Short Takes: December 2008

Monday, December 1, 2008

Apple competition returns to the Royal after 44 years

Interest in locally produced food is back, and so is an apple competition at Toronto's Royal Agricultural Winter Fair. There is a connection.

With more than 326,000 visitors to the Royal each year, apple industry officials saw the fair as a good opportunity to connect directly with consumers and decided to revive the competition, explains Brian Gilroy, board chair of Ontario Apple Growers, one of the competition's sponsors.

This year, entries came from British Columbia, Ontario and Nova Scotia. Judging was based on general appearance and trueness to variety.

Dwindling interest from competitors, difficulty getting their apple exhibits to the fair and farmers being busy in their orchards at fair time in November put the kibosh on the competition in the 1960s.

"Apples are a very delicate commodity," Gilroy notes. "They don't travel nearly as well as a bottle of wine or a turnip."

Apples coming into Canada from countries like Chile travel in controlled atmosphere containers. "They travel well there but a lot of care needs to be taken to make sure that what's referred to as 'the cold chain' is maintained," Gilroy says.

There aren't those kinds of containers available to growers entering the apple competition and using a courier company to ship their apples.

"If you want to show your best, you have to pick them and then store them properly and then bring them out of storage and get them down to the Royal for the competition," he says. "It's tricky." BF

Little confidence in new ag income programs

Livestock farmers are more skeptical than any other group that the federal government's new risk management tools are really going to help them, according to surveys conducted by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB).

The federation represents 6,500 agri-businesses across Canada with 78 per cent of them being primary producers.

It surveyed its farmer members last May, asking their opinions on the benefits of AgriInvest and AgriStability, which were developed to replace the Canadian Agricultural Income Stabilization (CAIS) program.

AgriInvest was designed to cover income losses of up to 15 per cent, AgriStability to cover deeper income losses. As far as AgriStability is concerned, only nine per cent of CFIB ag business members said that AgriStability will be helpful in managing risk in their businesses, and livestock operators were least likely to think the program would be helpful.

Eighty four per cent of members surveyed last June said that they hadn't been adequately consulted in the development of the next generation of agriculture and agri-food policy.

More than one in five members who qualified for and received a payment through CAIS had been asked to pay back a CAIS payment from the previous year. About 27 per cent of livestock produces were asked to repay CAIS payments going back as far as 2003, the beginning of the BSE crisis. The federation calls that "shocking."

More than half of survey respondents said that their payments had been clawed back because of "errors in calculations by government program administrators," while 46 per cent cited "overpayment of funds by government." Only 15 per cent cited an error made by themselves or their financial advisor, andfour per cent were found to be ineligible after the fact. (Some survey respondents cited more than one reason for an over payment.) BF

No hiding these tomatoes at the counter

When a new breed of health-promoting tomatoes come to market in Britain, it won't be hard to identify them at produce counters. They are purple.

Scientists at the John Innes Centre in Norwich have introduced two genes from snapdragons (yes, the flowers), which increase the levels of anthocyanins in tomatoes. People eat cranberries, chokeberries and blackberries for anthocyanins, bioactive pigments that occur naturally in the berries.

According to a press release from Norwich, anthocyanins protect consumers against some cancers, cardiovascular disease and age-related degenerative diseases. Perhaps most important, said Prof. Cathie Martin, the purple tomatoes are one of the first examples of "metabolic engineering" offering the potential to increase health.

The research is expected to be published shortly in the journal Nature Biotechnology.

Ironically the European Union, often seen as a barrier to genetically modified organisms developed in the United States, helped to fund the research. BF

When the grass isn't always greener

Grass isn't always greener, at least not when it's fed to cows and the "greenness" is measured by the output of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. University of Manitoba animal scientist and mathematical modeler Ermias Kebreab found that, contrary to popular belief, grass-fed cattle produce more methane than grain-fed ones – so much more methane that it overpowers the gases created growing and harvesting grain. Furthermore, grain-fed cattle produce more milk and meat, further proving that grass-fed livestock production isn't as green as has been suggested. Kebreab explains that the fibre in grass is simply harder to digest than grain.

The implications of the research, published in September in the Journal of Animal Science, are far-reaching. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is looking hard at the research developed by Kebreab, a research chair holder at the university. Canada's agricultural sector is estimated to be responsible for 8.3 per cent of total greenhouse emissions and 32 per cent of that amount is methane attributed to cattle production. Ninety per cent of methane from cows is produced by belching. BF

Bird banger complaints up this year

Ontario agriculture ministry engineer Hugh Fraser isn't sure why, but bird banger complaints were way up this summer and fall.

From August to the end of October, Fraser says he's received dozens of complaints, mostly from the Niagara Region.

Farmers use the bangers mainly to deter robins and starlings from snacking on wine grapes which are starting to turn colour and the fruit's sugars are beginning to concentrate. Some farmers use them to protect sweet cherries and blueberries.

Why are complaints up this year? "It's a good question," Fraser says. "I'm trying to understand that."

Some possible explanations are increased plantings, increased growing of varieties birds like to eat and more people living in the country than ever. In addition, many vineyards don't have a farmer or a vineyard manager living where the bird banger is being used so they don't hear when things go wrong.

Fraser found that, in many cases, the bangers aren't being used according to normal farm practices. They're either being started too early in the day, such as 4:30 a.m., or they're left on too late and are located too close to someone's house.

Farmers should ensure that the timers are set correctly and the bangers aren't left on after dark, Fraser suggests.

The bangers sound like a gunshot. Most fire a series of three shots in sequence over about an 18-second period.

The banger randomly repeats the sequence, based on the frequency setting used. Normal farm practice is to repeat the sequence every four to eight minutes. BF

Tyson spreads its wings

According to a story published by Associated Press in early November, Tyson Foods, Inc., based in Springdale, Ark., plans to roll out its style of corporate chicken production to South America and Asia, transforming rural economies in Brazil, China and even India, although the latter may be a hard sell.

Don Tyson is chairman of the board of the world's largest meat company and has run the company his father founded in 1931 for many years. Tyson holds a special class of stock in the company, which gives him about 70 per cent of shareholder control. Thus, his vision for the company is unimpeded by the need to appease shareholders with every quarterly report.

In September, Tyson bought two poultry companies in Brazil and controlling interest in a third, announced three joint ventures in China, a majority interest in a poultry operation near Shanghai, and in two poultry processing plants in Zhucheng and Shandong. In India, Tyson bought majority ownership in a food company with annual sales of about $50 million.

India is expected to be the biggest challenge because 65 per cent of its population makes a living off the land on very small farms. Brazil is an easier place to set up business because there are large landowners willing to set up Tyson-style barns on 1,000 acres of land. Tyson already has sales of $27 billion annually. BF