Issue: October 2005 Behind the Lines Cover Story Letters Coming Events Short Takes Crops Business Letter From Europe Rural Roots   Contact Us

SHORT TAKES Ontario producers have no beef with Cargill acquisition Alberta Beef Producers (ABP) opposed it. So do the Saskatchewan Stock Growers and the Manitoba Cattle Producers Association, as well as the National Farmers Union, which cites concerns about the concentration of packing capacity into fewer and fewer hands. Yet the Ontario Cattlemen's' Association (OCA) doesn't have a problem with Cargill Ltd. buying Guelph-based Better Beef. In fact, it welcomes the change in management in the province's beef packing plant which was approved at the end of August by the federal Competition Bureau. The OCA board and its advisory committee support the purchase for a number of reasons, says OCA president Ian McKillop of Dutton. Cargill brings some positive improvements to the Ontario beef industry, he says. Cargill executives told the OCA advisory committee in late July that they want to "double shift" the under-utilized plant, as Cargill does with other plants in North America. Doubling the plant's capacity would require another 10,000 head of cattle a week, and that will have a "ripple effect" through the rest of the province's beef industry, says McKillop, himself a cow-calf operator. Cargill has "a lot of marketing expertise" and the Guelph plant is poised within a few hundred miles of markets in the heavily populated northeastern United States, he adds. There are some other advantages to having Cargill operate this plant, McKillop believes. One of them is that another operator might be less successful, and regardless of who owns it, the Guelph plant has 80 per cent of the beef packing capacity in Ontario. "If Better Beef is for sale, and it is, it's better that it be bought by the well-financed Cargill than an under-funded company that would make a go of it for a year or two and then have to close down. And then where would we be?" It's not clear why Alberta Beef Producers oppose the acquisition by Cargill. Better Farming asked the organization for an interview with a director in order to get an explanation, but the promised call was not returned. BF top Climate change brings apricots, almonds and pinot noir to Britain Climate change is happening, and the first ever commercial harvest of apricots in the United Kingdom is proof of that, according to the online version of The Independent newspaper on Aug. 1. The 2005 harvest from the county of Kent "was substantial," the newspaper asserts. About 1,200 kilograms of apricots were harvested from 1,800 trees planted three years ago and the quality was deemed to be excellent by buyers from the Sainsbury's chain of stores. Because there are few insects to pollinate the trees in winter, self-pollinating varieties had been planted. Sainsbury's also has a project to grow kiwi fruit in Britain. An organic grower is planning to harvest a crop of almonds soon and other warm season nut trees have been planted. An even stronger sign of the changing British climate may be the growing of pinot noir wine grapes capable of producing classic red Burgundies on the south-facing chalk slopes of the North Downs near Dorking in Surrey, only 25 miles from London. The U.K. Climate Impact Programme predicts that very hot and dry summers will strike one year in three by 2050. Maximum temperatures in southern counties such as Berkshire, which now reach 34C, will start to exceed 40C. The growing season is now a month longer and the average temperature has increased by 1 C degree since 1900. By 2020, the average temperature will be another full degree higher as the rate of change increases. BF top Fried chicken stays on Alabama school menus Everybody has their sacred cow and their whipping boy. In the case of the state of Alabama, that sacred cow is fried chicken and the whipping boy is dairy. The favoured chicken treat stays on the lunch menus in Alabama schools, but homogenized and even two per cent milk will be banned next year as the state uses school lunch programs to attack childhood obesity and a growing rate of diabetes in the state. Last June, the Alabama state board of education quietly passed sweeping changes in school lunch programs and in what children can buy from vending machines in school properties, beginning in 2006. Soft drinks have been targeted, so no drinks larger than 12 ounces are allowed, with the exception of water. Only low-fat ice cream can be served and no more than four ounces at a sitting. Only baked potato chips are allowed and packages can't exceed one ounce in weight. Cereal bars can't exceed 1.3 ounces. Vending machine fronts can't advertise carbonated drinks. Water, 100 per cent fruit juices, milk, tea, sports drinks and other uncarbonated drinks are permitted. Fried food servings, including chicken, will be allowed but will be scaled back, along with starchy foods and meats, Pickens County child nutrition programs director Claude Adams told a local newspaper. He said the local school board could do nothing about the rules, in spite of parents' protestations, because they were mandated by the state. The goal is to keep fat intake in diets to less than 30 per cent of calories.BF top Another pork fight looming in Hamilton and Haldimand Maple Leaf Food's plan to build a modern pork processing plant in the City of Hamilton's North Glanbrook Industrial Park has spawned a new citizen's group and brought new life to an old one. The new group, called CAPS (Citizens Against Pork Slaughterhouses), is fighting construction of the proposed plant. Hamilton mayor Di Ianni gave the group almost immediate legitimacy by offering to meet with them. The mayor had been selling Maple Leaf on bringing the plant to the city via the city's Invest in Hamilton program, but now it appears that he has to sell his own voters. Also jumping into the fray is Haldimand Hogwatch, whose members fought the construction of some Elite Swine (owned by Maple Leaf) hog barns near Dunnville several years ago. The Hogwatch group charges that an expanded Maple Leaf operation in Hamilton will lead to another round of pig barn expansion in their area. The new $250 million plant will replace the aged Burlington facility and add processing capacity. In July, Maple Leaf CEO Michael McCain told the National Pork Industry Conference in Missouri that the company owns 21 per cent of the pigs that it slaughters and would like to increase that to 30 per cent. Meanwhile, pig barn construction in Ontario has been nearly at a standstill for the last year.BF top A prop for inedible Red Delicious apples? Opponents of American farm subsidies claim that Washington state apple growers have themselves to blame for failing markets. Between 2001 and 2003, Washington growers took in $133.8 million in market loss assistance payments, more than half of apple subsidies nationwide, says the Environmental Working Group (EWG), which extracts information on farm subsidies from a federal government database and publishes it. In 2001, Washington's Red Delicious crop fell below 50 per cent of the state's apple production. (In the mid-1980s, they comprised 75 per cent of all apples that Washington grew.) Even the current output seems to be too much. The EWG's Laura Just wrote in the Washington Post in August, that growers are now producing apples with tough skins that store well and look pretty but don't taste very good. The storage is a sore point with Ontario apple growers, who figure that Washington's huge 2004 crop was still being marketed as the 2005 crop was being picked from the trees.BF top Red Fife demand a rare delight For those of you who doubt that it's important to save apparently obsolete genetic strains of grains, here's proof otherwise. Victoria organic baker Cliff Leir has a near-stranglehold on Canada's (and the world's) supply of Red Fife wheat. He filled his silo with 12 tonnes, nearly all of the output from Mark Loiselle's Saskatchewan farm last year. Red Fife nearly became extinct when other varieties took over almost a century ago. Now it is prized by the Slow Food movement, a loose organization formed 15 years ago in response to the spread of fast food chains in Europe "to protect the pleasures of the table." Loiselle's seed came through several hands, but it originated with an Agriculture Canada seed collection. He planted his first seed in 2001, lost his 2002 crop to drought and finally produced enough to be able to sell his 2004 output. He has had to turn down requests for wheat from as far away as Europe. Leir didn't build his stone ground mill until he knew that Loiselle had a supply. The farmer and baker were invited to set up a booth with bread made from Red Fife wheat at the Salone del Gusto trade show and taste-testing exhibit at Turin, Italy, in October. Other Canadian wheat growers wish their product was in that much demand.BF top PETA's secret euthanasia program It turns out that the animal rights organization People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) isn't so ethical after all. For years, PETA has been nagging farmers, researchers, pet owners, slaughter facility owners, fur industry representatives and others about their cruel treatment of animals. But it has been hiding a nasty secret of its own for the past number of years. The Roanoke-Chowan News Herald reports that, from 1998 to the end of 2003, PETA killed more than 10,000 dogs, cats and other companion animals at its headquarters in Norfolk, Va. PETA had picked up the animals alive from North Carolina animal shelters and promised to find them good homes. The organization's practices came to light after two employees were arrested when they were spotted dumping dead dogs in plastic bags in a dumpster in Ahoskie, N.C. More dead animals were found in their van, which was registered to the animal rights group. When she learned of the arrests, PETA president Ingrid Newark said that it's against the group's policy for employees to dump animals in the trash, but that for some animals in North Carolina there is no kinder option than euthanasia.BF top back