The 17th annual Moose Mountain Ag Day was held in Arcola at Prairie Place Hall on Wednesday, March 8. The event didn’t draw a lot of people this year as many were digging their way out of the aftermath of the blizzard in the Southeast Saskatchewan and Manitoba.
Colin Rosengren – Three Farmers
Speaking first was Colin Rosengren of Midale, who spoke about the Three Farmers brand, which developed in 2004-05 as three farmers Dan Vandenhurk, Ron Emde, and Colin Rosengren began discussing the poor price of canola at a bonspiel.
They discovered a crop with a lot of potential, camelina, and from there decided to pursue the sale of the grain overseas as it was not yet approved as a food in Canada. As they attempted to navigate this world, they also worked towards having the ancient grain approved in Canada for consumption.
Sales overseas were difficult and approval in Canada took awhile, but a change was made. They decided to focus on local production, a direct to farmer route, which would see them bottle their own oil from the camelina they were growing.
Attempting to go straight into supermarkets didn’t go as expected and again they scaled down, deciding to take their product to farmer’s markets. This was the best experience for them as they were able to talk to people directly about camelina oil, its benefits, and once people were educated they began coming back regularly.
Once they had a customer base, they took the product to independent stores. As this was all happening, Vandenhurk’s daughters Elysia and Natasha, joined the business – Elysia a red seal chef and chief operating officer and Natasha the company’s chief executive officer – appeared on the Dragons’ Den with the product.
Although they had an offer on Dragons’ Den, it was not the right direction for the company.
In addition to the camelina oil Three Farmers have also brought out a line of snack food including roasted chickpeas and pea pops. All are Saskatchewan grown and although it began through being produced by the three farmers involved, they have begun purchasing the raw chickpeas and green peas from other Saskatchewan farmers. The camelina, however, is still all grown by the three and the oil bottle comes with a serial number, which one can see which field it came from online.
In addition to the snack products added to their brand, they have also begun making Canadian Camelina Oil for Equines under the name Canpressco. This is sold independently, but has been asked for from the equine community since the farmers began growing camelina. Rosengren explained that this product was different than the others, because people were asking for it to be developed, where as with the edible camelina oil they were originally selling was a market they had to open themselves.
“If someone else is thinking of doing something similar to what we did; I would tell them to look for a consulting source or a partnership,” Rosengren explained. “Find a person that’s gone through that and who has complimentary products.”
David Pattyson – Upper Souris Watershed Association
Attending the Ag Day was David Pattyson, the executive director of the Upper Souris Watershed Association.
Pattyson spoke of two particular programs: the Farm and Ranch Water Infrastructure Program and the Farm Stewardship Program.
The first program has been developed to help sustain non-potable water supplies for agricultural use and to develop irrigation infrastructure outside of irrigation districts to increase irrigation capacity and develop new irrigated acres in Saskatchewan.
Pattyson, however, drew the attention of the attendees to one specific purpose of the project – decommissioning wells. Old farm wells, which are no longer used are both a hazard for causing injury and it can contaminate water sealed in bedrock because of the well opening which creates vulnerability to the source water.
The Farm Stewardship Program focuses on a range of topics from protecting high risk erodible and saline soils to fencing to protect surface water to creek and stream crossing to farm-yard run off control.
Information regarding all of the efforts being funded can be found at www.saskatchewan.ca and searching for “Farm Stewardship Program.”
Pattyson also explained that although they currently have no money in the budget to put towards restoration of wetlands that research has shown they are beneficial to forage production during dry years. Additionally, during wet years cattle still benefit from having the wetlands as well.
With run-off a factor in the spring as well wetlands can act as a deposit for some of this water.
Dr. Mario Tenuta – Annuals, Perennials and Grazing: What do they do for soil health and carbon sequestration
Dr. Mario Tenuta holds a Ph.D, P.Ag, and is a professor of applied soil ecology at the University of Manitoba.
Tenuta explained that he likes to look at solutions, not problems – so what can be done to make things better?
“Climate change is the most agreed on topic in the scientific community,” he explained. “There are people out there who are saying that’s not the case, but trust me, there are really very few of them.”
In Saskatchewan, farmers contribute to greenhouse gasses mostly through nitrogen fertilizer and methane gas (produced by ruminant animals).
Tenuta explained that with provinces being given the freedom to address climate change, that there is a very good chance Saskatchewan will adopt a “Cap and Trade System.” This will allow high producing industry and companies to buy reductions from other companies, which produce fewer greenhouse gases. Thus, the oil industry would be able to purchase offsets in order to keep producing.
In the world of reducing greenhouse gases, China has now signed on according to Tenuta, which means that with or without the United States’ backing Climate Change has become more important than previous years.
In Canada, Tenuta stated, agriculture is responsible for eight percent of emissions. This does not include farm fuel as it is part of the transportation sector of recorded emissions – only methane and nitrous oxide.
Farmers and ranchers have both been working on ways to practice better soil management as well in order to build the carbon dioxide stored in soil. However, Tenuta, feels that this cannot be built into any taxation rebate system because it is always fluctuating. If you are paid for storing carbon dioxide one year and the next year its shown you’ve lost carbon then do you pay? How long do you have to have stored the carbon to receive credit? If you practice good soil management and store carbon, what happens to the people in your succession plan? Do they have to pay if they lose carbon?
Grasslands can be ripped up and turned into cropland, while monocropping practices make it difficult to ever actually build soil because each plant’s growth stages start out losing carbon during seeding, captures carbon while its growing, but again loses carbon once harvested. Within this the only real difference between a perennial and an annual crop is that a perennial will begin capturing carbon earlier than an annual will, however, there is a spring and fall shoulder season in which both types of crops lose carbon.
Tenuta also stated that there would be diminishing returns over time. The saturation point of carbon being sequestered has a limit; and has been shown through various studies according to Tenuta to have benefits for its first 10 years.
Ann Wasko – Livestock analyst
A market analyst from Eastend, SK, Ann Wasko believes that the upcoming year will be stable. There won’t be too many swings in market pricing – always an increase in the spring with BBQ season and a downswing in the latter part of the summer or the fall. However, because she expects things to be relatively stable, these fluctuations won’t be too large.
Although there are currently expected to be more animals for sale from looking at calf births two years ago although Wasko feels the weights of animals will go down to compensate for the market.
We’re closely tied into what the American market is doing, however, talks with South Korea, the European Union (Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement – CETA), and Asia-Pacific discussions might open added markets depending on how things go.
Conclusion
Lorne Klein, with the Ministry of Agriculture out of the Weyburn office, thanked everyone who braved the roads to attend the event.
“We owe a lot of thanks to those that help to put this day on,” he said. “Thank you to our sponsors and to everyone who helped us put this day on.
In addition to his talk about Three Farmers, Colin Rosengren also presented on Intercropping Annual Cash Crops; check out next week’s Observer for our Ag Issue and a look at Rosengren’s operation.
