The Rural Voice, 2003-06, Page 20TRVITION
MUTUAL INSURANCE COMPANY
Blanshard and Downie
A Heritage of Quality
Sebringville St. Marys
519-393-6402 519-284-3084
1-800-263-1961
SIMCOE DISTRICT
CO-OP
...Making Farming Better
Jennifer Macdonald has recently joined
Simcoe District Co-operative as manager
of the Dundalk Branch and Crop Centre.
Jennifer is a graduate of the agronomy
program from the University of Guelph
and has her CCA accreditation. Jennifer
has extensive experience from two major
farm supply outlets as well as a strong
agronomy background.
Jennifer's husband was born and raised
on a farm in the Markdale area; they are
looking forward to being closer to the
farm and family. Jennifer will be happy to
meet you at your farm location or the
Dundalk branch. Feel free to give her a
call at (519) 923-2015 or stop in at the
branch to discuss your farm -input needs.
Talk to your Simcoe D'strict Co-op
CROP SERVICE SPECIALISTS
for professional Products, Services, Advice
16 THE RURAL VOICE
same time seeing the best Duroc pigs
in North America. They also visited
Donaldson's high -health nucleus
herd at Topgen Swine.
The project that evolved with the
Russian company and its Canadian
partners involves a closed system of
9,000 sows on a farm about an hour
north of Moscow. The farm includes
three commercial units of 2,800
sows, a high health nucleus
multiplier herd to supply these three
sites with F1 females as well as top
boars for an artificial insemination
unit.
A year ago, in June, Donaldson
paid a visit to Russia, taking along
Gary Currie of Grand Valley
Fortifiers.
"Nutrition is a limiting factor in
their system in Russia," Donaldson
said. "Their feed mills are antiquated
and their nutritional program is based
on old formulations and old genetics
and would not be adequate for the
lean, fast-growing genetics from
Canada." There's room for Canadian
companies to help rebuild this part of
the system, he said.
Groenestege and Donaldson
have developed a customized
training program to help the
Russians understand all areas of a
new pork production system.
A group of Russian engineers and
contractors arrived in Canada last
November for the first stage of the
training program. They spent a week
visiting new facilities that had been
build by Groenestege and then had a
detailed discussion on how to
implement the Groenestege building
technology into their Russian system.
"Training will be a way to ensure
that our new ideas and technology
are adopted successfully," Donaldson
said. They aimed to find young
people they could train, because
sometimes the young are more open
to new ideas and change. "Changing
management thinking will be a large
problem, but it must be done if we
want to have a successful project.
Most of the management systems in
Russia at the moment are
handwritten, so computer programs
would be of great benefit.
"We need to set new standards
and this will mean a total revision of
management guidelines," he said.
"They must also now be aware that
they have to put an economic value