Day 9, Really Already? GIFS Today

Tuesday morning and I was back at the National Research Council building at the University, this time to meet the head of GIFS (Global Institute of Food Security) Dr Roger Beachy.  The organisation was only started in December 2012 and Roger has been tasked with setting up the organisation and then finding his replacement.  Roger, a former Chief Scientist to the U.S. Department of Agriculture; who was appointed by Barack Obama, has been in post since January this year.   Needless to say I was really privileged to get a meeting with him.  I was only supposed to stay for 30 mins but after an hour we had to stop the conversation.  GIFS has been set up with funding from Potash Corp,. of Saskatchewan Inc, ($35 million) along with $15 million from the Provincial Government of Saskatchewan over 7 years.  The idea is to bring three main streams of agriculture together to fund research and have an overall Ag strategy.  GIFS mandate is to 'Address the increasing global demand for safe, reliable food' The aims will be to help farmers cope with climate change at a time when farmers battle between improving productivity and maximising profit margins, while balancing long term sustainability.
Roger is adamant that times are changing, and food needs to be more nutritious which can be achieved with the help of the breeders.  Plant breeders, farmers, scientists and marketeers working together to develop, grow and then sell better food with less environmental impact has to be the way forward and it's great to have that vision.  It won't be easy to achieve but I have a feeling a lot of good will come from GIFS and I look forward with excitement to see what will be next.  It's just a shame that our government is unable to make those connections and link up the food chain.. Who knows if we produce better engineered, nutritious, food people will pay more for it, reducing our reliance on the CAP reform?

I drove down to Davison after meeting Garth Patterson for lunch, its about 100km south of Saskatoon to meet up with prominent farmer Gerrid Gust.  Gerrid and his family farm about 16,000 acres of wheat, canola, peas, and lentils.  The farm also owns it's own elevator, which they use as a grain store.  The elevator can hold up to 120,000 bushels of wheat and it was great fun to hoist myself up the man lift to the top to see the view of the farm and the surrounding area.  Gerrid's family have been farming here since the first settlements in around 1908.  I have been amazed at the strength and perseverance of the original settlers.  I can't image what they would have been letting themselves in for, arriving after a week and host, then a week on the train, before walking out to find their section of the prairie.  This land was free to settlers but they had to break 10 acres and build a house in the first 3 years.  It must have been hard!

Gerrid grows these crops with about 15" of rain fall which is quite dry although this year the weather has really been helping the crops with lots of rainfall, although temperature have been cool.  Gerrid's crop's grow to maturity and harvest in roughly 100 days, so when its go, it's go!  Here's the view from the top of his elevator looking down the train line with the Case dealership (centre top).  There is also a John Deere dealership across the road, as they always seem to travel in pairs!

Day 7 - A Day of Rest? Nope

Pancakes for breakfast with maple syrup which I have to say is a great way to start the day. After a catch up on the terrible flood at Calgary and Canmore (where we were on Monday) a neighbour of Ian's came over to say hello.  We chatted about crop marketing after the dissolution of the Canadian Wheat Marketing Board.  A move that was well over due and has freed the market up substantially.  Farmers are now able to grow what the customer desires.  Jeff is growing milling wheat specifically for the local mill, can organise the price, transport and when he wants to sell it.  Previously the movement period was dictated by the CWB, and only 80% of the expected value was paid on delivery.  The balance paid at the end of the season.  Seems a crazy really, farmers were even put in prison for selling wheat across the border to the US.

Here's a new crop for me, lentils.  These has some ascochyter developing on the lower leaves due to the wet humid weather.  The crop should be flowering in about a week and will, like everything else grow very quickly.

The crop below is a crop of 'Roundup Ready' Canola.  There are three main types of herbicide resistant Canola used in Canada, Roundup Ready, Clearfield and Liberty.  Each of these varieties are resistant to their specific family of herbicides.  This makes great sense to me.  Take our crops; they could potentially receive 4 different herbicides, with 4 different application timings and here they do just one.  Think of the fuel savings; in the pocket, but also a saving for the environment, of application fuel and manufacturing petro-chemicals.  To me there seems no problem with 'Biotech' crops from an agronomy point of view.  There is resistance to watch out for but we have that to manage now anyway.  There are over 100 different varieties of biotech crop.  The first stage in planning is to work out which family you want to use (best practise is one different to last time, so the volunteers are susceptible in the next crop), then you can choose for different traits, drought, yield, cold hardiness, shedding resistance etc, just as we would for conventionally bred varieties.  Imagine if we could use these crops in the UK and have them resistant to fungi, rusts, slugs or insects, we could cut down or reduce the amount of chemicals we currently use.  Imagine that no insecticides! Why should we take the moral ground in the EU and allow imports of selected GM produce, and have farmers elsewhere in the world growing them.  If it's safe for them to grow then it's safe for us.

Back to this crop.  It was planted on the 15th May and after 39 days it was at stem extension with green bud showing.  The stand was very even and the field just went on for a far as the eye could see.

When I got back to Saskatoon after fixing a puncture on the way; and driving 50Km very slowly on my mini wheel, all part of the Nuffield experience, I headed out with my host John Cote to a large auction house. Ritchie Bros has fairly regular auctions all over the province.  It was an incredible sight with 38 combines, 33 large sprayers, 24 swathers, trucks, trailers, augers, backhoes, rollers, seeders and the list goes on.  It was a very impressive sight.  I made it back to the auction on Monday but unfortunately missed the main items being sold.

I quite fancied a bid on the little McCormick below, obviously there were no green ones there, and I guess the haulage home might be a little inhibitive, never mind there will always be another time and place.

 

Day 6 - Saturday 22nd June

Nozzles; probably not an interesting topic to some people but to Tom Wolf they are a science and an art form.  Getting the right spray droplets at the right pressure with the correct forward speed, all make for better applications of pesticide, which is sensible considering the environmental damage they can cause and the financial of pesticide being sprayed over the fields.  Tom gives advice to growers about application technology and through a Nuffield connection (thanks Steve), Tom very kindly agreed to meet Andy and myself at very short notice, and what an interesting and very informative time it was.  We looked at nozzle performance under different pressures creating different spray patterns.  We discussed technology, part of Andy's Nuffield topic, which was fascinating.  I learnt about Aim Command that allows you to control individual nozzle's which is terrific news.  Savings over and above auto sectional control are between 6-10%.  Then there was Capstan Ag pin point control system linked to turn compensation, meaning nozzle flow variation when turning on the headland.  It really was a great morning and very educational.

After lunch Andy headed out to the Saskatchewan/Manitoba border and I headed an hours drive West to meet up with Nuffield Scholar Ian McPhadden at a small town called Milden.  Ian's farm is now let out to neighbours but he still keeps a very close eye on the industry and works hard with lots of Ag groups, including being on Nuffield Canada's Interview panel for scholar selection. Ian was very welcoming and although I hadn't planned on staying a bed was soon made up and a toothbrush located. 

We headed into Milden for supper at the small hotel/pub.  Milden was built on the side of the railroad.  Small towns are every 6 miles, which was as far as the settlers could go, (there and back) with a horse and cart in a day.  Milden has a population of about 200 people and the hotel/pub is the main attraction.  The ribs were great and served in a buffet style.  After dinner we sat on the veranda, having a beer and I listened to tales from Scotty Bell, a regular at the pub, telling stories of  his childhood.  Scotty was quite a character!

After dinner we headed back to Ian's farmhouse before turning in for the night.  Here's Ian in the back of Jeff's truck the following morning going out to the fields to look at some crops.

Day 5 - The Road to Saskatoon

Andy and I headed East in the rain and drizzle from Three Hills, Alberta heading to Saskatoon in Saskatchewan.  The trip was just over 500 kilometres.  We stopped along the way a few times to take some pictures. One of the most outstanding memories of the trip so far was the amazing rich coloured, wide open, clear sky's, with clouds uniquely dotting the horizon.  It was truly beautiful.

For most of the road trip, our destination was straight in front of our noses with a few very important intersections marked for our attention.  Any bend was greeted with a cheer as we pushed on through the day.

Naturally we had to stop at some of the towns along the route, for gas for the car, or for us!  One place we stopped at was a town called Kindersley and inevitably there was an Agricultural dealership; and not just one.  There was be a John Deere dealership on one side of the road and a Case IH/New Holland on the other, all with vast numbers of tractors, sprayers and combines regimentally lined up on display.  The workshop space was incredible; great amphitheatres with technicians gladiatorially battling with their spanners (or laptops!)

By the time we arrived at Saskatoon we headed to the Western Grains Research Foundation for a meeting with Garth Patterson, the Executive Director of the not for profit organisation.  Amazingly we drove straight into Saskatoon and straight to Innovation Place for our meeting.  After meeting Garth and Gina Feist (Research Program Manager) for some quick introductions; we headed down to Boffins Club where we were joined by Garth's wife Carole-Anne.  We had supper and discussed a range of different aspects of food, farming, genetic modification, breeding and end user concerns.  Andy and I even got up to have our photograph taken with the band, Whiskey on a Sunday, fortunately we were not asked to perform for our supper!

After leaving Garth and Carole-Anne Andy and I headed south around the city to find Barb Stefanyshyn-Cote, the chair of Nuffield Canada who had very kindly offered to put us up during our stay in Saskatoon.