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     We were discussing conservation farming methods for hoe farmers with Jessy and Mangangu, out in Mpongwe, Zambia. That’s all fine, Mangangu says, “but we don’t want to keep these people small scale farmers all their life. The goal is for them to become commercial farmers. But how do you manage the next step – like us? Like Jessy and me?”

     It’s true. Jessy and Mangangu are in that difficult in-between phase – too big really to be called small scale farmers, but not big enough to be commercial farmers. And the problem is not in the words – it’s in the technology.
     Small scale farmers plant by hand. Jessy planted over 30 hectares last year with his family – by hand, after disking and pulling lines with the tractor. He doesn’t own a planter. It took him too long, and with the rains coming early, he was delayed even more, and found that he lost instead of winning. The last fields planted don’t look too good. Next year he’ll scale back again, until he can afford a planter.

      Mangangu plants around 100 hectares. His problem is harvesting – he still harvests by hand. It takes too long too. And both farmers only plant maize. They know they are mining the soil – that they should rotate with soybeans to put something back in. But maize can be harvested by hand – larger fields of soybeans can’t. They need a combine harvester.
     We told them to buy one together. But it’s still out of their league – to buy without credit. That’s another problem with these farmers. Credit is very difficult for them to obtain. To bankers, a black small farmer is too big of a risk. Their experience is they don’t pay back. So bankers don’t touch them. Jessy and Mangangu know it’s their skin colour – and it frustrates them no end. And yet they are open enough to see there is some merit to the banker’s stance. They know their fellow black farmers have often been negligent. It takes a long time to overturn a bad reputation.
     There are practically no small used combines for sale in Zambia anyway. Maybe in South Africa. Or in Europe. Could we look for one? But then there’s the transport, and the issue of finding spares (parts) for it when it breaks down.
     And back to conservation farming – how do you apply the methods to a bigger farm? We grain farmers from western Canada use no-till drills. But corn has much more trash than wheat. We talked to a Zimbabwean farmer who adapted existing machinery to plant no-till. It can be done. But it takes innovation, money, a good shop…
     It isn’t easy to move up the ladder! If someone out there has some advice for Jessy or Mangangu, or for us how to help them – please!

July 8, 2011: A day after William and Kate visited Slave Lake, Alberta, and seven and a half weeks after a devastating fire destroyed 400 homes of the 7000 people town, Robert and I volunteered a day there to help sort used clothing.

     A disaster of the magnitude of the Slave Lake wildfire (rated the second most expensive insured disaster in Canada after the 1998 ice storm in Quebec) carries many consequences we don’t often think about.
     One is a mountain of used clothing. On May 16th, when Slave Lake’s residents were all ordered to immediately evacuate their homes, most left with little more than the shirts on their backs. Those whose homes were destroyed literally lost everything. A call for donations to help the fire victims was met with an overwhelming response. Truly overwhelming.

     An article in the Westlock News (June 27th edition) said that there was enough clothing donated for a population of 40,000-50,000. That’s far more clothes than Slave Lake will ever need – or be able to process on their own. So they called for help. Groups have been coming in from communities all over Alberta to spend a day sorting clothes.
     Donations are stored in a vacant building of the Tolko OSB Plant outside Slave Lake. At the end of the day we’d made a small dent in the mountain. One girl reported seeing another eight semi trailers behind the building waiting to be unloaded.

     What are they going to do with all these clothes? Andrea Hardy is a coordinator for FCSS (Family and Community Support Services) in Slave Lake. Some will continue to go to the distribution centre in Slave Lake, she told us. The rest will be designated for other disaster areas or to charities working with third world countries such as Africa.
     One of the FCSS staff in Westlock, Stephanie Schultz, who also came with us, says that there is another smaller mountain of donations waiting in Westlock to be sorted. It seems a bit paradox – people are trying to help, and creating a new problem.
     Maybe, next time there is a call for donations, especially for used clothing, it would be wise to contact the intake centre and make sure they still need help. Real help could sometimes be not helping (or not in that way)! And make sure the clothing you donate is clean and such as you would still wear.

     Slave Lake still does need help – but mostly in volunteer work (to sort clothes for example) or in monetary donations to purchase items such as mattresses which they are not allowed to accept second hand (Canada health regulations). Andrea Hardy would love to hear from you – contact her at andrea@slavelake.ca .

July 5, 2011:  “Welcome home!” Yes, it’s good to be home, although ‘home’ is a broad concept for us. We’ve learned to be home wherever we are. Our farm house northwest of Westlock, Alberta is still our main base though. And it’s good to be in my own kitchen, dig in my own garden, and sleep in my own bed! We were away almost six months.

     Only half an hour’s drive from here the Klondyke Ferry crosses the Athabasca River. My sister and her family were down visiting from their ranch north of Fort St. John, B.C. We decided to take the ferry and go hiking in the sand hills beyond.

     One of only seven ferries still operating in Alberta, the Klondyke Ferry links Highway 661 from Vega to Fort Assinaboine, north of Barrhead. The ferry can carry up to 50 tonnes, and operates from 6:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. The sand hills on the Fort Assinaboine area are a favourite spot for quads and motorbikes, so it gets quite busy on weekends. During the week it’s mostly local traffic. Quite a few Neerlandia farmers own land on the other side of the river. Some of the smaller equipment still goes across the ferry. Having to plan for the ferry can add an interesting dimension to farming!

     Marg Krikke told me they used to have land on the other side. They took most of their equipment over the ferry, including seeding outfits and grain trucks. When they combined at night, they would always have to remember that the ferry closes down at night. If they missed it, it was a pain.

     Last fall, travelling back from Moose Jaw, Robert and I took the Riverhurst ferry across Lake Diefenbaker, near Riverhurst, Saskatchewan. That ferry operates 24 hours, and carries up to 100 tonnes, enabling it to transport a fully loaded semi truck, or up to 15 cars. As we waited for the ferry, it came towards us carrying a grain truck, a tractor with a large grain auger and a combine header (we’d crossed the combine just a little earlier). Mary McArthur, reporter for the Western Producer, was also with us and she jumped up into the tractor cab to have a talk with the driver. Guess who it was!

     We’d just met one of One Earth Farms’ outfits moving their harvest operations. If you haven’t heard of One Earth Farms, check out their website at www.oneearthfarms.net. One Earth Farms made headlines in the spring of 2009, when it announced its intentions to begin farming operations that would eventually include one million acres of leased First Nations land. The business strives to combine sustainable agriculture practices, with good economics and leading technology, and building up the First Nations community. (Their CEO, Larry Ruud, used to be our farm consultant when we first started out here in Westlock, during the 1990s.)

      There’s still something special about taking a ferry, and you just never know who you’ll meet up with!

 

 

 

June 27, 2011: One last bike ride before we leave Switzerland tomorrow morning. I set out early – it’s going to be another hot day. They’re forecasting over 30 degrees Celsius. Farmers are pleased. That’s good harvest weather. The first barley fields are already combined and most are waiting for the machine now. Next week they’ll start the first canola fields. (Most grain crops are winter crops here.)

     The harvest is somewhat early, due to the prolonged dry warm weather. I stop by the sugar beet field where I took the picture some weeks ago, of my hand all the way down the cracks. The cracks are still there, but filled at least two thirds now. I’m surprised at how resilient sugar beets are – their roots must go way down. Those big leaves gather every drop of moisture available.

     What a change in the corn! Two weeks ago I thought there wouldn’t be much corn this year. It sure liked that bit of rain we had. Most fields are now waist high or more. Some are looking pretty frazzled though – we had a hail storm go through parts of the country that did a fair bit of damage.
     Beni Gasser did a daring experiment – his neighbour Hans combined peas last week, and Beni cultivated and seeded corn for silaging. He was lucky – it did rain, hopefully enough to get a good germination. It will definitely be late, but he needs feed for his dairy cows. Hay will be in short supply this year.
     The Oekohay (gets subsidies for not being cut before June 15) finally got cut end of last week. It’s not the stuff to produce milk with… When I think of land prices here, the subsidies must be good to make up for poor quality, and this year poor quantity, hay.

     Golden rod, sky blue wild chicory, the last scarlet poppies amid other varieties I don’t know the names of bloom in the wild flower meadows. These, usually small patches at the edges of fields, never get cut. It looks a bit wild, with some of last year’s stalks still there, but that’s what it’s supposed to be. It’s a sanctuary for various birds and insects that need a safe place all year – and also heavily subsidized.
     And oh, the sunflower fields! Swiss farmers first started producing sunflowers as a crop in l994. Now the sunny fields light up the landscape. The oil content of sunflowers is 45 per cent. On the Swiss agri website, I read sunflowers are drought tolerant. Good – they’ll have done well this year!
     One last climb up into the cherry tree. Markus Stamm says the cherries bloomed during frost. So he’s surprised at the abundant harvest. Despite the fact that hardly any farmers around here spray their trees (they’re mostly just for domestic use) there’re no worms either this year. Believe me, we’re enjoying that to the max!
     So, goodbye Switzerland. It’s been great being here during the summer weeks. Canada, here we come!

     Thomas Buchmann turns the radio on, opens the door and calls out a cheerful greeting. 1500 sets of bright pink eyes and long ears perk up. The boss is here. The radio is important, he tells us, so the rabbits know what’s going on. If he just walks in, they all jump nervously. He talks of them just like his pets – and each box looks like someone’s back yard rabbit setup. 28 bunnies hop around in an airy open space, one third of which is covered in clean fresh straw. There’s a raised platform for them so they can play and chase each other around. In the back there’s a covered raised box with straw if they want to retreat a bit. Everything possible is done for their comfort and pleasure.

     This isn’t a petting zoo. It’s a rabbit meat production unit in Switzerland, where customers demand that their rabbit meat is produced in animal friendly ways. When they eat rabbit, they want to know that the rabbit had a happy life. They can be assured of that if their meat comes from Buchmann’s farm.
     “Quality is defined by what the customer wants and is prepared to pay for,” Thomas says. He thinks that there probably isn’t much real difference between Hungarian rabbit meat and Swiss rabbit meat, but the difference is in the perception of the Swiss consumer. Some time ago a Swiss TV consumer program showed pictures of Hungarian rabbit farms where the rabbits are kept in small wire cages with hardly room for two rabbits to lay down side by side. Swiss consumers were outraged and the two largest grocery chains in Switzerland at least temporarily suspended all rabbit meat imports. That did wonders for domestic rabbit meat demand.
     Robert often says that we in the West are at the top of the Maslow pyramid. (See “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow’s_hierarchy_of_needs” for an explanation of this theory of the hierarchy of the needs of humans.) Most of the people we work with in Zambia are at the bottom – their energy is needed to provide food and shelter for themselves and their families. There’s not much discussion in Zambia of how food is produced. The issue is to produce it. The average life expectancy is only 38.6 years in Zambia (see http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/). Canada’s is 81.2 years. That alone gives a whole difference perspective on the meaning and value of life.
     The peak of the pyramid is self-actualization, where so many of us in the First World countries are. Our basic needs are met, and we are more concerned with fulfilling our whole potential. As we care about ourselves, we also care more about the environment around us, including the animals we produce for meat.
     And that’s a good thing, I guess.

June 14, 2011:  Yesterday 65 cows held Open House at the Morgenacker farm in Benken, Switzerland . -Because really, that’s who most everyone went to see, not the co-owners Rublin, Schurter and Räss. And what a house it is – the most ultra modern dairy facility in Switzerland. And definitely open – there are no walls anywhere, just curtains rolled up that can be unfurled in bad weather.

I wanted to see what kind of a Swiss farmer would be bold enough to build a large new dairy barn with a milking robot. Milk prices in Switzerland have gone down not up. And most farmers have less than 30 cows. The atmosphere in agriculture circles is often negative. So who is this?

It’s not just one, but four. Martin and Irene Rublin got together with two of their neighbours, Räss and Schurters to finance and operate the new barn. All four partners had 10-15 cows each in old facilities. It was either quit milking or take a bold step. Rublins own half the business, the other two one quarter each. Rublins are also the driving force, doing much of the labour, together with Martin’s 69 year old mother, who is still very active.

Somehow the idea that this is still very much a family business intrigued me, considering the very modern facility and the four way partnership. I was interested to know what they did to ensure that the business would prosper. Partnerships often fail because of the human factor. We’ve had several family members in Switzerland try farming partnerships and after some years break them up again.

Martin laughs. It’s a very intricate document, he says. They had help from the Agriculture department, to work out the financial and structural details. Everything is laid out very clearly – both their share in profit as owners, and the hours and wages as employees – because everyone is both.

They’ve worked together with these neighbours for a long time already, sharing machinery and work, and know them well. There’s quite an age difference in the partners – Irene is 25 and pregnant with their first baby which is due any day. Martin is 35, one neighbour 45 and the other 55. Is age an issue? It isn’t, Martin says. In fact, the oldest has the most drive sometimes.

It’s definitely an upbeat atmosphere. The local Sport Club has a busy canteen going, with beer, cider and coffee to go with the Bratwurst and homemade cakes. The kids entice the calves to suck their finger; some boys try to upset the bull so he’ll paw the ground. Groups of farmers stand all around the lofty barn and press into the small milking room with the robot, and discuss the merits of it all.

I’m always excited to see young farmers with a positive perspective on the future. This open house should be an encouragement to the Swiss farming industry. It was to me.

 

     A respectable Canadian farm has a large green lawn out front. The Swiss farmer has an apple orchard. And the Italian farmer along the Cote d’Azur has an olive grove.  Pietro, who runs the bed and breakfast we found last night near Andora, proudly served us his own olive oil with salad from his own garden (no E-coli!).  But the terraces on the hillside that once were covered with olive trees are overgrown with scrub brush now. The only thing to remind us of the once thriving olive industry in Andora is the Olive Museum. –Economics, Pietro said.

     We followed the coastline, the deep blue Mediterranean Sea to our right and terracotta villages and towns hugging the rugged harsh hillsides on our left.  (Stopping at the beach, I thought that the warm clear water I am dipping my feet in is tainted with the blood of Libyans on the opposite shore.) We turned inland – leaving the olive groves and vineyards, pine nuts and figs. Passing through deep mountain valleys covered with chestnuts and oaks we came out on the other side of the last tunnel to rain and expansive wheat and barley fields.

     I never associated Italy with rice. But why else would risotto be a favourite national dish? Robert wanted to drive through the flat farmland around Milano, and we must have passed by rice paddies for an hour or more, before and after Novara. Sometimes the rice fields alternated with corn – the source for another national dish – polenta. So I guess the wheat fields we saw must be for pasta!

     As we got closer to the Italian border, Robert reached back 50 years for a little Italian. When he was a child on their family farm in Switzerland, they used to employ Italian workers, like most other farmers. He picked up enough words then to find us a room now and communicate at least the basics with our hosts. Those Italians working in Switzerland either went back home or are respectable citizens of Switzerland now with good jobs. The farm workers have been replaced with people from Poland or the Slavic countries (former Yugoslavia). The new Schengen rules with the EU, regulating the movement of people across the border, have made it so much easier to employ workers from outside Switzerland, especially now that the former Eastern European states have joined the EU.

     During our five days in France, I appreciated again the fact that Canada is bilingual. Between my three years of high school French many years ago, and the French words beside the English on every package of milk (and everything else) I was amazed at how much I could pick up. But now I’m pretty much at a loss. I know almost as much Bemba (from Zambia) as I do Italian.

    Example: If we order latte caldo – why is the milk hot?? What’s the issue with a camera in my room (camera=room…)??  And who ordered the fish with my linguine?? So that’s a little what a new non-English speaking immigrant feels like in Canada!

     I’m shivering in an old stone farmhouse in southern France, in my warmest sweater. The warm dry weather finally broke just before the long weekend – Ascension Day is a holiday for most of Europe. I’m sure all farmers are breathing a sigh of relief at the rain. Two days ago I biked in my shorts by a Swiss sugar beet field. This time I could put my whole hand in the cracks. The rain will save the sugar beets and corn, but for most grain it’s too late. Markus, a Swiss farmer, told Robert that some are silaging their wheat and barley. The barley especially was almost mature and there’s little in the heads. Too bad.

     The Western Producer writes that canola could be in short supply because of problems in China and drought in Europe. What we see in Switzerland, southern Germany and France certainly supports that. This rain will help to fill out the pods, but won’t put pods where they dropped. What is bad for farmers here is, of course, always good for someone else. Prices go up.

      Robert and I joined his brother and wife for the holiday at their weekend farmhouse in southern France, near Valence which is on the banks of the Rhone River. Driving down the Rhone Valley, I wondered who would eat all the cherries from the heavily laden trees all along the way. The cherry trees alternated with apricots. Both fruits are in season now – delicieux! The road side fruit stands were all closed when we drove in, but we got our cherries from what looked like abandoned trees on our hike yesterday through the crags and rolling hills near the farm.

     The solid, large square farm buildings here are all built from stone, but most of them are either empty or being renovated as weekend ‘cottages’ for urbanites. It’s a bit like driving through the Canadian countryside – the small farms are being annexed into the bigger ones and buildings abandoned. Poking around the farmyards we find rusty one bottom plows and antique hay rakes.

     We see a few small herds of cattle on the dry pastures. There’s not a lot of grass there – it’s been dry here too. We drive by some fields of thin rye. Daniel says the locals tell him it’s the driest spring since 1846. Judging by the scrub brush, it is generally a dry country though.

     A local plaque tell us the people here once made their living by selling the wild chestnuts growing everywhere in the forests. The chestnut meat was milled into flour, the shells used as fuel for fires, and the timber for furniture. Now most inhabitants drive the 15 minutes down the narrow winding road to work in the city. There are still a few older farmers with cattle, hay and a few fruit trees but they’re a dying breed. It seems most of the serious farming is done down in the valley with fruit.

    In traditional African culture, you are nobody outside of the community. Your survival depends on being part of the group. We in the West pride ourselves in our individuality. “I think, therefore I am.” In reality, it should be: ‘I am because you are’.

     Robert’s sister is just finishing a big renovation job on an old house in Schleitheim. She’s a single mom of three teenage boys. Tomorrow is moving day and for a week already friends and relatives helped her clean, sort and pack. “How would I ever do this without people to help who care about me?” she asks.
     The trades people are still in the house, finishing last minute jobs – putting down tiles, the final touches on the floors and installing bathroom sinks. Last Friday Barbara put on an ‘Uufrichti Fescht’ – a party for all the trades people that were part of the renovation. The framers were there, the bricklayers, the painters, the guys who did the tiling, the kitchen, etc., even the architect.

     Barbara’s son Luke and Robert operated the grill; friends brought potato salad and desserts. There was plenty of beer, cold drinks and good fellowship. The party lasted until midnight.
     “Uufrichti’ used to be the norm when a new building was put up, or a major renovation undertaken. It was the builder’s way of saying ‘thank you’ to all those who helped made it possible. Matthias Gasser, the architect, says. “Even in rural areas, it is becoming rare to have an ‘Uufrichti’. He thinks it is because many people come from outside the area, and don’t have any connections to those around them. They pick the trades people that are the cheapest, often from outside the area too. It is a purely business connection.

     Matthias himself grew up in Schleitheim, and most of the trades people are either from the area or close by. Matthias commented on the good atmosphere on the site during building.
     Many of the people at the party were young men, who were thrilled to be invited. “They don’t do this much anymore,” one said.

     It takes community to build community: Last Sunday Robert and I rode in the seventh annual SlowUp (Slow down, cheer Up!) bcycle ride. It was a fun ride, 38 kilometres long, through Schaffhausen and nearby Germany. An estimated 25,000 people took part in the ride, young and old, of all biking abilities. At every road junction (and in this country there are a lot!) there were volunteers directing traffic. Every village along the way – nine including the city of Schaffhausen – had party tents and activities for the participants. Almost all of that was manned by volunteers. Some villages turned the weekend into a village fest, with every club taking part in some way. The whole event was great fun, and only possible because people worked together.

     “Wonne Monat Mai” they call it in Switzerland. “Wonne = delightful, joyous, rapturous May.” I try to take a bike tour every day or so, and around every corner I’m rewarded with a new burst of colour. Olive canola fields, shimmery barley fields, deep green sugar beets, blue green wheat fields coming into head, and in between I pedal along wild flower meadows that make more money than wheat, I was told yesterday.

    

We were touring the back roads across the Randen (foothills) with a group of farmers. The road wound through wild flower meadows which were in full flower – purple sage blooming among golden goatsbeard and white daisies. Peter told us that farmers can make more money with these wild flower meadows through subsidies, than they can with a good wheat stand. But to comply with standards, they have to have all eight required varieties of flowers in the fields, they can’t use any kind of fertilizer, they have to be within a certain region and they have to wait until June 1 to cut the fields.
     There isn’t much there to cut. I wondered if it would be worth the fuel to mow. Peter says they have to mow, and they have to take the hay home. Somehow that one didn’t make sense to me. That’s working against nature, not with it, isn’t it? Nature always gives back, doesn’t just take. But then, who says subsidy rules have to make sense?
    
A week ago two fingers easily fit all the way in the crack (okay, that’s in the headlands). It’s going to take more than the 11 mm we received over the weekend to fill that. Switzerland’s had a very dry spring. Rivers are at all time lows for this time of year. The creek through the village of Schleitheim is hardly flowing.
     A very warm April has everything ahead of schedule. When we arrived May 5, most of the canola was finished blooming. There’s been a lot of canola pod abort in this area. It seems to be related to plant stress, and only to certain varieties. They tell us there was a stiff frost mid April when some of the canola was in full bloom. Then came heat, and drought. Some farmers plowed their whole fields under. To put it into perspective – fields here are rarely more than one or two hectares in size and canola is one of many different crops.
     The barley is all in head, and wheat is heading out. Crops are short – one farmer said that at least they would save on plant growth regulators this year! They’ll need that money to buy straw. Most farmers with livestock receive subsidies for using animal friendly production practices. Usually that means using a lot of straw for bedding. Short crops mean little straw. The drought is far reaching, so any straw that needs to be transported into the region is going to come from a long ways.