Behind the Lines
Behind The Lines - June/July 2008
Grain-based ethanol turned from an environmental darling to a pariah in a far shorter time than it took grain producers to put together capital and build a processing plant. A plant that is scheduled to come into production shortly was a natural place for us to go to illustrate a story about the future of ethanol.
Visiting an ethanol plant that is under construction can be an interesting experience, as Better Farming’s photographer Rachel Lincoln found out at the Integrated Grain Processors Co-operative (IGPC) site in Aylmer recently.
Behind The Lines - May 2008
It doesn’t take too much flipping through back issues of this publication to realize that farming, in one way or another, goes from crisis to crisis.
The BSE crisis struck in 2003 and still plagues the beef industry. In 2004, American pork producers launched countervail against Canadian exports. Only two springs ago, grain and oilseed farmers were rallying tractors in Queen’s Park and Ottawa and taking countervail action against corn imports from the United States. Now high feed prices and a weak U.S. currency threaten to bring livestock farmers to their knees.
Behind the Lines - April 2008
A three-paragraph story in a local newspaper pointed senior staff editor Don Stoneman to this month’s tragic cover story. A young man farming north of Guelph in Mapleton Township had been very badly injured when struck by a large bale that fell off his loader.
That short story started a week-long search for answers to questions about farm safety here in Ontario. We found out that that many farmers do exactly what this young man was doing.
Behind the Lines - March 2008
The best business opportunities make use of resources that are already at your disposal. In this issue, staffer Mary Baxter writes about the opportunity presented to some former pig farmers in Middlesex County to use their manure facilities for storing liquid biosolids before they are spread on farm fields. However, Nick and Colleen Wiendels encountered stiff opposition to their proposal from within their community and other hurdles to leap. Their story starts on page 16.
Many in mainstream agriculture know little about the relatively new phenomenon of milking sheep to make exotic cheeses. Nor do they understand the potential of the market. Petra Cooper, a former book publisher and owner of an operation recently started in Prince Edward County, also heads up the Ontario Cheese Society. Cooper says some of these cheeses are the type that you eat after opening a $100 bottle of wine.
You’ll find Don Stoneman’s story on sheep milk production on page 36.
He explored where this fledgling industry is going and talked to farms and processors, too, who are aiming to replace some of the hundreds of millions of dollars in imported sheep cheese that discerning consumers are now buying.
For now, at least, sheep milk production and products fall between the cracks in provincial regulations. Is this a cheap way to get into dairying?
Perhaps, but Stew Cardiff, the largest sheep milk cheese processor in Ontario, has words of warning. It’s hard work to pry retailers and distributors from suppliers they are using to achieve a comfortable profit. Produce too much cheese and overwhelm the market, then everyone loses.
“Sadly,” says Cardiff, “this industry is littered with the corpses of farms and cheese plants with incorrect assumptions and over-idealistic business plans or simply ones that were overwhelmed by the daily challenges.”
Last month, Better Farming launched an improved website where we will be publishing important and time-sensitive news of interest to the farm community. You can access this website at www.betterfarming.com. Readers can go there to find some features, such as our annual soybean chart, which were formerly published in the magazine. At Better Farming, we feel that with high-speed access becoming more common in the province, the Internet has come of age in the farm community. It’s just another indication of how agriculture moves forward in Ontario. BF
Robert Irwin & Don Stoneman
Behind the Lines (February 2008)
The inspiration for this month’s cover story on food labelling came last year when a supermarket meat counter attendant directed Better Farming senior staff editor Don Stoneman’s attention towards a “special” just in time for the end of the barbecuing season. It was a steak labelled “Product of Canada” but bearing an inspection logo from the United States Department of Agriculture. Since Canada hasn’t quite been declared the 51st state yet, he started on an odyssey to find out what gives.
Behind The Lines (January 2008)
Times have rarely looked tougher for Canada’s pork and beef producers than projections indicate for 2008. Reportage on the status of these major livestock industries begins on page 14. High feed prices, fluctuating currency, more regulations on both raising livestock and processing – it is taking a toll.
Behind the Lines (December 2007)
It began with a request from a reader: “If this is a scam, I ask you to please help to expose it for what it is. And if it is not, please write an article about how to get into the pigeon business in the shortest possible time.”
This was by no means a typical Better Farming topic, but we knew that there were a lot of readers with empty buildings who might appreciate learning about a new income opportunity. On the other hand, if things didn’t look promising, there might be some lessons to learn.
