Ontario has the lowest number of crop consultants of any corn and soybean producing region in North America. It may soon have even fewer.

The Ontario Institute of Agrologists (OIA) is poised to force out of business any consultant who offers advice that doesn't square with University of Guelph standards.

Reactions to the plan for the new College of Professional Agrologists of Ontario (CPAO) are extreme.

Depending on whom you talk to, the move will either protect farmers and the environment from snake-oil salesmen and hucksters, or it will put all farmers into the shackles of government pasteurized advice.

Either it will save farmers money, or it will pump more farm dollars straight into the pockets of Guelph alumni. In between are people such as Jeff Reid, agrologist with C & M Seeds and president of the OIA local in Guelph. "I want to hear how farmers and others in the industry think they would be affected," Reid says. "But I've got to tell you...when you hear what some of these consultants are telling farmers to do, you really have to shake your head. It isn't good for the farmer or the environment."

OIA members will vote late March whether to push Queen's Park to a new law called the Act to Regulate Agrologists in the Public Interest in Ontario.

"Our main interest is in making sure that those who offer advice in area of practical agriculture are up to standard," says Dan Rose, OIA president and retired agriculture ministry manager.

Jack Riddell, Middlesex farm consultant and former Ontario minister of agriculture, is chairman of the committee that's developed the OIA proposal, and is also incoming OIA president.

A brief written by Riddell says regulations are needed because "no area of society has experienced faster growth, more diversity of product development, and greater public concern than the food production system."

So far, the plan has little farm reaction. It hasn't gone before the boards of the Ontario Agricultural Commodity Council or the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, for instance. Nor has it been considered by commodity groups, such as the Ontario Corn Producers Association.

Bob Down, corn association vice-president and director from Huron county, which has more consultants than any other Ontario county, says he's seen no sign that farmers are unhappy with those consultants.

"I'm not entirely sure what problem they're trying to fix," Down says.

"We haven't had any complaints come through the association....This hasn't come to the board yet, but my first reaction is, it's a free country. We're usually on the side of the minimum amount of regulation."

Michael Hunter, crop consultant with Bruce Ag-Vise in Ripley, thinks he's one of the consultants being targetted by the plan. Hunter says he's been working with corn and bean growers, for instance, looking for ways to cut their spray rates.

Hunter says unhappy farmers have a quick solution already at hand: "Just don't pay me."

Hunter says that, in the current unregulated system, his boss is the farmer. If the OIA wins government support, his boss will be a panel of bureaucrats at the college. "These are the people who told us to go with so much Ultim in 1994," Hunter says.

The OIA says the general public will be among the biggest winners. Agrologists who work for the civil service are accountable to the public through the government, Riddell's brief points out. "The college will reinforce this role and provide public accountability for the private sector." Riddell says the plan emphasizes "service to agriculture with benefits to all society."

The OIA plan targets anyone who practises agrology, including anyone who teaches, investigates, experiments or provides "advice or service" for hire, gain, salary, or hope of reward. Before agrologists could talk to farmers about seeding rates or fertilizer methods, they'd have to be accepted by the College of Professional Agrologists of Ontario.

Any consultant operating outside the College could end up in court charged with breaking laws the new legislation would create.

Agrologists would basically need a B.Sc. in agriculture, but Rose says the college "would be open to anyone who can pass the exam process. There is no exclusivity to it."

After the OIA's annual meeting in Kingston March 23, the institute plans to embark on a round of public consultation, Rose says. "Then we will make whatever changes are necessary and present the plan to the minister (provincial Agriculture Minister Noble Villeneuve)."

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Atrazine costs out well

Corn growers should fight to keep atrazine, a Minnesota weed scientist says. Losing the popular weed killer will cost them a minimum $10 an acre.

University of Minnesota researcher Gordon Harvey launched a three-year study in 1993 after the state imposed the toughest atrazine standards in the U.S., including a complete ban on the spray for farmers living in many parts of the state.

Harvey calls atrazine "the least expensive and most effective product" available for broadleaf control in corn.

The most recent Canadian survey shows Ontario farmers in 1993 sprayed 1.3 million pounds of atrazine on about one million acres of corn, making it second only to Dual for total use. In 1988, Ontario corn growers sprayed 2.3 million pounds of atrazine.

Ottawa has placed atrazine under formal review and is still pondering whether to allow farmers to keep spraying it. Harvey says most Minnesota farmers have switched to dicamba-based alternatives, such as Banvel and Clarity, as well as to Broadstrike and Beacon.

Yet he says his tests show that all of the alternatives are more expensive than atrazine, and most are guilty of cutting yields. Farmers get hit twice - once with higher herbicide costs, and then with lower crop income, either because of poorer weed control, crop injury, or both.

Harvey sprayed plots with atrazine at 1.5 pounds active per acre, tank-mixed with alachlor (the active ingredient in Lasso) for grass control.

All results are in U.S. dollars per acre. Each pass with the sprayer was charged at $6 per acre. Harvey calculated per-acre outcomes with corn at $2.50 per bushel.

The atrazine tank-mix cost $18. Yield was 184 bushels per acre, compared to 79 bushels in the weedy check, for a $238-an-acre payback for weed control.

Plots sprayed with Clarity plus alachlor suffered penalties ranging from $21 to $53, made up of $6 in higher chemical costs, and yields that dropped six to 19 bushels, depending on spray timing.

Broadstrike plus Dual sprayed pre-emerge cut income by $35 an acre, based on $7 extra in chemical costs and 11 fewer bushels at harvest.

Beacon plus Accent applied post-emerge only cost $1 more at the dealership, but produced 15 bushels less than atrazine with alachlor, for a net $38 loss.

Harvey found that Bladex treatments would trim a corn grower's income by $20 an acre, while Extrazine treatments would return $10 an acre less than atrazine.

Bladex and Extrazine are on their way off the market, however, and DuPont will stop making Bladex for the U.S. and Canada within three years. -TB

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Familiar Publication 75 goes electronic

By TOM BUTTON

After five years on the drawing board, the new computerized version of Publication 75 has hit the market.

Priced at $195, plus taxes and shipping, the six-disc program can sort through all the possible weed sprays and give the best options for each field.

The program, called EP 75, will also print out a recipe sheet that tells exactly how much chemical to add to each spray tank, and how many tanks will be needed to spray each field. Hugh Martin, St. Thomas based crops adviser for the provincial agriculture ministry, and secretary of the Ontario Weed Committee, expects farmers and pesticide dealers to buy up to 1,000 copies of EP 75 this spring as they find out more about how they can use the program as part of their weed control management.

So far, reaction is split among dealers who received advance copies to test late last spring.

"I expect we'll be offering it in all the branches where we have enough computer capability," says Gary Bowden, head of pesticide sales for W.G. Thompsons. "I think farmers will want to check it out."

"It isn't worth $200...it isn't worth $50," said a second dealer, who asked not be named. "It's too slow and it's too complicated. And it's also too expensive...we'd have to put a $2,500 computer on every counter."

EP 75 will run on a 386 IBM compatible, although a 486 is strongly recommended, along with a minimum four megabytes RAM (eight is better), and about 20 megabytes of free space on hard disc. There is no Macintosh version.

The program can:
- Tell a farmer which weed sprays are best for a specific field, based on the farmer's ranking of weed pressures, along with cropping plans, soil factors, and tillage program;
- Calculate the cost per acre of each spray, based on costs that the farmer plugs into the program;
- Help the farmer calibrate the sprayer, and judge whether the sprayer needs new or different nozzles to get good weed control;
- Figure out how many bags or jugs the farmer must buy for each field, and how much to add to each spray tank;
- Print out a step-by-step instruction sheet telling the spray operator how to get the job done.

What EP 75 won't do is replace Publication 75, the provincial government's Guide to Weed Control, Martin says. "At least not in the foreseeable future."

The government prints 40,000 copies a year of the weed control guide and distributes them free of charge. The provincial government is considering a new fee to help cover printing costs. Quebec set a price of $23 for its weed control guide this winter. But farmers are refusing to pay. So far, Quebec's agriculture ministry has only sold 150 copies. "We're hearing that quite a few of the Ontario books are swimming the river," Martin says.

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Tempted to pour on N? It won't pay, say experts

With high crop prices, corn farmers can't afford to miss out on a single bushel at harvest next fall.

So should they boost their nitrogen rates to try to pack an extra row of kernels into every cob?

"No," fertilizer experts say. If anything, the smart economic move is to ease back on nitrogen in 1996.

"It's because of the big increases in the price of nitrogen," explains Ken Stevenson, soil scientist at Ridgetown college. Economic N rates are based on a combination of the price of N and the price of corn, Stevenson points out. Ideally, the $1 worth of N should produce $1 worth of corn. At lower rates, the farmer gets a higher return per dollar invested in N, but loses on yield potential. At higher rates, some of the N isn't paying for itself.

Standard government recommendations, based on over 200 plot-years of calibration trials, are built on a nitrogen-to-corn price ratio of five to one. For 1996, the ratio may jump past seven to one, enough to signal farmers to shave their rates by 20 pounds an acre.

Corn prices are high. N prices are even higher. According to Ken McEwan, an economist at Ridgetown college who surveys the prices of farm inputs, the average price of anhydrous ammonia in Ontario jumped from $327 per tonne in 1993 to $537 per tonne last year.

Urea climbed to $385 per tonne, up $100 in two years. And 28-per-cent UAN nitrogen solution hit $233 a tonne, up from $174.

1996 prices are still preliminary, but including application costs, anhydrous is forecast to set farmers back about $580 per tonne, with urea costing $435 and UAN $285.

That shoves the cost of anhydrous to 34 cents per pound of N (75 cents per kg), based on its 82-per-cent nitrogen content. Urea is even more expensive, at 43 cents per pound (95 cents per kg), based on 46-per-cent N. And UAN is costlier still, at 50 cents per pound.

Stevenson advises farmers to work out their corn nitrogen price ratios. With a $3.50-a-bushel target for the 1996 harvest, corn would be worth 6.5 cents a pound. That puts the ratio to 5.2 to one for anhydrous, so the standard recommendation of 1.1 to 1.2 pounds of N per expected bushel of yield is still a good starting point.

But the ratio for urea is 6.6 to one, and for UAN it's 7.7 to one, enough to set alarm bells ringing to trim N rates by 20 pounds an acre.

"The price ratio is the key," says Keith Reid, provincial government fertility expert based at Walkerton.

"The ratio doesn't usually change very much," Reid says. "When corn is high, nitrogen is usually high too....I for one wouldn't be telling farmers to boost their N programs this spring."

Pioneer Hi-Bred agronomist Morris Sagriff says the seed company is also telling farmers to stick with N rates based on long-term yield results, not short-term corn prices.

"It's just as important to get every bushel when the corn price is $2.50 as it is when the price is $4.50," Sagriff says. "You can't get wrapped up in reactionary management... you have to make your decisions based on a realistic understanding of the field's productive capability." Stevenson says farmers should also be wary of the environmental perils of excessive nitrogen. "It's too potent to just pump it into the ground," he says. "Any nitrogen that doesn't get taken up by the crop can pollute the water." -TB

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Organic farming remains growing trend

By MARGARET BOYD
Special to Farm & Country

The organic farming movement is growing rapidly, but must not lose sight of a common definition, says Tom Harding, president of the Organic Crop Improvement Association.

"Natural, organic products are not just a niche in the marketplace; they have become a trend," Harding told the annual Organic Agriculture Conference at the University of Guelph last month. Singling out the 'baby boomers' as the major influence in the market, Harding said that organic farming is now a global force. At the end of the 20th century, a huge opportunity exists for farmers and value-added partnerships to produce and export organic products. In 1994, the industry grew by 24 per cent, and in the U.S., the annual US$50-million value for organic products is expected to double by the year 2000. North America currently commands about 10 per cent of the global marketplace, and Europe 50 per cent. Germany is the largest consumer of organic produce, although the Pacific Rim is growing rapidly. A lot of organic raw material from North America currently goes to Europe and Asia. Trade policy and certification are other issues facing organic growers, Harding said. An International Organic Certifiers Council was recently created to ensure that the quality of organic products in the marketplace, he said.

Organic marketing guidelines are now a necessity, said Harding, noting that organic regulations were passed in Europe in 1992 and there are currently efforts to unite Japan under guidelines. In 1990, the Organic Foods Production Act was passed in the U.S., providing a 'natural organic' label for products and the clout to fight for harmonized trade. In Canada late last year, the Canadian Organic Advisory Board (COAB) entered the regulatory process to create a binding law. A strong certification process would involve annual inspection reviews, tracking mechanisms for all stages of production to ensure product authenticity, labelling regulations, and overseeing by a public-private partnership. Regional marketing must also be pursued in all areas, including aquatics and even wood, Harding said.

"We need to work together. I hope we won't divide ourselves on any competitive issue."

Harding issued a caution against ignoring global realities at the peril of the goals and objectives of organic farming. "I don't believe we can think we occupy this part of the world and nothing else matters," he said. "What is happening in China and Ethiopia are indicators of what we are heading for. The world is interconnected...there is a clear picture of mankind's interdependence with the environment, and we can't treat issues separately."

The industry needs more partnerships with the public, more leadership from business and industry, and more research and education, he said.

Harding also cautioned against building a parallel system to conventional farming, citing the many failures of the so-called 'Green Revolution', which he criticized for depending on government subsidies, high chemical input, short-term higher yields on limited land and mismanagement of resources.

"It provides cheap farmgate food, but at what cost? Harding asked. "Remove the subsidies and the system is bankrupt."

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Rocky road to organic

For Peterborough county farmer Peter Leahy, making the transition to organic farming involved making many mistakes. But he now finds the people who formerly called him a "lunatic" ask him for advice.

"Don't let anybody tell you it can't be done," Leahy told the annual Organic Agriculture Conference last month in Guelph. "The best advice that I can give is to talk to someone who has been through it."

Leahy, with the support of his wife, Ada, and his parents, Kevin and Bunny, began converting the 700-acre family farm to organic in 1987. He started by converting five acres to organic, and since 1991, the entire farm has been certified organic. A certified organic farm is one which has not had chemical pesticides or fertilizers on its fields for three or more years. Organic Crop Improvement Association guidelines require buffer zones of 25 feet between organic and non-organic crops.

Among his most drastic mistakes during the transition was plowing in red clover and planting soybeans. "It was a mess," he said.

The Leahy farm is diverse and includes beef, Belgian horses, soybeans, millet, pumpkins and sleigh rides. Leahy finds that one of the best ways to sell product is on-farm; both the pumpkin crop and sleigh rides provide opportunities to educate the public and gain new customers.

"We can't depend on the government to promote organic farming," said Leahy. "A lot of people don't understand organic farming. It's too bad that more research doesn't go into organic farming."

His fertility program includes manure and plowing down crops. Nitrogen is sufficient, and, generally, he has found his yields have gone up since making the transition to organic. His biggest weeds are quack grass, lamb's quarters and pigweed, and he recommends underseeding crops at all times. Crops are worked in a seven-year rotation, starting in hay, plowing it down and planting spelt, followed by oilseed radish. The following spring, he plants soybeans, then leaves it open over winter and plants spring grain the following year. This is followed by rye in the fall and another spring grain in the spring, then back to hay. His general rule of thumb is to plant everything thickly.

The cattle "never see a barn" except when calving. This cuts down on manure.

Overall, Leahy finds financial return is greater in organic farming than conventional farming. - MB