The Rural Voice, 2003-02, Page 3About this issue
Planting the seed
Farmers have always been innovative people. It's
amazing to see how many things we take for granted in
rural life that were the product of the ingenuity of farm
people. From early farm machinery to the traditional breeds
of cattle, sheep, pigs and horses, the developments were
done, not by big companies or organizations but through
the culmination of experiments by millions of farmers.
Today we've become much more of an off-the-shelf
rural society, however. Generally there's a supplier with a
large research division that provides products that farmers
buy just like urban consumers buy jeans. Farmers may
fiddle around to adjust farm equipment to work slightly
better but for the most part, they're buying the tried and
true, from equipment to computer programs to livestock
management systems that are almost like franchises to
field-tested crop hybrids.
But there are still some people out there who like to
tinker, even in the world of plant breeding, dominated as it
is by fewer and larger companies every year. This month
Jeffrey Carter talks to some small-scale plant breeders and
gives some tips on how you can start your own experiments
if you're of a curious nature.
Grey Bruce Farmers Week's crops day provided
information on everything from planting to marketing of
crops. OMAF Cereals Specialist Peter Johnston, among
many points in his talk, pointed out the critical role that soil
temperature conditions at planting time can play for
eventual yields. Of course if you manage to grow a great
crop you still have to market it. Cal Whewell of F. C. Stone
in Ohio urged farmers to make a marketing plan and be
disciplined enough to stick with it, not to try to squeeze the
last few pennies per bushel out of a market that's already
providing the price you had originally targeted.
Also from Grey Bruce Farmers Week there are stories
trom beef day in our news and advice section.
Sometimes we're so busy in our modern lives looking
forward that we don't keep a proper perspective by looking
at where we've come from. Greg Brown provides some of
that historical background this time every year as he
reminds us the way farming used to be by interviewing the
winners of the Agricultural Heritage Award for Euphrasia
Township in Grey County. This year's winners, Dorine and
Ralph McGuire tell how farming, and their community,
changed in the more than 50 years they farmed.0
Update
New generation co-ops adapt
Over the years we've featured stories on several new
generation co-ops. Those attending a farm business
meeting in Stratford recently got a chance to see how three
of them have been doing.
Mornington Heritage Cheese and Dairy Co-operative Inc.
(featured in our August 2001 issue) now has more than 100
members, said president Bob Reid, with about three
quarters of them being non -producers. The co-op now
processes goat milk for cheese through Quality Jersey
Products in Seaforth and fluid milk from a plant near
Windsor.
Bob Hunsberger of Progressive Pork Producers reported
the co-op's plant, formerly Conestoga Packers in Breslau,
appeared likely to make a profit in its first year of
operation. The plant has been expanded to process the
700,000 hogs annually produced by the 173 farmer
members. The plant now has 130 employees.
Meanwhile Farm Fresh Poultry of Harriston (January
1998 issue) has expanded from 4,000 in 1996 to 23,000
square feet and $1-$5 million in annual sales for its 36
producer-members.0
m`Rural Voice
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