Nuffield Global Focus Program

It was a week full of visiting local organizations and people who make up the agricultural industries and rural communities in and around Calgary. It was also a chance to meet all the international scholars from the UK, Ireland, France, New Zealand and US and talk about agricultural issues all over the world. To try and list all of the events and people would seriously take a too many pages (and patients) so I have decided to pick out my top 5 things of interest

Party in Jim and Peter's room
Earily wake up included...

We kicked off the whole week with basically two presentations from Art Froehlich on “Agriculture is more than Food Production” and Rod Bradshaw (Nuffield Canada) gave a talk “Agriculture 2007 - 2023”. Key points were that the emerging biofuel demand will change our industry especially the intensive livestock sectors and hopefully redefine what we actually produce (commodity vs. food/energy). In general agriculture has a bright future; we have to manage it correctly.

The Ridgeland Hussar Hutterite Colony would have to of been my highlight of all the tours. It was founded in 1991 by the Clearview Colony. IT is a communal colony (different to the Armish) is self dependent and strictly religious. They produce dairy, chicken, beef and broad acre cropping products and manufacture a majority of their requirements in their workshops. The interesting part was the fact they let us into lives and I have to say that they were genuinely happy with their lives without materialist consumerism. It makes you think about what as really important and what do we really need to be happy.

Ridgeland Hussar Hutterite Colony

The Sunterra Market was also excellent. It was established in 1990 and focused on producing quality food at a commercial outlet. Fairly simply however they did this in a small area of a ground floor in one of Canada’s tallest buildings. The food is fresh and reasonably healthy, professionals come and have lunch at a very accessible place and have a huge choice of product to choose from.

Me at Sunterra Market

We also visited a Louis Dreyfus silo complex at Lyalta. The most interesting part wasn’t the facility however the conversation we had with the grain traders about the Canadian wheat board (CWB). All grains that go to human consumption pass through the board. The wheat is only delivered to the elevators when the CWB wants the grain. The grain is paid by the facility to the grower and then they are reimbursed by the CWB with interest. The only payment option is a two part split pool with the first being paid on delivery and the second at the end of the pool. The rail wagons are owned by the state and we didn’t see one grain bunker used to store additional grain beyond the capacity of the vertical storage. Also there were facilities all over the place because the only buyers at the silo were the silo operator or the CWB. If you wanted to sell canola through Cargill you have to go to a Cargill silo.

And of course a Wallup lad on tour couldn’t miss out on the Big Rock Brewery tour. The facility was quite small in international terms but still couldn’t be called small. Of course the tour wouldn’t be complete if we all didn’t help out with some good old fashion quality testing at the end.

Skiing Champions

Oh and of course, we also had a day of relaxation at Banff which is one of Canada’s biggest ski areas. So I slapped on the planks and had a crack at bruising myself severely. It was excellent skiing with no cue’s and long runs plus I only bounced myself once. That’s six but who’s counting…

We are almost half way through the 2007 Nuffield Scholars International Conference in Calgary Canada and communications and basic hygiene is still eluding us! Admittedly we do have access to quick wireless but finding time in our busy schedule is proving difficult.

During our stay in the Fresno Valley we met Don Careron who was the manager at Teranova which grew organic and GMO crops side by side. Met Frank Berigo who was a manager at one of the largest lettuce producers in California. Visited the Westland’s Water District and saw their water issues especially the salinity which naturally occurs in the soil and which they are using irrigation water to leach out of the profile and some Almond and Pistachio processing plants. After staying at the Harris Ranch (night of 20th February) we headed for the Salinas Valley to visit their water Treatment plant and tertiary facilities which takes all the waste water from neighbouring towns, treats to a high quality level and is used as irrigation water on horticulture crops. That night we headed to Sacramento and the next day we had meetings with the Californian Department of Pesticide Regulations, Californian Department of Food and Agriculture and the California Farm Bureau. We then headed to Durham to Rancho Esquon. Here we met Rick who has to be the best host to date. We stayed two nights at the farm he managed which included a reclaimed wild life reserve on which an organisation called Duck Unlimited operated. Rick showed us the local agriculture college, a local meat butcher and the local brewery. It all ended with a wonderful BBQ which Mike (Ricks son) took us to his local bar which the lads did enjoy.

We finally got home at half past to which sleep was bliss until we were woke by Ronald just suggesting that we had 5 minute to get showered, packeted and be in the car ready to go. Bruce (room mate) thought that he was hard done by as I through him into the shower telling him he now only had four minutes. Either way we caught the plane to Calgary Saturday morning (24th of February) after having a very fun time we have started the hard task of socialising with the other 30 odd Nuffield’s from all over the world.

Okay, I have landed and now have some quality time for the computer and to update you all on the happenings of my life. For starters i will update you on the Wellington Shinanigans...

We ended up getting two rooms with two beds at the backpackers which took four scholars out of the equation. This left five bodies and no beds at around 1:00am friday morning. Usually this would mean that an all nighter might be on the cards but with 6 meetings staring at us for an 8:30am start, it wasn't a good option. Instead good ole' Bruce and I start to the surrounding hotels to see if they had any no shows for rooms. It ended up that the intercontenatal had two rooms which we took at 2:00am in the morning. But there was a catch...

One room had two double beds which Bruce and I took for our service fee but the other only had one king size bed. There is another catch, there were no fold out beds for the three lads. They ended up having to split the onsombeal and taking their chances. It was a night which they over came their homophobic fears, or so i was told.

So in New Zealand we visited a farm of Stuart and Allan Wright in the Canterbury plains to see a mixed farm on some very handy rain fall and soil. We then headed over Aurthers pass to visit an eco tourism business in the high lands and headed to Westport. From there we drove to Nelson were we visited Landcorp (NZ government farm) and the coal mine at Buller. We also visited a Nelson hop farm, tree nursery and wood processing plant. Around Havelock we visited a green lipped mussel factory and had a jornt on the Marlborough Sounds. From there we had some wine tasting at Allan Scotts vineyard ($120,000/acre) and then caught the ferry to Wellington from Picton.

After meeting the Federated Farmers of NZ, Landcorp Farming, Meat and Wool NZ, Dairy Insight and Horticulture NZ, we were happy when Rabobank had to cancel their presentation. This prompted a small celebration which lead to our Candian (convert Ozzie) leading us all astray to see the sights of Wellingtontown until the wee small hours.

Since leaving NZ on the 17th we have travelled to Yosemite to stay and night and headed to the Yosemite National Park. It was great to see the waterfall and the valley but nothing compared to the Mariposa Grove of Girant Sequoia Trees. World famous they are huge. Bloody huge. We ran out of time to visit the car tree but the whole experence was very humbling. We have now moved onto Fresno and visited an orange packing plant, 14,000 acre row cropping farm and an 1600 head barned dairy in the Fresno Valley.

Bruce at the National Park

I hope to have a little more up on the details soon.

Trev Mc, unfortunately i will not be able to attend the meeting and i do not wish to put and apology in (who knows what jobs you will think up for me in the mean time...)

Tonk, i think that the 4th will be the telling point and that you should only wear red socks on this day.

Cheers

Hello all,

We have had a wonderful first five days however as everything goes there are always hiccups. We have experienced driving rain, mountain, flats and absolutly beautiful views. The south island has a huge devisity of agriculture but the scale is quite small and is dictated by the terain. We have now moved on to the North island on the ferry to Wellington. All of our bookings and arrangements have run like clock work, until now...

I am sitting in the Ibis hotel were we where meant to have a booking, however they do not have one, there is two major conferences in town and there is no booking anywhere except the lounges at a backpackers around the corner. This would be fine but we have six meetings tomorrow and it is meant to be our first day in suits. A good test of skill and dereodiant spray.

Lession 1 - Always check bookings before some critical days in the trip.

Lession 2 - Stress can always be handled with a few good mates.

I will keep you posted on how we get through our first good test of the Nuffield experience.

Finishing off all the little things is seeming to take all the spare time that i thought i had. However all of the jobs like cleaning grain and organising equipment for cropping is starting to fall into place.

It is now only a few more sleeps before the whole adventure begins and i have to admit, it is getting a little bit nervous/exciting. Now with all the plane tickets and approperate visas I am ready to go, well except for the packing and folding socks and that stuff.

I have neglected to mention that the whole reason that I am on this tour with 6 other scholors is to study the topic, "how farmers can influence agribusiness and polictics". A very broad statement to capture how farmer groups work effectively by influencing the future of the agricultural industry for their members. I am being sponsored by the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) to whome i am greatly thankful to for the opportunity.

All being well the next time i check in i hope to be somewhere in New Zealand. Cheers.