New, or different, agricultural needs for western Canadian food supply (cont'd from Suzuki thread)
June 4, 2009 - 2:04pm
Could also include the east but discussion originated in respect to BC and the west.
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Of course it is widely known that wheat, or indeed any grains have different yeilds in different countries, and hell, the yeild in any given country from year to year is different. My point to you about was about where grains can and cannot be grown, where hard wheat, for example needs to be grown, and where it can not be grown. In fact, your article details this, and I am surprised you did not take the article info into your internal conceptions of what it was the article actually stated.
France gets 2 crops of wheat a year according to your article, hence the larger numbers yield per hectare than most other countries.
There are reasons why there is yeild differences, in fact many reasons were clearly stated in your article, of just why yeild is different in different countries, perhaps you should take them into account in your deliberations upon this subject? Take wheat again for example, soft wheat can grow in areas that are more temperate, with warmer winters, while hard wheat cannot.
Last I heard, barely, wheat, and other grains were grown in southern BC, and indeed all over BC, what makes you think they are not? And peas are grown all over BC, and indeed large commercial crops grow in the lower mainland, never heard of Fraser Vale foods?
Lots of Saanich? LMAO, there is not a lot to Saanich in the first place.
Personally, I do not use a great deal of white sugar, and would like to see sugar cane growing if anything, but it won't grow here.
Plus it sounds like you would be into the use of sugar beets for their bioethanol purposes, the way you are promoting them. Personally, I think people eat way too much sugar in the first place, and that it is a waste of land use that could be used for actual food production.
Also, you need to consider salt/saline tolerance levels in food plants grown on VIsland and the lower mainland.
This is an issue I struggle with, as do we deprive them of one of their main sources of income when they are barely surviving because they are producing cheap sugar? Or do we continue to import one of the only things they export in order that they at least have some money on which to live? What would happen to them if their sugar market dried up? Should be advocating for fair trade sugar, as opposed to depriving them of their exports?
ETA, also Brian I do not believe we import beet sugar from haiti, for the most part, it is mainly cane sugar that is imported, most of our white beet sugar comes from Alberta.
Brian I am not in disagreement with you, in fact, I would like to see farm subsidies, which would promote local farms and farming, they are desperately needed, and interesting the BCNDP even covered this need in their platform, but of course the "symbolic" carbon tax was more important to some, than coherent broad view point thinking.
Hi, Remind, I am glad you are interested in supporting agriculture.
Just so you know, sugar beet can also be used to make molasses, and golden syrup and brown sugar. (Brown sugar is just less refined or has some molasses or syrup added).
I know just a little bit about the soft wheat, hard wheat thing.
France doesn't have 2 crops per year of wheat. (It has 2 options, autumn sown or spring sown).
We could probably do autumn sown wheat on van island and around vancouver.
I believe that in europe they used to grow much more hard wheat and a good zone for hard wheat is south of a line through the middle of germany. The change over to soft wheat occured over a hundred years ago. Soft wheat is not so good for baking but I think it is easier to grow or more reliable in difficult climates. Perhaps it stores easier at higher moisture? Maybe it is easier to thresh? The "drum" or threshing wheel was invented in holland around the time of the change over. (They ranked the drum as one of the greatest agricultural inventions right up there with the plow)
I am not sure of the reasons because I saw the whole history of it in the museum of labour and technology in Mannheim (in german and my german is fuzzy).
I do not know anything about grain production here in BC. An old wheat called red fyfe or red fife is being planted by volunteers at a pioneer house at craigflower and admirals here in victoria this year and tiny amounts of wheat and barley are grown elsewhere on the island.
Agriculture needs a lot of support from the government. The bc government does not give any! (Remember bird flu? Instead of letting the big chicken and egg producer get replaced by smaller units when the big one contracted bird flu, they allowed the big one to import eggs from washington and clamped down on small producers with healthy chickens!)
Ireland has also sabotaged their agriculture industry over the last couple of decades. (Ireland (which lost nearly a million people to starvation 150 years ago) sold off the entire sugar beet quota to France). And EVERY other northern country in europe refused because of food security issues!
The thing about beet is it isn't just sugar, it is also beet pulp (used in cattle feed) and beet tops (beet leaves and crowns) which is made into silage or just fed directly to animals. I am a bit hazy on yields (It has been years since I was involved). I just checked and figures are up to 40 tonnes per hectare at 15% sugar! That is ideal conditions, I guess. Drop it down to 30 tonnes to be fair. (By the way, I think alcohol for fueling cars is a total joke and not a funny joke either)
Germany is a federal republic and I worked in the phalz (which supports agriculture). On my days off, I ventured into other "states" hiking on both sides of the rhine or neccar rivers. Seriously, crossing the rhine was like going back 100 years if you went into a state that didn't support agriculture! I think hessan was the worst but it is a long time ago.
Support of agriculture is not just grants. Farmers need to be trained. Research needs to be done on microclimates and varietys.
When the last sugar factory in ireland closed down. (To sell the sugar quota to france and sell the land for housing) farmers had to find alternative feed for sheep and cattle and hauliers had to find alternative work. All the planting and harvesting machinery became redundant and the workers who manned them seasonally had to do other work. Machine shops also lost a lot of business.
I believe the sugar factory land remains unsold. Once the machines and skills are lost, even after 10 years, it will be very very hard to bring them back again. Brian
Beet is no longer a staple in livestock feeding in Canada. It has been largely been replaced by corn, as was turnip pulp.
What was usually fed in Canada was not sugar beets but mangels. Mangels are very close to sugar beets, but not quite same sugar content.
I've been researching both mangels and turnips as a late fall rotational crop for top grazing, but haven't made the jump.
The main competetion for these crops is not wheat, it is corn.
By the way, most of our sugar cane comes from Brazil, not Haiti. Also many Haitians are trying to wean Haitian agriculture off of cane production and instead switch to growing food for Haitians.
But why has it been replaced? Is the reason anything to do with trade agreements?
In Ireland, the sugar factorys got negociated out of existance. Supposedly giving our quota to france was helping poor southern cane producers!!!
Much more likely it helped import, export businesses.
Without the factorys there was no point to growing the beet. And all in all, sugar beet was a lot more valuable than mangels. It got trucked to the factory to extract the sugar, and beet farmers got cheap "factory lime" in return. (Lime is used in the extraction process, also got wet pressed pulp back at better rates than non beet farmers. The factory could also dry the pulp, add molasses and sell it to farmers and feed mills.
We grew fodder beet (very like mangels) for the livestock too, but there is no gaurantee of income with mangels. If livestock prices are crap, you have just grown the mangels for nothing. With sugar beet, feed was just a byproduct. If livestock prices are crap at beet harvest time, the pulp can be dried or ensiled for 6 or 8 months later.
Beet is no longer a staple in livestock feeding in Canada. It has been largely been replaced by corn, as was turnip pulp.
What was usually fed in Canada was not sugar beets but mangels. Mangels are very close to sugar beets, but not quite same sugar content.
I've been researching both mangels and turnips as a late fall rotational crop for top grazing, but haven't made the jump.
The main competetion for these crops is not wheat, it is corn.
It has been replaced in part becuase of the disappearance of mixed farms with single focus cash crop farms and livestock farms. No big conspiracy beyond that really. Also the return on corn, in both feed value, and many other aspects has caused the replacement of crops like beets and turnips. People made tha decisions long before any other issues around quota.
Lots of old barns in Ontario have old beet/turnip pulpers. They were out of use by my youth.
If I had a dollar for every best crop ever advice farmers have been given, I could buy a new combine or two.
I wasn't giving advice to farmers. You do not really have a choice in the crops you grow and even if you had to go back to pulpers you probably would not know how. Stuff gets forgotten.
Your mangel seed germination will probably be affected adversly by residues of cereal sprays anyway.
Thats one reason that agricultural research institutes are needed. You are not going to know first time. And then the first time will be the last time too.
Government needs to help keep the infrastructure there (sugar beet factories for instance) to keep options open for farmers. Leaving it up to the holy free market is a recipee for disaster.
Because when the farmer ends up with one main crop and one dealer in his region to take the crop, the farmer very quickly becomes a slave. It is also totally unsafe biologically to monocrop vast areas. You can have rust or blight or aphids or a dozen other pests and diseases moving at the windspeed across your crops and destroying them.
Lots of old barns in Ontario have old beet/turnip pulpers. They were out of use by my youth.
If I had a dollar for every best crop ever advice farmers have been given, I could buy a new combine or two.
None of that is news too me. Other than your assumption that some of us farmers don't know the old techniques. We grow several acres of beets here for a farmers market, so I am pretty up on the beet thing.
Mangels have been grown on this land before. I am part of a family farm operation that dates back generations. My cow herd for instance can be traced back in a direct line to my grandfather's original purchase of polled Herefords. To the point that we had a genetic throwback to a few of his even older herd of Shorthorns last year. No corn, besides sweet corn, has ever been grown here either. We grow all of our own livestock feed and cash crop a few fields every year as part of our normal rotation practices.
The end of mono-cropping also will take place by choices in the grocery store by all of us. Food is not a simple issue.
My assumption is that most farmers do not know the old techniques. and that most farmers do not know each others techniques.
Monoculture deprives them of skills.
It is not a criticism of farmers but of how agriculture is heading down the road to increased specialism. The soil itself needs crop rotation. We are at a stage now where straw that has been fed to cattle and shitted out and left rot for half a year still kills broad leaf seedlings. Thats a pretty potent weedkiller! (And it precludes crop rotation or any broad leaf crop following cereal). Government policy needs to change. They cannot just have a hands off approach and hope that it will stay working. The trend is towards ever larger farms more and more powerful pesticides and more fertilizers and fewer farmers. Trends like that cannot continue for very long. Something will break.
None of that is news too me. Other than your assumption that some of us farmers don't know the old techniques. We grow several acres of beets here for a farmers market, so I am pretty up on the beet thing.
Food is not a simple issue.