Doctors, engineers or even computer scientists need only do what they do best. But for a farmer, growing an excellent crop and driving it to the end of the lane for pickup is just not good enough. A farmer also needs to be a financial whiz, a creative entrepreneur, a marketing genius - and like people enough to have them trampling over the farm.Bill and Marilyn Redelmeier of Southbrook Farms don't have all of the above, but they sure have a reasonable sample. Their farm is a short 45-minute drive north of Toronto and on a clear day you can see the CN Tower. They grow corn, pumpkins, raspberries, and strawberries on 285 acres. There is also a pick-your-own operation, a farm retail store that only carries Ontario-grown produce, a bakery that goes through 22,000 pies and 10,000 dozen cookies in a season, and an award-winning winery. They even offer banquets in their wine cellar as a prize for charity auctions.
The Redelmeiers like customers. They find it fun and challenging to have 120,000 visitors pass through their farm - 3,000 on a good summer's day. That is not to say they don't have some war stories. There are customers who complain that the potatoes have dirt on them, and others who think they are not stealing apples if they take a bite out of an apple when it is still hanging on the tree. And then there is the family that took bowls of cream into the strawberry patch.
Southbrook Farms is going after the quality-conscious customer. Bill Redelmeier boasts that his sweet corn is the most expensive in Ontario. He also claims it is the best. If customers complain about the price, Redelmeier gives them half a dozen to try out. They always come back for more.
He's picked up some home truths as his operation has expanded. One is that the last of anything will not be sold. Customers like choice; one cauliflower on a shelf looks like a reject. Another truth is that the Canadian consumer does not value Canadian-grown. Bill is doing his best to change this perception. His dessert wine made from Ontario-grown raspberries, called Southbrook Farms Framboise, is going to be the first Canadian wine sold at the famous Harrods in London. It may not be fair, but the truth is that to be successful you need to diversify and give the customers choice. Customers may be those impossible people who don't know potatoes grow in soil, but they are also the grateful people who come up to Bill and tell him how much they like bringing the kids to his farm. He is giving his customers what they want.
Dee Kramer writes on consumer issues.
'96 brings maturing of ginseng industry
Back in 1993, Wray Clement warned that small family farm ginseng producers were at risk from 100-acre-plus growers. Clement, past president of the Ginseng Growers' Association of Canada, accurately predicted $25 per pound by 1995. The price dropped at the end of 1994, encouraging some growers to keep three-year-old ginseng in the ground until 1995.
The 1995 season was the driest on record. Ginseng is very susceptible to wet weather, so the lack of rain reduced crop-destroying root infections. The dry weather also forced plants to develop a deep, pencil root and affected seed development.
As growers met the first buyers in the fall of 1995, buyers were short of ginseng root from the fall, 1994, purchases. They bought high-quality root at $40 per pound.
Some growers experienced difficulty getting the crop dug and dried as the season progressed.
Marketing ginseng is about whom you know and new producers found they had lots of product and no one to sell it to. Large yield increases were confirmed when Chai-Na-Ta Corp., a large Ontario and B.C. producer, announced an 18-per-cent yield increase from 1994.
Production growth has been dramatic, rising from 850,000 pounds in 1992 to an estimated three million pounds in 1995. The high cost of seed for planting in 1996 may temper further acreage increases.
The industry is anticipating the June 30, 1997, takeover of Hong Kong by China and the impact on trade routes that may have.
There is no doubt that ginseng growing has matured as an industry.
Hugh Zimmer grows corn and tobacco in Oxford county.
Dromedaries, anyone?
All over the world farmers are having to adjust their husbandry to changes in the global climate. Even in the temperate zone of southern England we have had to struggle through a severe drought, said to be the worst for 600 years. Summer forage crops have been a disaster, only partly made up by a mild autumn which has allowed silage making into early November. But the late flush of grass with a high protein content has created its own problems, with nitrogen absorbed into the rumen and blood stream associated with reduced fertility.
But our problems are dwarfed by the disastrous droughts that continue in much of Africa and Australia. This year we have had visitors from both these continents and their news has been grim indeed. John Campbell, from Zimbabwe, who has kept a rain gauge on his holding for 20 years, has monitored a steady decline in annual rainfall from 400 mm to 80 mm. Staple crops are failing and one-third of the population is on food relief. The great Kariba Dam which once generated much of the country's electricity, is currently only 14-per-cent full and power output has slumped. John's first job when he returned after his holiday in Dorset was to sink his domestic borehole from 20 to 40 metres.
Stewart's family in South Africa abandoned the small trout unit which had been on their farm for nearly 30 years, as the water supply gradually dwindled away. In Tanzania, in the centre of the continent, Masai herdsmen are substituting camels for their cattle as the drought has turned once succulent grazing into desert scrub.
The story continues in Southern Australia where land that has seen little rain for several years is being abandoned and those who once farmed it now depend on charity and relief. My mother-in-law, living in Sydney, has witnessed convoys of heavy trucks moving out of the city laden with fodder, clothes and canned food on their way to these stricken areas. Our great leaders, sparing no expense, have established committees of experts and an array of international bodies to study these global problems. Yet, as they talk, the world population continues to grow and the number working on the land continues to fall. It is an equation that will not work and my guess is that the status of farmers must be raised and cherished as never before. So my New Year's resolution is to stay on the land and pray for rain - and, as insurance, I'm going to brush up on my camel husbandry.
Ken Richards raises sheep and crayfish in Dorset, U.K.
EDITORIAL & LETTERS
With an early-February deep freeze bringing burst water lines, and no signs of record-high feed prices thawing out, there's not a lot of room for optimism among Ontario's dairy and poultry farmers these days. The trade front looks equally bleak, with multi-million-dollar quota investments teetering in the balance as the Americans raise the heat on Canadian import tariffs. Make Wine, Not Whine
As grain farmers bask on the warm beaches of record-high prices, now is not an easy time to be milking cows or buying pullets.
With agriculture so specialized these days, it's so easy to get wrapped up in one's own industry. But sometimes there are lessons to be learned in taking a step back and looking at how the rest of agriculture is coping.
Before they put up the For Sale signs, Ontario's supply managed producers should take a look at a thriving little success story in Niagara Region and Essex county: the grape and wine industry. Back in 1989 when the Canada-U.S. free trade deal was inked, Ontario's 10,000 grape growers were written off. There was no way they could compete with the Californians, said the experts. And, in any case, the best growers could hope to produce in these frozen climes was Baby Duck and Ch%teauneuf-du-Plonk.
Seven years later, however, the Ontario grape and wine industry is no longer Canada's Gripe and Whine industry. Wines continue to shine in European competition; market share is growing; and tourists have discovered that there's a lot more to Niagara than the Ripley's Believe-it-or-Not museum.
At the industry's annual cork-popping in Queen's Park early February, the grape board reported that harvest was up 20 per cent, including production of vinifera, or top-quality wine grapes, which soared by 40 per cent. This fall, an additional 300,000 new vinifera vines will reach maturity: Chardonnay, Riesling, and Cabernet, world-class Ontario-grown grapes that are taking the stodgy old wine world by storm.
How did growers become the toast of the industry in a few years? Apart from a $100-million federal program to help them adapt to free trade, it took a commitment to quality, including the Vintners' Quality Alliance program, and a dogged determination to succeed.
There's nothing like the warm glow from a glass of wine on a cold February night. Nor is there any reason why Ontario dairy and poultry industries can't compete with the Gallo Wines of the milk and feather industries.
Now is not the time for pessimism, as a small but growing number of dairy and poultry producers are discovering. In eastern Ontario, for instance, the Schouten family of Richmond and the Laplantes of Sarsfield have both embarked on $1-million-plus expansion phases.
Adrian and Arnold Schouten, who recently invested $3,500 a cow place in a 440-cow naturally-ventilated barn, say Ontario producers are as efficient as their competition in Wisconsin. Also bullish about the future is Robert Laplante, who jumped right back into supply management after the family's 200-cow dairy barn was destroyed by fire in October, 1993. Two state-of-the-art environmentally-controlled poultry barns now house 60,000 birds. Total investment: about $2 million. There are similar stories across the province: Farmers who spend less time wringing their hands over the latest rhetoric coming out of Washington; and more time getting ready to compete with Washington head on.
LETTERS See-saw
We want to thank you for your fair view of the situation in your editorial, Sawyers Told to Buzz Off in the Dec. 19 issue, but call into question a few facts in the article Complaints Shut Down Farm Sawmill in the same issue. Mr. Holmes indicates that we are trying to change the farmer's way of life. This could not be further from the truth. However, since everyone else must abide by the by-laws of the township and other laws, so should the farmer.
We also dispute Mr. Holme's claim that the sawmill has not operated since July, 1994. Mr. Struik continued to operate the mill intermittently for 20 days in July and 16 days in August, the last day of operation being Aug. 29, 1994. We were asked by officials of the municipality to monitor the activities of the sawmill.
Mr. Vincent may consider himself a retired farmer, but he continues to operate a thriving electrical business. In fact, he wired the home we built in 1976.
On March 6, 1995, Mr. Vincent testified in Whitby court that the sawmill was 12 X 45 feet and built four years ago. It is actually 20 X 80 feet and built in the late summer of 1993 and early spring of 1994. Perhaps he was referring to the planning shed adjacent to the sawmill building.
With regard to the noise level, one township official came to check on the level and confirmed that we had a legitimate complaint. There are two other families involved in this complaint who live in close proximity to the sawmill.
This dispute is very unfortunate but we feel that, had Mr. Vincent checked with the township authorities, this situation might not exist.
Brian & Lorraine Whitehead
SunderlandUser fees OK
I attended a farm leaders' meeting at the Barrie Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA) office on Jan. 17, 1996. The purpose of the meeting was to inform us of how the budget cuts were going to affect the services provided by OMAFRA to volunteer groups, specifically secretarial and treasury services.
We were told that these services will no longer be provided. When I asked for a show of hands of groups using the services and wishing them to continue, the large majority was in favour.
The budget for running OMAFRA for 1995 is $150 million. Cutting the secretarial services to the farm groups would save $100,000, only 0.6 per cent of the total operating budget. The benefit to OMAFRA by providing these services is a direct link to the farm commodity groups through mailings. Now they want to cut the cord.
I propose OMAFRA and the farm groups sit down and work out an agreeable solution. Insure a level playing field to all groups for services provided right across the province. Either cut the $100,000 from some other lower priority item on the budget or enter into a split cost recovery agreement with the producer groups.
There is nothing wrong with user fees. It's human nature that when something is free, we take more than we need. If we have to pay for the services, we will think twice. This will make the system more fair and more efficient. It will address the budget concerns of the government. OMAFRA will still have its direct link to the prime agricultural community. The many hard-working volunteers will have access to the secretarial and resource support they need to keep their farm groups functioning. This will help to keep the Ontario agricultural economy in this province healthy, strong and growing.
Kim Ellison
CookstownAbove board
In the article entitled Ottawa Poised to Scrap Corn Registration in the Jan. 23 issue, it was stated that federal inspectors told Mycogen how to work around the system. This is not a true picture. Under the federal seed regulations, seed corn for silo blends can be sold as common grade. To comply with these regulations, Mycogen reviewed the requirements for proper labelling and tagging. with Agriculture Canada. This information is public and available to all seed companies wanting to sell silo blend seed corn.
In our years of experience, all federal seed inspectors we have met have carried out their duties professionally and honestly. We regret the comments in this article may have implied otherwise.
Zeb Talach
Mycogen Canada Inc.
ChathamCutting our future
Cuts to agriculture are a real concern, but they are not the only cuts to affect farmers.
Education cuts are going to drive tuition costs up. I'm an animal science student and a farmer, and this scares me even more than cuts to OMAFRA. I have always been told that education is our future and yet the opportunities for getting that education are getting smaller. Since starting at University of Guelph in 1993, my tuition has increased by 30 per cent. Next year, the price is expected to go up at least 20 per cent more. This means it is harder for students in all programs, including agriculture, to afford school.
Less than three per cent of the population is involved in production agriculture. The average farmer is over 50 years of age and yet we are increasing the costs for our next generation to get the knowledge they need to farm. Farms are increasing in size not only for economics, but because there are fewer qualified farm managers.
A recent article in Pig Farming, a U.K. trade journal, says "labour is Canada's biggest challenge. The pig industry needs technical expertise to be efficient." If other countries are looking upon Canadian farming as lacking in qualified labour now, what will happen in the future?
Perhaps farmers should start looking at their industry in a more holistic manner. Our very technical industry relies on education for both our workers and future leaders. The cuts could hurt farming in more ways than you and I may have thought.
Paul Garvey
ThorndaleThanks
I wish to express my sincere appreciation for your generosity and support of the bursary I received this past year. Your encouragement in pursuing my education has given me a feeling of pride. Thank you.
Ted Herrick
Kemptville College