April 2003
Cattle industry programs focus on food safety and product quality
With $1 million in public funding, the Ontario Cattlemen's Association is launching an ambitious program to support sound and safe operating practices on the farmBy JENNIFER FLEMING
The Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food's Healthy Futures program has $1 million for a beef industry food safety program. The Ontario Cattlemen's Association (OCA) and Beef Improvement Ontario (BIO) must spend it by Dec. 31.The food safety program is voluntary and started nationally. The initial program, the Canadian Beef Industry Quality Assurances Product Safety Program, was instituted in January 1995 and focused both on food safety and product quality. Since then, the program has evolved into the Canadian Cattlemen's Quality Starts Here Verified Beef Production Program (QSH-VBP), focusing solely on food safety.
Paul Stiles, who co-ordinates QSH-VBP in Ontario with Dan Ferguson, says the program began in Alberta, where pilot workshops are being organized for feedlot operators. Ontario's mandate is to focus on the cow-calf sector.
The OCA will deliver the QSH-VBP education program to producers. The development and maintenance of the program database falls under the jurisdiction of BIO.
There's also a GIS feasibility study in the works.
Nigel Henriques, manager of operations and information services, says BIO's main role is to provide technology and technological services, and to retire tags from the national identification program.
Stiles and Ferguson organize province-wide QSH-VBP workshops that provide producers with information on how to reduce food safety risks on-farm, while simultaneously examining production efficiencies. "Most producers are already doing a good job on farm of managing food safety risks," says Stiles. "This program simply provides a national record-keeping through which they can provide assurance of their on-farm activities." The key word is 'document.'
"Saying you are doing it doesn't prove you are doing it. We need documentation," Stiles says. The program is based on a generic Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) model for beef production, on which Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) are based: animal health management procedures, cattle feeding, cattle receiving and shipping, pest control and yard maintenance, and biosecurity. The SOPs are the same from farm to farm. Good Production Practices (GPP), such as feed and medication storage, which are designed to minimize on-farm hazards, are farm specific, Stiles says. Some of them appear to be repetitive. Stiles says they are not. One set of protocols is aimed at the health of animals. The other set is aimed at the humans who will eat the meat produced from the animals.
Stiles admits that implementing this program will involve time and costs. However, he believes that, over the long term, market trends will ensure that this program will become normal business practice.
Canada's beef industry lives or dies on its exports and markets are sensitive to both animal health and human health issues. In 2001, Canada exported 6.7 million kilograms of beef, placing it third in the world for beef exports behind Australia and the United States. That's an impressive feat, considering Canada ranks 13th in the world for cattle inventory and 10th for beef supply.
While there is no place slotted in the QSH protocols for animal welfare documentation "it is probably not far off," says Stiles. The pressure is coming "from the top down."
American producers are now undergoing welfare audits to suit customers such as Burger King and McDonalds, Stiles says and retailers are concerned as well. Farmers here will feel this because it is making its way to packers such as Better Beef which also export to the United States. BF
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What's the outlook for Ontario's organic milk production?
With two million litres of Quebec milk coming into Ontario to supply Loblaws, some say the market is saturated. But Dairy Farmers of Ontario believes the market is growingby SUSAN MANN
Depending on whom you ask, there is either too much organic milk on the market, or not enough."The market is growing and matching supply and demand is a challenge," says Dairy Farmers of Ontario (DFO) in its 2002 annual report. What this means, says Peter Gould, DFO's director of marketing, production and regulatory compliance "is you can never match increases in supply with changes in demand."
But, says Lawrence Andres, one of the owners of Harmony Organic Dairy Products Inc. headquartered in Wellesley, there is currently too much organic milk produced in the province. That's because a deal was struck between Loblaws, DFO and the Quebec milk producers' federation for it to supply milk for the Loblaws President's Choice organic line.
Andres says Loblaws wanted to have assurance for two million litres and "Ontario could not provide that." Quebec produces roughly twice as much certified organic milk as Ontario. "Two million litres (coming into) in the Ontario market is basically displacing two million litres of Ontario-produced milk," Andres explains.
DFO has a short-term arrangement with the Federation des producteurs de lait du Quebec to supply up to two million litres during a one-year period that began in October, 2002, and runs until September, 2003. Gould declined to say how much organic milk from Quebec has been brought in so far.
The President's Choice organic milk line competes directly with OntarBio's Organic Meadow milk, which is available in mass-market stores, like Loblaws, and indirectly with Harmony, which mainly sells to health food stores across the Greater Toronto Area.
Andres estimates that there is a 90-95 per cent displacement rate because Organic Meadow milk was available in Loblaws before the supermarket chain introduced its President's Choice organic milk line. "President's Choice is not going to get so much new net consumption."
If the two million litres from Quebec weren't coming into Ontario, the supply/demand situation would be fairly balanced. "I personally feel there's no room for milk to come from Quebec," he adds.
There are approximately 40 organic milk suppliers in Ontario with an average herd size of 30 to 40 cows. In Quebec, some organic dairy farms have herds of 80 to 160 cows, though many herds are closer to the Ontario average. In Ontario, three organic milk organizations buy farmers' milk. Products marketed across Canada include fluid milk, cheese, yogurt and a small amount of ice cream.
The 250-acre Peeters farm, located between Lindsay and Peterborough, began shipping organic milk last August.
The Peeters didn't have to change many practices on their farm to become certified organic milk producers. They neither treated their registered Holstein cows with antibiotics nor put synthetic herbicides and pesticides on their land. "It came naturally for us to go organic," says Jeannie, who farms with her husband, Harry. She mainly does the fieldwork on their farm, where they grow mostly hay along with some oats, barley and shell corn.
Farming land without synthetic herbicides and pesticides for three consecutive years and not treating animals with antibiotics or synthetic hormones are just two of the basic requirements farms must follow to become certified as organic. Others include composting manure before spreading it on the land, maintaining accurate records of machinery usage and cleaning, maintaining a minimum 7.5-metre buffer strip between conventional and organic crops and using certified seed varieties that aren't genetically modified or treated to grow certified organic crops. For livestock producers, some of the requirements also include feeding a 100 per cent organic ration and animals must have access to the outside throughout the year.
"I totally threw the antibiotics away about seven years ago," says Harry, adding he thought vaccinating his cows was causing more trouble than it was solving. He believes in keeping his cows hearty and healthy with fresh air, fresh feed and straw bedding rather than treating them once they're sick. He cleans out the cows bedding every other day.
Now that the Peeters farm is certified as organic, they must do a lot more bookkeeping, such as keeping records of what they feed their cows and what supplements they use. Another change is that an independent certifying agency, the Organic Crop Producers & Processors, inspects their farm at least once a year to ensure they're following the regulations for producing organic products.
It's up to farmer to contact one of the certifying agencies to have their farms certified as organic. But the milk processor is responsible for ensuring that it is only buying certified organic milk and the farmer has to provide proof that the farm is certified.
Organic farmers like the Peeters get an additional 26 per cent of their DFO milk cheque from Guelph-based OntarBio Organic Farmers' Co-operative, the organic milk processor with which they deal. The premium allows them to operate with 25 to 30 cows, instead of 40, and still get the same return, Jeannie says.
Larry Lenhardt, chief executive officer of the Organic Crop Producers & Processors, believes there is room more organic milk producers in Ontario and that there's a market for the milk. "The milk market is not just fluid milk. It's cheese, butter, whey, milk replacer."
As part of an effort to identify ways to develop Ontario organic milk production, DFO and the organic milk organizations jointly applied to CanAdapt for funding to be used for extension and education. The application was for $150,000, with 50 per cent to be funded by CanAdapt and the remaining 50 per cent by DFO.
The money is being used to put on information meetings, develop printed materials and education sessions for farmers who are interested in converting to organic production or who are in the early stages of conversion. It's the organic milk organizations that are developing the materials and organizing the meetings.
CanAdapt is the principle program delivered by the Agricultural Adaptation Council (AAC) for innovative industry projects to assist Ontario's agriculture and agri-food sector adapt to a changing world marketplace. AAC gets a $28.6 million grant from Agriculture Canada to fund CanAdapt projects. BF
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Separating science from dishonesty on climate change
Canada, says this senior advisor on climate change, may need a dishonesty committee like Denmark's to check up on those who, wilfully or not, may be misleading Canadians about what is really happening to our climateby HENRY HENGEVELD
Genetically modified foods (GMOs). Cloning. AIDS. Lung cancer. Climate change. These issues seem like very independent topics, yet they also have much in common. All, for example, are complex issues that need input from many different types of experts. Each comes with major scientific uncertainties about exactly how it will impact us in the future, particularly in the long term. Yet each is also of immediate importance to society and therefore needs the attention of our policy makers. That also, of course, makes them favourite topics for the media.I don't know an awful lot about GMOs, bioengineering or human medicine. For these, I am just a very interested member of the public. However, after more than two decades spent in full-time assessment of the topic, I do claim to know something about the science behind climate change. And here's the dilemma, as I see it.
A century ago, a scientist was usually a generalist who dabbled in a broad range of disciplines -- physics, mathematics, philosophy, even theology. Most knew a little bit about everything, although not a whole lot about anything. Over the decades, as humans delved deeper and deeper into the mysteries of our universe, science (including medicine) became divided and sub-divided into a growing number of specialties. Individual scientists became experts within a relatively narrow field, knowing more and more about less and less.
Well schooled in the principles of the "scientific method" and logical deduction, they proposed theories and published experimental results, submitted them to the adversarial critique of other experts within their discipline and accepted with confidence only that which withstood the repeated tests of unsuccessful attempts to disprove them. That was "normal" science, and who really cared if the non-scientist couldn't understand them? Unfortunately, this adversarial, specialist approach to science, by itself, breaks down when the science becomes complex and involves many disciplines -- particularly when the issue is of sufficient importance that society begins to clamour for answers to some important questions.
In the case of the climate system, the science involves almost every field of physical, chemical and biological research under the sun, and it becomes a major challenge to stay abreast of the large volume of relevant information that accumulates with time. Making proper sense of all this becomes a bit like trying to put together a humungous jigsaw puzzle. If each scientific paper represents a piece of the puzzle, that means that, over the past few decades, the expert communities have already accumulated more than 20,000 puzzle pieces and are adding another 2000 or so new pieces each year.
However, since each specialist only fully understands the substance of those pieces he or she has personally studied, we can only hope to put the puzzle together by collaboration across all the fields of expertise involved and by carefully looking at all the available puzzle pieces. That is, we need to undertake repeated, comprehensive assessments on where the science is at -- both in terms of what we know (the pieces in our hands) and don't know (the missing pieces). Then, to answer society's questions, the collective community needs to describe their conclusions to non-scientists in relevant terms and in simple language. That is a value-added process that some are now calling "post-normal" science.
Since 1990, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has co-ordinated three such comprehensive assessments, each with the help of several thousand experts. For example, the latest assessment, released in 2001, was prepared by some 1,400 researchers from around the world, each identified on the basis of their publication of relevant research and therefore bringing his or her pieces of the puzzle to the table and to help put the accumulated puzzle pieces together. It was then reviewed for accuracy by more than 1000 other experts.
Following its release, President George Bush asked the U.S. National Academy of Sciences to do its own evaluation of climate change science and to comment on the accuracy of that provided by the IPCC. In its response, the Academy confirmed the key findings of the IPCC assessment and added that the IPCC report was an "admirable" summary of the science. About the same time, in a letter to the prestigious journal Science, academies of sciences from 17 countries (including the Royal Society of Canada) added their vote of confidence.
So why, if there is this apparent agreement amongst the experts, do we still read in the National Post, the Calgary Herald and other Canadian dailies about the protests of "thousands of scientists" who disagree? Why, in late November, did 27 "climate scientists" send an open letter to Prime Minister Chretien, urging him (unsuccessfully) not to ratify the Kyoto Accord because of the inadequate scientific basis for doing so? Why did they also write personal letters to MPs, warning them about the dangers of listening to "government scientists," and about the flawed IPCC conclusions? Why did a couple of American medical researchers begin a Petition Project some five years ago -- an internet campaign that has so far garnered more than 21,000 signatures from university graduates -- that urges the U.S. president and lawmakers (successfully) not to ratify Kyoto? It would seem that, in this numbers game, the skeptics win hands down.
Needless to say, the allegations by these contrarians make me more than a bit testy. Not that the IPCC reports -- and my own personal assessments -- are flawless and beyond criticism. Far from it. No, my frustration comes from the dishonesty involved. You see, when the level of expertise of most of these contrarians is carefully examined, one finds that very few have ever published a single piece of research on the issue they are critiquing. That's why they weren't involved in putting the puzzle together in the first place -- they have no "pieces" to contribute!
That's a bit like bringing several thousand productive farmers from across Canada together for intensive rounds of workshops to assess the current state of Canadian farming economy and lifestyle -- only to have ten times as many city dwellers who happen to have backyard gardens challenge their conclusions in an open letter to the media.
Let me hasten to add that not all of these contrarians are charlatans. I know a number of them personally, have exchanged cordial e-mails with them, have debated with them in front of public audiences and have talked to them over cups of coffee. I think at least some of them sincerely believe in what they are saying. However, most have a limited grasp of the complex science involved and select a few papers that support their position while, wittingly or unwittingly, ignoring the many research papers that don't.
Furthermore, few take their concerns to the science community. Rather, they publish them in journals like the Bulletin of Canadian Petroleum Geology and the Economist, put them on well-designed Web sites, or take them to journalists who feel duty bound -- in some cases thrilled -- to report their views to a befuddled public. That I find inherently dishonest. So do others.
In Denmark, they actually have a national Committee on Scientific Dishonesty (chaired by a high court judge and with members from many scientific disciplines) where one can take such concerns. Two years ago, Bjorn Lomborg, a statistician with the University of Aarhus, wrote a book called "The Skeptical Environmentalist," in which he argued that the world is just fine, thank you, and that, among other things, the climate change debate is nonsense. He became the darling of the anti-Kyoto crowd, and began to lecture on the theme all over the world.
However, several scientists lodged complaints with the Dishonesty committee about major inaccuracies and biases in his book. After a year of investigation and deliberation, the committee announced this January that Lomborg "clearly acted at variance with good scientific practice," although it acknowledged that this may have been out of ignorance. Point well made! Too bad we don't have a Canadian committee for scientific dishonesty!
So I would say to you that, if you still have doubts, please do some homework. You might begin with our just-published document on Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about the science, now available in hard copy, and on our web at http://www.msc.ec.gc.ca/saib/ BF
Henry Hengeveld is senior science advisor on climate change at Environment Canada.
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Understanding the five Ws of manure spills
As we enter manure-spreading season, it's worth-taking time to look at the causes and consequences of manure discharges into the environmentby MURRAY BLACKIE
In last month's issue, I underlined the need for an effective contingency plan to help reduce the likelihood of manure spills and increase the likelihood of an effective response which minimizes environmental damage. Although we hope the plan will never need to be implemented, spills do happen and we need to be prepared. To dissect the anatomy of a manure spills and be better prepared to diagnose problems, it helps to discuss the five Ws of manure spills - What, When, Where, Who and Why (or How).What is a manure spill? It is the loss or discharge of a significant amount of manure into the natural environment, usually into surface waters and over a short duration rather than as an ongoing discharge. The impact is most dramatic locally through damage to water quality, causing fish kill, but it can also cause long-term, more distant damage. Breakdown of the organic material reduces levels of dissolved oxygen necessary to sustain aquatic life. Manure may raise levels of toxic ammonia. Spills create nutrient enrichment with excessive plant growth and further reduction of oxygen levels. Manure also contains high levels of potential pathogens of concern to downstream water users. Between 1988 and 2001, the Spills Action Center (SAC) of the Ministry of the Environment (MOE) recorded 358 reported manure spills -- an average of approximately 25 per year.
When do manure spills occur? Although spills are reported around the calendar, the months with the largest numbers are April, August and November, the months which coincide with manure spreading. Most spills take place at the time of spreading.
Where do manure spills occur? Of the 358 spills reported in Ontario, 278 or 78 per cent took place in southwestern Ontario. It seems logical that the counties and watersheds with the largest livestock populations and manure productions should also have the greatest risk of mismanagement and mishap.
Who spills manure? Although many have identified swine operations as the most frequent spillers, it is more accurate to target liquid manure, not particular livestock types. Almost all spills are liquid, reinforcing the need for all liquid manure operations to anticipate and be prepared. Why or how do spills occur? Generally, manure spills are the result of some sort of mismanagement. They can result from over-application or poorly timed application, lack of incorporation, application to tile fields without pre-tilling, lack of monitoring, inadequately sized manure storage or numerous other spill scenarios. Of the total 278 spills in southwestern Ontario, approximately 37 per cent were linked to aerial spray irrigation and approximately 55 per cent entered watercourses via tile drainage.
Spills happen. Try to understand or diagnose why they might happen on your farm and be prepared. How do spills relate to your manure management or nutrient management strategies? Develop a monitoring strategy during and after spreading. Notify SAC of any manure spills.
The statistics cited in this column can be found in the recently updated brochure "Manure - Farming & Healthy Fish Habitat, Issue 3" published by the Livestock Manure Pollution Prevention Project and available from the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority.
In forthcoming issues, I will be focusing on controversial standards in the draft regulations under Bill 81 and other potential hot button, environmental topics. BF
Murray Blackie is a former agricultural specialist with the Ministry of the Environment and is now a consultant, expert witness and writer on agro-environmental issues.
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Slimmed-down OCA board gets more authority
The name remains the same, but the system of governance has changed drastically at the Ontario Cattlemen's Association. The question remains: will Jean Chrétien ever get his bike?by DON STONEMAN
With a new system of governance in place, seemingly whimsical resolutions will still be introduced from the floor at the annual general meeting of the Ontario Cattlemen's Association (OCA). However, a new streamlined board of directors is no longer bound to act upon them.In the last hour of the OCA convention in Toronto in February, Middlesex beef producers Roy Cunningham and Jim Scott introduced a resolution from the meeting floor. Summarized, it instructed the OCA to buy Prime Minister Jean Chrétien a bicycle to replace his official limousine -- a slam at the prime minister's recent promise that Canada will do its share to reduce global warming. The Kyoto Accord will be a worse debacle than the gun registry, said Cunningham, who further predicted that the "trillion" dollar cost "will come out of agriculture." The motion passed quickly and is in the organization's resolutions book.
Under the old rules of governance, the OCA board would have been bound to act on that resolution and, some time in the next few months, a bicycle would have arrived at the PM's residence on Sussex Drive. However, earlier at the February convention, the 45-year-old organization's constitution was changed. A new slimmed-down board (12 members instead of 49) will take the bicycle resolution (and others) under consideration. Perhaps the Prime Minister will be presented with the bicycle as a sign of grassroots farm discontentment, perhaps not. The new president, Ron Wooddisse of Palmerston, had no comment.
The OCA was arguably the last major farm commodity organization in the province where district and county delegates set policy at an annual meeting. Directors and staff were charged with following through on policy developed at those meetings. Many producers familiar with that political process will mourn its demise.
A new, smaller board of directors is structured as follows: three feedlot directors, three cow-calf directors, two members at large, one backgrounder, one eastern director, one southern director and a northern director. The position of past president has been eliminated. Officers will continue to be elected for one-year terms. The board will deal with resolutions from the annual general meeting and the number of delegates at the annual convention will remain at 200. An advisory council of 49 will meet twice yearly.
King City consultant George Alkalay, who led the OCA through this reorganization, explains that the old procedures of governance didn't deal well with complex issues, such as Bill 81, (the Nutrient Management Act) and Country-of-Origin-Labelling. He acknowledges that not all cattlemen will be pleased with the changes.
"Government by referendum is attractive on some levels from a democratic perspective," Alkalay told Better Farming. "It presupposes an electorate that is so highly informed that they can directly make those decisions." However, an executive can be well briefed by staff and outsiders and still have its opinions overruled by a large body of delegates that is operating with information it got from news reports. In such a case, the best decisions may not be made, Alkalay asserts.
"One of the principles of any organization is that you elect a board which is supposed to make decisions for the organization. On an annual basis, you either re-elect those directors or say they haven't done a good job and get new ones. In between, you try to let them govern the organization and you certainly provide input through resolutions at the AGM."
However, while the board will set policy and strategic direction, notes Alkalay, "you damn well better listen to what the members are telling you. If you don't you will face them at the next election."
With the new structure, the Ontario Cattle Feeders Association will appoint three directors to the OCA board for the next three years. After that, feedlot directors will be elected by the OCA meeting delegates. This change offers some hope that a feud between the OCA and the five-year-old Ontario Cattle Feeders Association will end. A year and a half ago this feud was in full swing, with the cattle feeders demanding the OCA give them part of their checkoff money to run programs specifically aimed at their sector of the industry. (The checkoff is expected to provide about $2.68 million to the OCA this year.
Last year, an attempt at an OCA reorganization failed. That failure and the ongoing feud led the OCA to ask the province to perform a review of its mandate and operations. For now, at least, that fire appears to be put out.
Some elements of a similar dispute with the Ontario Livestock Dealers Association have been settled. Dealers who own cattle for fewer than seven days will be exempted from paying checkoff on these cattle to the OCA. The checkoff provides income for the organization -- about $2.68 million this year. Mike McMorris, the OCA's executive director, says dealers submit eight to nine per cent of checkoff but not all of it may be refunded because it falls outside the seven-day exemption rule. There are other issues to be sorted out as well. "The bottom line is that we are not anticipating a big impact on income, but there definitely will be an impact," McMorris said.
Among all the other changes, delegates to the convention overwhelmingly voted to retain the Ontario Cattlemen's Association name, rather than change it to Beef Farmers of Ontario.
So, as well as the name, resolutions from the floor will also stay the same. Some things don't change in beef industry politics. BF
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Horticulture the high-wire way
Ken Enns of Leamington believes that this is the way of the future for growing tomatoes and cucumbers and he recently journeyed to Finland to check his assumptionsby SUSAN MANN
When Ken Enns started out in the greenhouse cucumber and tomato business 40 years ago, he had to dig up the soil by hand, using forks so it could be sterilized. Plants were grown on ground level.Then Enns Plant Farm, located just north of Leamington, switched to growing its plants in rock wool. About a year ago Ken and his son, Steve, adopted the high-wire production system, which doesn't use any soil and the plants are grown in what looks like an upside-down eaves trough.
The plants are grown in fibreglass mats. The 20 fertilizer elements they need are added through the water. The water is then caught at the far end, filtered, sterilized and reused. "Instead of losing the water and the nutrients in the soil, we can use it over again," Ken says.
"The plant is growing on top of that upside-down eaves trough," he says. "That allows us to lower the fruited portion of the plant down below and it gives us two layers of growing area. We're really excited about it." In their 12 acres of greenhouses, the Enns grow tomato seedlings for Heinz that will be transplanted into fields in the spring. But tomatoes and cucumbers are their biggest focus, with more than 60 per cent of their production going to the United States.
The practice of growing plants on top of inverted eaves troughs has been in use in the Leamington area for three to four years and also in countries like Holland and Finland, says Ken. Along with Shalin Kosla, a greenhouse vegetable specialist with the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food, and three other growers, he went to Finland in November to see the production practices used in that country's greenhouse cucumber industry.
The high-wire production system involves growing plants on raised troughs about two feet off the ground. The plant grows 12 feet long (3.6 metres) and is then lowered. Ken says their fall tomato crop finished about the third week of January. "We lower it down so that the top of the plant is at the same level as the roots," he says.
As the tomato plant is lowered, enough light is left for the cucumber plants, which were just planted during the second week of January alongside the roots of the tomato crop.
The tomato plants are lowered so the fruit is hanging down below and the cucumbers are growing up above. "The concept is changing from growing in a greenhouse for 12 months of the year to harvesting in a greenhouse for 12 months of the year," Ken says. "We will harvest the last tomatoes and immediately be harvesting the first cucumbers."
Enns believes this type of production system has tremendous potential. One of the major benefits is the ability to grow the crops on two tiers. "Normally we would spend one to two weeks cleaning the old vines out and getting the greenhouse ready to plant again. Here, the next crop is growing at the same time as the old crop is finishing up so there's no downtime in between."
Another innovation Ken says his group saw in Finland was the use of artificial lights to grow cucumbers. In Canada, it's mainly flower growers and farmers who raise transplants that use lighting in greenhouses. In Finland, which is on the same latitude as Greenland and Iceland, growers have perfected artificial lighting because their days are very short. In November, when the Canadians visited, the sun would emerge over the horizon about 8 a.m. and set by 3 p.m., Khosla says.
They saw one operation in Finland that was using overhead, high-pressure sodium lights in its greenhouses for 18 hours a day. Ken describes it as fairly high-intensity light.
"We want to adapt that to the system we have here," Ken says. "It will be doubly beneficial because we will be growing two crops at one time so you get double the benefit from the lighting."
The lights will offset the shade being thrown by the cucumber plants on to the tomatoes, which are down below.
The Enns hope to introduce this change into their operation by next winter. But, he notes, "we're finding it to be far more complicated than what we thought. It takes such a large amount of electricity that we may have to incorporate a system to generate our own electricity."
For that, they will bring in a large generator that uses natural gas. The heat from the generator will be put into a storage tank to be used to heat the greenhouse at night.
Research into the high-wire production system is continuing at the Greenhouse and Processing Crops Research Centre in Harrow. Though the trip to Finland confirmed that the work researchers are doing here is on the right track, Khosla doesn't believe the greenhouse industry here will go totally the way of the Finish industry. Instead, growers here will adapt bits of pieces from their system.
For example, switching to the high-wire cucumber production system requires a complete change in mindset. Moreover, Canadian growers face tremendous competition from imports. "Going to that type of production system is costly," he says. "So the economic factor has to be dealt with."
Enns thinks high-wire cucumber production is the way of the future. "I think soon everybody will have to do it that way. We're faced with extremely high fuel costs. This winter, oil and gas prices have been rising steadily and we're going to have to look at different methods of efficiency to try and beat that fuel cost."
In their operation, fuel accounts for one-third of their gross income and it's their biggest expense. BF
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