by Beef Farmers of Ontario in Elmwood on August 16 and 17 in Bruce County.

In what was more about lessons on human nature than business, Pratt spent the morning discussing attitude and approach. Then he followed it with some financials that had some beef farmers rethinking their entire business structure.

Were they in the livestock business or the cull cow business? Can their businesses compete with the actual job of ranch manager in the United States or Western Canada where pay is $120,000 a year with a house, car and 24 The Rural Voice

retirement fund?

Pratt has been to Ontario before. He says he used to come a few times a year but as he approaches retirement, he’s travelling a bit less and saying a lot more.

He began the session using a graph with four letters on it. (See next page). Then he asked people to say which letter was different. There were a few hands up for each letter but mostly for the letter C. “And how many of you would say the letter T,” asked Pratt.

Very few saw the T. “I believe your place is full of the letter Ts. That’s why it is easier to solve your neighbour’s problems ... you can see them. And they can see your T. And once you see it, you will see it forever and it will bug you until you do something about it.”

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . By Lisa B. Pot

Pratt said the unseen T is often the opportuniTy you do not see on your own farm. The way to identify your Ts is through education and having someone ask you questions about your operation.

Next, Pratt tackled boundaries. He said his office is one mile from his home so when he’s at work he is at work. When he’s home he’s at home.

Farmers struggle with this because work is home and home is work.

b) does that paycheque equal what it would cost someone else to run your farm? If you don’t, then your farm is a hobby, not a business.

“Now, there is nothing wrong with having a hobby but then call it like it is,” said Pratt.

Ultimately, though, the goal of the day was to give beef farmers the mindset of a businessman.

“First I need to move you from UI to CI to CC and then, ultimately UC. Which is to say unconsciously incompetent to consciously

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Which letter is different?

“Most of us are human doings not human beings,” said Pratt. “And that affects our relationship with others and ourselves.”

It’s imperative that farmers create boundaries for their work life and financial business as well.

As farm families age and the issue of transition has to be addressed, Pratt was adamant that kids should not expect to get the farm. “No one is entitled to everything. It is mom and dad’s fault when kids have an expectation and a sense of entitlement that someday the farm will be theirs because they are a family member. Folks, you can do whatever you want with your money.

You do not have to give it to your kids. Sometimes I think it is healthier when you don’t.”

When it comes to financials, Pratt also addressed the issue of farming being a business versus a hobby. He asked the 70-plus people in attendance if a) do they pay themselves a regular paycheque and

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September 2019 25

incompetent to consciously competent and finally, unconsciously competent,” said Pratt.

His next move was to get the farmers thinking past what they’ve always done to a new way of doing: a paradigm shift.

Going back to the T, he said the reason so few saw it was because the audience had a formed set of rules on how to interpret things. That T was a grid and therefore, not considered an option. Paradigms can be great for the structure they create but rigid structures can also block out new ideas. Pratt asked each farmer to think about their personal paradigm.

Then he challenged it.

As he went over profitability of raising replacements, how many calves they like to get out of a cow, depreciation and cull cows, he began to suggest that the biggest driver of profitability is not production.

Rather, it’s cull cows.

“The biggest thing that drives the market in the cow-calf business is the cull-cow business and most of you did not even know you were in the cull-cow business,” he said.

He told the story of a one-womanshow cow-calf producer in the U.S. who calls her cattle her “queens”.

Her entire program is based on buying older cows and getting three more calves out of them. She pays less for these replacements and because depreciation levels out at age five to six, she doesn’t lose much value on them either. Cows are at their most valuable from age two to four. That’s the time to sell them!

Then buy in older cows from a farmer you trust and then you might start making a profit, suggested Pratt.

The idea struck home to Jason Hurst, who works for Masterfeeds and run his family’s 50-cow operation. Hurst was instrumental in bringing Pratt to Ontario as part of Beef Farmers of Ontario’s cow-calf management school. During a break, Hurst admitted he hadn’t quite thought of it that way.

When the break was over, it was clear Pratt was just warming up. He had more challenging ideas to put to the farmers.

He said beef farmers and ranchers are excellent marksmen. They hit the 26 The Rural Voice

bullseye every time. “The problem is they are shooting at the wrong things,” said Pratt. “They are shooting at productivity versus profitability.”

Productivity requires work and most farmers believe the harder they work, the more productive they will be. If you switch your focus to profitability, sometimes less means more.

Pratt showed a video of Cam Gardner of Bluebird Valley Ranch in Alberta. Gardner revealed when he looked at all the enterprises on his farm (raising his own heifers, backgrounding yearlings, selling hay, etc.) most of them were not making money.

“We were working our butts off,

losing money and everyone was miserable,” said Gardner on the video. When making changes, Gardner picked one profitable focus for the ranch and stuck to it. His profits skyrocketed and he was able, for the first time in his life, to take a month-long vacation from the farm.

Instead of believing you have to work hard to make money, it’s time to work smarter, said Gardner.

There are four ways to make money: be an employee, be selfemployed, be a business-owner or be an investor. Most people are employees or business owners. Pratt wants to get people to think and act like they are self-employed investors.

“Most of your businesses are not businesses. They are a pile of

Learning to measure gross margin (below) is the way to determine profitability says Dave Pratt (left), owner and instructor of the Ranching for Profit school based in California. Pratt was an engaging and blunt speaker at Beef Farmers of Ontario’s inaugural cow-calf management school held in Elmwood in August.

expensive assets,” he said. Also, they are being subsidized by off-farm incomes and free labour (because farmers often do not pay themselves.)

The problem is partially a mindset – they want to focus on their farm as a lifestyle, rather than a business.

“We have this notion that if we make our ranch a businesss it will diminish our lifestyle. But I’ve seen that when ranchers make it a business, they have a better lifestyle,” said Pratt.

Beef farmers should start asking themselves these questions: 1) What is productive and making money in my life?

2) Where can I invest to make more money?

3) Does my ranch serve a customer?

4) Does my farm work for me or do I work for it.

5) Can I leave it?

6) If I sold the farm would I be selling a business or an asset?

7) Do I invest in professional development? (Business owners should invest in professional development every year.)

8) Is my average return at least $50,000 for $1 million in assets?

9) Do I take at least two mornings a week to work on my business?

10) Do I know when to expand?

11) Does it make a profit?

If the farm doesn’t make a profit, then it is a hobby and not a business.

If you want a hobby, then you don’t have a problem. If you want a business, then you need to make a distinction between working IN the business and working ON the business.

“We make use of the Pareto Principle (also known as the 80/20 rule which states that, for many events, roughly 80 per cent of the effects come from 20 per cent of the causes) which is where we get the idea that you need to spend two mornings a week focussed on your business,” said Pratt. “And do it in the mornings when you are fresh. If you are cleaning pens in the morning, you are doing your $10 work in your $100 time.”

During these two businessfocussed morning sessions, the goal is to look at “gross margin”. Gross product is the way to measure the

total value of your production.

In a detailed chart (seen on previous page) he led farmers thought a flow-chart that started with profitability and broke into specific branches of profitability and costs.

On a benchmark farm, overhead costs shouldn’t exceed 40 cents and direct costs 30 cents so that profits can be greater than 30 per cent.

However, the average farm has overhead costs of 85 cents and direct costs of 35 cents creating a loss.

This was the part of Pratt’s presentation that got really technical.

Thankfully, he has an active YouTube channel. On the Ranching4Profit YouTube channel, farmers can view many of the specific calculations he led farmers through at the workshop.

While crunching the numbers, Pratt did offer these last words of advice: • Ask yourself why you are a farmer. This will dictate everything else. If one of the reasons is to make a profit, WHY do you want to make a profit. HOW much? The answers will help you establish goals.

• Pay yourself a salary. It should be built into your business model.

• If your profitability has tanked, there are three things you can do: 1) change your overheads, 2) Increase turnover (get more units or add an enterprise) and 3) Improve your gross margin per unit (value-added).

• See your farm as a tree and you as the pruner. Look at what is healthy and what it not. Then cut off the dead branches.

• Then make a financial plan using tools such as a Breeding Herd Statistics chart, a Stock Flow Plan, a Cash Flow Forecast, a Livestock Evaluation, a Trading Account and ultimately, a gross margin projection a year in advance.

“We resist change because we are afraid of the unknown. This is why we do numbers. It makes the unknown more known,” said Pratt.

If all of this is too complicated, Pratt does offer his Ranching for Profit school in California. RFP also has consultants on staff.

Ultimately, Pratt says his job is to ask the right questions so that farmers can shift their paradigms and answer their own questions in order to create a profitable business. ◊

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History

Preserving the old bank barn Modern farming doesn’t have a place for these pioneer-time structures but they can be repurposed to save our history • By Lisa B. Pot •

W

hen Jon Radojkovic looks at an old barn, he doesn’t just see boards and beams.

He sees a real, living example of Ontario’s pioneering past.

“These structures are the last vestiges of our Ontario history. These barns are real pioneer construction,” says Radojkovic.

For over a decade now, he has wanted to establish a society to help preserve these old barns, much like ones that are common in the United States. When he met fellow old barn enthusiast Krista Hulshof, an architect who specializes in rural and agritourism, they found the synergy to make the idea concrete.

The pair contacted all their barnloving counterparts and in March 2019, Ontario Barn Preservation was born with a board of directors, a web presence, a membership drive and big plans.

“First of all, we want to get it out there that we exist,” says Hulshof.

“Then we’d love to get members across Ontario advocating for barns to stay up and get repurposed.”

The group also wants to host events to teach people about old barns and how to preserve their own.

Also, they hope to create a barn directory for all old barns in Ontario.

“We’d like to create a document that contains the location of those barns, what style they are and maybe, through that, we’ll see some interesting patterns about barns in Ontario,” says Hulshof.

Long term, the group would love to have funding available to help barn owners preserve and repurpose their old barns.

A common thread among the current directors is how they have admired, fixed and repurposed old

Newly formed in March, Ontario Barn Preservation is hoping to document the number of old barns in Ontario while encouraging the preservation of these structures from our pioneering history by encouraging the repair and/or repurposing of the buildings, says society president, Jon Radojkovic (above).

September 2019 29

barns themselves.

Hulshof had a Mennonite team take down an old barn she and her partner purchased from the Davidson family. Every timber was labelled and loaded onto a truck to be reassembled at their property near Stratford. There, Hulshof designed a house around it. “It was originally a 45 by 80 foot barn. We enclosed 45 by 45 feet with a 15 foot porch on one end,” she says.

When repurposing an old barn for a house, Hulshof says the goal should be more about aesthetics than structure in order to meet current building codes. “Of the original frame you might use, I would say, 75 to 90 per cent of it is purely aesthetic and the rest is structural. You do it for the look and for the love of old barns,” she says.

Ontario Barn Preservation treasurer and director, Matthew Somerville of Port Perry repurposed his family farm’s old bank barn to host his wedding!

“We did it on a reasonable budget and having my wedding in a barn that I grew up having sleepovers and played in a lot as a kid really meant a lot to me,” says Somerville. “We are coming to our fifth wedding anniversary and people still come up to us and say it was the best wedding they have been to.”

Since the wedding, the barn has become even more useful.

Somerville and his partner planted an orchard behind the barn a year after Members of the newly-formed Ontario Barn Preservation (OBP) society have found ways to repurpose their own bank barns.

OBP Vice-President, Krista Hulshof, moved the old Davidson barn to her Stratford property and made a home out of it (top). Matthew Somerville, OBP Treasurer, transformed his family’s old bank barn into a social venue in which he married his partner in 2014 (middle). The picture at bottom is the inside of an old barn barn owned by OBP President Jon Radojkovic’s son who uses the barn for storage and meetings for their CSA farm.

30 The Rural Voice

the wedding and Matthew has become a cider maker. The old barn is used for taste testing and has become a sort of social hotspot for the community as the family hosts movie nights, church events and family celebrations. It’s also used for storage and yard sales. A flock of sheep still resides in the stables downstairs.

“Technology has changed how we use old barns. Threshing is long gone. Square bales are rarely used.

Modern farming does not fit with a 19th century design. So for me joining the preservation society is about trying to engage people in the opportunities these structures have beyond their original purpose of housing hay and animals,” says Somerville.

For Radojkovic, old barns have been a way to explore the past, make an income in the present and preserve stories for the future. He has written two books about old barns: Barns of the Queen’s Bush and Barn Building: The Golden Age of Barn Construction. As he conducted research on old barns, he became very interested in the community aspect surrounding their construction.

“People nowadays talk about not knowing their neighbours and I think there is a real push-back on our lack of connection,” says Radojkovic.

“We want to create community.

Ontario Barn Preservation is about preserving barns and preserving communities.”

As a person who has built his own timber frame home with the help of neighbours and friends, Radojkovic also appreciates the sheer amount of work that was involved in building these old barns.

Their basic form was borrowed from European architecture which uses posts and beams to create the structure.

“Those early pioneers would cut down pine trees for the timbers which would be squared off with an axe and adze. And those are 40-to-60 foot timbers,” exclaims Radojkovic.

“Imagine that tree, first of all, then think how each one was cut down and how they were all squared off in the winter.” Winter cold made the squaring off easier as there was no pitch and the wood was softer.

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The raising of old barns was once a community affair, drawing neighbours together as they made a protective structure for hay, straw and animals. This old photo is from Jon Radojkovic’s collection of old barn photos and proves the pioneers made work their fun.

Rajokovic and the newly formed Ontario Barn Preservation Society hope to document all the remaining old barns in the province.

Summer wood is drier and harder.

Each barn would have a Master Framer who would design the barn, allocate which timbers would go where, do the line drawings and direct the workers. In some barns, you can still see the red lines, used to mark the timbers, because they were made with lead.

When he goes into an old barn, Radojkovic likes to determine if it is a Queen Post barn frame or a King Post barn frame. The difference is that posts in a king post style directly support the purlins, or roof supports, where a queen post style has long braces from the top of the bent that support the purlins. Then he looks at the bents which are the part of the barn that were raised up. Finally, Radojkovic likes to review the timbers themselves. Farmers would typically use whatever woods they could find in their own bush so old barns can feature anything from maple, to pine, cedar, butternut, tamarack, hemlock and elm wood.

The braces were almost always made of cedar while the floor supports were often elm.

“These weren’t meant to be showpieces. The farmer used what he had and that is why every barn is unique: no two barns are alike,” says Radojkovic.

Not every old bank barn can be preserved, but Radojkovic hopes many can survive the changing times not just for the structure, but for the era of life they represent. It was a time when people relied on their neighbours and created community through shared need.

“A lot of that has been lost. We (Ontario Barn Preservation) want to preserve it,” concludes Radojkovic. ◊

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September 2019 33

Forests • By Lisa B. Pot •

Foraging for wild edibles “It’s like an outdoor grocery store,” says forager, Peter Blush, who teaches people what is safe ... and what is not

Peter Blush (centre) of Stratford is the intrepid leader of Peter Puck’s Foraging. A naturalist, Peter leads would-be foragers into the woods to discover what bounty is available from April to November. He finds mushrooms such as beech rooters (top left) and pheasant-back mushrooms (top right), a bracket fungus that is also edible when young and fresh.

T

he way Peter Blush tells it, the first time he saw leeks growing in an Ontario forest, he literally lay down on the ground and started grazing on the leeks.

“My girlfriend’s mother was horrified,” remembers Peter, who was raised in the United States and then lived in Quebec for decades. In Quebec, leeks are protected because of decades of over-harvesting. So Ontario’s bounty was overwhelming.

As a former war correspondent and graphic designer, he really didn’t know a lot about wild edibles but he knew about leeks. However, that first experience in the spring of 2005 was transformative for Peter, who had by then moved to the Stratford area.

A few days later, he was talking to a lady named Linda at the dog park. She was a biologist and asked Peter if she could hunt for wild edibles with him. Instead of looking at the ground, Peter noticed Linda was focussed on the trees.

“When we were finished the hike she told me we had to return in the Autumn because there would be lots of mushrooms then. That was my first introduction into the 34 The Rural Voice

tree and mushroom relationship. I was hooked,” says Peter.

He began a process of self-schooling himself on wild edibles.

At first, he foraged for fiddleheads and wild mushrooms, selling them to local chefs. But he found chefs were “greedy” and Peter started getting uncomfortable about the sustainability of the business.

When Stratford Tourism hired him to lead a wild edibles workshop, it sold out. “I took that idea and ran with it, but I do make sure to also teach workshop attendees how to harvest sustainably.”

I joined Peter on a hike. First stop was on the roadside at a patch of common daylilies (we call them tiger lilies).

He encouraged me to pop off a bud and eat it. “It will taste nutty at first and then you will start to feel a spicy heat,” he said. That is exactly what happened and it was exciting to acquire this bit of knowledge to satisfy a deep-rooted, survivalist, instinct.

“But don’t eat too many,” he cautioned. “Most people can handle it but if your stomach isn’t used to it, it can give

you diarrhea.” Noted.

Next, I was told to sample a petal of the lily. I could take it or leave it but thought it might be pretty on salads. Turns out the whole plant is edible. In the fall, foragers can dig up the root tubers while the spring shoots of the lilies are sweet and tasty as well. Peter notes that while common daylilies are entirely edible, cultivated lilies are often not.

Next we trooped into the woods where we found plantains, a good plant to rub into wounds to aid in healing. Our first mushroom was a pheasant-back mushroom, characterized by the feather-like brown markings. “They taste a bit like sweet cucumber,” said Peter, leaving it on the tree for a tour he was hosting on the weekend.

We saw beech rooters next. These mushrooms are identified by their long, spindly stems and plant-like bulbous roots at the end of the stem.

The stems are too tough to eat but the caps saute nicely.

We also saw mayapples which, when they turn yellow, Peter likes to boil down into a syrup. Mayapples can be eaten raw but not the seeds.

Indeed, the entire plant except for the yellow fruit is toxic so it’s wise to be careful ingesting it.

Unfurled bloodroot, heart-shaped wild ginger (you only need a little bit!), the aggressive garlic mustard, false solomon’s seal and a patch of wild asparagus growing in the ditch outside the forest path rounded up the day’s finds. uly is a little early for mushrooms. The best mushroom hunting trips are in the fall unless you are looking for morels, a spring mushroom, which were late and hard to find this year.

This is the tenth anniversary of Peter’s foraging business and he was celebrating with one of his popular Forage and Feast events. These experiences combine a foraging expedition with a dinner made by local chefs, using wild edibles. This year, the dinner featured nettle soup, nettle cheese from Mountain Oak Cheese with baguettes, quiche made with wild leek bulbs and a rhubarb pie dessert accented with Japanese knotweed, an invasive plant that sends up tender red shoots in the spring before growing into a huge,

J

bamboo-like weed.

Peter hosts one Forage and Feast event a month. The hikes are held almost every week from April to November and he tries to limit them to 15 people.

“It’s hardly any local people. It’s all people from the larger cities like Toronto and Kitchener and London,” says Peter.

It’s important to teach them how to harvest sustainably, says Peter.

When they go fiddle head hunting, participants are told to only harvest four to six fiddles per pod, leaving the rest to mature and germinate. It is the same with leeks and mushrooms and other edibles. Take a few, leave the rest, or there won’t be any the next year.

“People go crazy for the fiddleheads,” says Peter. Other popular wild edibles are the white oyster mushroom which came out late due to the cool spring weather.

Coral mushrooms and honey mushrooms are rare finds that excite him. Coral mushrooms such as the Lion’s Mane all look like cauliflower and grow in decayed, blackened wood. “One called the Bear’s Head

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can be as big as your head,” says Peter. A fragile mushroom, coral mushrooms need to be consumed the same day they are harvested.

The honey mushroom is sweet, as its name suggests. They grow on live and dead trees, the “tip of the iceberg” of a whole underground system that can be as big and heavy as two blue whales.

The relationship between trees and mushrooms is a fascinating one (and much too extensive to capture in this article) and Peter loves to learn about their symbiotic relationship.

It turns out Peter’s fascination with wild edibles has led to a lucrative business. “I don’t really

have any competition,” he says.

“There was a guy who tried to start up but I’m an entertainer. I like to tell stories. That guy was a bit of a dull blade,” says Peter.

Indeed, I’m treated to an interesting story about Walter the nudist. But back to the wild edibles...

As the season rolls on, Peter continues to lead excursions into the woods hunting for common plants such as wood sorrel (offering subtle tastes of citrus), wild watercress, wild leek bulbs, summer oysters, boletes and gem-studded puffballs.

The forest floor is full of goodies.

“It’s like going to a wild grocery store,” concludes Peter. ◊

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The woods are full of wild edibles during different seasons says Peter Blush, who runs Peter Puck Foraging out of Stratford, leading groups of foragers to discover the edibles in our forests such as daylily bulbs (above, left) and leeks, which are edible in the spring and form scapes with blue berries (above, right) in the fall. ~Leek scape Photo by Tracy Bachellier

September 2019 37

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New heat exchanger warms and cools • By Lisa B. Pot •

B

Janet and Brad Westerhout hosted an open house at their new broiler barn near Clinton in Huron County for chicken farmers to see the new heat exchanger technology that improves animal health and gives Brad and Janet total control over the barn ventilation.

Remotely controlled and selfcleaning, the Vencomatic Eco 6 heat exchanger is the first of its kind to be installed in North America

rad and Janet Westerhout have long wanted a ventilation system that was capable of regulating all temperature and air quality in their broiler barns.

They hope they’ve found it in the Vencomatic Eco-6 heat exchanger which was unveiled at an open house in their new broiler barn on July 26.

It was built by Vanden Heuval Structures of Clinton.

Hundreds came out to see the new technology, imported from Europe and installed by Pols Enterprises Ltd., out of Wainfleet and Lucan. It’s the first of its kind in North America.

“I wanted to have total control on the environment in the barn,” says Brad, who has been chicken farming for over 30 years, first with his parents and now with Janet. This is the fifth new barn he’s built to both replace aging chicken barns and increase flock numbers. The new barn can house about 24,000 chickens.

Brad has always installed heat exchangers in the new barns he has built. “It’s been an evolution. We made changes as the technology improved”, he says. However, they all required supplemental fans to cool the birds.

The Eco-6 heat exchanger is capable of keeping the barn at an ideal temperature by heating and cooling using adiabatic cooling in combination with water cooling.

Cooling with water also reduces fine dust in the barn.

The few fans in the barn are there “just to make sure the Eco 6 does what it says it does,” says Brad.

Neither does the barn have any inlets.

The heat exchanger controls all air movement, says Ron Pols, owner of Pols Enterprises.

Maximus controllers and software run the heat exchangers on site or remotely via Brad and Janet’s laptops September 2019 39

EQUIPMENT SPECIALS

INTERNATIONAL 55 CHISEL PLOW 10 shank, hyd. lift, double spring, good shape.

Price

$

3,800 COCKSHUTT 535 COMBINE Cab, quick attach head, straight cut or belt pickup, 6 cyl. gas, good condition.

Price

3,800

$

JOHN DEERE 2130 DIESEL TRACTOR 3PH, new parts, 148 loader, used around the farm.

9,700 John Deere 50 Antique Tractor, pwr. steering, 3PH...............................$4700.

SOLD Price

$

Denman Backhoe Tire, 10 ply, 19.5x24, good shape................................$475.

Massey Ferguson 12 Hay Baler, with thrower, used this season...........$1,650.

Macdon Hay Crimper, fits 7,000, 9,000 swather, steel rolls....................$1,650.

John Deere 30 Thrower, for 24T, 336, 348, pump included....................$1,250.

John Deere 213 Combine Head,13 ft., quick attach, hyd. reel ...............$2,600.

Round Bale Spears, for loaders or 3 PH, quick attach ................$275. to $375.

Auger for Danuser Posthole Digger, 18 in., good for planting trees ........$375.

SOLD Massey Ferguson 212 Thrower, electric controls, hyd. tension.............$2,200.

IH 55 Chisel Plow, 10 shank, good shape, hyd. lift, double spring..........$3,800.

Westfield 742 Grain Auger, 7 inch, 42 ft., used very little......................$1,850.

Hesston 7020 Forage Harvester, 2 row corn head, hyd. hood...............$3,600.

Leinbach 3PH Posthole Digger, 12 inch auger, adjustable.......................$675.

SOLD John Deere 29B 100 Gal. Trail Sprayer, 30 ft. boom, hypro pump...........$975.

Nuffield Leyland Suitcase Weights, 75 lb., two only.........................pair $150.

Massey Ferguson 655 12 ft. Swather, hydrostatic, used this year.........$2,600.

Massey Ferguson Small 6 ft. Combine Swath Pickup, depth wheels.... $675.

New International 715 Combine Concave Rast Bars, set of 6............... $475.

George White 250 Gallon SOLD Sprayer, 24 ft. hydro. pump...............................675.

John Deere 34 Forage Harvester, 540 PTO, hay head, good shape.....$1,250.

Danuser 3PH Post Hole Digger, used this season................................ $1,250.

John Deere 57 Trail Plow, antique, ace bottom, 3 furrow.......................... $975 Massey Harris 30 1949 Antique Tractor, 12 volt, new parts..................$1,950.

George White 300 Gallon Sprayer, 30 ft. hydro pump, trail model............$250.

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and cell phones.

The Vencomatic heat exchanger is also self-cleaning and self-contained. All the water it uses as it cools is reused for the cleaning process, which will save time on labour.

“It cleans like a dishwasher does,” says Ron, explaining that the heat exchanger has six separate valves and one big pump which shoots water like a dishwasher, cleaning each section individually.

The cleaner a heat exchanger is, the better it works, explained Ron. Though Brad hasn’t run a flock through the barn to test the new system’s effectiveness, Brad says his other barns with older heat exchangers create an ideal environment for both birds and people.

“The air quality is phenomenal in those barns which is a bonus for bird health and for anyone working in the barn,” says Brad. “I can walk in and out of the new barns and nobody knows I have been in one.” This is because the heat exchangers reduce ammonia and odours in the barn explains Ron. With heat exchangers, Brad says chicken health is optimized.

This results in faster growth, lower mortality and reduced condemnations at the processing plant. He raises the birds to 3.2 kilograms and sells them to Pinty’s Delicious Foods.

Also of interest to people at the open house were the coloured LED lights in the broiler barn.

“We call them Christmas lights because they are red and green,” says Brad. These alternate lights emit a different frequency and wavelength which changes the bird’s behaviour and are said to enhance growth.

“We have similar lights in other barns and they keep the chickens calmer and happier,” says Brad.

“They never run away or get scared.”

Having built a barn in 2018 and now 2019, Brad says he’s hoping to “take it easy” on expansion for a bit as he looks forward to the results of a whole crop of chickens moving through the new barn. ◊

Ron Pols of Pols Ltd. installed the imported Vencomatic Eco 6 heat exchanger (above) into Brad and Janet Westerhout’s new broiler barn. Ron says it controls all the barn ventilation, both heating the barn in winter and cooling it in summer. It cools using water which is then recycled back into the machine and used to clean it “like a dishwasher” a couple of times a week.

September 2019 41

Summer Foods

Mexican Mennonites find favourite foods at Mennomex • By Melisa Luymes •

F

or me, stepping into a Mennomex store is like stepping into another world.

The shelves are stocked with bright packages of cookies, chips, tortillas and hot sauces, and in the air are the warm, spicy smells of tamales and burritos.

And for many others, stepping into a Mennomex store is like going home. Nostalgia. The store caters to the Mexican Mennonite community, with food, ingredients, fabrics and books.

“Many of our customers ask us about their favourite brands from Mexico and we do our best to import them,” says owner Maria Martens.

Mennomex was started by Willy and Maria Martens in 1997. It began as a stall at the Aylmer Sales Arena and Old Pete’s Country Market. The week that Old Pete’s closed in 2002 was the week that Mennomex opened in a permanent location on Highway 3 in Aylmer. And their customers

followed them in droves.

“We never expected it,” says Maria. “It was so busy that Willy had to quit his other job to work at the store.”

Besides the peppers, mangoes, tomatoes, beans, tortillas and the Mexican brands that are nearly impossible to find elsewhere, the store was famous for the tamales made by Willy’s mother. Tamales are made of a corn-based dough, filled with meat and salsa, wrapped, steamed and served in a corn husk (biodegradable packaging!). Small and portable, tamales were a large part of the diet of pre-Columbian Aztecs and Mayans and are still a staple in Mexico today.

When the store expanded in 2012, Willy and Maria opened a kitchen and started a take-out menu.

Breakfast burritos were a big hit and they began to open at six in the morning for the breakfast crowd. A daily lunch menu changes every day

of the week.

Mexican food is based on the tortilla, which is a thin, round flatbread made with corn or wheat flour. At Mennomex, depending on the day, you’ll find fresh enchiladas (tortillas rolled around a meat filling covered in chili sauce), flautas (stuffed and fried tortilla rolls), burritos (tortillas filled with meat, refried beans, lettuce, salsa, guacamole, sour cream and cheese), quesadillas (folded and grilled tortillas filled with cheese), gorditas (pastries stuffed with meat and potatoes) or tacos (soft or hard tortilla shells filled with meat, cheese, salsa and more), all served with a side of rice and beans.

The store in Aylmer has been so popular, with line-ups out the door at times, that they have started to expand. An extra commercial kitchen space was also needed to make their Mennomex line of salsas, sauces and tamales. In February this year, the

Local artist Peter Simons painted the mural for the Aylmer location of Mennomex, a store and restaurant offering the flavours of Mexico to the Mexican Mennonite community and anyone else who loves Mexican food. Tamales (above, right) are a favourite along with enchiladas, flautus, burritos and quesadillas. Willy and Maria Martens are so busy, they are expanding into Milverton.

42 The Rural Voice

couple opened a second location on the main street in Milverton (replacing the Sweet Harvest Mexican variety store) and they have a third location opening soon on Highway 73 in Aylmer.

One of the highlights of the original Aylmer location is the brightly coloured stucco building and a gorgeous mural painted by local artist Peter Simons. Peter will also be doing a mural for the second location.

Willy and Maria were born in a Mennonite community in Tamaulipas, Mexico. They married in 1991 and moved to Ontario in 1996 where they had four children.

But their families had been Canadian before. ennonites originally came to Ontario and the Prairies in the late 1800s, fleeing persecution in Europe, and continued to speak a Low-German dialect, called Plautdietsch. When the education laws became stricter in Manitoba and Saskatchewan during World War 1, members of the community sought out land in Northern Mexico. In the 1920s, thousands of Mennonites moved there, settling in Chihuahua, Durango, Zacatecas and Tamaulipas.

“My grandmother was part of that migration,” says Maria. “She was actually born on the train, somewhere in Texas.” When times were tough in Mexico, Maria’s grandmother applied for and received American citizenship, due to all the witnesses on the train.

Growing up in Mexico, Maria spoke Plautdietsch, but learned to read and write German in school. It was not common for women to learn Spanish, but Maria ran a store in Mexico and needed to speak with locals.

With poverty and unrest in Mexico, many Mennonites are coming back to Canada to work for the summers and some can get citizenship to stay here. Being back in Ontario, she says the Mexican Mennonites can still understand the dialect from Mennonite communities that never left, but that an accent developed from being separated for two or three generations. Religious

M

beliefs and community rules also changed over that time, so the Mexican Mennonite communities now worship in different churches.

The Mennomex store is a vital link for this community. It offers the nostalgic brands, foods and fabrics

for Mexican Mennonites and, for the rest of us, it is a culinary adventure in the heart of rural Ontario.

Mennomex is open six days a week from six a.m. to nine p.m. in Aylmer. Be sure to check out their Facebook page. ◊

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September 2019 43

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44 The Rural Voice

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Recipes by Nancy Fisher

Muffins for a busy time of year

A

t some point over the summer I hope we have all had the opportunity to rest and recuperate, because with September I find that everyone is moving at full speed. Kids going back to school, gardens at their peak output, and the early preparations for inevitable winter. I don’t see as many quiet September days as I would like.

Even though I don’t have any students climbing back on a bus, I still make these handy homemade granola bars. They are amazingly simple to make and you can customize to your favourite flavours, or to what you have on hand in the pantry. They keep well in a tin and are great to grab for a quick snack or even if you have no time for a proper breakfast .

Quick and Easy Homemade Granola Bars I start by lining a 9X9 baking pan with parchment, leaving some over the side to use as handles. I do this so I can lift them out to cut into bars as they cool. In a 9X9 they end up about an inch thick, or you can spread them in a larger pan for thinner bars.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit.

Ingredients: ½ cup butter ½ cup brown sugar 4 tablespoons corn syrup or local honey (you should always use local honey) 3 cups rolled oats ½ teaspoon cinnamon (optional) Directions: Approximately 1 – 1 ½ cups of mix-ins – Dried cranberries, raisins, or other dried fruit, pumpkin seeds, chopped nuts, shredded coconut, chocolate or flavoured chips. We all have our favourite flavours and I mix up my bars by trying new combinations all the time.

In a medium saucepan (large enough to mix all the ingredients) melt the butter, sugar and honey or syrup over a low heat until sugar dissolves. Remove from heat and immediately add the oats, cinnamon (if using) and mix-ins. Stir until

Simple, homemade granola bars are handy snacks for school lunches or afterschool snacks. Same goes for the blueberry muffins (top) which use a combination of flours to add sweetness and taste. Remember to freeze blueberries so you have them all year round. completely combined and tip into the prepared baking pan. Press down firmly so they are level.

Bake for 30 mins or until the top is golden. Remove and allow to cool.

Once mostly cool but not rock hard I lift onto a cutting board and slice into bars. It is best to do this with a big long knife and then let the bars finish cooling completely as they do tend to crumble. But who am I to stop you from eating any of the little bits that fall off? Once you make your own

it’s hard to go back to the kind in the box.

September is also the month for garden excess. So many vegetables are available right now, either from your own garden or at the market.

Everyone has their favourite ways to use them up and if you have a bunch of different things filling your fridge and countertop why not try to use them in one delicious dish? This is also a great time to pull out one of my favourite kitchen tools - the September 2019 45

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Recipes mandoline slicer. These slicers can be purchased at various price points and with a number of features. Mine has a fold out leg so that is stands on an angle and is large enough I can slide a chopping board underneath. It has an adjustable height blade and a few different types of other blade attachments. The most important part is the safety guard that you use to push the vegetables and it should be used at all times as the blades are quite sharp. This is not a tool to let the kids use, or for older kids, only with an attentive adult present. That being said this is a time saver tool. I can slice up all the veg for this casserole in a matter of minutes, and end up with slices of an even thickness. Now nothing says you can’t do the slicing with a knife yourself, or in a food processor (though I never find they work as well as they should for vegetables) but I always get excited to see the neat stack of sliced vegetables when I use the mandoline. Is that just me?

Oh well.

Garden Bounty Stove Top Casserole Thinly slice a couple of onions and three or four new potatoes. I find new potatoes hold together a bit better for this, but use what you have.

I also slice all my vegetables in advance of the cooking so they are ready to add as I go.

In a large heavy bottomed pan sauté the onions over a medium heat with a splash of olive oil until tender and then add the potatoes cooking and turning gently until they are lightly browned. Then I spread them evenly across the bottom of the pan, season with a bit of salt and pepper, and turn the heat to medium-low.

Then I add my pre-sliced vegetables in layers. I like to use up what I have, and at this time of year I always have zucchini. Layer that with some sliced peppers, mushrooms, sliced or crushed garlic, thin sliced carrot and/or celery, and maybe throw in a few beans or snap peas if you still have some. Add salt and pepper to taste as you go. This is another recipe like the granola bars where I use what I have and what my favourite flavours are at the moment.

I also nip out to the herb garden and

gather handfuls of flavour – basil, tarragon, summer savoury, thyme, and parsley whatever combinations you like. You can certainly add some dried herbs but be a bit more cautious as they have stronger, concentrated flavour. I give it a good glug of olive oil all over the top and check the temperature to make sure the bottom is not burning. It is tempting to add a bit of water or stock, but most vegetables contain a lot of water so not really necessary. Top all of this with several large sliced tomatoes (off season it is easy to open a large can of good tomatoes to add instead, just adjust your seasoning). Season again and cover to simmer gently for about half an hour, checking occasionally. My pot has a big glass lid and this is super helpful to keep an eye on things. Serve this hot with or without a meat dish. Although a nice crusty loaf of bread would not go wrong.

If you do get a quiet moment to yourself in September, why not put your feet up with a cup of tea and a muffin? In August, as I write this, I have just managed to snag some lovely wild blueberries, but the great thing about blueberries is that they freeze so well and are available all year round!

Wild Blueberry Muffins Ingredients: 1 cup all-purpose flour 1 cup whole wheat flour 1/3 cup sugar (if you like a sweeter muffin you could increase this to ½ cup) ¼ teaspoon salt 2 teaspoons baking soda ½ cup milk 1 cup plain yogurt 2 tablespoons vegetable oil 1 teaspoon vanilla 1 egg 1 cup blueberries fresh or frozen Topping – 2 tablespoons softened butter, 2 tablespoons brown sugar Directions: Preheat oven to 400 degrees fahrenheit and prepare 12 muffin cups (grease or paper liners) Mix dry ingredients in a bowl and set aside. Combine yogurt, milk, oil and vanilla. Add the egg and mix well. Pour wet ingredients into the dry and stir until all is incorporated.

Add the blueberries and carefully fold. Spoon batter evenly into muffin cups. Blend the softened butter and brown sugar into a paste and place a lump of this on each muffin, it makes a lovely sweet top, but is entirely optional.

Bake for 18 minutes. Let cool slightly then remove from pan. The combination of flours adds a nice flavour and they are not too sweet. I recommend you enjoy outside with a beverage and a good book, because it will be winter all too soon. ◊

Or Joanne at 905-339-6748

September 2018 47

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September 2019 49

Gardening Rhea HamiltonSeeger is a skilled cook and gardener who lives near Auburn.

Water, compost and move perennials in autumn I was quite elated this summer with part of my garden, well really a few parts, but one in particular. I have always envied those photos of gardens, which have drifts of great colour from one plant choice. I would wonder what happens when the drift was finished and you had this great wave of deadheading to look after; what comes next?

While not a very big wave, we did have a drift of Monarda or bee balm across half of the front garden that

still gets enough sun. It started at the top of the garden and curved down and across the front. Simply lovely.

In the middle of the curve was late blooming phlox. You know the kind, aggressive and popping up everywhere. In this case a welcome sight. It almost looked planned! This month I am going to carefully sift through this area and thin out, drop in some compost and wait for next year for another show.

It is this kind of assessment gardeners face every time they take the time to simply wander through their own garden. I see plants that have limited or reduced bloom due to trees growing and blocking the sun.

Peonies come to mind. They would benefit from a much-needed move. I make mental notes; yup how long do they last? And hope that in the spring I can get those changes made.

Splitting hostas that have died out in the centre and moving late summer perennials are big spring jobs. I add to that list when I walk through the summer garden; plants that are in a “too sunny” spot, plants needing more sun, and over-crowding. I

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mentally start planning for spring.

This year I am taking a new approach. Spring is not the best time for moving things in my garden. Lots of spring bulbs up, I don’t want to crush through wee drifts of primula and forget-me-nots, and sometimes it is just too cool and damp for me to be mucking about. So new plan – move things around during the end of

Slugs like to hide in mulch and the “nasty wee creatures” nibble through the base of hostal plants.

Ammonia in water poured over the plant can deter the pests.

August into the first part of September. I know a lot of us, myself included, start to wind down and simply enjoy the garden, do the minimum and then get busy tidying up for winter.

The crucial key for moving plants is, as always, water. The plants being moved receive a good watering the day before and the holes where they are moving to will be watered too.

This is a good time for poking around in your composter for a bit of well-rotted material. A bit in each hole along with a handful of blood/bone meal will go a long way in repairing and boosting the roots.

The advantage to moving plants in the early fall is the benefit of warm soil which encourages quicker new root growth. Plants that have finished blooming like cone flower or monarda can be cut back by half and allow the plant to concentrate on settling in. With my hostas, I cut back half the leaves, aiming at the larger ones. They look a bit bedraggled but the show next year will be worth it.

Water well after the move and monitor carefully. Water well every

Gardening For the past two years I have been using a soft mulch and so enjoyed both the look and the benefit to the soil. The drawback on a summer like this one is that it can also harbor slugs. Nasty, wee creatures have been nibbling through the base of my hosta leaves and making a mess. I put two and a half cups of ammonia into a gallon jug, fill the remainder with water and pour over the crown. This is supposed to deter them and is also beneficial to the plant. So far it is working on some of them. So I would recommend keeping the mulch back from the crown of the hosta by seven or eight inches depending on the size of the plant.

Avoid applying deep mulch around any of your plants as one or two inches will suffice. This traps the warmth in the soil and helps the plant avoid frost heaving.

And this is how I rush through life, thinking about next spring and how things will look!

Before I sign off I wanted to tell you about a lovely experience I had this summer. I was asked to be a tour guide for the Ontario Maple Syrup Producers who gathered in Kincardine for their Summer Tour.

What a delightful bunch and all tree huggers! We visited both small and large operations and it is amazing what is going on in the woods around Huron. Some attendees were hobby syrup makers and some ran large multi-generational family operations over several woodlots.

Being a tour guide presented a learning curve for me as I thought I just had to talk about what they saw along the routes between sugar shack stops. But buses move right along and as I spotted things they were gone. The real trick to being a tour guide is to simply talk about the area you live in, why you love it and why all of them should come back to take in more of Huron County. It was very rewarding meeting so many “sweet” people. I must say you only see your own community when you are showing visitors through it. We take living here in rural Ontario for granted and have to be gently reminded that it is an awesome place to live, raise our families and enjoy old age. ◊

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Crops • By Lisa B. Pot •

Soil Showdown: Beans in cover crops and beans in bare Editor’s Note: This story was written after the car tour on July 2 when the beans were first planted. Look to the end of the story for an update on how each bean field fared over the summer. here was a bit of stunned silence when farmers first visited Dave Gowan’s bean field near Tara. A farmer who “likes to do things differently” Gowan said he had planted no-till beans into a 20-variety cover crop with waist-high rye that was seemingly smothering the emerging beans.

The rye had been terminated the same day as planting. Beans were planted at a rate of about 190,000 per acre. Plant counts indicated emergence was about 100,000 plants per acre.

Gowan had opened his field for inspection as part of the Bruce County Soil and Crop Improvement Association’s annual Mystery Car Tour held this year on July 2. The day was like an outdoor classroom walking though farm fields learning about planting techniques, pest and disease issues and other aspects of practical agronomy they could share with one another. Information from the first two fields on the tour was covered in the August issue of The Rural Voice.

Once everyone wrapped their mind around what Gowan was trying to accomplish, they could see that despite the huge amount of organic matter still in the field, the beans were coming along.

“Have you done this before?” asked Peter “Wheat Pete” Johnson, an agronomist with RealAgriculture who led the event. He looked a bit quizzical because from the edge of the field, the beans were not looking that great. Emergence was scattered.

“Yes, and I had better luck that year,” said Gowan.

It had to be noted that the June 9 plant date was not ideal this season due to copious amounts of rain that followed the planting.

T

The beans were planted in twin rows 21 inches apart which Gowan likes because it “allows more light to get in there.”

Johnson said he was scratching his head about the twin rows and why Gowan would choose a 20-variety cover crop mixture versus an eightvariety cover crop.

“Well, it worked! It’s novel,” said Gowan with a laugh.

The field featured some of the

best soils in Bruce County according to fellow farmers. So even if Gowan’s choices were unusual, the field would be forgiving.

Someone asked if Gowan had rolled or crimped the cover crop before planting. Gowan said he thought about it but figured the beans would come through. A walk deeper into the field proved he was right.

Andy VanNiekirk, a farmer and Certified Crop Advisor from Staynor,

Dave Gowan of Tara (above), took the skepticism in stride as farmers on the Bruce County Soil and Crop Improvement Association’s annual Mystery Car Tour inspected his field of beans. It had been planted into a heavy cover crop. Two months later, the beans are thriving and that cover crop served as an excellent ground cover keeping moisture in the soil. An organic bean field owned by Fiete Suhr (right) was also inspected.

September 2019 53

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Crops said he likes to roll or crimp his cover crops but this year, the crop sprung back up the next day. “They need to be flowering or have height to crimp well. The turnip was in full flower so it did not spring back but the rye sure did.”

Looking at Gowan’s field, he said an advantage of all the overgrown rye will be that when a good rain comes, the beans will get a “good flush of potash” as it leaches out of the rye plants.

As cover crop, rye is noted for its extensive soil-holding root system, reduction of nitrate-leaching and exceptional weed suppression.

VanNiekerk said the organic guys recommend planting 120 pounds of rye per acre to achieve the biomass required for weed control. For conventional farmers who use chemical weed control, planting 30 pounds of rye to the acre is plenty.

“Yes, less is more,” agreed Megan Moran, a canola and edible bean specialist with OMAFRA. Remember that other species in an eight or 20-variety cover crop will create biomass. They just don’t overwinter like rye does.

Adam DeVisser who crop farms south of Chesley, said he planted straight rye on the bean field at a rate

Tori Waugh (right), an Agricultural Outreach Coordinator with the Saugeen Valley Conservation Authority gave a presentation on soil health in the field across the road from Fiete Suhrs organic beans. She and volunteers performed an aggregate stability test comparing heavy clay soil from an organic field versus a conventional field. Then she discussed the value of earthworm molds which were taken from the same fields.

of 30 pounds per acre. They no-tilled beans into it after killing it off when it was one foot high and had just started to elongate. “We feel we did not get the advantage of biomass but the crop did dry the soil out and it was the first field of beans we planted.”

“Agreed,” said VanNiekirk. “Rye uses up a lot more water than you think.”

Paul Legge, President of Bruce County Soil and Crop Improvement Association, said on a heavy clay field, rye helps keep the soil from crusting. “We’ve had pounding rain this spring and everything that did not have a cover crop was rock hard,” he said.

Cover crops are always a plus, added Johnson. Even if the plant doesn’t grow too high, the roots from that plant are infinitely more valuable. They keep soil biology alive.

Also, when it comes to crops, farmers have to make a living.

Planting early is more profitable than waiting to build biomass.

“Don’t even think about delaying planting just so you can roll or crimp the cover crop,” said Johnson.

“Unless you are an organic producer.

Then maybe you would take a yield hit so you can benefit from the weed suppression of a taller cover crop.”

From a field full of organic matter and healthy green beans, the next field looked to be bare of life. It was an organic bean field owned by Fiete Suhr and Irene Kollmann. With extensive acreage to manage, both conventional and organic, combined with a wet spring, this field has been planted on June 27.

A little digging revealed bean seeds about to emerge from the heavily-tilled field which had been planted in 20-inch rows at a volume of 220,000 beans per acre. “I do not want any spaces between the plants,” says Suhr. “The weeds between the rows are no problems because I can scuffle them but the weeds between the plants are very hard to get rid of.”

He will scuffle soon to dislodge emergent weeds. “We’ll likely scuffle it once, maybe twice, to get rid of the twitch and some thistle,” said Suhr. No fertilizers have been September 2019 55

Crops added to the field in eight years.

“I rely on rotation – that’s it,” said Suhr.

He does not see any deficiencies in most crops but does note his grain fields are not as green because they are missing nitrogen.

For this bean field, Suhr hopes the field will average 30 bushels per acre, lower than normal because of the late planting date.

Johnson asked how Suhr manages to control the weeds that can overwhelm other organic farmers.

“Weed control is management,” said Suhr. “The clay soil is not too bad but the loam soil is a nightmare for lamb’s quarters. We don’t seem to have that much weed pressure but we do plow and we do cover crops.

Clover and twitch is here but not too much sow thistle.”

Speaking of his rotation and growing organic crops as a whole, Suhr said if he were to “do it all over again” he would incorporate a herd of 150 cattle into the operation.

He needs the manure and he needs the hay rotation to maximize

his organic crops.

“I have 60 acres of hay for 800 acres of organic and I really should have 200 to 300 acres of hay,” he said. Though he has a flock of sheep, they do not require that much hay or produce enough manure to meet the field’s needs.

“This organic farm runs at 50 to 60 per cent of the capacity it could be,” he said.

However, he keeps it organic instead of making it conventional like his other crop farms because he really does believe organic is the right way to go. Also, he jokes, “I’m greedy.”

“I make twice as much money on the organic fields as the conventional,” said Suhr. If managed properly you can make $30 per bushel on beans versus $10. Corn profits can range from $10 to $13 a bushel. This is because of less inputs and also because organic corn seed is cheaper than conventional treated seed.

Stones are another issue in organic farming because all scuffling brings

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them to the surface. “Stones are a labour of love when you go organic,” laughed Suhr.

One farmer asked how Suhr maintains soil structure when he uses so much tillage. “I use hay for bedding (the sheep) and I work it all in. I also work all the cover crops in,” said Suhr.

Following the walk through his bean field, Tori Waugh, Agricultural Outreach Coordinator with the Saugeen Valley Conservation Authority gave a presentation on soil health in the field across the road.

Eating ham sandwiches and apples from the bagged lunches supplied by the tour, farmers watched as Waugh and volunteers performed an aggregate stability test using two clumps of soil. One sample was from one of Suhr’s conventional fields (wheat/corn/soy rotation with minimal tillage) and the other sample from an organic field (hay for three years, then sunflowers, now soybeans). Both were heavy clays.

“Visually, we aren’t seeing a whole lot of difference,” said Waugh.

The clumps were busting apart about the same rate, indicating that they were both stable and able to absorb water.

Waugh had also done latex molds in both fields to check for earthworm volumes.

She discovered the conventional field had more deep burrowers while the organic field had more surface worms. Worm volumes were the same at about 10 worms per shovel full.

“That’s not bad but we’ve heard counts of 98 worms to a shovel full,” said Waugh.

This comment garnered a snort from Johnson. “Sounds like coffee shop stories,” he said. “Are any soils like that?”

Waugh agreed that 20 worms per square foot is considered a good amount.

As to the difference of surface worms versus deep burrowing worms, Johnson explained: “The minimum tillage on the conventional fields means there is more residue on the surface of the field to feed the worms. Meanwhile, the tillage done on the organic fields is hard on the

Crops deep burrowers.”

One farmer wondered if treated seeds affect the worm population.

Waugh said the ministry is doing research on this concern but no results are in yet. Johnson said there should not be much impact on the worms because worms feed on dead tissue, not live tissue. “Treated seed really shouldn’t affect the worms but there isn’t enough good research to say for sure.”

Update: The Rural Voice called Dave Gowan and Fiete Suhr on August 21 to discover both farmers were very pleased with their bean crops.

“To be honest, I was kind of embarrassed at the field when the guys on the car tour looked at it,” said Dave Gowan. “The beans were really thin where they looked but that was where we loaded trucks last year with corn. So the soil was compacted. Still, the beans filled in there and look good in the rest of the field. I’m happy with them. They got a slower start out of the gate but once they got going, they were fine.

“The residue from the cover crop did eventally lay down on the ground and made a nice mulch. It helped during the dry period to conserve moisture. We were pretty dry so we get desperate for rain but that field was doing okay during the drought period,” said Gowan.

Fiete Suhr was equally pleased with his bean field. “The field looks really terrific. It looks good. It’s well-podded and still flowering. It’s been dry for over a month but we got 3/4 of an inch of rain last night. As to weed pressure, the field looks pretty clean. If you drive by, you would not think it is organic.” ◊

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News

By Lisa B. Pot

Bibeau visits beef farm in Bruce County

A

s the first female Minister of Agriculture, Quebec’s MarieClaude Bibeau recognizes she has a role to play in creating gender equality in Canada’s agricultural community.

“I never had the feeling I had to fight harder,” said Bibeau. “Now in this position, I realize that gender equality is not something you can take for granted,” she added as she took a break at Tim Horton’s in Wingham, where she met with The Rural Voice and The Citizen newspaper on July 24 to share her experiences touring Huron and Bruce Counties.

“We know women are very involved in agriculture. Agriculture depends on family farms and women have been working on them forever.

But I do acknowledge that they are not around the leadership table,” said Bibeau.

It’s not just a matter of quality.

It’s about sustainable economics.

“No country and no sector of activity can afford to leave half their population behind,” she said.

As she familiarizes herself with the issues facing Canadian farmers, she intends to bring young people and women around the table to “get their viewpoints of agriculture that align with their aspirations.”

Also, she was keen to highlight the Government of Canada’s Women Entrepreneurship Strategy, a $2 billion investment that seeks to double the number of women-owned and women-led businesses by 2025.

Within that strategy, there is support from Farm Credit Canada which is designating $500 million over three years for the Women Entrepreneur Loan. This loan waives certain fees and encourages women to reinvest these savings into personal and professional development opportunities which suit their individual and business needs.

Bibeau was excited to share program details at the FederalProvincial-Territorial (FPT) roundtable meeting of agriculture

58 The Rural Voice

Marie-Claude Bibeau (centre), the first female Minister of Agriculture, was in Huron and Bruce Counties on July 24 where she toured Eby Farms near Kincardine and spoke with Steve Eby and fellow farmers about issues facing the beef industry.

ministers in Quebec in July. Bibeau said she invited a panel of four young farmers (two male, two female) to discuss their issues.

“They brought subjects we did not have on our agenda,” she said. These subjects included the digital transition on farms, mental health of producers and employees, the role of women on the family farm and farm transitions from one generation to the next.

“It was really a plus to have this panel of young farmers speak to us,” she said.

Here, in Huron and Bruce Counties, Bibeau was touring local farms and processors.

Earlier in the day, she made a funding announcement at Gay Lea in Teeswater. The company is getting a $6.9 million grant through the Dairy Processing Investment Fund and a $10 million loan through FedDev Ontario. This will allow Gay Lea Foods to advance its scientific and technical capability to produce new, high-value milk products, particularly for the health food and

nutraceutical markets.

One of the farms she visited was Eby Farms, a feedlot near Kincardine that markets about 1,500 cattle a year.

“We addressed a lot of issues,”said Bibeau listing trade and transportation as top issues.

China’s ban on beef and pork exports from Canada has been a cause for concern but Bibeau says there could be an end in sight.

“We have regular conversations with the Chinese government, which is encouraging,” she said. “We know they need our meat because they have a large population to feed and they are dealing with African Swine Fever which affects their ability to produce.” Bibeau said its hard to put a date on when that market will reopen, but because of the regular conversations between China and Canada, she is “hopeful.”

The canola issue, however, will take longer. China has blocked the trade of canola seed from Canada and Bibeau says the Chinese aren’t nearly as willing to discuss this issue as the

News meat issue. “I’m afraid the canola ban will last longer but for the meat we see progress.”

For his part, Steve Eby said the meeting with Bibeau went really well. “She had a great attitude and she was very interested; very receptive to discussion,” said Eby. “But she did make it clear she was only on the job for four months and was learning a lot. Nevertheless, I was impressed with her desire to understand what some of our issues are.”

One of the main issues is new transportation regulations that will change the amount of time an animal can be in transit before getting feed and water. The changes will likely necessitate an extra stop for calves coming out of the west. While the idea is good in theory, Eby says there is no proven data to suggest an extra feed and water stop will improve animal wellbeing. In fact, Eby and other beef farmers are concerned unloading and reloading will create more stress on the animals.

“Tied to that is the infrastructure that will be required if more trucks have to stop in northern Ontario,” said Eby. “We are asking the ministry to postpone the changes until an Agriculture Canada research project investigates the facts.”

Another issue is an imbalance in market prices between western and eastern cattle. Traditionally, Ontario prices have been higher, which works because eastern farmers have higher capital costs. Eby said eastern beef farmers are looking for regulations that restrict competitive bidding in order to get a fairer price for their beef animals.

Also, the status of Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in Canadian cattle is coming up for review. If Canada gets a clear, it would create a greater demand for Canadian cattle.

Ultimately, this was an information session with beef farmers and a supplier in attendance asking for reasonable regulations to allow primary producers to make money because the whole community benefits when farmers can prosper.

Eby says when government officials go on agriculture tours such

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September 2019 59

News as this, it is very important for farmers to open their doors and teach.

“As an industry, we have to do these little things to advance the bigger cause,” said Eby. “Seeing is believing” is the old adage and Bibeau remarked after the tour that it is very important to meet with people in their own environment.

“I think I am a fast learner but the best way for me to learn is to meet with producers and ideally, not in a conference room, but on their farms and in their plants,” said Bibeau.

“When you see it, you get it. It sits in your heart and in your mind and you retain that information.”

Ultimately, meeting directly with farmers and producers is the best way to get a better sense of the current issues. “Then I can be a better advocate for my sector,” said Bibeau.

While she was in Huron and Bruce County, Bibeau also toured greenhouses and a mushroomgrowing facility. There, she talked about the launch of a new pilot program for greenhouses to make it easier to hire temporary foreign workers. This new pilot program will facilitate the path toward Canadian residency for temporary foreign workers.

“This is a path to make it easier for temporary foreign workers to bring their families here to Canada and build a life in rural Canada where they have so much to offer,” said Bibeau. ibeau also took note of the dairy farmers along the way and when asked her opinion on support for dairy farmers, admitted that for the “greater good of the Canadian economy” the government had to make a compromise by allowing the United States more access to the Canadian market for dairy, egg and poultry products.

“But we fought hard for it (supply management) because we really believe in it,” said Bibeau. “To me it is a social contract that we signed 50 years ago. Our family farms have developed on the confidence that this system was in place. It is very important for the vitality of

B

60 The Rural Voice

News our rural communities.”

The government has promised compensation to the supply management sectors for the loss of market share. Dairy was just announced. Poultry is taking longer.

“It is complex,” said Bibeau. “It is taking longer to find solutions to the different mechanisms being asked for by each sector. We are working right now on financial technicalities.”

Another issue discussed in the Wingham Tim Hortons was the introduction of a new food policy for Canada.

Bibeau said Canadians have been asking for this policy and that the key word when developing a food policy is “access.”

The government’s vision is to provide access to good food. As part of that strategy, the government will be incorporating the Child Tax Benefit, providing low-income families with the revenue to access the good food they need.

“Through this change (to the Child Tax Benefit) we have raised 3,000 children out of poverty,” said Bibeau.

Moving forward, rural communities can look forward to funds through the Local Food Infrastructure Fund. Between August 15 and November 1, organizations that facilitate access to food in their communities can apply for funding.

This could include food banks, farmers markets or nongovernmental organizations (NGO).

Food fraud, including mislabelling, is also a huge issue.

Bibeau referenced the honey issue, where it was discovered 12,800 kilograms of imported honey was diffused with oils. The new food policy will address such issues and is making investments in the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) to hire more inspectors to guard the import of foods into Canada.

Bibeau was in southwestern Ontario for two days and capped her tour with a meet-and-greet at the Brussels Four Winds Barn alongside Huron-Bruce Liberal Party of Canada candidate, Allan Thompson, who is campaigning for a seat in the next federal election. ◊

WE WANT YOUR GRAIN! • Corn • Soybeans • Feed Grains • Feed Ingredients • Food Quality Soybeans CASH & FORWARD CONTRACTS Call us today for Quotes Dave Gordon Richard Smibert Scott Krakar Matt McKillop Alex Kissler

The beef industry has a number of significant issues to deal with including trade (or lack therof) to China, and new transportation regulations. Steve Eby of Eby farms said he was impressed by the receptiveness of Canada’s Minister of Agriculture, Marie-Claude Bibeau. ~Photos Submitted

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September 2019 61

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

China is still not happy with Canada The news headlines are filled with events that bring volatility and worry to those who follow financial and commodity markets.

Many of the same issues that are repeated month over month have now been ongoing for over a year and are still seemingly far from being resolved.

Towards the top of the list, as usual, are the ongoing trade disputes with China. The U.S. continues to talk about tariff increases on Chinese

goods, with China promising to buy, then deciding not to buy, U.S. agriculture commodities. Both countries appear to be hardening their stances and China has made moves to devalue their currency, indicating that they may be expecting the dispute to last for a long time.

The Canada/China trade dispute seems to be even further from being resolved. China recently warned Canada once again that we must stay out of its domestic policy issues, especially in respect to the rights and freedoms of its citizens in wake of the protests in Hong Kong. In this regard they have specifically singled out Canada’s Foreign Minister in an unusually personal rebuke about her comments. With China specifically warning Canada and our top Foreign Minister personally, we cannot expect trade disputes to be settled anytime soon. With China making statements like, “Canada needs to deeply reflect on its mistakes”, we cannot expect them to be buying our agricultural products such as canola,

Trust

family

neighbours

Contact: Larry Batte MNP Clinton office T: 519.606.8550

62 The Rural Voice

wisdom

Jordan Bowles MNP Stratford office T: 519.272.0000

intuition

dreams

soybeans and pork.

U.S. equity markets have become volatile as the possibility of a recession comes to the forefront. U.S. interest rate increases are being scaled back as inflation has not surfaced the way the U.S. Federal Reserve once expected. Stemming from the recession expectations, there are indications that physical commodity demand could fall, resulting in commodity prices waning. Energy markets have been under pressure, and often as energy goes, so goes the broad commodity basket, including agricultural commodity values. From this alone, it is not unforeseen that grain prices have been falling. This, however, is not the only factor pressuring grain prices. Export demand is generally poor as U.S. grain has not been price competitive with other world origins.

Corn usage is in decline by the U.S. ethanol producers. Many U.S. plants are in a reduced grind situation or are completely shut down due to poor margins. The U.S. ethanol capacity is too large to be sustained without export markets – most notably into China, (and we’ve discussed why this isn’t happening).

The only potentially positive input that one could use as a bullish talking point has been planted acreage and yield. The USDA’s June 28 planted acreage report was met with much skepticism after its release. Many considered the planted acreage to be greatly overstated and therefore thought that the production estimates were not feasible. Shortly after this report was released, the USDA indicated that they would resurvey 14 key states, to measure the impact that the wet weather had on planted acres, versus the original expectations.

These new survey results were not as most expected. The USDA raised corn planted acreage and yield in this report, shocking market participants and driving the market down following its release. From this report’s release, the corn market has been steadily lower.

Questions and disbelief abound how corn planted acres could possibly be 90 million acres with all the wet spring weather, which pushed many farmers past the preventive

Markets plant dates. The answer to this question is simply that about 40 million U.S. corn acres were planted throughout June, with an estimated 25 million acres past June 10. Why would this occur? Well, in order to receive the second government Market Facilitation Payment (MFP2) U.S. growers had to plant a crop. There was great incentive for producers to get this corn in the ground. Whether or not one agrees with these planted acreage estimates we should recognize that there will not be more clarity provided until the October crop production report.

Not only were acreage estimates a surprise, but the USDA also increased corn yields significantly from the average guess. The average trade guess for the report was 164.9 bushels per acre, while the USDA reported a whopping 169.5 bushels per acre. Again questions arise. With so much corn planted so late in the season is it practical to anticipate yields this strong? It is reported that good rains have recently fallen across much of the corn belt and a lot of crops are doing well. With the lateness of the planted crop it is supposed that these late rains are beneficial to the developing crop.

This begs the following question: if late rains benefit the crop because of late development, shouldn’t the market be more concerned about an early end to the season with the potential of an early frost?

Two things come to my mind in attempting to answer this question.

First, the market will worry about an early end to the season when it needs to worry about such an event. Currently the weather is generally non-threatening and we have quite a bit of time before a frost is likely. Secondly, and possibly more telling, is that some analysts think we would need to see a drop below 1.2 billion bushels carryout in order to get a meaningful increase in corn prices. Currently the USDA forecast a carryout of almost 2.2 billion bushels. With this scenario, as crazy as this sounds, the U.S. could afford to lose more corn bushels without major supply issues arising. ◊

How it Works A geothermal system consists of a heat pump, a ground loop, and a flow centre to connect the indoor and outdoor components. The geothermal system uses the constant temperature of the ground to heat and cool your home. In the winter, your WaterFurnace geothermal system extracts the heat and in the summer, it rejects it.

Why Choose WaterFurnace?

A WaterFurnace geothermal system operates more efficiently than ordinary heating and air conditioning systems because it can deliver up to an astounding five units of energy for every one unit of electrical energy used.

Why Choose Cliff’s?

Cliff’s Plumbing & Heating has been a trusted name in Huron and Bruce Counties since 1979 and has been installing WaterFurnace geothermal systems for over 30 years. We are members of HRAI and the Grand Valley Construction Association, accredited with the Canadian Geothermal Coalition and our technicians are licensed through the Ontario College of Trades and factory trained.

Other Services Include: Air Conditioning, In-floor Radiant Heating High Efficiency Furnaces, Gas Fireplaces, Plumbing, Pumps and Water Treatment

1136 Bruce Road 86, LUCKNOW

www.cliffsplumbing.com Phone: 519-528-3913 • Toll Free: 800-449-2543 • Fax: 519-528-3125 cliff@cliffsplumbing.com

September 2019 63

Woodlots Steve Bowers is a forester, forest owner and member of the Ontario Woodlot Assoc.

Gypsy moths can defoliate entire trees causing stress Rabies has been in the news recently, in part due to the unfortunate death of a British Columbia man who was infected with rabies through contact with a bat. Also, at around the same time in July there were notices in local newspapers about rabies vaccine bait drops in various areas across southern Ontario. The bait drop program (delivered by the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (MNR)), along with vaccination of pets has reduced annual incidence of rabies in Ontario to much lower levels than we once had.

There are a number of variants or strains of the rabies virus. While several species tend be reservoirs for particular variants (e.g. fox, racoon, bat, skunk), each variant can affect any other mammal species and infection is virtually always fatal. A Canadian Communicable Disease Report from 2016, I read recently mentioned that after the Arctic fox

strain of rabies moved into southern Ontario in the 1950s, Ontario became known as the “rabies capital of North America”. Information on Ontario's Environmental registry states that incidence of the Arctic fox rabies strain averaged more than 1,500 cases a year through the 1960s and beyond. I recall major concerns about rabies as a youth in the 1960s. The controls mentioned above reduced that to only one case in 2012 and zero cases in the following three years. However, there has been a small increase in cases again in the past few years.

Unfortunately, the racoon variant of rabies has been moving north in the U.S. since the 1970s and is found in the U.S. all along Ontario’s southern border. A small Ontario outbreak in 1999 was eliminated in large part by MNR’s baiting program within a few years of discovery. Now agencies are fighting with another outbreak that crossed the border into Hamilton in 2015, with several hundred cases of the racoon strain confirmed since then in mostly racoons and skunks, but also some other species.

The racoon strain presents a serious challenge to control. A recent show on CBC’s The National said racoon densities in cities such as Toronto could be as high as 100 to 300 per square kilometre. Rabies control measures in cities are much more difficult than in rural areas due to the racoon density and inability to aerially drop vaccine baits. Of course the high human density and related high pet population also results in a much greater potential for human exposure to rabies and thus potential

Green Lumber Kiln Dried Lumber Coloured Mulch Sawdust Firewood

Ph: 519-881-3829 • besterforest@gmail.com

64 The Rural Voice

for significant resulting health care costs. It is a problem that is likely to be an ongoing challenge. n another topic, gypsy moth caterpillar populations have been high in some parts of Ontario this year. In the southwest, I’ve read about infestations in the London area and Pinery Provincial Park and they’ve been noticeable in central Huron County as well. Gypsy moth is a non-native defoliator that was introduced in the Boston area in the 1860s and has spread across much of the continent since then.

They have a preference for some tree species such as oak, but will feed on many other species too. In heavy infestations they can totally defoliate trees. If trees are healthy, they will develop more leaves, however it does stress the trees. Severe defoliation that occurs in combination with other stresses or for several consecutive years can cause tree mortality. The caterpillars eventually get fairly large (i.e. over two inches long) and are hairy with five pairs of blue dots and six pairs of red dots along their back.

The female moths cannot fly, so usually lay their eggs within inches of where they emerge from their cocoon. The eggs are laid in tan coloured egg masses from dime to loonie size and may contain several hundred eggs. Usually high populations eventually collapse due to natural pathogens (e.g. viruses or fungi), parasites or predators.

Gypsy moth larvae were quite evident this year during the mid-July, Ontario Maple Syrup Producers’ tour of Freedom Syrup near Walton (look up Freedom Syrup’s facebook page to learn about their very worthwhile

O

Marvin L. Smith B.Sc.F. (Forestry), R.P.F. Farm Woodland Specialist 570 Riverview Dr. Listowel, Ontario N4W 3T7 Telephone: (519) 291-2236

Woodlots efforts). At times the sound of falling droppings from the feeding caterpillars sounded like rain.

Fortunately they don’t usually cause major defoliation in maple woodlots.

By the time you read this column, the caterpillars will have metamorphosed into moths, mated and laid their egg masses.

Some readers may have noticed there is potentially a reasonably good seed crop for many tree species this year. Last year was a very poor tree seed production year.

And finally, in the June issue of the The Rural Voice I wrote about the termination of the 50 Million Tree Planting Program due to cancellation of funding support by the Ontario government. Forests Ontario, who administered the program, has now received a funding commitment from the federal government for the next five years to continue with a similar tree planting program. Details about what the restored and revised program will look like are still being worked out. ◊

Growers of quality Native Tree Seedlings since 1950

for quality

Seedlings and Transplants Conifer, Deciduous and Wildlife Species

Everett, ON ~ 1-877-708-7337

www.treeseedlings.com

1563 Hwy#9 Mildmay, ON N0G 2J0 Ph: 519-367-3215 Fax: 519-367-3214 www.southbruceflooring.com

BERNIE McGLYNN LUMBER LTD. BUYER OF HARDWOOD BUSHLOTS Wholesaler • Hardwood Lumber 1563 Hwy#9, Mildmay, ON N0G 2J0

Ph: 519-367-5789 • Cell: 519-357-6621 sawmill@wightman.ca

Buying Standing Timber and Managing Area Woodlots Since 1872 In association with Eccles Forestry and Midwest Timber

519-270-2938 www.jhkeeso.com Listowel, ON September 2019 65

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

When (and where) is a farm a farm?

There are many government programs, laws, and regulations in Canada that apply for the benefit of the agricultural industry. Whether an individual or farm business is eligible to participate in these programs, or is subject to the special laws and regulations, will depend on meeting the applicable definition of “farmer”, or “farm”, or whatever other term happens to have been used by government in a given context. What may be a “farm” in the mind of a “farmer” or the general public, may not satisfy the criteria.

The Ontario Divisional Court recently heard an application for judicial review of a decision of the Ontario Labour Relations Board (“OLRB”) in which the Court considered what a “farm” is for the purpose of the farm worker exemption in the Employment Standards Act. Certain rules about hours of work, overtime, public holiday pay, and vacation pay do not apply to a person employed “on a farm” whose employment is directly related to the primary production of a variety of agricultural products including meat, eggs, milk, grain, fruit, and vegetables. However, the Act does not define “farm” or when someone is employed “on a farm”.

In 2016, an Employment Standards Officer (“ESO”) had issued a compliance order against a large-scale sweet corn producer with growing locations both in Ontario and the United States. At issue was the producer’s centralized facility where post-harvest production (cooling, trimming, grading, and fresh packing) took place. Roughly 40 per cent of the sweet corn processed at the facility was grown in Ontario during the Ontario growing season. The 66 The Rural Voice

remaining roughly 60 per cent was grown in the United States during the Ontario off-season. The ESO found that the producer’s operations at its centralized facility violated a number of provisions in the Act, including the requirement to pay overtime to workers, because the facility was not a “farm”.

The producer requested a review of the ESO’s compliance order from the OLRB, arguing that it was exempt from the overtime requirement because its employees were engaged on a farm in the primary production of a vegetable. The OLRB dismissed the review request. It found that the centralized facility was not a “farm”.

It also found that the post-harvest work performed at the centralized facility was not directly related to primary production, which requires that the work occur at the same physical location as where the growing occurs, and that the work involve “immediate hands on” contact with the agricultural product. The OLRB commented that, in applying the farm worker exemption, it would interpret the exemption as narrowly as possible so as to exclude as few workers as possible from the minimum employment standards in the Act. On the judicial review application before a three-member panel of the Divisional Court, the standard of review was reasonableness. Only if the Divisional Court could find that the original decision did not meet “the standards of justification, transparency and intelligibility in the decision making process”, and that it did not fall “within a range of possible, acceptable outcomes that are defensible in respect of the facts and law”, would the decision be overturned. The Divisional Court must give deference to the OLRB, which is a specialized tribunal interpreting its “home statute” (the Employment Standards Act). If the OLRB’s decision was “reasonable”, it must be confirmed even if the Divisional Court disagrees with the decision.

In this case, the Divisional Court found that the OLRB’s decision was not reasonable because: The Decision of the Board does not fall within a range of possible, acceptable outcomes that is

defensible in respect of the facts and law. Applying a textual, contextual and purposive analysis to the interpretation of s. 2(2), the [centralized facility] is a farm and those who are working there are employed in activities that are directly related to the primary production of sweet corn. That is the only possible, acceptable outcome that is consistent with the object of the ESA and the object of Regulation 285 and that is defensible in respect of the facts and law.

On the question of whether the centralized facility was a “farm”, the Divisional Court found that it was unreasonable for the OLRB to have disregarded the comprehensive expert evidence advanced by the producer about the “commonly accepted meaning of the word ‘farm’ in the current farming context”. There was no challenge to the evidence that “Ontario farms commonly operate on non-contiguous tracts of lands and that it is common for farms to preserve prime growing land by locating post-harvest aspects of primary production on non-productive land.” The Court found that it would be absurd for workers engaged in the primary production activity of sorting sweet corn to be farm workers for purposes of the exemption only if they were standing on the same tract of land where the corn was grown.

On the question of whether the producer’s workers were involved in employment directly related to primary production, the Divisional Court again found that the OLRB unreasonably disregarded the uncontradicted evidence put before it about the production of sweet corn.

The OLRB had heard that sweet corn is a “highly perishable crop that must be cooled, trimmed, graded, and packed after harvest to protect its quality”, and yet found that postharvest processing of the corn was not “primary production”. The Divisional Court ruled that the OLRB was required to consider that evidence, and it was unreasonable for the evidence to have been disregarded without explanation.

The Court set aside the OLRB’s decision and made a specific order that the farm work exemption in the

Agrilaw

WINGHAM

W.D. Hopper & Sons Ltd. Seaforth, Ont. 1-888-522-1737

Water Well Drilling: Farms, Irrigation, Residential Grundfos Stainless Pumps Well Abandonments Down Hole Videos Geothermal Drilling Serving You For 100 Years+ wdhopperwaterwells.com E-mail: wdhopper@tcc.on.ca Licensed by the Ministry of the Environment

BUSHELL’S AUTO SALES

TRUCKS 2015 2013 2013 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007

Our Newest Addition

Act applies to the producer’s centralized post-harvest production facility. ◊ ______________________________ 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 circumstances.

GMC Sierra 4x4, 80,000 km ............................$26,995 Dodge Ram crew cab, 4x4, 188,000 km..........$15,900 Chev Silverado ext. cab, 4x4, 210,000 km ....$15,200 Dodge Dakota 4x4, 146,000 km....................$12,500 Chev Silverado reg. cab, 4x4, 239,000 km....$11,200 Ford Ranger ext. cab, 4x4, 65,000 km............$12,400 Ford F150 crew cab, 4x4, 249,000 km ............$10,800 Chev Avalanche LTZ 4x4, 232,000 km .......$12,995

CARS

2015 Hyundai Elantra 80,000 km .................................$11,500 2010 Honda Civic 183,000 km...........................................$6,995 2006 Mini Cooper 188,000 km....................................$4,795 1974 Fiat Convertible 118,000 km...................................$8,995 1971 Chev Impala 77,000 miles ........................................$2,995

We have a good selection of used tires 12" to 20"

519-357-6731

VANS

2016 Dodge Grand Caravan 139,000 km ..............$14,995 2016 Dodge Grand Caravan Crew 70,000 km ...$17,995 2010 Dodge Grand Caravan 130,000 km .................$9,995

SUVS

2016 Ford Escape 126,000 km .....................................$15,995 2016 Chev TRAX AWD, 121,000 km..............................$16,500 2015 Ford Edge Titanium AWD, 70,000 km.............$28,300 2015 GMC Terrain SLE 75,000 km.............................$18,500 2013 Ford Edge Limited AWD, 82,000 km ............$19,500 2012 Ford Escape AWD, 81,000 km.............................$10,500 2011 Ford Edge AWD, 140,000 km................................$12,900 2011 Honda CR-V EX-L AWD, 75,000 km..................$14,995

Is your car in the Body Shop?

We have rentals available for most major insurance companies.

Give us a call today!

Financing and Extended Warranty Available On All Units Plus 13% Tax ~ UCDA - Buy With Confidence

www.bushellsauto.ca September 2019 67

The Rural Voice

Business Centre To place your ad call...519-523-4311

B U Brough & Whicher Limited S • Engineered Roof Trusses • “I” Joint Floor Systems White Cedar Decking, Posts & V-Match I WIARTON, ONTARIO N www.broughandwhicher Tel: 519-534-0340 or 877-866-3434 Fax 519-534-4637 E Email: sales@broughandwhicher.com S S

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

www.beloretrailers.ca 324025 Mount Elgin Rd. Mount Elgin, Ontario N0J 1N0 Jamie Belore

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

Member of the O.W.T.F.A.

BAG Supplies Canada Ltd.

C E N T R E

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1-877-274-6583 Phone: 519-291-4924 Fax: 519-291-1520

If we don’t have it in stock, we’ll custom make it for you!

info@bagsupplies.ca Tel: 1-519-271-2040

PACKERS: WE BUILD

www.bagsupplies.ca Fax: 1-519-271-2027 AGRICULTURAL

Fire No. 6142, Line 84, R.R. #2, Listowel, ON N4W 3G7 Wanted: Early and late model farm tractors, combines, crawlers and construction equipment, fuel injection pumps, starters and alternator repairs

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Order Now Also large fold-up steel drum packers, lawn & estate rollers, custom manufactured

RR #2, Arthur, Ont. (519) 848-2799

68 The Rural Voice

NEW CONSTRUCTION RENOVATIONS

519-524-0253

Farm Drainage

• GPS • Plastic • 2013 Bron Plow • Surveys • Maps

! "

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Glen 519-291-0709 cell Dennis 519-276-9292 cell

Newton, Ont. 519-595-4545

Looking to Buy or Sell A Farm or Home? Give me a Call!

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OLD BARNS FOR SALVAGE CALL STEVE

519-523-4523 Galvanized Roofing For Sale

STEVEN NIXON

Serving the area since 1999

Broker WILFRED MCINTEE & CO. LIMITED

Bus: 519-357-2222 Cell: 519-531-0252 Email: nixon@execulink.com Web: www.stevennixon.com 249 Josephine St., WINGHAM, ON N0G 2W0

195 Wallace Avenue North, Listowel, Ontario N4W 1K8 Bus: 519-529-1167 Bus.: 519-291-2299 Fax: 519-291-1015

www.peakrealestate.com

Cathy Hendriks Sales, Rep.

g

tin

w Ne

Lis

#18

84359 Hoover Line RR#1 Belgrave $1,100,000.00 MLS# 30734702 125 acre farm with 72 acres of G.P.S. mapped rolling to level workable land, some random tiles with the remainder hardwood & mixed bush, backs onto Maitland River. Great farm to add to your current farming operation. Subject to severance. Seller is keeping buildings and 7 acres. Call Steve Nixon 519.357.2222

Summer’s flying by & Fall is shaping up to be just as busy!

Give me a call for an evaluation of your farm or home.

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

“Congratulations Huron Pioneer Thresher & Hobby Association on your upcoming 58th reunion!

September 6, 7, 8th, hope to see you in Blyth!�

519-357-5128

MANUFACTURING STEEL ROOFING SIDING & TRIMS

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Also Supplying Other Building Accessories September 2019 69

B U S I N E S S

Whitechurch Welding

STEFFEN WELL DRILLING 519-531-0355 TEESWATER, ON

- custom tubing gates - 1"x1" sq. tube and diamond gates in stock - powder coating or galvanizing option - Buy Direct and Save!

Luke Martin

37452 Glen’s Hill Road, RR 2, Auburn, Ont. N0M 1E0

60 Grey Ox Ave., Teeswater, ON N0G 2S0

Tel. 519-529-7212

mike@steffenwelldrilling.ca

Fax. 519-529-3277

• Agricultural & domestic water wells • Well Cleanouts • Pump Testing • Camera Inspection • Irrigation Wells • Dewatering Services

Snowblowers, Quick-attach Buckets, Sweepers, Woodsplitters, Land Rollers, Stone Windrowers, etc.

Website: smythwelding.com Email: info@smythwelding.com

TF: 1-877-509-2847

C E N T R E

Agricultural Residential Commercial

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• Unmarked Vehicles • Fully Insured • MOE Licensed Technicians

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Call Joan or Shelley today!

The Rural Voice 519-523-4311

Advertising in The Rural Voice – A Wise Choice! – Call Today! 519-523-4311 Deadline for the October issue is September 18

ATV & SxS RENTALS AVAILABLE

702 MAIN ST., SAUBLE BEACH (519) 422-ATVS (2887) sales.atvdepot@bellnet.ca

70 The Rural Voice

CLASSIFIED AUCTION -------------------------------------------------Elmira Produce Auction – Hay and Straw Sales every Wednesday at 10:00 a.m. Consignors and buyers welcome. Call Noah Gingrich, 519669-3884. 7400 Reid Woods Drive, Elmira.

--------------------------------------------------

Blue Water Angus Sale

CLASSIFIED FARM FRESH -------------------------------------------------Arranhill Garlic Farm, Table Garlic, Scapes and Shallots plus Garlic Seed for fall planting. 110-12 Conc. East, Allenford. 519-934-2119. Email: acowan@bmts.com -------------------------------------------------FIREWOOD -------------------------------------------------Bodywood • Slabwood Quantity Discounts

October 19, 2019 Viewing 9:00 am Sale Time 1:00 pm Maple Hill Auction Mart - Hanover If you wish to consignee contact Sale Manager Mike Early 519-661-8713

-------------------------------------------------CONSTRUCTION -------------------------------------------------WE POUR: liquid manure tanks, bunker silos, foundations and pads.

All are 100% engineered. Serving Ontario since 1968. De Jong & Sons Ltd. 519-348-0523.

-------------------------------------------------CUSTOM WORK -------------------------------------------------Janmaat Custom Bale Wrapping.

In-line wrapping, any size round bale and any size square bale up to 6 1/2' long. Call Cody at 519-955-3384.

-------------------------------------------------DAIRY -------------------------------------------------Screened bedding sand, delivered.

Call 519-625-8242 or 519-274-1490.

-------------------------------------------------FARM SERVICES --------------------------------------------------

EGGER FARMS CUSTOM BALING

• 3x3 Bales Automatic Acid Applications, Roto Cutter.

Individual Bale Wrapping 6' bales

Call Fritz: 519-292-0138

519-441-2085 519-656-2057

Serving Southwestern Ontario for over 10 years!

-------------------------------------------------FOR SALE -------------------------------------------------Garlic Gardeners Diversity Special – Includes: 9 ‘seed’ bulbs of 3 distinctly different varieties of garlic. $30 plus shipping. Grow diversity and taste the difference!

D&H Newman, growing 50+ varieties of garlic in Kincardine, ON. Order now at: www.dandhnewman.ca dandhnewman@gmail.com -------------------------------------------------For certified varieties of soft red and hard red winter wheat. Contact Courtney Grain & Seed (2015) Ltd., 225 Hwy. 21, RR 1, Ripley. Phone 519-395-2972. Ask for Carmon or Mitch.

-------------------------------------------------Martin’s Nursery & Bee Supplies Etc. Large selection of flowering trees, shade trees, fruit trees and hydrangeas and other shrubs. We have the plants you need to make a living “privacy hedge” or snow fence, Blue spruce, pine, cedars, etc. Also…

Complete line of Bee Supplies for the commercial or hobby beekeepers.

We sell Bees (Nucs) in spring and early summer. Come see our selection Monday to Saturday at Emanuel E.M. Martin, 42661 Orangehill Rd., Wroxeter, ON N0G 2X0, one concession north of Wroxeter on Belmore Line.

-------------------------------------------------Rosco grain bins for sale – 19' and 14' diameter. Parts available. Used grain bins wanted for parts or reuse.

Closed Sundays, 519-338-3920.

--------------------------------------------------

CLASSIFIED FOR SALE -------------------------------------------------Hay and straw and individually wrapped baleage, nice, clean, rotary combined, good for TMR, 3x3x7' bales and silage bales individually wrapped. Huron East, 519-292-0138.

-------------------------------------------------Fall Sale: Large variety of fabrics, quilting supplies and quilts at Retail Dry Goods September sale, September 16-30. 10 kms north of Kinloss to sideroad 30 Brockton. Turn right, first farm on left. Fire #418.

-------------------------------------------------GARDEN TOURS -------------------------------------------------Visit Keppel Croft’s four acres of gardens, nature trail, and Keppel Henge. Bring your picnic. Open Wednesdays through Sundays, 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., 504156 Grey Rd 1, Big Bay, Grey County. www.keppelcroft.com -------------------------------------------------HELP WANTED -------------------------------------------------NEED reliable and dependable workers to scrape and wash out livestock trailers in the Mildmay area.

P/T & F/T positions available. Call Rob 519-881-6089 or Devin 519-3672540.

--------------------------------------------------

S & C Clark TRANSPORT INC. PART-TIME MECHANIC FULL/PART-TIME AZ DRIVERS Owner & Operators

Runs between Canada & U.S. - Competitive Wages - Paid Picks & Drops - Benefits - Wait Time - 2 year experience preferred - Home most weekends 111 PINE STREET, WINGHAM • 519-357-3346

-------------------------------------------------IRON & STEEL -------------------------------------------------DISCOUNT STEEL: New second grade steel sales; 1" - 8" square tubing; 7/8"-14" round tubing; Rectangle tubing, discount plate; New and Used I-Beams; Bar grating, rebar, angles; Custom cutting, welding, punching. Listowel. Phone Aden 519595-7775.

-------------------------------------------------LIVESTOCK BEDDING -------------------------------------------------Bedding pack compost starter for dairy and veal barns. 1-877-7738004. Sittler Grinding. Rick Sittler.

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September 2019 71

CLASSIFIED

CLASSIFIED

CLASSIFIED

LIVESTOCK BEDDING -------------------------------------------------MIRACLE FIBER 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. 1-877773-8004. Sittler Grinding. Rick Sittler.

-------------------------------------------------DUST EXTRACTED straw available in coarse or fine cut. Also available in pellets, bags or bulk. Call for details.

Chopped straw and sawdust mix; bags only. Edgar Martin, 519-2916783.

-------------------------------------------------LIVESTOCK FOR SALE -------------------------------------------------Limousin Bulls – yearlings and 2 year olds, polled, some homozygous polled, thick, well muscled, semen tested. Smart Limousin, Meaford 519-372-7459. www.smartlimousin.com -------------------------------------------------Red Angus-Simmental, Red Angus and Simmental heifers bred Red Angus for sale. James and Joan McKinlay, 519-599-6236. jmckinlay@bmts.com -------------------------------------------------LIMOUSIN-quality breeding bulls and breeding females for sale.

Delivery included. Posthaven Limousin, John Post 519-766-7178. www.posthavenlimousin.com -------------------------------------------------Kern Simmentals moving on with the times. Bred Fleckvieh fullblood heifers based on the Manta bloodline, known since 1970 for its milk and muscle. Carrying the new genetics of Anchor D Raptor and FGAF Guerrero also two Fleckvieh fullblood breeding bulls. 519-369-6447 or 519-369-4076.

------------------------------------------------Suffolks – purebred winter-born ewe lambs and ram lambs. British bloodlines M-V negative, closed flock.

519-233-7896.

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RESTORATION -------------------------------------------------The Olde Tyme Radio Centre – antique radios, clocks, gramophones, telephone and vintage auto clock radio. Speedometer, tachometer sales–restorations. Belgrave 519357-4304, www.oldtymeradio.ca -------------------------------------------------RETAIL & GIFTS -------------------------------------------------Stitches with a Twist – 404 Queen St., Blyth, 519-523-9449. Yarns, knit and crochet instruction. Chainmaille supplies. Alterations and repairs, including leather.

-------------------------------------------------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, 519-348-9062.

Cell 519-274-5000. www.cronin pouredconcrete.ca -------------------------------------------------TRINAL CUSTOM FARMING – If you are looking for someone to do your disc-bining, big square baling or forage harvesting please call Ken Horst, cell: 519-292-1393 or Kervin 519-357-5557, RR 2, Teeswater.

-------------------------------------------------INLINE FENCING – Custom farm fencing. Page wire and horse fencing 519-934-1555.

-------------------------------------------------Firearms and hunting training.

PAL & HUNTER ED. Ongoing courses available.

Certified instructors. Call Greg 519-887-9622 or 519-291-0507.

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SERVICES --------------------------------------------------

Advertising in The Rural Voice – A Wise Choice!

Call Today! 519-523-4311 72 The Rural Voice

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

Ph. 519-528-3019 SEAMLESS EAVESTROUGHING

 Roofs & Walls  Elevator Legs  Air Blasting  Pressure Washing  Fully Insured  Free Estimates

London 519-268-8500

GLAVIN BARN & COMMERCIAL PAINTING FARMERS repaint your faded coloured steel FREE QUOTES ~ FULLY INSURED

RR 1 Crediton, Ont. N0M 1M0 (near Exeter)

Call: Jim Glavin 1-800-465-4725 519-228-6247 All farm buildings & houses, seamless eavestroughing, liquid rubber coatings, waterproofing, metal, concrete, wood, foam and bin flooring sealing.

519-859-0097 or 519-871-0300 info@townsleybarnpainting.com

HIGHLAND FENCE & SUPPLY INC. Joseph Kirwin

519-475-4868 • 1-800-923-4488 info@highlandfence.ca • www.highlandfence.ca 804075 Rd. 80, Embro, ON N0J 1J0 Specializing in on Farm Pest Management Serving Southwestern ON, Golden Horseshoe, GTA Email: sgschris@ciaaccess.com

519-692-4232 www.sgspestmanagement.ca

Discount Steel Great for barn posts, stabling or other build-your-own projects

Custom Welding & Machine Shop Custom Stabling Mfg. Open Tues. & Thurs. ~ other days by chance John A.M. Martin 1467 Grey Ox Ave., Lucknow

-------------------------------------------------STANDING TIMBER -------------------------------------------------STANDING TIMBER - hardwood and softwoods. Quality workmanship guaranteed. B. Kropf Forestry Service Ltd., Bruce Kropf, RR 1, Shakespeare, ON, N0B 2P0. 519-748-7422.

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Deadline for the October issue of The Rural Voice is September 18, 2019

CLASSIFIED TRAVEL -------------------------------------------------AGRICULTURAL & UNIQUE TOURS – Australia/New Zealand – Costa Rica – India - Enhanced Itinerary – Egypt/Jordan – Portugal/Spain – Morocco – Ukraine & Romania – Poland & Ukraine – UK & Scotland – Alberta Farm Tour & Calgary Stampede – Yukon and Northwest Territories Portion of Tours may be Tax Deductible.

Contact Select Holidays at 1-800-6614326 or visit www.selectholidays.com -------------------------------------------------UPCOMING EVENTS -------------------------------------------------Pratie Oaten Irish Festival takes place Sunday, September 29 at Moreston Heritage Village, Grey Roots Museum & Archives, 11:00 a.m. 4:00 p.m. Live music and entertainment, delicious food samples, and more! Visit greyroots.com or 519-3673690 for details.

-------------------------------------------------Elmira Charity Quilt Auction and Country Market, located at Elmira Produce Auction (7400 Reid Woods Dr., Elmira), Saturday, October 26.

General and silent auctions start at 9:00 a.m., new handmade wooden furniture at 11:00 a.m. and a quilt auction starting at noon. Lunch counter and giant bake table. Join us Friday, October 25, 5:30 - 9:00 p.m. to preview the quilts, enjoy a beef brisket dinner and a family-themed auction.

Proceeds to Elmira District Community Living 519-669-3205. www.elmiraquiltauction.com ---------------------------------------------------

ROD, GUN & MILITARIA SHOW

CLASSIFIED UPCOMING EVENTS -------------------------------------------------Facing the Flames: The History of Fire Fighting in Grey County opens September 21 at Grey Roots Museum & Archives. Discover stories of local fire and rescue from the first brave bucket brigades to our current highlytrained professionals. For more information, call 519-376-3690 or visit greyroots.com -------------------------------------------------CIDERFEST, September 29, Van Egmond House, Egmondville, 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Famous apple fritters, apple cider, meat pies, flea market, historical demos, ropemaking, rug braiding, local music entertainers.

Gate donation.

-------------------------------------------------Huron Tract Spinners and Weavers - and Goderich Quilters’ Guild Show and Sale, Saturday, November 2, 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Sunday, November 3, 12 noon to 4:00 p.m. at Huron County Museum, 110 North St., Goderich. Free Admission. Betty, 519524-4695.

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Country Pride, County Wide 160th Howick-Turnberry Fall Fair September 27-29th

CANADIAN GUN LAWS IN EFFECT For vendor info or tables call Jim Stewart 226-747-3495

www.howickagriculturalsociety.ca

8:00 AM - 1 PM

WANTED -------------------------------------------------Looking for small-scale farming tools to buy and rocks (large and small) to haul away. Please call Lily 647-996-5869.

-------------------------------------------------Hay/Straw - small square bales of hay; timothy and alfalfa. Round bales of hay; timothy alfalfa or timothy grass mix. High class large square bales of hay. Call Riley Gorman 519-321-1012.

-------------------------------------------------Actively seeking farmland to rent for corn, soybeans, wheat, hay, edible beans. Contact Narva Farms Limited: 519-366-2636 or 519-881-9384 or email: sandyfitzsimmons@hotmail.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 -------------------------------------------------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. 519-3231113.

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DAIRY FARM WANTED We are a family with four young children and we are looking for an on-going dairy farm in Bruce, Grey or Huron county. +/- 40 kg. milk quota.

Please keep this ad.

Email dairyfarmsearch@gmail.com

at the Howick Community Centre

• Corn Maze • Axe Throwing • Adam Cousins • The Ballagh’s • Birds of Prey Show • Bubble Soccer • and so much more!

Palmerston Arena Sunday, September 22

CLASSIFIED

The Rural Voice welcomes letters and will publish as many as space permits.

Write: The Rural Voice Box 429, BLYTH, ON N0M 1H0 September 2019 73

National Farmers Union – Ontario NEWSLETTER Strong Communities.

Sound Policies.

Sustainable Farms.

Phone: 1-888-832-9638 E-mail: office@nfuontario.ca Website: www.nfuontario.ca

Farming as Collateral Damage in the Age of Trade Wars

By Don Ciparis, NFU-O President Current trade tensions between China and the United States continue unabated while the trading world watches anxiously. The U.S. will pay its farmers $16 billion for the hurt of the trade war with China this year. This adds to the $12 billion that they received last year for lower farm prices and lost sales.

The U.S. producer is clearly cushioned from trade disruptions due to these new tariff regimes while Canadian producers watch with no such comparable support forthcoming from their federal government. Even worse, Chinese buyers are nervous about buying Canadian because the ongoing tariffs could cause U.S. soybeans, for example, to be diverted to Ontario, harming domestic soybean production in the province and denying Canada the opportunity to service a long-time market. While a weak Canadian dollar has softened the impact to Ontario crop producers, the situation clearly indicates that Canadian farmers are collateral damage in this new age of trade wars.

To add more complexity to an already complex situation, the future of the World Trade Organization (WTO) is unclear as this trade war heats up.

The U.S. president has threatened withdrawal from the WTO because of the U.S. perception of being unfairly penalized by the world body while the Chinese escape similar treatment. The WTO neglects to respond to the escalating drama, amplifying even more uncertainty in the world’s trading system.

The National Farmers Union Ontario (NFU-O) acknowledges and appreciates the efforts that the federal government has demonstrated in

Coming Events Local 330 Renfrew– Next meeting is Monday, Sept 2, 7:30 p.m. at the Barr Line Community Centre. For more information, contact Connie Tabbert at rcnfu330@gmail.com or 613-6467753.

leading a movement to revive and reform the WTO during the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) meetings in Paris this year. The Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance considers the WTO “the best forum for creating a trading system that’s fair to all” and “the only forum to effectively address agricultural domestic subsidies.” Canadian livestock producers do not need to be reminded that it was the WTO that ended the U.S. Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) non-tariff trade barrier, even though the financial hurt experienced by producers was never addressed, while Canadian sheep and goat producers continue to be denied the degree of U.S. market access that was theirs before the imposition of COOL. Regardless, recognizing the inadequacies of the world body is the first step in its rehabilitation.

The Chinese decision to escalate trade tensions with its announcement on August 7, 2019 to allow its currency to drop sharply to its lowest level in more than a decade did not alleviate matters. Nor did it help when they announced that they would halt purchases of all U.S. agricultural goods. Of course, the U.S. administration retaliated late that day by labeling China as a currency manipulator. The world’s traders watched in awe.

The defenselessness of the Canadian producer trading in the world stage can be illustrated by the OECDs farm subsidy comparison studies of its member countries. Canadian farm subsidies are below average among

nations in the OECD and considerably lower than 20 and 30 years ago.

Canada’s Producer Subsidy Equivalent is nine per cent now, compared to 18 per cent 20 years and 36 per cent 30 years ago. Clearly, there is a problem, and Canadian producers are expected to fend for themselves in dealing with the situation.

But Ontario and Canadian agricultural producers cannot continue to exist in this deteriorating trade environment created by the Chinese and the U.S. governments.

The Government of Canada must demonstrate its commitment to its farmers in the same way that it demonstrated its support to Canadian steel/aluminum producers for U.S. tariff harassment on June 28, 2019 with aid of $800 million Canadian or the $867 million Canadian offered to Canadian softwood lumber producers in 2017 after Washington imposed tariffs on that commodity. The injury to our canola, soybean, beef and pork producers from tariff escalations in 2018 and this year are well known.

Pork processors alone are incurring losses on a weekly basis of up to $15$30 Canadian per hog in lost revenues.

The NFU-O calls upon its associates at the Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario (CFFO) and the Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA) to join us in requesting that these trade distortions affecting Ontario producers be met with a tangible, strategic plan from the federal government that ensures the solvency of Ontario producers. The NFU-O is ready to begin problem-solving discussions.

Producers cannot wait any longer.

Farmland Succession and Conservation Workshop Survey The NFU-O and the Ontario Farmland Trust have partnered for a project on farmland succession and conservation, with support from the Gosling Foundation and the McLean Foundation.

This project will include workshops in Ontario to share information on succession, land access, and farmland conservation. We’ll also bring young and new farmers who seek land together with farmers and other rural landowners who are looking for successors or farmland renters.

Please fill out the survey at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/JD6ZJP3 or phone 1-888-832-9638 to help us shape the priorities of this workshop and decide where in Ontario the workshops should take place.

A subscription to The Rural Voice is one of the benefits of being an NFU-O member 74 The Rural Voice

Craig Hulshof, President craig.hulshof@gmail.com / 519-301-8483

Perth, Huron, Grey and Bruce County Pork Producers

NEWSLETTER

* The Rural Voice is provided to Perth County Pork Producers by the PCPPA perthcountyporkproducers@gmail.com

The politics of compensation There is a prevailing opinion among some agriculture leaders that we should always present “one voice”; a united front for all farmers when we approach government or present messaging to the consumer at large. The challenge with this desire for everyone to sing “kumbaya” and keep disagreements out of the public eye is that while we are indeed all farmers, we have competing businesses. We use the same resource base and are fighting for valuable space on the consumer’s plate. In what world can a singular approach work when ultimately we are competitors?

One can argue that this competition narrative is being overly simplistic and ignores the many common challenges we share, especially in the areas of consumer perception of sensitive subjects like the environment and health. These larger issues of how farmers are perceived by the public necessitates cooperation among the different foodproducing industries and co-ordinated approaches are the best way to counteract misinformation coming from special interest groups. Yes, it is important to co-operate and in a perfect world, all sectors of agriculture could get along all the time … but we don’t live in a perfect world.

On August 16, the Federal Agriculture and Agri-Food Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau announced $1.75 billion (that’s billions with a B) for supply managed dairy farmers here in Canada including $345 million of direct cash subsidies to be paid out in 2019, allegedly for further compensation for CETA and TPP. For a farmer from a non-supply managed industry it is getting hard to keep up with all the “compensation’ being paid out to our farming competitors. Wasn’t it just in 2018 that the Federal government delivered compensation that saw taxpayers

cover a portion of the costs for robots and other technological advancements? At least the previous rounds limited public investment to things that largely did not create inflationary pressure on the resources red meat and grain farmers use. This recent round is an egregious misuse of taxpayer money that will fracture an already tenuous relationship between the supply-managed and non-supply-managed farmers.

One of the strongest points for supply management was the efficient nature of wealth transfer from the consumer to the farmer that didn’t require direct government involvement; the system ensured a fair price was paid to the producer and that insulated them from the large swings that can occur in the open market while protecting farmers against a consolidated processing base exercising oligopolistic pricing power. Furthermore, the stability offered by the system adds confidence to shared businesses (like feed manufacturing) and encourages investment.

It is undeniable that recent trade agreements have included market access concessions for supplymanaged commodities while red meat and grains have benefited from increased global market access.

One could get down in the weeds to argue about how much compensation should be given for market concessions but the reality is that as long as we have some farmers who rely on export markets and global trade while others rely on protection and tariffs, no one is ever going to walk away happy from a trade negotiation. What isn’t undeniable is that this latest announcement has absolutely nothing to do with compensation and everything to do with politics. Both the governing Liberals and opposition Conservatives know that this fall’s election will largely be determined by

results in Ontario and Quebec.

That is why both parties are tripping over each other to “compensate” dairy. They know that there are at least 10 seats in Quebec that can largely be delivered by the dairy lobby, seats that could decide who resides in the Prime Minister’s office following October’s election.

The political nature of the cash subsidy is salt in the wound for red meat and grain farmers, who, like their supply-managed counterparts, are being hammered by trade disruptions and the ensuing financial ramifications. In my little corner of the world, a rough total of the direct cash subsidy being paid out in a twokilometre radius of our home base will be somewhere between $500,000 to $750,000 of taxpayer funds, in large part, to established dairies.

Every dollar of this subsidy will go straight into land or equipment purchases, the same scarce resources that we need to run our business in a competitive manner at a time when our revenues are being negatively impacted by trade disruptions by at least $20 per hog. There is a cruel irony in the fact that some of the tax dollars our household sends to Ottawa will be used to further inflate the cost of land around us.

Speaking with “one voice” has always been a dubious goal that is ignorant to the competitive nature of our businesses. You cannot expect individual business owners that compete for land and other scarce resources to always get along, especially given we compete for the consumer food dollar in Canada and some of us depend on global market access while others depend on protection from global competition.

Political plays like this most recent round of subsidies for dairy will just further complicate an already uneasy and complicated relationship. ◊ – Submitted by Stewart Skinner September 2019 75

St., Hanover, Ontario N4N 1P9 Grey County Federation 446 10th519-364-3050 or 1-800-275-9551 grey@ofa.on.ca Website: greyfederation.ca of Agriculture * The Rural Voice is providedEmail: to OFA Members in Grey County by the GCFA

When a farmer quits farming Any opinion expressed is that of individual County Directors or Representatives and may not necessarily reflect the views of the Grey County Federation of Agriculture or Ontario Federation of Agriculture.

So many times I have been asked in the last two years, “What is it like to not be farming actively any more?”

“Do you miss the cows?” Every time I answer, “There is more time for my growing family”. That is the cover response. Honestly I feel like I have lost my identity.

That response falls true to so many farmers. When a young farmer decides that the farm life at the size they were isn’t profitable or a certain incident has left them no choice but to quit or an older farmer says, “it’s time for the next generation to take the reins”, what’s next? So many farmers, when that time has come to “hang up the pitchfork” wonder what is next for me?

That can be one of the scariest times in a person’s life, losing your identity.

Most farmers symbolize themselves in public as a farmer. They wear blue jeans, a button shirt, sometimes work boots and then there is the hat you received for spending thousands of dollars on a new piece of equipment.

That is a stereotype but it is an image most can relate to.

For me I have been a farmer since the day I was born – a dairy farmer. For 26 years I had been part of a dairy farm, whether it be the family farm or my own farm. Once on my own, the industry started to change with the implementation of the CQM Program. I

found that the upgrades I needed to do were not sustainable for my situation and decided to sell. What a strange feeling it was for the first few weeks, to not have a schedule to be in the barn at both ends of the day. I was not used to the freedom that I hadn’t had for so long. After a few months the “itch” for cattle came back and I started buying beef cows. Wow!! Having cows that you didn’t have to milk and not having to spend the money on a robot to get the same results. This venture made time for other things in life but I still was doing the same job I loved.

Dealing with cows. This went on for four years until a disease that came in with some livestock cost me the herd, it was over. You’re done farming! The decision was made to sell the most expensive equipment and rent out the farm. Now what? Who am I? This statement falls true to farmers ending their career no matter what the age.

A few years ago I met a farmer at a farm show who was at the point of succession to his sons. He had everything in line financially and his sons were eager to take over. There was one problem. He wasn’t ready to not be “The Boss.” He said he was ready to slow down and enjoy other things in life but was unsure how he would take some of the changes his sons would make when they took control. Would the farm still run like it had? He had so many unknowns that he felt like it was going to be a mistake rather than a smart choice.

In 2017 statistics showed that 92 per cent of farms had no succession

Ag Night at the Races GCFA sponsored race winner - SUNNY BO Owned by Terry Fritz and David Wilson Trained and driven by Terry Fritz

planning in place at all. Was this contributed to not wanting to accept the reality? So many farmers dream about passing on the farm to the next generation, but yet so many don’t put the plan in place. This leads to the new generation losing interest or the present generation abruptly selling when they have simply “had enough”.

The mindset most farmers need to realize after their farming career is finished is that there are many opportunities out there in the Ag sector to choose from. Be it joining a farm board ie. County Federation of Agriculture or Farm Safety Board.

Pursuing a career in an agricultural company could also be an excellent way to stay engaged with the industry.

My advice is, don’t totally pull yourself away from the atmosphere you were used to for so long. I leave you with this one saying, “Once a Farmer always a Farmer”.

Farming is in your blood you can never get it out so don’t try to drain it. ◊ – Submitted by Kevin Raszmann GCFA Director Grey County Federation of Agriculture

DIRECTORS’ MEETINGS 2019 • September 19 – 8:00 p.m.

• November 14 – 8:00 p.m.

All meetings are held at Grey Ag Services, Markdale

Grey County Federation of Agriculture

2018-2019 ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

October 11, 2019 Durham Legion Social: 6:30 p.m. / Dinner: 7:00 p.m.

Guest speaker: Bruce Sargent, Farm Boy Productions For tickets call 519-364-3050

76 The Rural Voice

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

446 10th St., Hanover, Ontario N4N 1P9 519-364-3050 or 1-800-275-9551

NEWSLETTER Urban and agriculture divide Any opinion expressed is that of individual County Directors or Representatives and may not necessarily reflect the views of the Bruce County Federation of Agriculture or Ontario Federation of Agriculture.

Farmers Feed Cities. I have been a huge advocate of this slogan in the past.

I would wear my “Farmers Feed Cities” bright yellow T-shirt downtown Toronto, had the sticker on everything of mine and put the bumper sticker on my truck. This slogan was a battle cry to the public when farmers felt ignored by the government.

And it worked. It helped uplift farmers when they needed it. Most urban people reacted positively to the message and uplifted, however some urban people felt the opposite. So, as the industry pushed forward, the slogan was retired in 2014 parting the way for farmers to share their stories.

During the Farmers Feed Cities campaign farmers had a task, promote the slogan. Now what? What are some ways that the agriculture industry can help educate the urban people? Easy.

Tell your story, any chance you get.

Some of the most influential farmers out there became that way by telling their story. Look at Andrew Campbell or Sandy Brock. They took advantage of social media to share their stories, show the good and bad of farming life, and help debunk myths. By showing what goes on we are not hiding anything and allowing our industry to be more transparent, which is what the consumer wants. This little thing helps

consumers feel more confident and knowledgeable about where their food comes from.

However, social media can be detrimental by giving activists a platform. People in the agriculture community need to be diligent on social media and limit the amount of fake news (stealing that one from Donald Trump) that is being spread. If you come across an untrue post or an activist video, on social media, don’t share it. By sharing the post, you are spreading it further on social media and could influence someone. Untrue stories or the feeling the agriculture industry is hiding something increases the distance of the divide.

It is important to show that farmers are real people. A few years ago, there was a TV show on the Discovery Channel called License to Drill. This show followed employees of the oil industry during their shifts, showing the trials and tribulations associated with the job. This show helped give a faceless industry a face. Some of the new agriculture advertising that has been released is doing just this. They are showing that farms are run by families, not a faceless corporation.

They show farmers have feelings, we care about our animals, we go through struggles and have victories. It shows consumers that we, just like themselves, are humans.

The urban consumers and the agriculture industry are not in a war, yet sometimes it seems that way. We the agriculture industry are not completely innocent. We need to work

Ag Night at the Races BCFA sponsored race winner - CHEEKIE Owned by Thomas Knight Trained by Patrick Shepherd Driven by Bruce Richardson

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

with the urban consumer and listen to their thoughts, concerns, and requests as they are the one consuming the majority of our products. This does not mean give in to everyone, but both sides need to start compromising. The times are changing and we need to change with it, not stand in the way.

Just as Farmers Feed Cities adapted to the changing world so must the agriculture industry. If we don’t continue to grow like the crops in the field or the animal in the barn the agriculture and urban divide will also just continue to intensify. ◊ – Submitted by Serena Lamont, BCFA Director

BCFA Directors Meeting September 23 November 11 All meetings are held in Walkerton at the Bruce Building – 8:00 P.M.

Notice of new nominations for Zone 2 – Grey-Bruce The Ontario Federation of Agriculture is soliciting nominations for the position of Zone 2 Director to the OFA. Nominations for the three-year term can be made between September 3 and September 14, inclusive. All OFA members living within Grey or Bruce Counties are eligible for nomination.

To obtain an official nominations form with filing details please contact Joanne Hughes at joanne.hughes@ofa.on.ca or 519-364-3050 ext. 2 If more than one nomination is received a By-election will be announced.

Bruce County Federation of Agriculture

Annual General Meeting 2018-2019

October 25, 2019 Underwood Community Centre Social: 6:30 p.m.

Dinner: 7:00 p.m.

Guest Speaker: Scott Miller “Ag and the Media” For tickets contact a BCFA Director or call 519-364-3050

September 2019 77

Perth County Federation of Agriculture Email: perthcountyfedofag@gmail.com Website: www.perthcountyfarmers.ca Agnes Denham, Secretary: 519-229-8866 or 1-866-829-8866 Tim Halliday, President: thalliday33@gmail.com or 519-291-3374

MPPs visit Perth County farms The Perth County Federation of Agriculture (PCFA) along with PerthWellington MPP Randy Pettapiece organized Ag 2.0 to bring MPPs to Perth County Farms.

Along with representatives from PCFA, MPP Randy Pettapiece, MPP Toby Barrett of Haldimand-Norfolk, MPP Will Bouma of Brantford-Brant and six staff from Queen’s Park visited four farms in Perth County: Stonetown Artisan Cheese, St. Marys, Chaffe Farms Ltd, Mitchell, and Follings Farms, Shakespeare. Lunch was held at Beaumont Farms Ltd, Monkton highlighting Perth County Products.

The first stop was Stonetown Artisan Cheese on Perth Line 8 operated by the Weber family. The Weber family moved to Perth County in 1996 to start their own dairy farm.

Having previously worked in the Swiss Alps, it was always their dream to produce delicious, high quality cheese reminiscent of the renowned Swiss Mountains and made from their own milk. With a profound commitment to creating cheese of the highest quality and the support of their family, as well as Ramon Eberle, a Master Cheese Maker from Switzerland, their humble dream became a reality. They milk 250 Holstein cows in a double-12 parallel parlour. Their two sons and families look after the cows. Their commitment to producing high quality cheese is best reflected in the care they give to their Holstein cows.

Chaffe Farms Ltd. is a familyowned and operated farm in its fifth generation, located just north of Mitchell in Perth County. Chaffe Farms Ltd. markets most of its 2,500 cattle each year through the Ontario Corn Fed Beef branded program. In addition to

the feedlot operation, the family’s next generation has a 50-cow calf herd which is housed in some of the older barns on their property over the winter and trucked to Bruce County for summer pasture. Most of the 1,000 acres of crops that are grown each year are fed back to the cattle that consist of hay and corn. The farm also grows wheat and soybeans as a cash crop, which helps maintain a good crop rotation. They believe the key to a successful future is adapting to new technology at an affordable cost, and giving customers a product they desire at an affordable price.

Beaumont Farms is a family-owned cash crop farm. It is currently being operated by Chris and Sara Wood, the fourth generation of the family. Chris and Sara look after the day-to-day operation, while mother Deb Little is an advisor to help with questions. The couple grows corn, wheat and soybeans on a rotation with no tillage. They believe in improving the soil and leaving it in better condition than it is today for the next generation. To achieve this, they are using many modern technologies such as precision planting technology to pair with cover crops, and agronomy that helps to limit the amount of commercial fertilizer that needs to be purchased. Their goal is to work towards using zero commercial fertilizer while maintaining and growing high quality produce.

Follings Farms is a large sheep farm located in the rolling hills near Shakespeare, Ontario. It is run by Jason Follings and his parents Ron and Lorraine. In 2011, the family started to produce market lambs. In 2016, they decided to expand the flock and build a large modern barn. The structure is

PCFA AGRICULTURAL RECOGNITION AWARD Nominees can be individuals, couples, families, businesses or organizations who have made a recognizable contributed to Agriculture and the Agricultural Community To request an application contact Perth County Federation of Agriculture at perthcountyfedofag@gmail.com. Call 519-229-8866 or download from website www.perthcountyfarmers.ca/ PCFAAgAward.pdf Deadline: Nominations must be received by September 30, 2019 Presentation will be at the Perth Harvest Gala on Saturday, November 16, 2019

bright, with excellent ventilation to keep sheep healthy. It also has geothermal heat and an innovative feeding system. The barn is also monitored by an internet-based camera system that allows the farmers to monitor the sheep when they aren’t in the barn. This family-run farm relies on innovation and hard work to get the job done.

Thank you to Mr. Pettapiece for cohosting this event, to the host farms for taking the time to allow us to tour their farm, and to the various commodity groups who helped with the lunch. ◊

PCFA INVITES APPLICATIONS FOR CONTINUING EDUCATION SCHOLARSHIPS • Up to 2 (two) – $1,000 scholarships • Youth continuing their education in Agriculture or/and Agricultural-related field • Entering their second, third or fourth year of college or university • Home address when not attending school must be in Perth County • Must be able to show a connection to an OFA farm member.

To request an application please contact PCFA at perthcountyfedofag@gmail.com Call 519-229-8866 or download form from website: perthcountyfarmers.ca/PCFA Scholarship.pdf DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS MUST BE RECEIVED BY SEPTEMBER 30, 2019 Presentations will be made at the Perth Harvest Gala, Saturday, November 16, 2019

* The Rural Voice is provided to OFA Members in Perth County by the PCFA.

78 The Rural Voice

Index A.G. Hayter Contracting......................8 Advantage Royal Group....................17 Artisanal Chicken Program ..............37 Auto Plus Distributing........................10 Bag Supplies ....................................68 Baseline Agri ....................................27 Bayfield Rec Sales............................19 BDO ..................................................18 Belore Trailers ..................................68 Bernie McGlynn/SB Flooring ............65 Bervie Supply....................................54 Bester Wood Products ......................64 Bill Horst Auctions ............................28 Bill Walker MPP ................................63 Bio-Ag ..............................................60 Blue Water Angus Sale ....................71 Bluewater Pipe....................................9 Blyth Brewing ......................................4 Blyth Festival ....................................11 Brennan Custom Poultry ....................2 Brough & Whicher ............................68 Bushell’s Auto Sales ........................67 Canada Cuba Farmer Tour ..............15 Canadian Co-op Wool Growers ..........4 Chalmers Fuel ..................................70 Cliff’s Plumbing ................................63 Creek Edge Farms............................56 Cross Country Eavestrough................6 DeDell Seeds ..........................Cover 5 Diamond Roof ....................................6 Donkers Agri ......................................9 Easy Lift Doors..................................12 Egger Farms ....................................71 Faromor ............................................35 Fawcett Tractor ................................69 Fill the Freezer ..................................46 Free-Light..........................................13 Gerber’s Workwear ..........................69 Glavin Barn & Commercial Painting..33 Greenville Liquid Plant Food ............25 Grey Bruce Construction ..................50 GRK Products ..................................59 Grober Nutrition........................Cover 4 Hardi ................................................51 Hill & Hill Farms ......Inside Front Cover Hoffmeyer’s ......................................31 Honda ......................................Cover 6 Howick Agricultural Society ..............73 Hunter Steel ......................................28 Huron Commodities ..........................56 Huron County Health Unit ................79 Huron Dirt Works ..............................28 Huron Motor Products ......................15 Ingersoll Cheese & Ag Museum ......54 Innis New & Used Tractor Parts........68 JA Porter Holdings ............................51 JH Keeso & Sons Ltd........................65 Jones Harold Enterprises..................68 KMM Farm Drainage ........................57

Kuepfer Farm Drainage ....................69 LAC ..................................................61 Lake Huron Rod & Gun ............Cover 6 Lakeside Shelving ............................37 Layton Steve ....................................69 Legge Fitness ..........................Cover 3 Lisa Thompson MPP ........................18 Maple Leaves Forever ......................13 Mapleview Agri..................................57 Marquardt Farm Drainage ................13 Marvin Smith Forestry ......................64 MastersChoice Seedcorn..................27 McIntee Real Estate..........................69 Michael’s Stabling ............................28 Mike Boven Carpentry ......................68 MNP ..................................................62 Morris Sachs Silo Construction ........57 MRC Wireles ....................................14 Natures Wave Inc ............................23 Nuhn Forage ......................................2 Nutrient Management ........................7 OFA ..................................................33 Ontario Mutual Insurance ........Cover 7 Ontario Standardbred ......................47 Orr Insurance ....................................17 Peak Realty - Cathy Hendriks ..........69 Peterhans Stefan ..............................73 Pols Ltd ............................................38 Pride Seeds ......................................40 R.T. Bolton & Son ....................Cover 4 Raynbow Signs ................................69 Realty Executives ............................43 Ridgeway Metals ..............................69 Rod, Gun & Militaria Show................73 Rural Living ................................48, 49 Rural Routes Pest Control ................70 Rural Voice Books ............................44 Sauble Beach Motorsports ..22,23,51,70 Saugeen Valley Conservation ..........65 Schmidt’s Farm Drainage ................21 Schweiss Doors ................................54 Seifried Farm Equipment ..................40 Sew & Save ......................................50 Shakespeare Swine Seminar..............5 Sharp’s Creek Forge ........................21 Smyth Welding..................................70 Somerville Seedlings ........................65 Steffen Well Drilling ..........................70 Stihl promotion ..................................52 Stratford Agri Analysis ......................43 Superior Barn Painting......................31 Townsley Barn Painting ....................31 Tree Promotion ....................32, 36, 49 Triple P Consulting............................79 Trouw Nutrition ..................Back Cover Usborne & Hibbert ............................79 WD Hopper & Sons ..........................67 WeCover ..........................................60 Whitechurch Welding ........................70 Williams Drainage ............................25

Automobile, Residential, Farm & Commercial Properties

507 Main St. S., Exeter

519-235-0350 www.usborneandhibbert.ca

WHO ARE YOUR ANIMALS MEETING? Ontario is seeing more cases of rabies in wild animals. Wild animals can infect your animals with rabies, a disease fatal to both humans and animals.

Protect your dogs and cats:

Mount Elgin, Ontario P/F (519) 425-1002 1-800-376-8861 triplepconsulting@execulink.com

• • • • • WE WORK FOR YOU, NOT THE FEED COMPANY • • • • •

- Watch your animals - don’t let them roam free.

- Vaccinate your dogs and cats against rabies.

- Check your animals for bruises and wounds.

For more information, visit huronhealthunit.ca/rabies September 2019 79

HURON

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

County Federation of Agriculture NEWSLETTER

Workshops being held for plan review The County of Huron has identified proposed amendments to the Huron County Official Plan as part of a five-year review of the Plan.

Information regarding the proposed amendments will be available on the Huron County website and at public open house workshops.

The Official Plan is a land use planning document that is a statement of where and how development should take place. The Plan includes the vision, goals and policy directions for the County, as identified by the community.

Three Public Open House Workshops will be held to review the proposed amendments and identify any changes required to the proposed amendments. You are invited to join us at 7:00 p.m. for the workshop of your choice, which will be two hours in length.

• Clinton: Libro Hall, Tuesday, September 10, 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., 239 Bill Fleming Dr. • Exeter: Exeter Legion Hall, Thursday, September 19, 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., 316 William St.

• Wingham: Hot Stove Lounge, North Huron Wescast Community Complex, Wednesday, September 25, 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., 99 Kerr Dr. For further information, contact the Huron County Planning and Development Department at (519) 524-8394 Ext. 3 or visit https://www.huroncounty.ca/plandev/ county-official-plan/huron-countyofficial-plan-five-year-review/

HCFA is planning an

Send in your nominations!

ALL CANDIDATES MEETING for the upcoming Federal Election

October 10 – 8:00 p.m.

Holmesville Community Centre

Save the Date!

Huron County Federation of Agriculture

ANNUAL/REGIONAL MEETING Friday, October 25 Holmesville Community Centre

Contact the office for further details and for tickets

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

Upcoming Events September 2 – Labour Day. September 10-12 – Outdoor Farm Show, Woodstock. ON. For details visit www.outdoorfarmshow.com/ September 11 – Elementary School Fair, Belgrave Community Centre.

September 13-14 – Seaforth Fall Fair. For more information visit: www.seaforthagriculturalsociety.on.ca/ September 16-18 – Lucknow Fall Fair. For more information visit: lucknowagsociety.ca September 17-18 – Brussels Fall Fair. For more information visit: brusselsfallfair.ca/

Huron County Federation of Agriculture was performance host for the Blyth Festival’s August 15 production of The Team on the Hill. In attendance were Keith Currie (OFA President), Ethan Wallace (HCFA President) and Brent Royce (OFA Zone Representative).

The Huron County Federation of Agriculture is collecting nominations for the yearly Huron County Agriculture Award for 2019.

Please include in the nomination: the name, address and phone number of the nominee, plus a description explaining your reasons for this person’s (or persons’) nominations – eg. the contribution to Huron County’s agricultural or rural life attributed to said person (or persons). The nomination must be signed by the nominator.

Nominations can be emailed to ofahuron@tcc.on.ca or they can be mailed to the HCFA office.

Deadline is September 23

September 27-29 – Howick Turnberry Fall Fair. For details visit www.howickagriculturalsociety.ca/ Huron County Federation of Agriculture

BOARD MEETING September 23 – 8:00 p.m.

Vanastra Office

Congratulations to Robinson’s Maple Products Bill and Susanne Robinson have been awarded the Lifetime Achievement award from the Ontario Maple Syrup Producers Association

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

We are also open other days by chance 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

80 The Rural Voice

De Dell Seeds

20th Anniversary Special!

De Dell Seeds is a family-owned Canadian business that started in 1999, and is dedicated to providing healthy, high-performing, conventionally bred corn hybrids for our environment.

Discover for yourself the difference in yield, herd health, and in the end, your bottom line.

De Dell Seeds

The Leaders in Non-GMO Corn De Dell Seeds • 7095 Century Drive • Melbourne, ON • N0L 1T0 P: 519-264-CORN (2676) • F: 519-264-2672 • info@dedellseeds.com • www.dedellseeds.com Must be paid for in full at time of purchase. Valid until October 1st 2019

150 7th Avenue, Hanover, ON

202432 Hwy. 21, Owen Sound, ON

PH: (519) 364-1010 • TF: (800) 461-1020

PH: (519) 371-4040 • TF: (877) 767-4040

www.hanoverhonda.ca

www.owensoundhonda.on.ca

3643 Hwy. 21 Tiverton, ON (Underwood) 519-368-4867 • 855-368-4867 lhrg@bmts.com www.lakehuronrodandgun.com Come on in and visit Midwestern Ontario’s largest supply of hunting and fishing supplies at the best prices: Have a closet full of unwanted firearms?

Call us and we will pay cash for those firearms.

ATA CY SLUGER SEMI AUTO 12 GA 3'' -3 BARREL COMBO -MAX 5 CAMO 1-28'' SMOOTH BORE, 1-26'' SMOOTH BORE TURKEY, 1- 24'' CANTILEVER RIFLED SLUG BARREL WITH SIGHTS, -6 CHOKES PLUS CARRY CASE: REG: $1050.00 NOW: $899.00 MOSSBERG 500 PUMP-ACTION 3 BARREL COMBO 12GA 3" 28" VR BARREL, 24" CANTILEVER BARREL, 24" VR TURKEY BARREL MOBU COUNTRY CAMO REG: $749.00 NOW: $669.00

SAVAGE AXIS BOLT-ACTION RIFLE WITH SCOPE AVAILABLE IN MANY CENTER FIRE CALIBERS REG: $499.00 NOW: $429.00

SINCE 1976 WE HAVE BEEN SERVING THE MIDWESTERN ONTARIO HUNTERS & ANGLERS WITH A GREAT SUPPLY OF INVENTORY AT GREAT PRICES WITH FRIENDLY SERVICE. WITH THOUSANDS OF LURES, THE ANGLER WILL FIND THAT LURE TO ENTICE THAT LUNKER TO TAKE HOLD OF THAT LURE. ELECTRONIC GAME CALLS, TREE STANDS, GUN CASES, RODS & REELS, SNOWSHOES, YOU NAME IT WE HAVE IT.

The mutual part matters.

It means we’re in this together.

Ontario Mutuals are Canadian-owned and operated mutual insurers with roots dating back over 160 years.

We know the special demands of the area and will be there when you need us. No shareholders - just community.

Find your local mutual at

ontariomutuals.ca Home • Auto • Commercial • Farm

Cremalto™

Cremalto™ is a patent pending

When supplemented to lactating cows in controlled studies*, significant increases in milk fat yield were observed.

calcium gluconate in a fat matrix, designed for lactating dairy cows.

*Controlled Studies conducted by Trouw Nutrition R&D, 2016 – 2019.

For more information, visit

www.trouwnutrition.ca

Contact your local Shur-Gain dealer for more information.

Belmore Feed Mill Belmore 519-392-6522 Dauphin Feed & Supply Dungannon 519-529-7951 1-800-665-5675 Walton 519-887-6023 The Hitching Post (2019) Ltd. St. Marys 519-284-2360

Hensall District Co-operative Londesboro 519-523-9606 1-800-265-9000

Nieuwland Feed & Supply Ltd. Listowel 519-291-5795 1-800-265-3229

Zurich 519-236-7155 1-800-565-7155

Drayton 519-638-3008 1-800-263-9818

Ripley 519-395-5955 1-855-895-5955

Elora 519-846-5354 1-800-265-5354

Mitchell 519-348-8752 1-800-669-3502

Yantzi Feed & Seed Ltd. Brunner 519-595-8251

Parkhill 519-294-6252

Tavistock 519-655-2033