The Prosperous Farmer

Diversify or Die

2009-02-16T19:07:00.000-07:00

4) Plan Multiple Projects. Every bird game hunter in Canada knows that in order to hit a moving target you need to send up a spread of pellets. While it takes only one BB to bring down a duck, it is impossible to tell in advance which one out of the two dozen in a shot shell will be the one to hit the mark. So too with agricultural diversification, the next big commodity is usually a moving target. What was a hot seller last year may be passé this year and what will be huge next year may be only an inspiration right now.

Most farms usually have land and money to experiment with 1 or 2 unique farm based business units annually. These research projects can be similar to existing farming practices, but the ultimate goal should always be to create a stream of income that is independent from the other farm operations. Ideally the diversification missions should also maximize the productivity of equipment and labour already present on the farm.

Diversify or Die

2009-01-26T18:45:00.000-07:00

5) Get Started Immediately. The best time to diversify your farm income was 15 years ago; the next best time is now. The old exercise adage “No pain, no gain” is equally appropriate to many agricultural enterprises. Rarely will a farm manager take action until the agony of maintaining the status quo is greater than the fear of trying something different. Unfortunately for many rural families, that something different means selling off assets.

Within each problem are the seeds of the solution. This idea is probably best described by the axiom “That which does not kill us makes us stronger” When the family farm experiences financial, emotional or spiritual pain, it is just nature’s way of reminding those persons that change is necessary to restore balance, whether the problem is cash flow, work load or personal fulfillment. Regrettably for most people, the misery never passes the critical threshold required for quantifiable action to occur.

Diversify or Die

2009-01-21T17:09:00.001-07:00

Wouldn’t it be great if some one would come up with the ultimate all risk insurance package, one that protected the farmer from every peril known to agriculture. A parcel so comprehensive that it would protect each sodbuster or stockman against early frost, drought, hail, floods, closed borders, collapsed commodity prices and rising fuel costs. As icing on the cake, imagine if this definitive bundle of indemnity required no monthly payments or annual premiums. As surrealistic as this scenario sounds, it may come as a surprise to many, that such a policy is available to each and every person involved in agriculture and that coverage is called farm diversification.

While such a concept may come as a shock, the idea of risk spreading had its foundation established generations ago when first the pioneers began to settled this mighty land. In the days before stabilization payments, GRIP and NISA, farmers were able to make it from year to year by raising and selling a variety of commercial goods. Because individuals back then did not rely on a single agricultural product, it was virtually impossible to face a “perfect storm” of high feed prices that hog producers are facing today, that cattle producers lived through following the BSE, and low commodity that grain growers endured for a decade before that. While each of the aforementioned crisis’ appear to be unique, over the long run, these periodic “disasters” are statistically predictable and therefore the notion still exists that multiple commodity farms are best suited to for agricultural businesses to survive in the long run. Below are 5 tips on diversifying your farm.

Agroforestry As An Agricultural Alternative

2009-01-21T16:32:00.003-07:00

#1 Shelterbelt Trees. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, shelterbelt trees provide the biggest return on the investment dollar year after year regardless of what type of farming operation they are planted around. The grain and forage producer will realize higher yields, the livestock producer will require less feed for the winter and higher gains during the summer, the orchard owner can plant varieties rated for warmer climates and the farmer or rancher will use less fuel to heat his house in the winter and less electricity to cool the house in the summer.

By stopping the wind, shelterbelts allow fields to retain more moisture for both grain and forage production. With documented yield increases of over 10% for wheat and up to 100% for forage crops like alfalfa, it’s a wonder that more farmers are not willing to reap the yearly benefits that shelterbelt provide. .

With the high Canadian dollar, export markets that have been hammered by BSE and feedgrain prices that have gone through the roof, it seems that the beleaguered livestock industry could use a couple breaks to get them by for another year. Unlikely as it seems, it appears the prosaic shelterbelt could be part of the answer to many of the stockman’s woes.

Every one who has blown his breath across a spoonful of hot soup knows that moving air strips heat off a warm surface at a faster rate than when conditions are still. Known as the windchill factor, the moving air makes the temperature feel colder than the actual thermometer reading. Warm-blooded animals such as cows, sheep and horses standing out on a windswept pasture are no different. When the wind blows they lose heat faster and need to eat more to maintain their body temperature. Ranchers can save more than a big round bale per season by properly sheltering their cattle. On a herd of 100 cows that can amount to a savings of $3000 per year, every year The following graphs illustrate just how much effect the wind has over average daily gain and the feed conversion ratio

The shade that the shelterbelt provides to the livestock in the summer can be as important to the producer as the wind protection in the winter. Livestock producers backgrounding cattle know that when the temperature soars above 30º C, if the cattle do no have access to shade, water consumption can double and daily gain can drop to zero.

Agroforestry As An Agricultural Alternative

2008-04-20T10:52:00.000-06:00

#2 Ornamental Trees Ornamental trees have a high value when there is a housing boom, because so many new homeowners need to plant landscape trees and shrubs around their property. Under these conditions, savvy nursery operators can make upwards of $20,000 per acre growing nursery stock. Unfortunately, like many commodity-based industries, once the housing bubble bursts, the tree’s resale value diminishes rapidly. The advantage that mixed farming operations have over straight nursery operations, is the trees can have great value as alternative crops producing sap, nuts, fruit and shelter for fields and buildings.

For people interested in growing nursery stock, the best place to start planting is right around the homestead. If the trees cannot be sold to the landscape industry or if the business plan changes, the ornamental trees will provide a never ending source of food for both the landowners and the wildlife, a place of beauty for the residents, and add thousands of dollars of value to the property.

Agroforestry As An Agricultural Alternative

2008-03-24T21:16:00.000-06:00

#3 Fruit Trees Although many people dream of one day owning and operating an orchard or vineyard in the Okanogan Valley in southern B.C or on the Niagara peninsula in southern Ontario, with land prices approaching $100,000 an acre for good orchard land, it may be difficult to convince the spouse and the kids to make the big jump. What may be come as a shock to some, is that the western provinces can grow a wide variety of fruit trees, shrubs and vines that are commonly associated with warmer climates to the south.

While small fruits such as saskatoons, cherries and raspberries have been the mainstay of rural U-picks for decades, the prospects for apples, plums pears and even apricots are becoming more prevalent on the market gardening scene. The main reason for this shift is the consumer demand for fresh locally grown product. With prairie U-pick apples going for as much as $2.00 a pound on the tree while beef and pork are often languishing below the $1.00 a pound on the hoof, it small wonder why many livestock producers are considering switching sides.

Agroforestry As An Agricultural Alternative

2008-03-17T21:17:00.000-06:00

#4 Nut Trees It may come as a revelation to some, but years of global warming is not required before establishing a nut grove on the farm. Some of the trees that can be grown on the prairies that produce edible nuts include the Black Walnut, Bur Oak, Butternut, and Hazelnut.

If you are looking for an RRSP for your children and grandchildren, can’t do any better than planting black walnut trees on your farm or acreage. These majestic trees add mucho dineros to the value of the property when they are growing, produce copious volumes of tasty, edible nuts throughout their life and have an enormous value when the tree matures. The wood is highly prized as a cabinetry veneer and in the manufacture of gunstocks that has resulted in astronomical prices with some trees fetching upwards of $10,000 each.

Nut production can begin after as little as 5 years after planting but the production of veneer wood is a generation or so down the road. As an added bonus the black walnut roots produces it own herbicide called “juglone” that keeps the ground around the base of the tree relatively weed free.

Agroforestry As An Agricultural Alternative

2008-03-10T22:14:00.000-06:00

#5 Sap Trees. Although maple sugaring is usually associated with eastern Canada, it is now possible to grow newly developed sugar maple varieties in sheltered locations throughout much of the Prairie Provinces. The major problem is that it takes up to 40 years for the sugar maples to become big enough to initiate sap production. The solution for many would-be sugar shackers is to harvest sap from alternative species.

Sap from Manitoba maples has about half the sugar content (about 3%) of sugar maples but there are millions of mature Manitoba maples throughout the western Canadian agricultural belt. Originally planted in the 1930s as part of the PFRA shelterbelt program, these trees are not only ready for tapping, but are in long straight rows close to county roads. The sap from Manitoba maples can be gathered and processed in exactly the same way as sugar maples.

Surprising as it may seem, but birch trees also produce a sugar sap that can be more valuable than maple sap. Since the sugar content of birch sap (1-2%) is much lower than maple sap, it is rarely boiled down into syrup but is actually bottled almost straight from the tree as a medicinal drink or distilled and combined with carbonated water to make “Birch Beer”. Birch beer is popular in the northeastern United States and in Atlantic Canada, while medicinal birch sap is a multi-million dollar industry in European Baltic countries.

Agroforestry As An Agricultural Alternative

2008-03-03T20:07:00.001-07:00

Monday, March 3, 2008

With the price of feed grains skyrocketing, many grain farmers are laughing all the way to the bank while numerous livestock producers are finding difficulties making it from year to year. Regardless which situation your farm is currently experiencing, it is a perfect time to think about diversification as a hedge against future market reversal. One of the simplest ways to fancy up an every day cash flow is through agroforestry

Although planting trees as a long term investment has been known for years, what may come as a surprise to many landowners, is that the most valuable aspect of trees are rarely found in the back of a logging truck. The long, medium and short term return generated from small acreages of trees is often nothing short of spectacular. Listed in the next 5 weeks in order of importance are 5 types of plantations that can reap some big rewards

Building and Energy Efficient Home for Less - Tip 1

2008-02-25T20:36:00.001-07:00

#1 Shelterbelts Surrounding the House Properly positioning trees shrubs and perennials around the house is cheapest, most effective method of achieving energy efficiency in the home. The plants and trees not only help keep the house warm in the winter by blocking the northwest wind, but help keep it cool in the summer by blocking the hot summer sun.

The most important rule of thumb to follow is never plant evergreen trees (including spruce, pine, fir and cedar) on the south or east side of the house. While evergreens in these locations are effective in shading the building against the blistering July sun, they also prevent the solar radiation in the winter from doing its part to mitigate heating costs. In fact the shade produced by a mature spruce tree growing on the south side of the house can increase the homeowner’s heating bill to the tune of $250 or more per year.

Instead of using evergreens to grace the southern exposures leaf trees or vines should be used. The leaves provide a barrier to the incoming solar radiation in the summer, while in the winter, the bare branches allow the sun’s rays to reach the home unabated. The other advantage of using trees and vines extensively around the house is that they provide a seamless transition from the house to the landscape.

Building an Energy Efficient Home for Less, Tip 2

2008-02-18T19:25:00.001-07:00

Have the Main Windows Facing South.

Sunlight shining through a square foot of glass will produce 400 Btu’s per hour of heat in the winter. In fact 200 square feet of glass facing south has the potential to completely silence that 80,000 Btu per hour furnace even on the coldest days. As luck would have it, prairie farmers live in the sunniest part of all of Canada, so to not use it to help reduce the gas bills would be a travesty.

The trouble with windows is that since they have a low R-value, when the sun is not shining at night or on cloudy days, they will lose a lot of heat. Fortunately installing lined or quilted curtains easily solves the window’s low insulation problem. By simply closing the curtains when the sun sets or the clouds build up it is possible to increase the R value of the window by a factor of five or more instantly..

Not only does the additional sunlight in the winter months help reduce the energy bills but it can also make you feel happier. Many people on the prairies suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD for short) that is attributed to a lack of sunlight in the northern latitudes. The symptoms of the “Midwinter Blues” such as lethargy and irritability can be alleviated by addition of full spectrum sunlight as any one who vacations in tropical climates can attest.

Another trouble with south facing windows is that they let in daylight all year long. Those same windows that saved you from bankruptcy in winter have the potential to turn your whole house into a shake and bake oven in the summer. Providentially, with the correct the placement of shade producing nature of trees and shrubs, all is well again.

Building an Energy Efficient Home for Less, Tip 3

2008-02-11T21:03:00.000-07:00

February 11, 2008

No Windows and Doors on the North Wall.

The north wall is the coldest wall on the house and since both windows and doors typically have the low R values, installing them on a north wall makes absolutely no sense from an energy efficiency point of view.

The north wall is the coldest wall on the house for a couple of reasons. From the Autumnal equinox on September 21 to the Vernal equinox on March 21, the sun is always in the southern sky and therefore the north wall never receives direct sunlight and is in perpetual shade for these 6 months. The low insulation values of doors and windows on this side allow copious amounts of heat to leave without receiving any solar gain in return. In fact homeowners can receive the biggest bang for their insulation dollar by adding some to the north-facing wall.

Compounding the lack of sunlight on the north-facing wall is the cooling effect of the northwest winds. Windows and doors are notorious for letting in drafts because due the process of linear expansion. What this two-bit phrase means, is that materials expand when it is hot and contract when it is cold. Since both windows and doors are each made of several different materials that expand and contract at different rates, it means that when the temperature changes, gaps are created between the materials and these gaps let in the cold outside air.

Building an Energy Efficient Home for Less, Tip 4

2008-02-04T21:25:00.000-07:00

#4 No Hallways. Strange as it may seem, it is likely that the most comfortable room in your house will be the hallway, for the simple reason that in most houses, that’s where thermostat is located. All the other rooms will be colder or warmer depending on the apparent temperature immediately outside.

The apparent temperature is the actual thermometer temperature plus the solar gain when the sun is shining (it feels warmer facing the sun) minus the windchill factor (It feels colder facing the wind). In many houses the hallway separates the warm and the cold side of the house making the south facing rooms extremely hot when the sun is shining, and the north facing room extremely cold when the wind is blowing.

By eliminating the hallways air is able to move from both the warm and cold sides of the house and mix at comfortable temperature in the middle and as added bonus, the amount of usable floor space increases by as much as 10% while reducing construction costs.

Tips for Building an Energy Efficient Home for Less

2008-01-29T09:36:00.000-07:00

#5 Square house. Houses lose heat through the exterior doors walls and ceilings (and through the floors in the case of mobile homes), so it only makes sense that by reducing the surface area of the building that heating costs will be reduced as well. Although a geodesic dome offers the least amount of surface area per square foot of usable floor space, square building are much cheaper to build and are generally more functional and aesthetically pleasing.

The trouble with square buildings is they often look plain and boxlike. Often house designers will add bay windows, turrets and dormers to give a home an individual touch. Not only do these attributes cost big money to install but these also add large amounts of surface area without significantly increasing the amount of usable interior floor space. The best way to fancy up an everyday is to attach unheated structures such as porches, decks and vestibules.

Building an Energy Efficient Home for Less

2008-01-28T21:42:00.000-07:00

Energy efficiency is a “hot” topic these days from the global warming alarmists predicting major catastrophes unless we can control fossil emissions to the consistently elevated cost of natural gas and electricity that seem to squeeze the last penny of our monthly paychecks. Although the solution seems easy enough: start building energy efficient homes, the reality is that many conservation techniques such a solar panels, geothermal and hyper insulation seem to add enormous expenditures to the already sky rocketing price of constructing a new home. Fortunately there is an answer to not only simultaneously reducing the cost of house construction and home heating bills, but actually increase the quality of life for those living in these new buildings.

The house in the featured in this article is located 120 km north of Edmonton, is 5500 square feet in size, uses less than $250 of natural gas per year to heat (averaged over the last 8 years) yet only cost $186,000 ($35 per square foot) to build. What may be surprising to some, is that each design feature used to improve energy efficiency, also reduced the cost of construction. Although there are approximately 35 design elements that make this particular house so energy efficient; listed over the next couple of weeks are the five aspects that were the biggest contributors to energy efficiency.

If you are interested in seeing all 35 design features, you can purchase my book "Designing and Landscaping the Family Home" or attend my course "Building an Energy Efficient for Less" held at the University of Alberta Extension at the Devonian Botanic Gardens. Details on both at my website.