The Prairies

I had a busy week travelling around the Prairies mostly in Manitoba but I did mange to sneak into Saskatchewan. The weather has finally turned and it has stopped raining. most of the farmers are happy as they can now get back on with there harvesting. I have visited a number of farms including a piggery, future goat dairy, a bison farm, strawberry and corn farm, grain growers, hay producers and went to a Holistic management field day at a cattle ranch. Busy hey!

After visiting the Brandon Research Institute on Monday, I spent the afternoon with a bus load of Aussies, mostly from WA and SA, on a agricultural tour across US and Canada. It was good to

hear some aussie accents and not have to repeat my name 3 times to everyone. They just don't

seem to get it here.

On Tuesday I went to Moosomin in Saskatchewan to a holistic management field day. I hope not to offend anyone here but these are some of my observations. We drove around, horse and cart style, at a guess around 1000ha. Would be flat out if we saw 300 head of cattle. They graze long mature pastures once a year with the cattle trampling at least half of the production back in the ground. While I agree this feeds the soil microbes, provides ground cover and provides some insulation in the winter, I cannot see how a young person could buy a farm and pay it off under this sort of management system. Maybe I still have a lot to learn, but while the day focussed on environment and social issues, economics was not mentioned once.

This farm was developed into a bison farm after the collapse of the PMU business. PMU was

using pregnant horses (mares) urine and extracting it for use as an estrogen hormone replacement. It seems this was a fairly big industry here.

This is Steve Hicks a scholar from 2000. Steve farms mostly strawberries and sweet corn, with a few onions and tomatoes. He also grows lentils, barley and canola. This is Steve standing in a crop of Buckwheat, like we used to grow at home. Seems that there is still a market for it here. Steve is scaling back his operation to get a better value of life. After being away for the week at his daughters rugby tournament, he spent the whole day showing me around when he could have been harvesting. At lunch time he asks 'Have you got time for a beer?'. Here I am justing casually making my way around the world and a bloke who still has 600 ha of crop to harvest on a sunny day asking me if I have time. Canada has certainly looked after me well!