“What we did is reduce the amount of the envelope for each of the programs,” said Gordon Cove, CEO of ALMA.


ALMA’s budget was slashed from about $40 million to $32 million as part of the Agriculture Ministry’s budget cuts announced in March. “We applied it over the two big areas that we have, which is industry investments… and another couple over on our strategic initiative side,” Cove said. 


The agency lopped $4 million from either side. The industry investment side funds projects such as marketing initiatives and productivity gains. The strategic initiative side funds projects focusing on research, development and innovation.


The provincial government is the only source of ALMA funding. Cove said it uses those funds and industry money to leverage more dollars. He said this is the first time the agency has faced a drastic cut in its budget, noting the province is in a difficult fiscal situation. 


“The thinking is that our budget would slowly rebound and come back,” he said. “It’s a one-time hit.” 


Three staff positions were also cut. ALMA only employed 30 people. “That’s significant for us,” he said. Cove said ALMA will continue “full speed ahead” but will be more selective of what projects it decides to fund.


Opposition parties’ agriculture critics all said ALMA does good work in research and supporting the livestock industry. Liberal MLA and agriculture critic, David Swann and his NDP counterpart David Eggen both called the $8-million cut “short sighted.” 


“That’s pretty dramatic and pretty serious for an industry that’s already struggling with market share,” Swann said. He said whether or not ALMA’s funds are restored in future budgets depends on the oil and gas sector, which he said the provincial coffers are too dependent on. 


“I think it sends a message that they’re not serious about supporting the industry,” Eggen said. He added that Alberta needs to diversify its economy and taking away money from supporting the livestock industry is counterproductive. 


Ian Donovan, the Wildrose and opposition agriculture critic, said whether it’s research or things like post-secondary schools, investment in the future is important. “I hope it’s just a one-year blip on it. From what I’ve been seeing (ALMA’s) been doing some good work,” Donovan said.


The National Bee Diagnostic Centre Laboratory opened its doors on April 1, and research underway is pest, pathogen and parasite issues affecting the honeybee sector.


“This is the first of its kind designed and outfitted exclusively for honeybee research,” said Carlos Castillo, the lab’s applied scientist manager.


“This is such an exciting project to be a part of.”


The $1.2-million, 2,000-square-foot facility was funded by Western Economic Diversification and is located at the Beaverlodge Research Farm. It will be operated by Grande Prairie Regional College, which recently restarted a commercial beekeeping certificate program at its Fairview campus.


Samples of brood, adult bees, frames and honey are now being accepted from registered Canadian bee producers on a fee-for-service basis. The lab’s services include nosema spore and varroa mite counts, deformed wing virus, tracheal mite detection, EFB and AFB detection, antibiotic resistance determination, and virus detection. The lab will also create a database on incidence of bacteria, fungi, mites, and viruses that affect honeybees and identify “hot spots” of infestations.


But the biggest issue for beekeepers is colony collapse disorder.


Since 2006, honeybee mortality has been increasing worldwide, with Canadian beekeepers reporting overwintering losses averaging about 30 per cent for the last five years — double previous levels. This has triggered a worldwide search for causes, said Castillo, adding he hopes work at his lab will eventually shed light on whether the losses are due to a surge of pathogens or perhaps environmental factors such as climate change, pollution or pesticides.


Castillo, a native of Peru, completed a four-year international honeybee research project at Simon Fraser University before taking up his new post.


The Peace Country is home to the greatest density of honeybee colonies in the province, and bee research has been ongoing at the federal Beaverlodge Research Farm since 1992.


“This is a national facility (that) will serve not only the local beekeeping industry, but beekeepers throughout Canada,” said Don Gnatiuk, president of Grande Prairie Regional College.


“This opens the door to enormous potential for the future, including applied research in support of industry.”


The lab is expected to perform approximately 1,500 diagnostic services each year for beekeepers and other clients.


One can cite this as just a risk of cold-climate farming, but this has not been the trend in the last few years. One of the interesting benefits of global warming, at least for crops in this part of the country, has been earlier springs. Even an advancement of a week is critical as it allows for better and more timely land preparation for seeding. That helps the overall agronomics of any cropping plan and has a significant impact on better yields at harvest. This has worked particularly well for crops under irrigation where better technology has optimized the critical timing of water application to maximum effect.


To add to the late spring woes, there has been small but steady snow and rainfall in most areas. Moisture is always welcome, but in the springtime it can add many days of seeding delay due to wet fields. Over the years at least with some crops, wet fields are becoming of increasing concern simply because of the immense size of machinery. Depending on the situation, big rigs can cause significant rutting or soil compaction on wet soils. 


One could anticipate that considering these weather and moisture delays that significant seeding of many crops could be delayed well into late May. That’s no big deal in central and northern parts of the province where growers are used to seeding in late May and even early June, but it’s a very bad start for the south where most of the specialized crop production is located. On the other hand a wet spring is usually good news for pasture and hay crops, which makes livestock producers happy campers.


There is good news for irrigation farming. The snowpack in the mountains seems to be average, and if there is a regular run-off, reservoirs will be full for most of the year. An ace in the hole for the industry has been the technology leaps that have seen water application efficiency increase by up to 20 per cent. Add into that canal replacement with pipelines, and water shortages are becoming less of a threat even if the snowpack is down. It’s one of those little-publicized environmental success stories that the public doesn’t hear much about. It has a downside in that progress is used against the industry by green lobby groups as an indication that major irrigation infrastructure does not need to be further developed and expanded, but I digress.


There is also anxiety brewing in the livestock industry. The cattle feedlot and beef-packing industries have seen significant per-head losses for some time now, with some lots empty due to financial distress. With losses of around $100 per head only the well financed will survive. Luckily we have sophisticated operators well versed with risk management techniques to survive this round. 


One does fear for cow-calf operators who will surely end up paying for a good chunk of those losses come this fall. The only thing that may save them from that marketing correction is that the cow herd continues to decline and affects the feeder calf supply. But if there are fewer feedlot buyers and continued border restrictions that may not help them either.


One of the causes of feedlot financial distress has been the high price of feed grains over the past year. There was hope for this year, as there were indications that corn seeding would increase significantly in the U.S. Midwest. More corn would put pressure on feed grain prices in Alberta as operators have shown no hesitation in bringing trainloads of corn into Alberta when the price is right. But lower feed grain prices might be an illusion being the late spring is also occurring in the U.S. upper Midwest where new corn acreage was being planned.


To add to cattle industry anxiety has been the unfolding news from trade discussions and border issues. The USDA seems to have become quite belligerent in refusing to adequately address the WTO decision on COOL. That may be a negotiating ploy but it will invariably delay any resolution many months even a year down the road. This issue is absolutely critical to the beef industry being most of our exports still go to the U.S. On the EU free trade issue, deadlock seems to have set in and beef exports are one of the hurdles to signing an agreement. The EU has made origin of Canadian cattle an issue for beef exports. That seems a bit of a red herring. My view is that the EU has no intention of giving Canada any more beef access to their markets than the U.S. However, the EU trade agreement is not as big a concern as U.S. intransigence on COOL.


So there you have it — almost universal anxiety for the ag industry in Alberta this spring. But then a good summer, timely rains and late frosts could change the crop and livestock situation to everyone’s benefit. I guess that’s the annual hope of agriculture in this province. Good luck to all.

Co-op members passed a non-binding resolution last month that would see the company stop selling pork from farms using the stalls within five years.


The move needs the approval of the co-op’s board, but company officials have met with Alberta Pork and won’t make any hasty decisions, said Cindy Drummond, the co-op’s communications manager.


“We support the industry and the safe treatment of animals, and I think the pork producers are saying the same thing,” she said.


If the no-stall resolution is implemented, the co-op will look at a reasonable time frame before it stops selling pork from those farms in its 24 stores, she said.


The executive director of Alberta Pork commended the company for taking a level-headed approach, and said he hopes the public will pay attention when a draft of a new national code of practice for pork producers comes out in June.


“It’s based on science, not on emotion,” said Darcy Fitzgerald.


Although the public may be skeptical, producers are truly committed to using the most humane production practices available, he said.


“I know we always say economics and welfare don’t go together — but they really do,” said Fitzgerald. “I mean, it’s in the best interest to have the best animals and the healthiest animals.”


He noted group housing was once the norm, and gestation stalls were adopted in order to reduce aggression in herds and ensure every pig had adequate water and food. 


“There’s problems in both systems. It all comes down to management,” Fitzgerald said.


Much of the opposition to stalls is coming from people opposed to animal agriculture. It’s also coming at a time when it’s tough for producers to afford changes to their production systems.


“It’s much easier in a climate where you’re actually making money,” Fitzgerald said. “Our guys are probably losing $35 a pig and they’re being asked to make more changes.”


But the program has been a boon for agriculture, attendees at the recent Alberta Farm Fresh Producers conference heard.


Farm workers are in short supply for a host of reasons, said Al Dooley, agricultural labour recruitment specialist with Alberta Agriculture.


Many young Canadians don’t want to move to rural areas, the work is physically demanding, doesn’t pay as well as the 
oilpatch, and may not offer chances for advancement. As well, primary agriculture is exempt from a number of employment standards, and Workers’ Compensation Board coverage is voluntary in many agriculture sectors, said Dooley.


“These factors are not game changers, but they’re not necessarily strengths either,” he said.


However, farming is attractive to those who like outdoor, physical work, and the local food movement has sparked a lot of interest in growing farm in young people — and farm employers should capitalize on that, he said.


“Agriculture does a poor job of selling itself as something positive,” said Dooley.


But if those who can’t find suitable candidates, farm employers can turn to the temporary foreign worker program. They’ll have to advertise on jobbank.gc.ca, the federal employment website, and one other medium (such as newspapers or a website) for a minimum of 14 days. They can then submit Labour Market Opinion application (a form that details the hiring search) to Service Canada. The form is necessary for most types of foreign worker hires, said Dooley.


Between 800 and 1,000 people, typically from Mexico or the Caribbean, come to Alberta each year under the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program, which was created in the 1970s. They can stay for up to eight months, and employers must pay for their transportation; provide approved housing, private health insurance, and WCB coverage; and pay no less than the minimum wage.


Another avenue is the ‘Agriculture Stream,’ which can be used to bring more skilled workers in certain sectors (grain production is excluded). They can stay up to 24 months and skilled workers are eligible to apply for permanent residency.


There are 5,000 spots available in Alberta each year under the Immigrant Nominee Program.


“Basically what this program does is speed up the whole process of becoming a permanent resident,” said Dooley. “In some cases, it might take five or six years and this can speed it up to two years.”


“When you put yourself out there and get in front of someone else, they will have a much harder time criticizing you,” Conway told Alberta Milk’s spring producers’ meeting.


She said consumers have higher expectations about where their food comes from, even though they have less first-hand knowledge of what goes on at a farm. 


“People who live in the city have no idea what actually happens. We need to step up and make sure that they know the right story,” said Conway, adding that today anyone with a cellphone camera can be a “journalist.”


“We’re running into this problem where people are sharing information that’s not true about the dairy industry, animal welfare and supply management.”


Conway said consumers need to trust where their food is coming from, and the people who are producing it.


“We need to make sure that we’re doing more, and show them the real story. There are things that we could be doing better as well,” said Conway.


She encouraged producers to get accurate information to the public. Producers need to be vocal and counteract the spread of misinformation. “One bad picture gets out, and the entire industry suffers,” she said.


Advocacy or “Ag-vocacy” (advocating for agriculture) can take many forms. Producers can advocate for agriculture by writing letters or explaining things in casual, everyday encounters. Conway’s other suggestions included bringing people out to farms, building relationships with politicians and government officials, and inviting tour groups to visit farms. 


People can also use social media to communicate with others. “Half of the world’s population is under 30 and this is where they are communicating. These people are going to be the next policy-makers,” said Conway. “We need to show people what real agriculture looks like.”


According to the Ministry of Enterprise and Advanced Education, the operation support funding provided by the government to post-secondary schools throughout Alberta is being decreased by $147 million in comparison to last year’s budget. 


The Alberta government provides approval for programs starting and closing. Suzana Krpan, a spokesperson for the ministry, said the minister has yet to receive any requests for program suspensions. 


At Olds College, any impact the cuts might have on the agricultural programs there hasn’t been assessed yet. 


“They’re being reviewed currently,” said Dean Turnquist, manager of corporate communications. He said the budget year goes to the end of June and decisions will be made later in May. He noted all programs are reviewed every year. 


At Lethbridge College, the fate of the agricultural technology program hasn’t been determined. Gwen Wirth, communications specialist for the college, said there haven’t been any decisions about budget cut implications yet.


Lakeland programs unaffected


Lakeland College has already determined that its agriculture courses and faculty won’t be affected by the cuts. “The board decided we have to support our core programming and none of the core programming was cut. And agriculture is a big part of our core programming,” said Glenn Charlesworth, president of Lakeland College. The college is facing a $4-million reduction in funds, but the agricultural sciences faculty is being protected because of its recent success. Applications to Lakeland’s agricultural program continue to grow, Charlesworth said, and their graduates often receive multiple job offers. There are plans to expand the program in the future. 


Charlesworth said they are suspending nine programs the school offers in other areas. He said they had to decide if they wanted to spread the cuts over all different areas or if they wanted to stop doing 10 per cent of what they do and maintain quality in what was left. They opted for the latter. 


The dean of the University of Alberta’s faculty of agricultural, life and environmental sciences (ALES) didn’t know the extent of probable cuts yet, but anticipates some impact. “The university’s faced with what’s essentially a 10 per cent gap between what we were promised and what we are getting, and that budget cut is going to apply across the institution,” said Dean John Kennelly. If the cut to the ALES faculty is proportional, Kennelly said they could be facing a $3-million reduction to their budget. That’s equivalent to 25 professors, though he suspects the cuts will hit a combination of staff and programming.


This hit comes after the faculty has already faced some reduced funding over the past few years. Kennelly said funds were promised by the province for programs identified as indemand such as nutrition and food safety. That funding didn’t come through as expected. To address that funding issue, they’ve managed to avoid filling positions as they become vacant. Kennelly said if the faculty is hit by these new budget cuts, it will have no choice but to reduce programs.


The faculty is the most research-intensive faculty at the University of Alberta and its graduates are in high demand by industry, Kennelly said. He fears the excellence built over the last 10 years will be undermined by the severity of the present cuts. 


As for the talk of eliminating duplicate programs across the province, he pointed out the government must approve any new program before it opens or before a program is shut down. “So the duplication we’re talking about, it’s duplication the government approved,” Kennelly said.


Comments from Grande Prairie Regional College and the University of Lethbridge about any potential effects of budget cuts on their agricultural programming weren’t available by deadline.


Meeting the energy specifications of a typical grower diet now represents about 85 per cent of the cost of the diet and over 50 per cent of the total costs of pig production, John Patience of Iowa State University said at the recent London Swine Conference in Ontario.


“One of the most critical questions revolves around the relationship between caloric density of the diet, daily caloric intake by the pig and pig growth rate — which in turn relates to barn throughput,” he said.


“Whereas in the past, barn throughput was closely linked with low feed cost and maximizing net income, with rising feed costs, maintaining barn throughput has become increasingly expensive.” 


This means that, for some farms, growth rate must be reduced to increase net income.


Prior to 2005, formulating for energy in the diet was simpler because a limited range of energy sources was used. But today, a wider number of ingredients is used and the relative cost of the energy in those ingredients changes over time, making formulation more difficult. For example, in 2005, energy from fat cost about 60 per cent more than energy from corn — today that differential is only 36 per cent, he said.


“Energy from DDGS used to cost 41 per cent more than from corn, but today it is only 16 per cent more,” said Patience (see Table 1).


“These changing price relationships will influence how much of a given ingredient is likely to be used in a feeding program. This, in turn, will put pressure on the upper limits a nutritionist assigns to certain ingredients and can change purchasing practices, especially if forward booking is employed.”


The net impact of changing energy costs can be minimized by considering all aspects of pricing changes, including ingredient cost relationships, he said.


Maintenance cost is high


Maintenance is a very important aspect of energy utilization in the pig, but one that is often overlooked, Patience said.


About one-third of the energy that the pig eats goes to maintenance, 20 per cent is used in protein deposition and 46 per cent in fat gain, he noted.


“To maximize efficiency, we must reduce the energy spent for maintenance,” he said. “This can be done by optimizing thermal comfort, minimizing social stressors and maintaining the highest possible health standards because fighting disease uses up energy.” 


Maximizing growth rate by various means reduces the time spent in the barn, which results in fewer days of maintenance energy costs, he said. Reducing maintenance energy costs increases the amount of energy that is directed towards lean gain.


The pigs’ energy intake impacts how comfortable they feel in the barn, said Patience.


“Unthrifty pigs eat less than their healthy contemporaries and, because of this, they are chilled at a temperature that is perfectly comfortable for healthy pigs,” he said.


“Therefore, unthrifty pigs need to be kept in warmer and less drafty conditions, for example by providing localized heating or covering their lying area.”


Every additional day that the pig is in the barn represents another day’s worth of maintenance, so this maintenance cost is very much under the control of the producer, he pointed out.


However, when feed costs are high, it may be financially advantageous to feed a less expensive diet and accept the associated slower growth because the overall cost of production is lower, he added.


“Certainly, in the traditional Corn Belt of the U.S., the trend to lower energy diets is very clear, and is one of the drivers for the construction of new grow-out facilities, he observes.


Individual farm response


It is important to know the response of pigs on an individual farm to changes in dietary energy density. 


“Under most commercial conditions, lowering dietary energy concentration is likely to reduce daily energy intake and thus growth rate,” he said. “There are exceptions to this broad generalization. If your farm is one of these exceptions, you have much greater flexibility in adjusting dietary energy concentration than would otherwise be the case, because you have the option of feeding a lower-energy diet and maintaining growth rate.”


Individual farms or systems must develop their own feed intake curves that apply to their farm, and not depend on universal data obtained from some other remote, and possibly very different, location, he said. 


Understanding daily energy intake is crucial to success, as it provides the foundational knowledge required to determine how the pig will respond to changes in diet cost and energy content, he said. 


Industry’s response was to protect the current system and to warn that the alternative was higher prices. The test will be whether consumers vote with their wallets. Their loyalty to higher-priced items may be determined over time. 


In the debate there are the usual pros and cons of offering non-caged product. The first con is always price, as is the potential shortage of product from these open-production systems. The pros are supported by animals themselves. As David Webb said in the Calgary Herald article, there is already a movement in the egg industry to ensure that chickens can be chickens and have extra space and perches as well as a place to have a little scratch. And although the Herald reported that this is currently five per cent of the egg market, Webb confirmed that growth was huge at a full 27 per cent last year.


Regardless of the debate on “should we or should we not” afford animals with a more natural environment, the fact that the story was front-page news is rivetting. Agriculture is under the microscope and that tells us that folks do really care. The Herald is unlikely to run a story for which there would be no reader interest. They know what captures the reader and they also know that Calgary Co-op is popular with consumers.


Can it be done? Of course. Cage and crate free has been legislated in Europe for years. Certainly the cost of production is higher, but so is the number of live pigs and the margin is better. That is because consumers have proven themselves as willing to pay more. So the question of whether consumers will pay more may be related to how we tell the story. The Whole Foods grocery chain has an animal-care label that reflects detailed animal welfare practices. More than 200 producers in Canada contribute to the handful of Canadian Whole Foods stores. The story through the label sells in a big way and animal welfare has proven itself as a driver at the retail shelf.


Plenty of warning


As for the fear of product having to come from offshore because of a shortage, that could be challenged. There is no indication that a possible new procurement program at Calgary Co-op will be for all meat offerings. Nor will it happen tomorrow, and there is no evidence that the move will force a displacement of Canadian product. There is always time for industry to adjust, and it has had a decade of fair warning. Fast-food chains have demanded cage- and crate-free animal welfare practices because in the long run it was cheaper to spend the money and do it than to not. Tim Hortons is the latest to announce that it will participate in cage- and crate-free procurement. The meat industry has a choice in production practices, while at the same time being accountable to consumers and inform them of what it is they are eating.


There is no middle ground here. Meat trades in a transparent world. Just a few days after the Herald article, the Windsor Star ran a news article entitled “Ontario doctors call for ban on antibiotics in livestock feed.” Farmers responded by saying that meat prices would rise. The kicker was the beautiful photograph of cattle, implying this was a bovine problem. The folks interviewed were from the beef industry and the response was a weak rhetoric from the pork debate claiming that consumers would pay more and reminding readers that the problem is global in context. In the case of antimicrobial residue in foods, Canada does not fully address imported product.


The lack of the same regulations regarding imported product is core to the discussion of overall food safety. Banning cages, crates and pens and legislating antimicrobial use in Canada does not mean that Canada accepts only imported meat product with the same production criteria. There is no such trade restriction on imported goods. As for the claim from Ontario doctors, they are making a huge claim without fully supportive evidence. Yet the story is out there — in large print — with a cattle photo.


As an industry, we must prepare for increased media coverage and be ready with the answer. It is our time in the meat industry to be proactive and look at other production systems that work, are profitable and meet consumer demand for animal welfare and wellness.


A UBC release says that most biocontrol programs combine many different enemies — typically about three different species, but sometimes as many as 25 — with the hope that at least one will prove effective.


However, some combinations of enemy species can actually end up competing or interfering with each other, instead of attacking the weed.


“It’s important to get the right combination of biocontrol agents, as testing species is costly and time consuming, and no amount of testing can eliminate the risk that something unexpected will occur with the introduction of a new species,” Andrea Stephens, lead author on the paper published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, said in the release.


The researchers did a meta-analysis — a review of several studies on the subject. Of the 75 combinations investigated, about a quarter appeared to have a smaller combined impact than expected. The researchers suggest simple species combination rules could improve the effectiveness of biocontrol programs.


One of the studies researchers analyzed focused on three agents (two species of weevils and a fly) that have been released in western North America to control two species of invasive plants, diffuse and spotted knapweed. The weevils consume the fly larvae, nullifying the effectiveness of the fly.