by CORIE LOK and DON STONEMAN

They market top cuts of prime beef through their website (www.thebeefman.com) to customers across the country and into the United States. The filet, ribeye and striploin steaks are AAA grade, bought from Better Beef at Guelph, where cattle are marketed from O'Connor and Gillespie's 700-head feedlot.

The choice of beef for their customers is critical. The Gillespies choose the best steaks from what is available and, after eight months in business, have never had product returned as unsatisfactory. If only the courier services available offered them prime service as well.

As more residents and businesses join the information highway and small businesses spring up in the country, reliable courier services in rural Ontario, and Canada for that matter, become essential. Timely delivery for business like the Gillespies' is crucial, but it doesn't always happen.

The Beefman steaks are packed frozen in dry ice, but some couriers, such as United Parcel Service (UPS) in Canada, consider this a semi-hazardous material and won't touch it. So O'Connor and Gillespie count on Purolator to get their packages to customers, and sometimes the service falters. Last year a package was lost and delivered 10 days late. Moreover, the Gillespies don't feel comfortable shipping product after Wednesday because of the risk that an expensive shipment of meat will sit in a warehouse over the weekend.

In December, after handing a shipment over to a courier, the Gillespies found out that deliveries were running a full day behind because of the weather. "We'd rather have left the steaks in our freezer," John Gillespie says. Fedex has a better reputation for working hard to get product to its destination, he says, but its service is more expensive.

E-commerce, the business of buying and selling on the Internet, appears to be a minor player in rural Ontario. But already it has had a tremendous effect on the Canadian delivery business as a whole, says Susan Webb, public relations manager for UPS Canada. "E-commerce has affected the entire supply chain," Webb asserts, "though e-commerce shipments tend to be smaller, more frequent and more time definite."

O'Connor and Gillespie's hope that Canada Post's newly advertised eParcel service, which promises to deliver to homes in urban centres in the evenings and on Saturday mornings, will bring much-needed competition. But Linda Maxwell of Kenilworth in Wellington County has already passed judgement on current Canada Post Priority Post service and she isn't pleased.

Maxwell sells Tupperware kitchen products within a one-hour radius of her home. She counts on Purolator to deliver about $1,000 worth of the plastic kitchenware to her door every week, and the courier service shows up on her doorstep every Thursday like clockwork. "They are amazing," she says.

Canada Post courier service is another story. For the Avon products she also sells, Priority Courier drops off her parcels at her mailbox 15 km away in Moorefield instead of bringing it to her door. When she called to complain, she was told Priority Courier doesn't deliver any closer than half a kilometre off its rural routes. "In my opinion, if you pay courier prices, they should be delivering to the door as any other courier would," says Maxwell.

Not big money-makers
Is there hope in sight for rural business people like Maxwell and the Gillespies? Not much, according to many courier companies, who say that delivering in rural areas is often unprofitable. Couriers often complain of poor signage in the country, unplowed roads, imprecise mailing addresses (see sidebar) and long driving distances for relatively few deliveries.

UPS claims to service all addresses in Canada, "an important feature of our overall service portfolio," says Webb. But she admits there are difficulties associated with deliveries in rural Ontario. "Costs tend to be higher because there are fewer stops per mile," she says. As well, locating the destination can be a challenge for a new driver when no directions are available and the recipient's phone number isn't on the weigh bill. But, says Webb, service to rural Ontario will likely improve as more farmers get Internet access, make purchases on-line and generate more volume.

As it stands, Canada Post service has its shortcomings. "In some rural and remote areas, Priority Courier packages aren't treated differently from regular mail," admits Ida Irwin, spokesperson for Canada Post. "Not every package will be delivered to the door in rural and remote areas, because we don't have the resources. No one does," she says, in contradiction to UPS claims. Canada Post, she adds, is trying to increase its door-to-door delivery network, but it's a gradual process because it's so costly.

Rural routes aren't big money makers for courier companies, agrees Robert Swanborough, Purolator's vice-president of marketing. While Purolator delivers to many rural addresses (in fact, about one-eighth of Purolator's shipments are rural), it has adopted alternative delivery methods to reduce costs. An example, he says, is Purolator's network of more than 400 retail outlets, such as variety stores, that serve as parcel pick-up and drop-off points.

Courier companies tend to target their services to traditional businesses, because that's where the highest volume is. Dicom Express, a Montreal-based private company with 70 trucks in Ontario, concentrates on providing contract courier services for businesses, such as John Deere, delivering John Deere products -- from tractors to nuts and bolts -- from its plant near Burlington to retailers around Ontario.

Peninsula Parcel Service in Wiarton and Magic Express Courier Inc. in Woodstock have seen the number of rural deliveries rise an estimated 10 per cent a year over the last few years. Even so, medium and smaller courier companies aren't seeking to develop business in the country and prefer to serve urban centres. Some say they do rural deliveries only because their customers demand it. Some even charge extra for deliveries to the country. Companies that do handle rural shipments, such as Cardinal Couriers with 150 vehicles in Ontario, deliver mainly to larger rural businesses such as equipment and automotive part dealers. And some just stay out of the rural courier business altogether.

One such, which sticks to the main highways and doesn't do rural deliveries, is Gord Lawson Courier Service, a one-minivan courier company operated by Gord Lawson and his wife near Bognor, outside Owen Sound. Contracts make up the majority of their business, including scheduled daily runs between Owen Sound and Toronto, delivering blood to six hospitals in the Owen Sound area. Parcels and passengers also hitch a ride with Lawson into Toronto for a fee.

Rural deliveries are "too time-consuming," Gord Lawson explains. When he's delivering blood, time is an issue. So is safety, especially in winter when roads aren't well tended. "Delivering to a farm with a quarter-mile driveway that isn't plowed is a nightmare," he says.

Timeliness an issue
This leaves the big players, such as Fedex, Purolator and UPS, with deep pockets to service rural areas, or small, rural-based companies, such as Peninsula Parcel Service, which act as agents for the larger ones. For the small couriers such as Peninsula, based in Wiarton, business doesn't come easy. While the company has grown in the last decade from one to five vehicles, high fuel prices have hit them hard, says Joan Hill who owns and runs the company with her husband Doug. "It's been hard to take," she says. "It comes out of our own pockets."

But Peninsula takes pride in providing customized service. Hill recounts a time when a customer called to say she was about to take a bath and wanted to make sure the courier wouldn't show up on her doorstep while she was in the tub and the company obliged "It's really personalized service," says Hill. "We know the people we deliver to."

Even for a rural-based company, Peninsula devotes most of its time to making regular runs between Owen Sound and Tobermory, though it occasionally makes deliveries off the beaten track.

Larger couriers with greater resources are more likely to have a wider network that spans further into rural areas, says Swanborough of Purolator. Even so, next day, 9 a.m. service isn't always available in the country, he says.

Fedex also says timeliness can be an issue in the country, depending on how close the rural resident is to a station. These stations are based in such cities as Guelph, London, Windsor, Peterborough and Belleville. And even though next-day service may be possible, the package may show up at the end of the day, rather than first thing in the morning, says Joe Vecsi, a Fedex spokesperson.

Some businesses specifically serving rural Ontario, which have to get products such as fresh swine semen there on time, use exclusive courier services. Genex, Ontario, based in Gorrie, uses its own private courier for the relatively dense western Ontario market, says Dave Riach, its genetic transfer specialist. With a private, dedicated courier "they know where to drop the package and they are on to the next farm."

Semen is delivered three days a week, the same day it is collected, and delivery fees are built into the semen price. The vehicles are temperature- and climate-controlled. Eastern Ontario swine breeders get their semen delivered overnight via UPS in well-insulated, Styrofoam packages. Otherwise, semen is packed in a padded envelope. Keeping the semen at 17C degrees is critical.

Randy Mowat runs Homehills Online General Store from a rural location near Brandon, Man., and serves farmers, ranchers and rural dwellers. He will ship with any courier that a customer specifies, but most products are delivered via Canada Post, with which Mowat admits to having a love-hate relationship. "On the one hand, I think they generally do a decent job of delivering and I know they are the only carrier that will delivery to every address."

However, Mowat resents Canada Post's stringent restrictions on package size and constantly increasing prices, which he thinks restricts the amount of business that takes place over the Internet.

"The rates keep going up and the limitations keep going up," Mowat complains. "There is a concern that they are going to make it prohibitive to operate a business like this, which serves rural Canadians who don't have a big-box store right next door." BF

UPS and Canada Post go to court in NAFTA dispute

Atlanta-based UPS charges that the Canadian government has permitted Canada Post to expand beyond its government-protected mail delivery business into new ventures where it undercuts prices offered by UPS and other private sector competitors.

Last April, UPS filed a lawsuit against the Canadian government, claiming it suffered $320 million Cdn in damages because of unfair competition from the postal service.

The suit is being filed under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) Investor-State Dispute Settlement System, which protects the interests of a company based in one signatory country when it invests in another. UPS has hired top NAFTA law firm Appleton and Associates, based in Toronto and Washington, to represent it in the case. Appleton has already been successful in a number of other NAFTA Investor State cases.

The 100,000-member Council of Canadians is disturbed by this development. In November, it sought intervenor status during the hearings, a status that is unprecedented, says the council's trade campaigner Morag Carter. Carter says that if the Canadian government loses the lawsuit it may have to dismantle and restructure the Canadian postal service. These types of hearings are always held behind closed doors, Carter says, and she is seeking to have the proceedings made public, an endeavour the postal; union supports.

Also backing the council is Rural Dignity, another postal service watcher based in Gaspé, Que. The organization fought rural post office closures a decade ago and Elizabeth Armstrong, its chairperson, says that if Canada Post loses its fight with UPS, the most costly rural routes will likely be closed.

"UPS has already abandoned many rural communities," claims Armstrong, again contradicting UPS assertions of universal service to all Canadian addresses. BF

Estimated Rate Comparison (including taxes)

Cost for a 2lb. box, 8" wide, 6" deep, 7" high, next day residential service from Mississauga to Vankleek Hill

Dicom		                           $8.03 when shipped in a 'MaxPak' purchased in quantities of 10
Fedex		                            $27.47
Loomis	                                   $20.72 (includes $5 residential surcharge)
Priority Courier (Canada Post)	$16.42 (2 days)
Purolator	                            $18.79 (includes $1.50 rural surcharge, 0.51 fuel surcharge)
UPS		                             $14.72-16.45 (includes 0.17 fuel surcharge)

The Next Agricultural Revolution

by Don Stoneman & Carol Pilley

Burnside, a University of Guelph professor emeritus, and now senior geneticist for the Semex Alliance, the exporting arm of Canada's bull studs, was testing prototype ear-tagging pliers which double as DNA samplers. The pliers put ear tags in each calf, and also take a tiny sample of flesh and hair. If the "punchings" provide enough DNA and the system is adopted, samples from newborn and tagged calves would be inserted into labelled capsules and sent off a lab in Saskatchewan for recording, analysis and storage.

"It's very simple," Burnside says, and a much cheaper way of collecting DNA than drawing blood. He expects that, one day, the DNA from every one of the 236,000 dairy heifers borne in Canada each year will be sampled and recorded, as will their offspring. "We're making plans to give our pedigreed breeders the first broad-based germplasm resource in the world," says Burnside.

Revolution in breeding
The first and most obvious benefit of DNA sampling, says Burnside, is that a more positive identification system will be in place than the dairy industry has ever had before. The system will assure that the right animals are being sold and eliminate the possibility that identification can be falsified by switching ear tags.

More important, however, is how a comprehensive database will revolutionize the expensive process of selecting breeding animals. The Canadian dairy breeding system has complex systems in place to match cows to bulls. Their offspring should have traits that are more productive for farmers. But even when the best cows are mated to the best bulls, the results of those matings are uneven.

"Imagine that you've had a cow superovulated and flushed" (treated with hormones to produce many fertilized eggs at once, which are put into donor cows), says Burnside. "There are three baby bull calves in a pen and your company has first choice."

Burnside explains that because all these calves have the same parents, they also have the same "pedigree merit" in Canada's dairy testing system. But each animal carries a different combination of genes for economically important traits. The trick is to choose the right bull of the three to put into the stud to give the maximum benefit to the dairy breeding industry. The DNA bank will help achieve that goal, he says, and Semex Alliance is already part way there.

"We have some proprietary information that helps us make wise choices across the Canadian Holstein population. These Approaches are being used by our company and others to make more intelligent choices in deciding about progeny testing."

"It's the subtle changes that can be significant," agrees Alan Wildeman, director of the Food Systems Biotechnology Centre at the University of Guelph. Wildeman is a cancer researcher, but he is also developing a program to look for DNA polymorphisms, or variations, in livestock. The examples of genetic variations are all around us, he says. Two brothers have the same parents but look substantially different. That's because of polymophisms, he says.

The average Ontario dairy cow is twice as productive as her counterpart 50 years ago. Part of that is because of nutrition and husbandry, but an important part of the productivity increase is due to systematic selection for higher milk yield and butterfat. "We've selected the best genes, the best polymorphisms. There are many, many polymorphisms," Wildeman says.

New vaccines and "designer drugs"
The "additional intelligent decisions" that Burnside talks about are possible because of the science of genomics, a branch of biotechnology taken well beyond the relatively simple insertion of a herbicide resistant gene into a soybean variety. Lorne Babiuk, director of the Veterinary Infectious Diseases Organization (VIDO) in Saskatoon, describes genomics as "deciphering the library of life" and "a quantum leap" in agricultural technology.

The impact will be felt on agriculture in five to 10 years, predicts Babiuk, and the effect will be "as big or bigger" than the impact of the first wave of biotechnology. Animal breeders will be able to improve the productivity of animals, as well as the tenderness and quality of their meat. And Babiuk believes that speedy identification of the components of a disease-causing organism will lead to the rapid development of new vaccines and so-called "designer drugs", so improving animal welfare.

The federal government has already committed $300 million to Canadian genome research in the next five years. "We are looking for more, which shows the magnitude of the cost of this type of research," Babiuk says. "Governments clearly see a substantial return on this investment for Canadians."

Contrary to critics, says Wildeman; genomics will give producers more, not fewer, genetic choices. He argues that a greater diversity in livestock will result from genomic research. This emerging science will identify animals with traits suited to a particular production system, or resistant to a disease. Those traits might be higher milk production in cattle, resistance to mastitis or to respiratory tract infections. Suitability to particular climates is another option.

Greater plant diversity
But first, stresses Wildeman, genomes must be mapped. The year 2000 marked the mapping of the human genome, the sequencing of all the genes in the human race. Japan and Denmark have already agreed to map the genomes of the pig and Wildeman predicts that within five years scientists will have mapped the genetics of the cow. Later, the bovine genome will be sequenced. The next round of animal breeding using polymorphisms will be tweaking, "but tweaking in an educated way. "We will get a lot quicker at finding needles in the haystack," he said.

Nor does Wildeman believe that the role of the farmer will be demeaned by this process. "Farmers will still need good husbandry," Wildeman says. "But we will be able to identify what the genetic contributions are."

The plant side of agriculture will take the same direction, and, as with livestock, will gain more diversity, Wildeman says. "We still have to grow corn to feed cows to provide milk," but with genetic diversity in crops mapped out and planned, farmers will able to grow products with different value-added traits.

The insertion of a carotene gene into rice varieties already promises a Vitamin A-rich food for developing nations. "The sky is the limit here, " says Babiuk.

In Canada, the first improved crop will likely be soybeans with isoflavenes, whose consumption is thought to reduce the risk of heart disease. But Babiuk warns that that the same issues that surround genetically modified foods will also surround genomic treatments for animals. "I can almost guarantee you there will be an uprising somewhere and that someone will say that, with genomics, we have overstepped the line. There's always debate around animal cloning."

We will have an opportunity to change the way that we do things, Babiuk says. But with it will come questions from society "if we don't explain what is being done, and why." BF

Guelph research opens the door to new tools, new products, new markets

By far, the largest investment in research at Guelph comes from the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA). This investment is advancing the future of agriculture. As a sample of what's ahead, from the 272 new license agreements completed at the University of Guelph in 1999, Better Farming is highlighting research projects that are leading to the introduction of new technologies or products for Ontario farmers.

Weather or not to spray?
A new system that keeps tabs on the weather could help Ontario farmers more accurately predict potential crop diseases, boost yields and improve crop quality. Ian Nichols, Brian Doidge, Art Schaafsma and Ron Pitblado of the University of Guelph's Ridgetown College and Guelph land resource scientist Terry Gillespie are coordinating a project called the Ontario Weather Network (OWN).

OWN provides weather-related, real-time site-specific data for Ontario farmers to help make management decisions. For example, the data can be used to determine the most effective time to spray crops by measuring factors such as temperature, rainfall and leaf wetness that can impact the progress of a crop disease. Basing spray schedules on environmental factors, rather than on a calendar, could lead to a safer food supply, reduced pesticide use, improved environmental quality and better economic returns for producers.

The researchers currently have two programs for monitoring crop diseases -- the TomCast, which predicts several tomato diseases, and a fusarium risk forecast for wheat. Data is collected from in-field sensors and forwarded to a central computer which generates the risk rate of a disease for a specific crop and location. Research is underway to bring a number of other crop models to the commercial delivery stage.

The system can be used for any number of models, including aeration for grain conditioning. Producers can access this information via phones, faxes and the Internet. "There's lots we can do," says Ian Nichols, a Ridgetown lecturer and cash crop farmer. "What we will do with it depends on customer demand."

A typical weather station is about six feet high, and measures air temperature, wind direction and speed, plant leaf wetness, soil temperature and moisture, rainfall, and keeps a record of all the information in a data logger. "We're looking at a bug counter," Nichols says. A "basic box" transmits information through radio waves. "We're looking at a but counter," Nicholas says.

Pumping water is expensive. Growers of orchards, horticultural crops and tobacco don't want their crops to suffer drought stress, so the station can signal when irrigation is necessary.

The leaf wetness sensor is also essential, Nichols says. "Diseases depend upon free water available on the leaves," he explains. In drier weather, costly fungicide spraying can be delayed. Warm temperatures speed up fungus development, and also insect hatching. Wind speed is essential to estimating evapotranspiration from plants.

The information will be available to producers for a fee, Nichols says, with the proceeds going back to Ridgetown College.

More milk, less cows, aged right
Cattle cloning could soon produce an elite calf with all the best traits of its cell donor, and none of the drawbacks; including its age.

Biomedical scientists Allan King and Dean Betts are leading a research project to investigate the potential of using animal cloning to increase the production efficiency of milk. They want to ensure that cloning elite dairy reproduction qualities leads to calves that are healthy and not prematurely aged. That well-publicized problem beset cloning studies in the Britain with Dolly, the famed cloned sheep.

So far, the researchers are finding that premature aging is not a problem with cloned dairy cows. They suggest that an enzyme called telomerase gets turned back on during the first week of embryonic development, and the clone can then age naturally.

Building a better apple orchard
Helping apple growers maximize their profits with new orchard practices, while simultaneously helping them minimize their impact on the environment, is one goal of the University of Guelph's apple research program.

Pomologist John Cline and technician Mary Byl of the university's Simcoe campus are developing new production techniques to keep Ontario growers one step ahead. Their research reflects a range of production issues from pre-plant soil preparation to ensuring the greatest number of highly-coloured, firm and large fruit per tree. They're also improving orchard efficiency by using new disease-resistant, cold- hardy and dwarfing rootstocks, which not only increase yield and early flowering but allow orchardists to harvest most fruit from the ground.

Development of sustainable orchard practices that protect the environment while maintaining orchard profitability is a challenging area of research for Cline. Several projects on reduced pesticide use, increased water-use efficiency and inorganic and organic waste recycling are showing promising results. They have demonstrated that technology is now available to use less water and improve yields by as much as 40 per cent with trickle irrigation.

Tomatoes survive the big chill
Tastier, firmer field tomatoes with longer shelf life, improved quality and tolerance to chilling are being developed with genetic engineering technology by University of Guelph researchers.

Food scientists Gopi Paliyath and Kurt Almquist predict these tomatoes could have double or triple the normal shelf life. They could also ripen on the vine longer and tolerate refrigeration before processing without compromising quality and nutritional value.

Ontario's short growing season for field tomatoes makes the improvement of these characteristics extremely important. Because tomatoes are highly perishable, they can't be stored for very long. Generally, Ontario food processors must import their supply of vegetables for most of the year.

Cell membrane degradation is the key process causing the deterioration of tomatoes and other perishable fruits and vegetables. Tomatoes are highly sensitive to cold temperatures and exposure to cold stress triggers the activity of phospholipase D, an enzyme that initiates cell membrane breakdown. The researchers are trying to inhibit the activity of this enzyme to prevent or slow down the degradation of the cell membrane. The first step in this process is to regulate the enzyme's activity, using molecular biology techniques.

New possibilities for commercial hemp crops
Industrial hemp (Cannabis sativa) has the potential to be a viable commercial crop in northern Ontario, but an infrastructure for processing needs to be developed, says a University of Guelph researcher.

From 1997 to 1999, Gordon Scheifele, based in Thunder Bay, conducted hemp field trials in five northern communities, from New Liskeard to Rainy River. Eight varieties of the fibre plant were evaluated for fertility, growth inhibitors, seeding rate, and planting and harvesting methods at five research stations across northern Ontario.

One of the two commercial fields was successfully harvested in Thunder Bay and marketed to Hemp Oil Canada. The results of their study are a big step forward for agriculture in the region, since hemp is a sustainable crop with value-added potential that could help expand and diversify agriculture in the area. Efforts are currently underway by the Thunder Bay Hemp Growers Association to obtain funding for a production, processing and market feasibility/business plan for Northwestern Ontario. BF
Carol Pilley M.Sc. is an agricultural communications student at the University of Guelph