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SHORT TAKESFarming Ambassador sees the reality of farm incomesWhen she takes over the family farm as the seventh generation operator, 21-year-old CNE Ambassador of Fairs Jeanine Wallace of Elora will be able to testify to the financial and emotional toll the BSE crisis can take on a family farm. She figures she will likely need a full-time job on the side to make it work.The Wallaces' 250-acre farm consists of mixed crops, hogs and cattle. Profits fell more than 30 per cent in 2004 on their farm as borders remained closed to much of Canada's beef and pork. Nationwide, the Canadian Animal Health Coalition put the direct economic cost to the Canadian livestock industry at $3.3 billion, forcing many farmers to work off the farm or to look to a spouse or partner for a second income to supplement losses. The trend was well underway prior to the BSE outbreak, demonstrating that it takes more than a closed border to affect farm income. In 2000, on farms averaging $66,000 yearly income, 73 per cent of that income came from non-farm sources. Wallace says it is simply a way of life for family farms to operate below the federally defined poverty line of $25,744 for a rural family of four. Statistics Canada has already noted a $1 billion decline in farm labour income and 75,000 in job losses between the censuses in 1996 and 2001. In 2003, the agency reported farm net income down by 43.3 per cent from the previous year. Eleven months ago, the province announced that land transfer taxes would no longer apply to within-family sales. But this may not be enough to entice young people to stay on the farm. Those who do will likely have to work a nine-to-five job to maintain a balanced income. Building on her experience as Fergus Fall Fair Ambassador and the Wellington County Queen of the Furrow, Wallace continues to promote the farm industry. She sees her role as CNE ambassador as a chance to teach others that farming is not a hobby but an important part of Canadian life and its economy. She takes the message to students that food begins on the farm and not in the grocery store.
Wallace fears this message is being lost as fewer students are exposed to rural life. "It is our responsibility as farmers to educate consumers about where their food comes from," she says. "If I can teach one person where milk and eggs come from -- and that they didn't just come from a store -- then it's worth it." BF
Vietnam considers free milk to help children growAccording to an Associated Press report, Vietnam plans to promote milk consumption as part of a long-term strategy to increase the height and strength of that country's people.The average Vietnamese man is five-foot-four and his wife five-foot tall. Vietnam's Sport Science Institute wants to increase average stature by 2.5 inches over the next 25 years. A plan to promote milk consumption by selecting 10,000 children aged six to 18 and giving them free milk for two years to see how much they will grow is under consideration by the Prime Minister. Promoting milk is not going to be easy, according to Duong Nghiep Chi, director of Vietnam's Sport Science Institute. Vietnam's resources are limited. Dairy products are considered to be only for children and, in the past, consumption stopped at two years of age. The population of 85 million people is largely in rural areas (two thirds of the work force are employed in agriculture) and fully 40 per cent of them live with incomes below the poverty line. Average income is still only about $420 a year. Educating the rich won't be easy either. Only a generation ago, nearly all Vietnamese were short of food. Now the shoe is on the other foot and the National Institute for Nutrition is charged with dealing with the problem of obesity. While fat children are not as big a concern as in nearby Thailand and Singapore, the Institute's deputy director says wealthy families have access to sweet soft drinks and chocolate along with microwave ovens and air-conditioning. Average height and weight in Vietnam has already increased without planning. The average Vietnamese man is two inches taller and 18 pounds heavier than in 1975. His wife is three inches taller and 6.5 pounds heavier. By comparison, the average American man is five foot nine and a half inches tall. His wife, at five foot four, is also an inch taller than the average 40 years ago.
The average weight? We don't want to go there. Vietnamese leaders should take note. BF
Chinese paddler-farmers the best in the world?Dragon boat racing has been described as the fastest growing sport in the world and certainly festivals pitting teams racing these ungainly craft against each other have become ubiquitous across Ontario. When paddlers from this province went to the World Championships in Shanghai last fall, they discovered that the fastest dragon boat team in the world may very well be a bunch of farmers from the city of Shun De, in the mainland Chinese province of Guang Dong, near Hong Kong.The Shun De men's team is composed of farmers over 40 years of age who ply the canals around their rice paddy fields. A single paddler spends hours every day propelling a 17-to 20-foot grass boat carrying agricultural supplies to their fields and the harvest back to the market. The parents of Richmond Hill dragon boater John Law grew up near Shun De. Law says the farmer-paddlers make about 2,000 yuan ($300 Cdn) a month tilling fields, and netted about 45,000 yuan for winning three events at the World Dragon Boat Championships in Shanghai last fall. In some instances, their times on 250, 500 and 1,000 metre courses were faster than the younger "premier" men's team from China. Why are the older paddlers faster? Law speculates that the younger paddlers aren't as fit. "Those young guys drive" to work, Law says.
The older Shun De team further confounded the paddling experts by indulging in tobacco, even minutes before their race. While the Canadian team was warming up by jogging and stretching, the Shun De team members were sitting in the stands in a wreath of smoke. BF
It takes a lot of mad cow to make a consumer ill"A person would have to eat 1.5 kilograms of brain and viscera from an infected cow in a single sitting to contract the human form of mad-cow disease," the Toronto-based Globe and Mail reported on Jan. 27. The British Broadcasting Corporation said the same thing. Both were quoting from the British scientific journal The Lancet, which carried a report on research by French Atomic Energy Commission scientist Jean-Philippe Deslys. The prion researcher had fed two adult macaque monkeys five grams of ground brain tissue from a BSE-infected cow and one monkey developed an illness resembling BSE five years later. Deslys was quoted as saying that it would take as much as 1.5 kg of ground brain matter to cause the same disease in humans.Interestingly, other media reports about the same study at the time suggested that much less ground brain matter must be eaten in order to trigger the disease. Regardless, Deslys concluded that the measures currently being taken in Canada to remove spinal nerves and brains and part of the intestine from at-risk animals are sufficient to make the meat safe. Deslys notes that it doesn't take much contaminated meat and bone meal from cattle to sicken other livestock. The brain and spinal column from one infected cow, added to the feed, could sicken between 490 and 1,400 cows, reports indicated.
Deslys has impeccable credentials in the field of BSE research. In 1996, he was a member of a scientific team reporting the first evidence from experiments that injecting crushed brains from BSE cows into macaque monkeys could transmit the disease. BF
Making friends with your enemy's enemyVeterinarian Lester Friedlander is an ardent vegetarian and a meat inspection critic. He might also be a friend to the Canadian cattle industry at a time when the Americans continue to keep live cattle away from their markets.
During his time at the United States Department of Agriculture, Friedlander supervised meat inspection at a slaughterhouse in Pennsylvania that slaughtered 1,800 cows a day, including "downers" -- animals that can no longer walk and are therefore suspect for BSE. He left in 1995 after his boss encouraged him not to tell anyone if he found a BSE cow, and is now touted as a "whistle-blower" by opponents of the beef industry. It defies logic, he says, in numerous news reports, that the American beef industry with 100 million head of cattle has never had a single case of homegrown BSE while the Canadian industry with less than 15 million head has recorded four positives. There's a cover-up going on, Friedlander asserted recently in the Ottawa Citizen, which reports that he will be addressing Parliamentarians about the BSE crisis in April. BF
Ag committee questions on packer profits unansweredRemember those financial statements that packers tried so hard to keep away from the House of Commons Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food? While the initial analysis of those statements has been completed, an essential question remains unanswered.It still isn't clear whether Canadian beef packers took advantage of the announcement of the Canada-Alberta BSE Recovery Program and bid down cattle prices during the limited time that the compensation program was in place. The committee has authorized phase two of its study of packer profitability during the crisis. The committee's initial report, released on Feb. 1, confirmed the following: Alberta feedlots got 33 per cent less for steers in 2003 compared to 2002, while packers did better financially than they did before. "Gross margins for packers increased significantly and the net margins increased even more substantially post-BSE (May 23, 2003). Overall, the packers had substantially better profitability year over year," says the report, which was completed by Consulting and Audit Canada and the Library of Parliament.
Expenses increased in the last six months of 2003 and were "reportedly attributable to increase in marginal costs due to BSE-related regulations," the draft report reads. "Despite those increases, the net margins of the packers improved substantially" from July to December 2003 compared to the same months a year earlier. "There was an increase in gross margin to $431 per head for the period September 2003 to February 2004, versus $133 per head a year earlier for Canadian packers." BF
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