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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Huron Expositor, 1981-07-15, Page 25Advantages: 1. Uniform Application 2. Time and Labour saving 3. Low soil compaction with flotation applicators 4. Your Micro Nutrient requirements, applied at same time. Call Us Today HENSALL DISTRICT CO-OP r '2624002 grow alfalfa f r better soil BY JOANNE RIMMER Often, disthssing' a prob- lem with a neighbour can bring to light a possible solution. Two neighbours. Frank Knits and Brian Mil- ler found an arrangement which is helpful to both of them, just by discussing their situations together. • At a "Save our Soil" conference in December. Mr. Kints, R.R. 1, Woodham. and Mr. Miller. R.R. 3. Exeter. presented' reports on crop exchanges for mutual benefit. The neighbours ex- plained their co-operative sy- stem of growing' alfalfa. Mr. Kints farms turnips ‘6th his brother and another partner. The turnips have been grown One year in three or four since 1966, and in the other years they have tried seeding down grain to Red Clover and ploughing the Red Clover down the follow- ing year. "After summer fallowing this land, we felt the program was no beitat;, than just growing grain or beeps." said Mr. Kints. He then looked for a better way to improve his soil. "We still felt turnips were hard on the land and we had to get a perennial forage onto some _We had been renting some land to the Millers so discussed with them the possibility of growing alfal- fa." _ • Mr. Miller agreed "'When' we sat down with Frank Kints we foul.' d a way to solve our problem and help them." Mr. Miller shares a cashcrOp and cattle farm with his father and brother: They finish about 700 feeder cattle a year. taking them front 450 to 500 pounds and finishing the m at 1000 pounds. GROWING ALFALFA Previously, they were feeding corn silage with a 48 percent protein beef concen- trate. "Our objective was to replace this protein con- centrate by growing our own alfalfa." Once they 'had agreed to grow the alfalfa. the first 50 acres were seeded by Mr. Kints with a nurser crop. The nurser crop of grail' was used the first year. For each 50 acres on which the alfalfa will be grown, the six-year cycle will start with one year of turnips, then the grain crop. two years of alfalfa, one year of white beans, and one year of wheat. The next year. the Cycle will be repeated. start- ing with turnips. Mr. Kints seeds the land and fertilizes it, so the Mil- lers only have to cut the alfalfa. The Millers hope to get three cuts of alfalfa off the field each season. The system they have is useful, but not unique to these neighbours. Three Dublin area farmers have utilized the same co-opera tive idea. Ken Flanagan. R.R. 1. Dublin. a dairy farm' r, has a similar arrangement with Al- . Ian and Ralph Siemon, R.R. 5, Mitchell. He, like Mr. Miller, was looking for a cheaper source of protein for his feed than the supplement he was using. When talking with the Siemons, the two parties discovered they would both benefit by grow- ing the alfalfa. The Siemons use it to keep their land loose, as Mr. Flanagan said "it opens the land". The Siemons seeded- bar- ley the first-year, and under- seeded it with. alfalfa: When the barley was harvested in August. the alfalfa was six inches high. The next sum- mer. (this summer) the alfal- fa was harvested at a height of about one foot in June. Mr. Flanagan hopes to get three cuts this summer. These farmers follow a crop rotation p Ian. The alfalfa the Siemons plant for Mr.-Flanagan is not pure, as there is timothy mixed in. The timothy is used to fill any spots where the alfalfa does not grow. When it is time for the alfalfa to be cut, Mr. Flana- gan, like Mr. Miller. does the cutting. Both arrangements. made of word-of-mouth, are kept by word-of-mouth. "There's no papers or anything," said, Mr. Flanagan. Mr. Kints and Mr. Miller arrived at a "fair price" just by discussion. not by any mathematical method, said , Mr. Kints. He expected his greatest returns to come in the form of better land for turnips. "We know we will grow more turnips with few- er problems on this land that has grown alfalfa." he said. Census-fprTilly rofile An updated profile of Canadian family farms is expected- to emerge from the 1981 Census of Agri- culture. The census will. help measure, among other :hings, the impact of the scale and the intensity of farming on agriculture and the.'artn family in the diffe- rent regions of the country. From past censuses we know that the family farm appears to be surviving the trend towards. larger, specialized farms and in- corpOratinn. The census of 1976 reported that more than 95 per cent of all farm operations were run by individuals, familieS or partnerships. Another 3.5 per cent were listed as corporate family farms and fewer than one per cent were operated by non- family corporations. Size and intensity ,of operation, however, have undergone major changes over the past four decades. Between the ,1941 and 1976 censuses, the total number of fards in Canada decreas- ed from a peak- figure of 732,832 to 338,578 and average farm size more than doubled from 237 acres to 499. Corporate family farms and other legally constitut- ed company farms are on the increase, according to the 1971 and 1976 census- es. These holdings doubled in ,number between those years. Farms doll types are be- - coming more capital inten- sive. -Average value of farms -1 the value of land, buildings, machinery, equipment, livestock and poultry. -- increased eleven- fold between 1941 and 1976 from $5,788 to $65,736. Even after allowing for in- flation, this represents a -considerable increase in capitalization. A .closely related,trend is the migrat-' ion of Canadians away from their agricultural roots- In 193,1, nearly one-third of all Canadians_ lived- on-farms, compared with only five per cent in 1976. Even the personal qual- ities needed for successful farming have changed with increases in mechanization and systemized production. A strong back is of less importance today than skills in management of a rarge-scaIe operation, cropping rotations or breeding programs, and bookkeeping and marketing knowhow. In addition, many farmers supplement their incomes with jobs away from their farms. These jobs may range from logging to teaching,. re- quiring a whole extra set of skills. Census data "show that farm income is strongly in- fluenced by region.. Fewer eastern . farmers than prairie farmers report farm- ing to be their major source of income. In 1971, only 31.4 per cent of farm- ers in- the Atlantic Provinc- es and 32 per cent of farm, ers in central Canada earned more than one-half of their income from farm- ing, compared with 49 'per cent of prairie farmers. On average, families that depended totally on their farms earned less than families with off-farm incomes. Family labour remained' the backbone of. modern agriculture by 1976. Family farms used an average of only '7.6 weeks of paid labour each year and only 30.5 per cent of these farms reported any hired labour. Corporate family farms used an average of 72 weeks paid labour' per year, with 54 per cent of these farms reporting hired labour, and. corporate non- - family farms used an aver age of 128' weeks of' hired labour, with 53 per cent of these farms reporting hired , help. And, although the cor- porate family farm has in- creased in number in the past few decades, the indi- vidual or family farm was still more than holding its own in relation to other types, by 1976. Census data document the situation of the family farm, a situation that is a response to the particular problems and 'challenges each generation of farm families has had to face, through economic depress- ions and booms, drought, war, mechanization, chang- , ing social values and rising expectations. Trends • have developed, some of them irreversible, others possib- ly temporary. New data from the 1981 census might well show, for example, that, the migration of young people to the cities has lessened in light of rising farm incomes and federal- provincial initiatives to help young , potential farmers stay on the land. With other trends, such as-mechanizat- ion and increasing energy consumption, it is -a matter of finding out how much more and how quickly.' The The 1981 census is ex- petted to answer more questions than it asks. Undoubtedly, it will give us an updated picture of what has happened to the Canad" ian farm family in the eighth decade of this cen- tury and, by extension, a little of what is likely to happen in the ninth.