Dr. Claudia Wagner-Riddle of the School of Environmental Science was the presenter at the latest webinar in the Horizon series developed by the Livestock Research Innovation Corporation (LRIC). 

She and Dr. Susantha Jayasundara were also contributing editors to a white paper entitled “Livestock and Greenhouse Gases” written by LRIC CEO Mike McMorris and Chloe Neudorf. 

1. Why it matters: Livestock are vilified for the carbon they contribute to the atmosphere, but research shows that livestock efficiency has improved greatly.

Globally, Wagner-Riddle said the social costs of climate change from floods, droughts, earthquakes, storms and other natural disasters amounted to $2.91 trillion between 1998 and 2017 – two and a half more times the costs incurred between 1978 and 1997. 

In Canada, Wagner-Riddle said livestock accounts for only 10 per cent of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions and eight per cent of Ontario’s, but “agriculture owns 100 per cent of that piece of the picture.” 

The other categories are oil and gas, transportation, buildings, electricity, heavy industry and waste.

About half of agricultural emissions are attributed to the livestock sector and a third to crop production. In livestock, the sources are the animals themselves (mostly beef and dairy cattle), manure storage, soils after fertilizing, and energy, including fossil fuels.

Wagner-Riddle explained that a carbon footprint is another way of expressing greenhouse gas emission metrics, but it takes into account emissions generated during the entire supply chain.

She showed the carbon footprint of milk, and the on-farm piece of it, including milk and feed production, accounts for 70 per cent of the total. The other 30 per cent comes from processing, packaging, transportation/distribution, retail and consumers. 

Wagner-Riddle’s lab conducted two studies regarding dairy’s carbon footprint. The first used Statistics Canada data over time.

“From 1991 to 2011, the carbon footprint (of dairy) was reduced and that has to do with efficiency of production,” she said. The 22 per cent reduction was the result of a number of metrics, including fewer cows and less manure plus increased feed and land-use efficiency.

While there’s a public misconception that methane contributed from cows comes from their rear end, 95 per cent of it actually comes from burps. Cows have a higher carbon footprint than chickens and pigs because they are ruminants. 

“Remember, cows convert the food we can’t eat into good nutritious food we can eat, plus methane as a side product,” she said. 

In a second analysis involving 200 farms that were surveyed over three years, 25 per cent of the farms with the highest profits had the lowest carbon footprint and the lowest profit makers had the highest footprint. 

She then moved into what the industry is doing to reduce its carbon footprint.

“Things have improved over the past 20 years, and we’re looking to improve even more,” she said. 

Carbon sequestration was up next, and Wagner-Riddle pointed out that many big companies like Microsoft are looking to agriculture to make up their carbon offsets to reach their goals of being carbon neutral or negative.

She presented an estimate that showed how, if perennial crops in pastures are maintained at their current levels and not allowed to be converted to annual crops, 62 per cent of the carbon emissions produced by the Canadian beef sector could be offset. 

Wagner-Riddle countered arguments that annual crops are good carbon sinks by pointing out that above ground biomass like a corn crop would store only about 10 tonnes of carbon per hectare. Half of that goes to food or feed, so it doesn’t count, and the half that stays on the ground only stores carbon for a year or so. 

“What we want to do is avoid the loss of carbon or gain carbon over time, and that’s a slow process,” she said.

The ways carbon can be gained are tied to regenerative agriculture principles: having pastures and grazing animals; diversifying crops and using cover crops; and increasing crop yields and returning residues to the soil. 

Carbon loss reductions can be achieved by avoiding overgrazing, minimizing residue removal, using less tillage, reducing soil erosion and minimizing fallowing. 

The post Why profitable farms can produce less carbon appeared first on Farmtario.

Why it matters: Bacteriophages could be an antidote to antimicrobial resistance, which is undercutting options for antibiotics at a time when global demand for meat is rising.

“Phages are considered green, an environmentally friendly biocontrol approach that can be used to mitigate the risk of various bacterial pathogens,” says research scientist Hany Anany.

Anany has worked on bacteriophages (phages) for Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada since 2006.

Anany says that lytic phages are bacterial viruses that can only infect and multiply within their specific hosts, causing the bacterium to lyse (or disintegrate).

They have been studied extensively and, while most current applications are in the food processing sector, they have proven effective in controlling bacterial growth in food-producing animals.

Phages are used to control Salmonella, E. coli, Campylobacter, Clostridium and Listeria.

Phages were originally proven effective against bacterial infections in 1919 by Felix D’Herelle, a French-Canadian microbiologist.

In fact, Anany says that D’Herelle’s first tests were with chickens to treat fowl typhoid.

With the discovery of antibiotics in 1934, this work was abandoned in western countries. Research into and the use of bacteriophages in human medicine continued in Eastern Europe and in Russia as a complement to antibiotics. Now, with concerns around antimicrobial resistance, phage therapy has regained currency.

“Phages are the most ubiquitous organisms on Earth and are also very common in foods,” Anany says. They also live inside humans and animals.

Their advantages are many, including the fact they target only specific bacteria, so no good bacteria are destroyed. They’re not toxic, can infect bacteria that are resistant to antimicrobials, don’t affect the taste, smell or appearance of foods and don’t alter the organic, halal or kosher designation of foods. They also usually don’t require repeat dosing.

So why haven’t they caught on in the livestock industry, where bacterial disease is the bane of farmers and their animals, and antimicrobial resistance is a danger? It’s partially because they are so specifically focused on destroying targeted pathogens.

“We don’t have a single phage to cover all E. coli serovars or Salmonella serovars,” Anany says, adding that using a cocktail of phages could be one answer, but it would be easier to tackle a less diverse strain such as Staphylococcus aureus.

They are also fussy about temperature, needing to be kept between 2 C and 8 C and can be rendered ineffective by disinfectants and sanitizers. There’s also the difficulty of obtaining wide consumer acceptance — phages are actually viruses and they’re added to food.

Anany cites a dearth of research in terms of veterinary use, pointing out that more needs to be done to validate phage treatment for animal bacterial diseases.

The effectiveness of phage treatment also varies according to the location and complexity of the infection — for example on skin, in the gastrointestinal tract, or in blood. He also says the regulatory barriers are very high for getting livestock treatments.

It’s also an expensive alternative, although Anany says that barrier will come down as more companies get involved in production.

“The human therapy area is more attractive to big pharma, especially with the recent successes of phage therapy in the U.S. and U.K.,” he says.

Phages are commercially available. Intralytix, a company in Baltimore, Maryland, makes and sells three products that target Listeria, Salmonella and E. coli in processed food. Micreos, a company based in The Netherlands, has similar products.

All these products are approved for use by the United States Department of Agriculture.

Health Canada actually has an entire list of antimicrobial food processing aids for use on red meats and poultry, including bacteriophages, for which it has “expressed no objection”.

In terms of livestock applications, Anany says he knows that Passport Food Safety Solutions, based in Des Moines, Iowa, makes a product called Finalyse, which is used as a pre-harvest wash on cattle hides to prevent E. coli. Intralytix also produces phage products that are effective on Salmonella and Clostridium in poultry.

Anany says more funded research is needed, particularly in large animal trials, and the government needs to support the industry in adopting more green antimicrobial approaches.

“It would be ideal if an integrated production system adopted phages throughout the chain,” he says. “For example, phages could be added to the feed and water for poultry on the farm, then sprayed on them before slaughter, then used during carcass processing and packaging – all the way from farm to retail.”

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“The value is not in computers making decisions for us, but in us making more informed decisions,” he says.

Why it matters: Using technology and collecting data can really help producers’ bottom lines, but only if they plan it out and understand their own situations.

DeVisser was part of a three-person panel that focused on getting profits out of data at Grey-Bruce Farmers Week Crops Day in early January. Mark Brock of Shepherd Creek Farm and Brandon Dietrich of Sprucedale Agromart were the other two. Deb Campbell, owner of Agronomy Advantage Inc., moderated the panel.

All three have discovered significant advantages in using precision equipment and techniques by increasing soil health and yields, protecting the environment, and saving time and money.

DeVisser farms with his parents, who started their turkey operation in the 1990s. In 2005, they started cash cropping and now have 800 to 900 acres rotating corn, soybeans and wheat and planting hay, oats and canola some of the time.

“With a relatively small land base, we have to be careful about costs,” he says, which is why they calculate the payback on any equipment they obtain.

Among their purchases over the years were a light bar guidance GPS, a used handheld GPS mapper, autosteer for their sprayer and autosteer and a yield monitoring system on the tractor.

A 2014 upgrade to a higher-accuracy GPS signal for the planter tractor meant they saved two tillage passes by no-till planting soybeans between standing corn stalks.

“You can maintain yield, and at $15 an acre over 200 acres, that’s a savings of $6,000 — pretty good payback,” he says.

An upgraded planter with hydraulic drive and a rate controller along with the GPS in 2015 meant they could embark on variable-rate seeding. While things didn’t work out as planned for the corn because of a technical glitch, variable rate seeding for the soybean crop was a success.

“We proved the concept using yield maps and our knowledge of soil characteristics to save expenses,” he says. The next steps will be to get more data about the soil using electromagnetic or gamma ray sensors to refine his seeding.

For DeVisser, there are three main takeaways: first, deciding what data to use, given the many sources available, including yield maps, satellite imagery, soil samples and so on. He also points out that the “one between your ears” is the most important to make it all work.

Second, the quality of the data is key, which is why it’s important to make sure that what the machines are saying is accurate.

Finally, keeping a close eye on equipment costs is essential, and he suggests that machinery sharing or hiring someone else might make more sense for smaller farms.

He’s also a big fan of drone imagery, which can pinpoint weed issues, insect problems, winterkill, nutrient deficiencies and wildlife damage.

Data as decision-making power

Mark Brock farms 1,700 acres in Huron County with his wife Sandi, who also has a 450-head sheep operation that produces 700 to 850 lambs per year.

He’s been farming since 1997, and in 1999 installed his first yield monitor, but it took until 2012 to obtain and use data in a way that really helped. He has RTK (real-time kinematic) guidance on everything — sprayer, tractor, combine and, while expensive, he says it’s worth it.

He uses automatic section control (which turns implements on and off at predefined locations) on all his planting and application equipment. This not only saves product but is more environmentally friendly. He also customized his planter with precision upgrades, and he has a tile plow and a drone.

His information tools include Fieldview, Farmers Edge and Agrimatics along with satellite imagery for production purposes and Harvest Profit for marketing his crops. He uses Ag Leader’s SMS advanced software for yield maps, soil data maps, to create his own prescription and as-applied maps (every time a field is planted, sprayed, fertilized or strip-tilled, data is recorded). He also has a tile plow and has software that shows him the topography of his land for better water management.

He, too, has spent some time over the last few years ground-truthing satellite images against yield maps.

“I found that they are really accurate,” he says, adding he likes using the images because they record in real time.

While yield maps are useful, translating them to three-dimensional topography maps really tells the story about what’s going on with the land. It also helps with developing management zones, soil sampling and tile layouts.

With Fieldview software, he can do side-by-side comparisons of how different varieties perform in different areas of the field.

“It’s as simple as sitting on the couch with an iPad, doing some squiggly lines with your finger and you can really get some cool information,” he says.

He, too, is a big promoter of drones.

“I used some of the imagery to get the drainage contractor to come back and fix a few places where we had blowouts,” he says. They also provide data in real time, allowing him to make adjustments in production practices through the year.

His advice to other producers is to know your cost of production, risk only what you can afford to lose (he takes about four per cent of his acres to experiment with different techniques and products), work with people you trust (especially with hardware and agronomics) and work with other farmers to achieve better results.

“You have to create a team that’s on the same page so the hardware and agronomy sides are matched up to achieve your goal on your farm,” Brock says.

Agronomic backing is key

Precision agriculture without good agronomy is poor agronomy applied precisely. That’s something Brandon Dietrich believes.

“It’s great to have all these tools and technologies, but you need to have sound agronomics to back them up,” he says.

As an agronomy adviser at Sprucedale Agromart in Hanover, Dietrich mostly uses soil testing, yield maps and aerial imagery, including drones and satellite, with his farm clients.

“Having soil data from the last three to five years is very important to fertility decisions, otherwise we have no idea whether we’re under applying or over applying,” he says.

Yield maps are invaluable, especially for pinpointing areas of the field that are underperforming, and he finds getting a high-quality aerial shot of the crop at its peak vegetative growth (June for wheat and August for corn and beans) correlates quite closely to the final yield data.

In making prescriptions for potassium and phosphorus, he uses soil test data to determine whether the field is in a build or maintain situation.

If levels are low, he recommends a solid rate for a few years and once it’s at optimal fertility, he’ll develop a variable rate script from the yield maps.

Dietrich has also had good success with variable-rate soybean seeding by increasing seeding in lower production zones getting more plants per acre and decreasing seeding in higher production zones which means good yields with lower seed costs and less likelihood of white mould.

“Overall, the amount of seed planted through the whole field may be about the same, but distributing them differently gets you a better return,” he says.

Applying nitrogen at a variable rate is trickier because of the weather. While some producers prefer using Greenseeker, a sensor that assesses the variability of the crop and provides fertility recommendations, Dietrich has found that using management zones to determine where the nitrogen can be put to best use works well, too.

While all the technology is very useful, the producer is sometimes the best management resource.

“The farmer’s knowledge of the field can be the most valuable,” he says, using the example of a yield map with a 10-acre red zone that the farmer knows is poorly drained and will be tiling next year.

The post Turning precision ag data into profits appeared first on Farmtario.

Why it matters: Integrating animals into cropping systems creates a more complete nutrient cycle.

Adam Shea, who farms in eastern Ontario, has a multi-generational cow-calf operation and about 100 ewes. When he couldn’t convince his father that grazing the cattle on cover crops after winter wheat was a good idea, he approached a neighbouring farmer to work out a deal.

“He wanted instant gratification. He liked the idea of cover crops, but he didn’t want to wait several years for a payback,” Shea said. So for the past three years, Shea and his wife, Marie, have paid for the seed and fertilizer, cared for the portable fencing, made sure there was water for the animals and carried liability insurance. The neighbour has a no-till drill, so he seeds the cover crop, which currently consists of oats, barley, purple top turnips, daikon radish, hybrid brassica and crimson clover.

“Every year keeps getting better,” Shea said. Marie moves the perimeter fence for the cattle to graze in a new spot every other day.

In 2017 and 2018, they grazed about 20 cow-calf pairs. In 2019, they had 41 cows spend 50 days grazing 45 acres all in one field.

In terms of feed cost savings, Shea figures he saved $100 a day or $5,000 based on the cost of hay.

He doesn’t supplement with any other type of feed — the cows only graze on the cover crop. His total costs, including labour, trucking, fencing, nitrogen and seed amounted to about $70 an acre.

“If I can break even between stored feed costs and grazing, I’m happy,” he said.

While he’s experimented with a number of different species of cover crops, including Italian rye grass, forage kale and sunflowers, he finds his current mix is better.

“I really like the grass and brassica mix,” he said.

Shea warned that his system works better with cows, and he won’t be grazing calves any more. The little ones tend to get under the fences and between trying to get them vaccinated and rounded up for market, it was too time-consuming to get them off pasture.

He advised that anyone looking to graze on cover crops should know the site, plan how water is going to get to the pasture, make sure the cows are electric fence trained, and figure out ahead of time how the cattle will be corralled.

Ken Mitchell and his wife use cover crops whenever they can on their farm near Georgian Bay northeast of Owen Sound.

Two or three years ago, Mitchell had trucks go into a field to take some bush out and couldn’t believe the number of earthworms that had been exposed by tire tracks.

“A lot of water runs down through our farm,” he said.

“I thought cattle were my best livestock, but I’m convinced the earthworms do just as much,” he said.

In the beginning, he sowed oats after wheat and strip-grazed the field later in the fall. The first year, the oats were already out in head, so the cattle only ate about half of them, trampled the rest and fertilized the field with their manure.

Mitchell also uses biosolids from Owen Sound to fertilize his fields.

This year, he put the cattle in earlier, when the oats were just 10 inches high, and they seemed a lot happier.

Dr. Peter Kotzeff has 2,000 acres near Chesley in Bruce County. About half of it is in cash crops, a quarter in cattle grazing and a quarter in woodland and wetland. He has about eight kilometres of river running through the property.

“My main goal in my whole operation is to integrate cattle grazing, minimal tillage, cover crops and sensible crop rotations to improve soil health and water quality,” he said. “It’s quite challenging and quite interesting.”

He has 225 cows and bred heifers and 160 retained calves. In 2019, his late season grazing consisted of stockpiled forage, grazing corn, red clover, volunteer wheat cover crop, wheat pea and turnip cover crop and corn stalks.

“One of the main reasons I grow cover crops is to rest my pasture fields,” he said.

This year, he tried grazing his cattle in standing corn, and found it worked quite well, given that he got 700 grazing days at 10 pounds of grain per cow per day. He figures it was worth about $1,400, “and all I had to do was put up a fence.” The majority of his grazing is in corn stalks. As of the beginning of January 2020, the cattle were still out on the land.

Kotzeff has also tried a turnip, pea and winter wheat mix and said it’s very cost effective if you keep back some of the harvested winter wheat and use it as a base for the next cover crop.

He’s also aerial seeded rye into corn at about the V6 stage and grazed his cattle on the corn/rye mix.

Kotzeff is a big believer in letting the cattle graze through snow, provided it doesn’t freeze up or get too crusty. He also bale grazes later in the season.

All three cattle producers like oats as a cover crop.

“You could grow oats on this floor, and they pose no risks to cattle,” Shea said, adding that he usually puts 30 to 50 pounds into his mix.

Mitchell used to put 70 pounds of oats on, but has cut back to 50, and doesn’t need any fertilizer other than the biosolids he gets from Owen Sound.

All three say they have good, productive cattle.

Shea pointed out that the health of his animals was exceptional coming off cover crop grazing. He added that a further advantage is that the cattle consume a lot less water because the crops are so lush.

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Why it matters: High demand for Ontario beef means slaughter capacity must increase or market opportunities will be lost.

“Ryding-Regency represented around 10 per cent of the federally inspected kill in Ontario or about 1,500 head a week,” BFO vice-president Rob Lipsett said at the Beef Day of the Grey-Bruce Farmer’s Week in Elmwood.

Lipsett said that the oversupply in the system is due mainly to tremendous growth in the cattle feeding industry and more cull cows from dairy. Even though the herd numbers have remained steady over the past five years at about 280,000, forecasts for slaughter are up by about 13.5 per cent for 2019.

Until recently, some of the oversupply could go to northeastern U.S. states, but those plants are also at capacity. The timing of the cattle markets creates bottlenecks at certain times of the year, as well.

“We’ve worked closely with the CCA (Canadian Cattlemen’s Association), federal and provincial governments trying to get to what the problem is and how to resolve it,” he said, adding that it’s an Eastern Canada problem that’s starting to be felt across the country.

With demand for beef staying strong globally, he said, there’s an opportunity to capitalize, but only if the processing capacity is there to supply it.

Besides lobbying and setting up a letter-writing campaign, over the short-term, BFO is asking the government to fast-track a labour pilot project aimed at getting more workers into processing plants under the temporary foreign workers program.

It has suggested extending slaughter days into the weekends and asked the government for transportation assistance to help producers get their cattle to Alberta plants that currently have a bit more capacity.

The BFO is also debating whether to ask for a direct payment program that would compensate producers who are having to take price discounts because their cattle are arriving at market as heavies and overweights.

Over the medium term — six months to two years — they’re pushing for double shifts at processing facilities and going back to evening and weekend shifts.

They’re also lobbying to speed up the process of getting Canada’s BSE status upgraded to negligible from controlled risk under the United Nation’s OIE rules. Under the current rules, a country has to be BSE-free for 11 years from the birth date of the last infected cow. The current plan is to have Canada’s status upgraded in March 2021.

Demand for the more stringent status from South Korea has meant that U.S. plants must segregate out Canadian cattle – something they’ve been loath to do. It’s meant cutting off yet another slaughter outlet and the BFO and CCA have been working with both countries on resolving the issue.

“We’re looking to establish a fund to help provincial inspected plants to become federally inspected plants and we’re also looking at harmonizing our provincial inspection regime with that of Quebec’s, so that could be another outlet,” Lipsett said.

Over the longer term, they’re looking to the government for help in building new or adding on to existing plants and getting a new federal packing plant up and running in Eastern Canada.

A conference participant suggested a producer co-operative approach to developing a kill and chill plant. Lipsett said that they’ve been looking at talking to the owners of Conestoga Packers to potentially model a beef facility on the successful pork processing co-operative.

The BFO has been working on marketing, financed by the $1.50 increase in checkoff fees that was approved at the organization’s last annual meeting.

“We’ve re-branded our Ontario beef program and launched a new website,” Lipsett said, adding that the new logo was developed after focus groups were conducted with consumers.

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Archer and her husband, Pete, have a 1,500 cash crop farm and own three grain elevators in eastern Ontario. She presented 10 tips for grain marketing at the recent Grey-Bruce Farmer’s Week Crops Day.

Why it matters: Planning ahead means producers can make a better profit from their crops.

No. 1: Don’t worry about what you can’t control

No one can control the weather, so worrying about it is a wasted effort, but farmers can make sure the equipment is ready for when it clears up, says Archer.

No. 2: Have a plan

While farmers can’t control the politics that drives prices, they can have a merchandising plan. Even having a plan doesn’t guarantee a profit, so Archer advised that producers be prepared to sell any time the markets are up.

“You just can’t use the strategies your parents and grandparents used — yields per acre are way higher and we’re farming more acres,” Archer said.

There’s also a lot more volatility in prices, which is good for both buyers and sellers, she said.

No. 3: Have good numbers

“Know your numbers,” she said pointing to the third habit. “You want to standardize your numbers to per acre because you don’t want to think about price, but about profit.”

She outlined five steps she uses with her customers:

• Estimate how much production you want to sell.
• Figure out the production cost per acre including land preparation, fertilizer, seed, spray application, rent (or a rent equivalent if land is owned), planting, harvesting, trucking, drying and crop insurance.
• Set a profit goal per acre, or how much money they want to make.
• Calculate a target price, which is the cost per acre added to the profit goal per acre divided by the yield per acre.
• Assess the goal and take action, being careful to make sure it is achievable and that not too much profit is being left on the table.

“You need to assess whether there are costs that you could be cutting or you need to grow more,” Archer said. “You need to grow as much as you can as economically as you can.”

She also said producers need to compare the price they calculate with what’s being offered in the marketplace.

No. 4: Use orders

The fourth habit she recommends is to use target orders, also called sell orders and standing orders, which are the threshold price at which producers want to sell. Once the market prices hit that mark, the elevator will sell the grain.

She suggested using this method because it’s free, strategic and flexible.

Archer emphasized the importance of setting the target order early, before planting, because it gives more time for the target to be reached.

No. 5: Make incremental sales

Producers can sell their crop in 50 or 100 tonne parcels in four or five sales per year. The advantage is that if producers sell one parcel and the price goes up, there’s more to sell. Once there’s nothing left to sell, they can start selling next year’s crop.

No. 6: Forward contracting

“About 70 per cent of the time your best pricing opportunities come prior to harvest,” she said, adding that many producers are afraid of forward contracting because they may not be able to fulfill the contract or the price will go higher than indicated in the contract.

In a five-year comparison between customers who forward contracted and those who sold at harvest, Archer said that the forward contractors made 46 cents more a bushel for corn, 90 cents a bushel more for soybeans and 58 cents a bushel more for wheat.

“There’s a huge difference in what you can make,” she said, adding that she crunched the numbers for her customers and arrived at a $202,000 advantage for forward contractors over 10 years, using a five per cent return.

“If you farm over 50 years, that’s a million bucks — you just won the lottery by making a few simple changes in your marketing strategy,” Archer said.

No. 7: Managing seasonal tendencies

There are certain times of the year when the markets will behave in a predictable way, and Archer has an ‘always, never’ list that she uses with her customers to take advantage of the best times of year for selling:

• Always have cost-of-production-based targets for corn and beans
• Always look at selling wheat one to two years out
• Never put corn or wheat in commercial storage
• Never wait past July 4 to forward sell or finish old crop (drop-off after spring rally)
• Never sell corn or beans in late September or early October
• Always look for the 75 cent ‘dead cat bounce’ three weeks after the harvest low price. In 2019, it was on Sept. 20, and for the next three weeks, prices recovered by 75 cents a bushel.

No. 8: Take out production insurance

Production insurance can be used both in reactionary way when crops fail, and in a proactive way to mitigate revenue risk.

“If a crop guarantee for insurance purposes is at 30 bushels of soybeans an acre, you can forward contract for 30 bushels an acre when you know there are good prices available to you,” she said.

No. 9: Know the buyer

Not all buyers are the same and there’s more to the relationship besides price, including hours of operation, how they deal with contract shortages, how they deal with quality issues, such as last year’s problems with DON, and their trucking services.

No. 10: Be reasonable

Archer said that producers need to be realistic about what they can achieve. She advised that it’s a smart move to hire someone else if producers can’t do everything themselves, especially if it means planting or harvesting can’t be done in a timely or proper way.

“Intentions are not profitable, actions are,” she said.

The post 10 good habits for marketing crops appeared first on Farmtario.

The new rules were introduced Feb. 20 and are scheduled to take effect in February 2020.

Why it matters: Cattle producers and truckers will have to adhere to new transportation regulations that may be premature, affecting animals and producers’ bottom lines.

The main issue is that the number of consecutive hours cattle can be transported without rest, feed and water will drop to 36 from the current 48 and the rest period will increase to eight hours from five.

“We’re disappointed the government didn’t recognize that it has partnered with industry on ongoing research that’s evaluating the stress of unloading and reloading cattle at a rest stop compared to finishing the journey,” said Brady Stadnicki, policy analyst for the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association (CCA).

While there is research indicating that cattle do experience stress during long haul trips, the current study, scheduled to be completed in 2021, is looking into how the cattle’s health is affected by having to make rest stops, as well as their optimal duration.

“We’re not sure if that’s prolonging the stress or if it’s adding benefit,” Stadnicki said. “We wanted to have the regulations introduced after the research is complete to inform cattle outcomes and best practices.”

The research is financed by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC), while the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) (an arm of Health Canada) is responsible for the regulations.

“We’re aware of the study,” said Dr. Jaspinder Komal, Canada’s chief veterinary officer, adding that the results will be reviewed and considered in future revisions of the regulations.

“We’ve looked at all the research and there are 400 articles posted on the open government database.”

He said the CFIA also had to take into account international standards, and the practices currently used in Canada, but the central focus was the health and welfare of the animals, along with the geographic realities of this nation.

The regulations were last updated in 1977, and there have been extensive consultations with industry groups, animal welfare organizations and others around the new ones. Dr. Komal said the new regulations balance out the different interests.

Both Stadnicki and Dr. Komal agree that the industry, by and large, has a good reputation for transporting cattle.

Where they parted ways was in how much the industry is already adhering to the new rules. Dr. Komal said that 98 per cent of the industry is compliant. Stadnicki said that number includes all livestock — pigs and poultry as well as cattle.

The CCA contends that 99.9 per cent of cattle are reaching their destination injury-free, and the big changes being made under the amended regulations are not likely to improve on that number.

“We are not against looking at updating the regulations, and we’re always willing to look at how things can be modernized and updated,” Stadnicki said.

Adjustment made for industry concerns

Dr. Komal said that adjustments were made to the draft regulations to accommodate some of the industry’s concerns, especially in terms of changing the prescriptive nature of some of them to more outcome-based. As an example, he said that there are no prescribed materials for ramps, provided they have a non-slip surface.

He also said that the new rules exempt fully equipped trucks — that are ventilated and in which animals can be fed and watered — from the time restrictions. Basically, the animals on these specially made conveyances have to “benefit from the same conditions as animals not held in containers,” according to the regulation.

However, Stadnicki said that using them in a commercial setting is far away at this time.

The transportation time, though, is prescriptive, and Dr. Komal backed up the 36 hours by saying the CFIA analyzed the research and actually gave more time than other jurisdictions to include loading and offloading animals.

The United States has a maximum transport time of 28 hours, with extensions to 36 hours allowed by phone in extenuating circumstances, and the European standard is eight hours.

Managing quicker stops

Another industry issue is the facilities needed to accommodate the cattle at rest stops.

While most western cattle aren’t coming to Ontario feedlots, Stadnicki said about 350,000 cattle make the trip annually.

“It’s important that east-west trade in cattle continues and there’s concern that there needs to be increased capacity in Thunder Bay or elsewhere to take care of it,” he said, adding that the CCA raised this problem with the CFIA during the consultations.

As to the next steps for the CCA, Stadnicki said they will continue analyzing the revised regulations and engaging with the government before they come into effect next February.

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“Jump in with both feet, use the data, and don’t dabble,” he said during a producer panel on Dairy Day at the recent Grey-Bruce Farmers Week in Elmwood.

Markus and his wife Hilary have a 180-acre farm in southwest Oxford, hold 90 kilograms of quota and own 140 Holsteins. He also works full-time with Alta Genetics as a reproduction and genetics consultant.

Why it matters: Dairy producers using genomics can make earlier decisions on longevity, reproductive traits, milk production and quality.

More and more producers are getting their cattle genotyped, according to Lynsay Beavers, industry liaison co-ordinator for the Canadian Dairy Network.

She said that in 2017, close to 70 per cent of females were sired by genotyped young bulls in Canada, and that number is growing. On the female side, 40,000 Holsteins were genotyped. A total of 13 per cent of registered animals are being genotyped.

Genotyping involves taking genetic material from either the tissue or hair of the animal and performing DNA testing to find out its genetic potential. It’s a management tool that helps producers select cattle for traits that will improve the health and efficiency of their herds.

“We’ve doubled our rate of genetic progress since 2009, when it started,” she said, adding that the reliability of predictions for genetic potential since genomics was introduced has increased from 35 per cent under parent average (PA) to 70 per cent.

Markus believes in planning. His genomic plan is aimed at turning over his herd inventory of old genetics with high-end offspring from top females. He’s also determined to mitigate the costs and risks of buying high-end animals and wants to create 20 offspring from each purchase.

He and Wayne Wagler of Claynook Farms Ltd. agreed that spending more money almost always results in more profitability.

Wagler has an 800-acre farm near New Hamburg with 200 cows. The operation sells bulls and embryos around the world. He’s been using genomics since its inception.

“We wanted to stay at the leading edge of genomics,” he said. “We wanted to know if we had the stuff or if we needed to buy it,” he said.

He, too, is a firm believer and tests 80 per cent of the females born on the farm and 70 per cent of his males.

“We have higher conformation and better conception — we use exclusively genomic young sires in the herd,” he said. “We trust the LPI (Lifetime Performance Index) system more than any other worldwide, and that’s because of the data collection.”

Wagler pointed out that among the challenges in genomics is the need to determine more of the recessive traits that cause disease and failure to thrive. He also said that there remains a wide range of variability, even though genomics has raised the bar to 70 per cent reliability.

Phil Armstrong has 1,300 mostly rented acres north of Brampton. He has 375 cows with 300 replacements. He milks three times, averaging 42 to 43 kilograms per cow a day, and has three full-time and six part-time employees.

Before he started with genomics, he culled 25 to 30 per cent of his poorest performing heifers before breeding, using parent averages and indices as well as help from EastGen professionals to select them visually. He started testing 10 years ago, beginning with nasal swabs and has since switched to tissue samples.

Currently, he is culling animals that have a score of less than 2800 Genomic Lifetime Performance Index, and he said that means they’re getting rid of “a lot of good animals.”

In terms of results, over the years, his milk production, butterfat and protein have all consistently increased. He also selects for other traits like daughter fertility and calving ease.

“They’ve got to be able to calve,” he said.

Genomic testing prices dropping

Beavers said that the cost of genomic testing was recently reduced and advised that, for most producers’ purposes, a $33, low-density panel would be adequate. Testing is available from Holstein Canada, as well as a number of other sources.

The timing for testing is up to the producer, but she said that many do it as a part of their standard operation procedure for every animal after birth, taking a notch out of the ear when the tag goes in. Others look at the heifer’s Parent Average (PA) and check it against the LPI and then decided whether or not to test.

“The thing with a genomic test is that it carries on with her through her entire life — you pay that $33 once, and the genomic evaluation stays with her forever,” she said.

This makes management decisions down the road more accurate than using the PA alone.

As to why producers should test their animals, Beavers said that Genomic Parent Average (GPA) is superior to PA for heifer selection because it helps identify negative genetic recessives like low fertility, complex vertebral malformation (CVM), positive recessives like polled, it provides more accurate information for breeding and the heifer GPA better predicts future cow performance.

Beavers cautioned that it’s important to look at the actual animal as well as the genetic data.

“If you’re looking at a piece of paper with excellent results and you go in the barn and see an animal that’s had a terrible bout of pneumonia, she’s not going to live up to her genetic potential.”

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He spoke during Dairy Day at the recent Grey-Bruce Farmers’ Week.

Milk production matters more than whether you have a free stall or tie-stall operation and it matters more than even the size of the operation.

Why it matters: Dairy farm profitability is more pressured than it has been for years, with lower milk price and rising costs.

“How do I get more milk out of my cows?” McCutcheon said, referring to his mantra when he was farming in the 1980s and ’90s. Now, he’s a chartered accountant and a manager at BDO LLP, working mainly with farm businesses.

His mantra was proven in a study he cited from Kansas State University conducted over a 20-year period. The study’s objective was to “determine which factors (receiving a higher milk price, reducing cost, or increasing milk production) a small- to mid-sized dairy enterprise should focus on to increase net income.”

The herds were divided into three parts, and the main differences between the profitability of the high end and low end were milk production per cow, more money spent on feed per cow and reduced labour costs in larger herds. They found that producers of the most profitable herds spent more money on a per cow basis.

“Most profitable farmers are not cheapskates,” he said, adding that the study also found that, while external economic influences like international trade agreements are important to the overall industry, the producer’s management skills are more important to the long-term survival of the business.

He also cited the Ontario Dairy Farm Accounting Project which included 70 producers in 2017. After sifting through the data, McCutcheon found that the difference between the bottom 15 and top 15 farms were herd size (43 versus 120 cows), more milk sold per cow (7,389 litres versus 10,470), increased milk sales per cow ($5,615 versus $8,102) and lower labour costs per cow (143 versus 72 hours).

“You have to have a critical size of herd to be profitable,” he said, noting that he doesn’t have an exact number for what that is.

“If you haven’t had an expansion in a generation, it’s maybe time to think about it.”

He said milk production is so important to profitability because most costs don’t change that much. Fixed costs like property taxes, rent, labour and insurance remain pretty steady, while variable costs like stable supplies, veterinary services, or breeding are generally predictable, too.

“Taking production from 30 litres a day per cow to 35 would be more about changes in herd management,” he said.

In terms of benchmarking on the farm, McCutcheon said that the Kansas State study found that measuring on a per cow or per hundredweight basis yields similar results.

“The way these shake out is basically the same,” he said.

He outlined two different ways of benchmarking:

1. Producers can compare their revenue (including milk production, crop sales, livestock sales and custom work) and expenses (fuel, salaries and wages, utilities) to an industry average or other producers.
2. They can compare their own operation’s numbers year over year. He recommended omitting big one-time expenses, such as tile drainage, for benchmarking purposes.

The advantage to doing a year-over-year comparison is that all the categories are the same, the accounting’s the same, and producers can readily see and look into anomalies in their costs, such as if custom work and dairy supply costs are up.

Despite the instability that may be coming in the next year with the implementation of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico trade deal, McCutcheon advised dairy farmers to concentrate on increasing production, controlling costs, and doing things properly and in a timely fashion. A secondary piece of advice was to compare themselves to other producers, set goals and plan for the future.

“The solution is in your hands still,” he said.

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“We haven’t had the really hard conversations about where we want the industry to go,” Jennifer MacTavish said. This has resulted in inefficiencies along the supply chain and an unwillingness to commit to and invest in Ontario lamb.

Why it matters: Without the collection and proper use of reliable data, Ontario sheep producers may find profits hard to come by in the future.

“We don’t have really good data in this industry and the (Statistics Canada) data is getting more vague,” she said, adding that it has resulted in a tendency to focus on the challenges and symptoms, rather than getting at root causes.

Three years ago, the provincial government asked OSF to establish benchmarks for the industry, which is how EweGROW got its start. According to the OSF website, EweGROW is a program “designed to help sheep farmers benchmark their production, and identify ways to improve their farm’s productivity and profitability.”

“This past June, we had a research priority setting day and the number one priority from producers was benchmarks,” she said, adding that the numbers have to come from somewhere, and producers are reluctant to provide their data to the OSF.

“We know that some people aren’t willing to provide information and that’s cool,” MacTavish said. Still, the organization forged ahead, conducting producer focus groups, and talking to processors and retailers.

They found that demand for Ontario product is strong at the retail level, and that demand is attracting competition. As an example, MacTavish referenced a New Zealand company that is selling into the western Canadian market.

A real red flag raised during the talks was that processors and distributors said they don’t want to take the financial and reputational risk of buying Ontario lamb due to the lack of information, market orientation and collective will in the industry.

“If that’s the case, the infrastructure that’s needed to keep you guys in business is going to slowly erode,” she said.

MacTavish emphasized that gathering data and benchmarking is an excellent way for the industry to move forward, in terms of access to medications, business plans, trade, production insurance and market intelligence and market development.

In New Zealand, one of the world’s biggest lamb producers, data drives extension efforts so that farmers can have resources before they start seeing problems in their flocks. For example, issues with weaning weights or lambing can be avoided based on information that shows up in the data.

Only 22 farms have provided data for EweGROW so far. The average farm size for these is 548 head, while StatsCanada says that the Ontario average is 65 head.

“As we build out the data, we can start looking at what the trends really are — is the flock really shrinking, how many animals are going to market and so on,” she said.

The data the OSF is trying to collect under EweGROW is confidential and is only used in aggregate. A chart is available on the website that can be filled out either online or printed and mailed. It asks for numbers, including: ewes in the breeding flock, ewes exposed to a ram, ewes that have lambed, lambs born, lambs weaned, lambs sold and whether lambing is annual, pasture, accelerated or modified. The website is at www.ontariosheep.org/ewegrow.

Aside from encouraging more farms to participate, the plans for the future of EweGROW include having a cut-off date for contributions so data isn’t trickling in year-round.

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