Indigenous communities in North America were cultivating crops such as potatoes and corn long before anyone from Europe had heard of the crops. Materials from the Manitoba Museum cite evidence of agriculture in the eastern United States dating back 3,800 years.

More locally, bison scapula bones found in Gainsborough Creek in 2018 showed convincing evidence of pre-European contact farming in the Melita region. And agriculture was an undisputedly big part of the Métis way of life in the Great Lakes region. Farms surrounded fur trade posts by the 16th century, and some cereals were being farmed in the 1830s.

When it comes to reconciliation, agriculture presents a unique challenge. How can the treaty rights of Indigenous peoples be honoured in a way that gives them a proper seat at the table when it comes to farming in Canada?

It’s something that groups like the Southern Chiefs’ Organization (SCO) in Manitoba, headed by Grand Chief Jerry Daniels, and the Manitoba Métis Federation, with its agriculture minister, David Beaudin, have been working on for years. I recently had the chance to speak with both about why they feel agriculture is so important, and what still needs to be done.

Daniels and Beaudin share views on several pivotal issues, including engaging youth and the continued importance of food security. Both expressed that, while regular conversations do take place with the Manitoba government, there’s still a ways to go when it comes to proper recognition and reconciliation.

Currently, there are several programs funded by the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership (S-CAP) that would partner with Indigenous communities, such as the Indigenous Agriculture & Food Systems Program and the Indigenous Agricultural Relationship Development Program. Eligible activities include revitalizing traditional food systems; training, skill and resource development; climate change adaptation; increasing Indigenous participation in agriculture; engagement between industry, academia and Indigenous Peoples and the development and delivery of engagement activities.

I was unable to find a list of specific projects that have benefited, although Manitoba Agriculture Minister Ron Kostyshyn highlighted Fox Lake Cree Nation’s Food for All program and collaboration with Brokenhead Ojibway First Nation, Sandy Bay Ojibway First Nation and the SCO on bison-related projects.

Meanwhile, both the MMF and the SCO have made strides towards agricultural autonomy through their own programming, including garden box programs, community gardens, climate action plans, bison herds and lobbying for more access to Crown lands.

It seems like both Indigenous organizations and the Manitoba government are eager for relationship building and programming designed to reclaim agricultural traditions tied to local Indigenous history and culture. There are stories like these emerging across Canada.

I think education is another important aspect—not just having Indigenous leaders with ties to the land remind their people, especially the youth, of their rich agricultural traditions, but for Manitobans who descended from settlers to learn that history and those tradition as well. If anything, it will only lead to more common ground between Indigenous communities and non-Indigenous farmers, both of whom are tied to the land in real, rich, and meaningful ways.

Hopefully soon, this country’s fertile soil might produce the right growing conditions not just for healthy crops, but for more healthy relationships built on respect, understanding and a motivation to keep moving forward together.

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It’s primarily from these plains bison that we now have around 500,000 bison in North America. Canada did the major saving, not from the small, far-scattered buffalo groups such as those in Yellowstone. Canada also saved the much bigger wood bison by locating a herd of 250 in the Northwest Territories and bringing them south to Elk Island National Park near Edmonton. These wood buffalo have also been used to restock wood buffalo herds in Alaska and other parts of the world. Canada did the work and the U.S., as usual, shamelessly claims the credit.

Dog diets

I keep hearing “meat for dogs” in many commercials, as in, “Feed them pure meat and not the byproducts.” In fact, the byproducts of the meat industry are much more nutritious than plain meat. Byproducts are hearts, kidneys, livers and other organs that are far more nutritious than plain meat. There are those who keep their dogs on plain raw or cooked meat diets. Dog food? The dried stuff in particular is a carefully balanced diet well suited for dogs. In the “wild,” coyotes (wild dogs) eat all kinds of fruits and vegetables, from raspberries and apples to raw carrots and potatoes.

Seed sale

Home garden purchasing is another misunderstood issue. The carrot seed of the same variety may come from the same seed farm in France but may be sold by a number of seed companies. It’s a question of what you get for your dollar. As a Canadian, you can legally buy packaged seed from any seed company in the U.S. or Europe at any time, but you cannot send seed of any kind to the U.S. unless it has a valid Canadian inspection certificate.

Now get this right: you cannot take oranges into the U.S., since Canada imports oranges from around the world, but you can bring any number of oranges from the U.S. into Canada.

Keep home fires from burning

With the massive fire destruction in California and elsewhere, take heed. How many farms do you see with spruce trees or spruce or pine shelterbelts that are way too close to the farm house or farm buildings? Last year (2024) I knew of a farmhouse at one site and farm buildings at another location in Alberta that burned down. In past years such farms had cows, horses and sometimes sheep around the buildings and trees. Now that those animals have gone, grasses and brush spring up around the trees and spruce shelterbelts. It’s the grass tinder that can wipe out the shelterbelt or any nearby buildings. Get out the glyphosate — grasses are killed and spruce, after Aug. 1, is unharmed and fully tolerant to this herbicide. Get rid of the grass tinder.

On a related note, how many times have you been told that pine and spruce trees turn the soil acidic? You will note very close to, or right under, pine or spruce trees, you will see little or no vegetation. That’s because both pine and spruce trees retain their green needles during the winter and on warmer days, they may lose lots of moisture. What they do is not changing the acidity of the soil at all. Rather, they remove the surface soil moisture, which makes it impossible for weed seeds to germinate, or they may restrict the moisture of nearby grasses or brush, especially in the spring months. Pine trees do grow well on acidic soils but are not the cause of the acidity.

Dairy and diseases

Will the raw milk crowd go away? In the U.S., raw milk sells for up to $21 per U.S. gallon. Around four per cent of people may drink raw milk in a year but only one per cent drink it regularly. Now, raw milk has been shown, in some instances, to transmit the bird flu virus, as well as brucellosis, tuberculosis, listeria and campylobacter, to name a few more cow milk-borne diseases that could occasionally be present. Pasteurization makes the milk perfectly safe and as fully nutritious as ever.

Worms at work

Worm compost is treated like it has magic properties, but in reality, it’s no better than composted cow manure or not as good as poultry manure. In agricultural fields, especially with zero till, worms do wonders. A square yard of soil could contain more than a half mile of earthworm tunnels.

Darwin once observed that a layer of small stones, when left on a field surface, would in a few years, seem displaced, as worms would have moved earth from below ground and left it on top of those undisturbed stones. That’s how small stones appear to sink in the soil over time. The volume of soil moved by worms is stupendous.

Worm tunnels contribute hugely to soil drainage and soil aeration. A whole field of topsoil over the very many years may well have passed through the gut of earthworms. Earthworms, all nine or more of the common species on the Prairies, were introduced into Canada primarily from Europe. There were no earthworms in Canada prior to the coming of Europeans.

A grain of salt

Big-deal “sea salt” or Himalayan “pink salt” is all culinary nonsense. These salts are primarily sodium chloride but also have toxic trace elements such as lead, cadmium and arsenic, as well as silver, copper, et cetera, in parts per million (ppm) or parts per billion (ppb). Common table salt sold in Canada contains, in addition to pure refined salt (sodium chloride), iodine.

Iodine, often deficient in the Canadian population, has been added to the salt. Iodine is essential for the production of thyroid hormone. Thyroid hormone is essential for brain development, especially for children. Low or deficient iodine for hormone production has been shown to cause permanent brain damage. Keep your iodized salt!

Saw this quote recently: “Science progresses one funeral at a time.”

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The Manitoba Agricultural Services Corporation (MASC) will provide support through its AgriInsurance program to improve cash flow for producers needing additional feed, Federal Agriculture Minister Heath MacDonald and Manitoba Agriculture Minister Ron Kostyshyn said in an announcement made on July 23.

“Our livestock producers play a critical role in our food supply and our economy. We need to do everything we can to support them, especially in the face of these dry conditions,” MacDonald said in a press release sent out that day. “These program changes will ensure producers in Manitoba receive claim payouts faster, so they can source other feed options as quickly as possible.”

MASC will apply a quality adjustment factor to reduce yield appraisals by 40 per cent for drought-stricken cereal crops converted to livestock feed. The adjustment covers wheat, oats, barley, fall rye, triticale and grain corn. The same measure was last used in 2021 and resulted in over 100,000 acres of grain crops being converted to livestock feed.

Producers with forage and pasture insurance will also see changes, including the option to defer premium payments on claims made before Oct. 1, receive partial payments when possible, and allow livestock to graze insured forage after the first cut without penalty.

“We recognize that some of Manitoba’s livestock producers are facing challenging conditions with the lack of precipitation in certain regions of the province,” Kostyshyn said.

“With pastures drying up and minimal sources of feed for livestock, it is important to give producers the resources they need to maintain their herds. These measures will help to improve cash flow for Manitoba’s livestock producers and provide additional options to access feed.”

MASC will also offer lending clients the opportunity to defer loan payments and provide guidance on financing feed purchases if needed.

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I’ll discuss Al Oeming’s game farm later in this text. Who would even want to go on an African or Indian safari when the Alberta Game Farm had it all and much more conveniently?

Presently, game farming on the Prairies, and in Canada from coast to coast, has become serious business ventures for thousands of individuals or conglomerates. Bison (buffalo) farming is classified as game farming, with some 150,000 bison on close to 1,000 farms across the country — in actuality, from British Columbia to Quebec. Some 90 per cent of those bison herds are located on the Prairies.

While the term “game farm” brings to mind elk (Wapiti), white-tail deer and caribou, in reality some game farms are licenced to have fallow deer, moose, mule deer, reindeer, bighorn sheep, thinhorn sheep, musk deer and even mountain goats. Those are by no means all of Canada’s game farms; some have 200 or so acres of land for pheasants, quail and partridge. A few of these bird farms allow shooting for hunters with the intention of training retriever dogs.

Alberta has the largest number of game farms, at around 250, and also the largest number of bison and elk. Saskatchewan is close behind in numbers, with lower amounts in Manitoba and British Columbia. Saskatchewan allows game hunting on approved game farms, which collectively offer up to 100 hunts a year from approved animal species including bison. Organizations advocating for “fair chase” hunting such as the Boone and Crockett Club in the U.S. disapprove of such hunts and will not recognize trophy antler sets that originate from game farms.

Alberta game farms have been lobbying for years to allow hunting on game farms but so far, the answer has been a regular refusal. Game hunting can only happen in Alberta on game farms that have fenced-in wild boar. On the other hand, wild boar hunting is legal on all of the Prairies year-round permit-free, with some variations. In Alberta you can turn in a pair of boar ears for $75 a pair but so far to my knowledge there have been no takers.

Game farms’ income is primarily from exotic meat sales and, in the case of the deer family, the harvest and sale of the antlers. Some game farms actually trade in breeding stock such as elk (red deer) for New Zealand. Alberta game farm organizations state that game farm hunting, if permitted, could bring in up to $500 million annually and employ up to 300 individuals.

Noah of the North

Now back to the greatest of all game farms ever: Al Oeming’s Alberta Game Farm and its hundreds of exotic animals. Al Oeming, by the way, was co-founder with Stu Hart of the nationally famous Stampede Wrestling. Oeming sold his half of the wrestling promotion company to devote his time to the Game Farm.

Where else in the world could you walk next to 800-lb. Siberian tigers, lions, cheetahs, snow leopards, jaguars, pumas and leopards, and also know that back then he was the first to successfully breed these wild cat family members? Oeming’s hallmark was a cheetah named Tawana that he took to Canadian high schools from coast to coast. At this time Al Oeming also made documentaries on CBC TV where he was known as the “Man of the North” and sometimes as Noah of the North.

Where else could you view musk ox, Per David deer, European bison and all the camelids of the Americas – alpacas, llamas, vicunas, and guanacos, long before they became popular farm animals in Canada and the U.S.?

I could throw an orange to a 700-lb. grizzly bear and watch it stab the orange with a claw on one paw, deftly peel the orange with a razor-sharp claw on the other paw and finally pop the peeled fruit into his mouth. It was awesome to watch orange after orange.

Could I believe watching an attendant pet and hold a fully mature wolverine on his lap? You could watch huge mountain gorillas run around a walled compound, though they occasionally got loose but fried chicken would bring them back. How about watching a wolf pack behave, or a colony of prairie dogs perform? Well, all good things came to an end, due to operating costs and protestors who constantly campaigned against the game farm. Most of the animals were sold to zoos and private individuals worldwide, and by 1982 he re-opened the facility as “Polar Park,” with only a few hundred animals.

Al Oeming remained at the property until his death at the age of 88 on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17, 2014.

In his extremely busy lifetime, Al Oeming also served in the Canadian Navy (1943-46), worked as a professional wrestler and completed a master’s degree in zoology by 1955.

When Oeming opened the game farm, it became a reservoir for vanishing and even vanished animal species, such as Siberian tigers, snow leopards, red pandas, Przewalski’s horses, Chinese Per David deer, European bison and Siberian lynx. These rare animals were just a few of the 166 species in a collection of over 3,000 animals. In 1964 Al was awarded the Everly Medal for Excellence in Conservation by the U.S. government, and an honorary doctorate by the University of Alberta in 1972, along with numerous awards and citations for his pioneering work. He traded exotic animals with China and other countries, all without any grants or government assistance.

In his final years following the creation of Polar Park, Al amassed probably the world’s biggest collection of horse-drawn vehicles, along with all the paraphernalia and countless sleigh bells of museum quality.

Oeming was a truly remarkable man who collected and successfully bred many of the world’s vanishing animal species — a true pioneer in his field with a remarkable nationwide influence.

It is unfortunate for game farms and zoos of any kind in Canada to face obsessive persistence from small groups of misinformed individuals. Take, for example, the 48-year-old elephant Lucy at the Edmonton Valley Zoo. A group of very vocal so-called animal rights activists has campaigned for years to move Lucy to an elephant sanctuary. This group has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on a lone elephant, harassed the City of Edmonton, gone to the Supreme Court and ignored genuine animal welfare proponents such as Jane Goodall. A classic case of what we’d call the ‘tail wagging the dog.’ While Lucy remains in Edmonton today, unfortunately, politicians often change common-sense procedures and laws to accommodate these disparate views. All too often the vocal minority wins over the common-sense majority.

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While there are a couple of vaccines licensed for cattle, they do require multiple shots. Vaccines help, but focusing on decreasing stress and other diseases can limit mycoplasma infection.

Mycoplasma comes in many clinical forms but in feedlots we mainly see it in respiratory problems and in joints.

The respiratory problem is often indistinguishable from other common causes of pneumonia in the feedlot and the joint form can be very similar to histophilus abscesses.

Mycoplasma commonly plays some role, and it can be confirmed for chronic cases in feedlots with lab tests to verify veterinarian diagnosis.

A decision tree needs to be established early in the case to guide decisions to treat, ship or euthanize, for the welfare of the calf, if the case becomes clinical.

These cases cost the feedlot industry millions of dollars in treatment and labour costs, as well as in deaths and chronically ill animals that need to be euthanized. It’s not a fun disease to deal with.

Prevention

With mycoplasma, we need to really, unequivocally, concentrate on prevention.

Even though a few antibiotics have indications for mycoplasma on the label, those are more for metaphylactic treatment and use when exposure is imminent.

It is believed that after a few weeks in the feedlot pretty much all calves are infected (that is, have been exposed and are carrying the organism) yet in well-managed yards where preimmunized and preconditioned (weaned already) calves are purchased, the incidence can be kept to a minimum.

In cattle, mycoplasma is a secondary invader, meaning in the case of respiratory disease it often comes in secondary to the viral pathogens, especially IBR (infectious bovine rhinotracheitis). Other respiratory bacteria such as mannheimia, pasteurella or histophilus can also get established and set the lungs up for the invasion of mycoplasma later in the course of the disease.

A good number of these infections may then spread to the joints. Once in the joints, especially if more than one joint is involved, chances of recovery are slim to none. They then become an animal welfare issue and often cost lots of money in antibiotics, painkillers and other medications before a decision is made to euthanize.

In the bison industry, mycoplasma is almost always a primary pathogen and can cause considerable death loss in naïve populations of calves, cows and bulls. There appears to be immunity established once the disease goes through, but death losses can get quite high on initial exposure. Some bison feedlots live with a low percentage of it and ideally try to have their calves come in with maximal respiratory protection to minimize its severity.

Even though it seems primary in bison, by keeping lung health as high as possible, severity and incidence seems to be reduced. Bison cow-calf herds that have had bad outbreaks seem to be free of cases going forward, which to me means natural immunity is developed.

Stress

Anything then that reduces stress, and/or reduces the likelihood of the other respiratory bugs, theoretically should reduce the incidence of mycoplasma pneumonia.

Currently two mycoplasma vaccines on the market appear to have good efficacy, but here’s the kicker: they need an initial shot and either one or two booster shots essentially before the chance of exposure.

Feedlots that have a decent infection rate would need to know where they are sourcing their cattle and have them preimmunized before coming to the feedlot. Perhaps the original vaccination for mycoplasma done on the farm, then boostered at the feedlot, will help some.

We as veterinarians always talk about reducing stress. Transportation, processing, weather conditions, parasites, exposure to other cattle and co-mingling all play a role in determining whether calves will get sick.

We have direct control of preimmunization as cow-calf producers. The feedlots then can ask for preimmunized calves. The vast majority of calves are vaccinated in Canada these days for most of the major respiratory pathogens, as well as clostridial protection. The question then is, for which diseases do we pre-immunize? Cow-calf producers are vaccinating their calves younger and reap the benefits of having fewer calves get sick on summer pasture. If the boosters are then given at weaning, we should, in theory, have less respiratory disease.

If we can avoid unnecessary transportation stress by selling directly to feedlots through satellite or online sales, one transportation session is eliminated, and cattle go directly from the source to the feedlot. Distance transported is not as significant as the stress to calves of being loaded and unloaded multiple couple times.

Less sickness and stress lead to less mycoplasma, so it is prudent to use treatments that help calves manage their stressors. Various electrolyte formulations such as Destress have been tried to minimize shrink. Products such as probiotics yield fewer digestive upsets as well.

All these preventive measures ultimately lead to less respiratory disease and less mycoplasma pneumonia or joint infections. With more collaboration between the cow-calf sector (first line of defence), trucker (second line of defence), backgrounder (third line of defence) and feedlot owner (last line of defence) we can all do our part to protect these valuable cattle. Again, owners who calve, wean and raise their own seldom have severe respiratory issues, especially mycoplasma.

We may not ever eliminate mycoplasma but at least we can keep it at bay by the best prevention strategies we know: good husbandry and minimizing stress as much as possible.

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Through the system’s growing pains, lots of lessons have been learned and the system is being fine-tuned. Producers are deriving more and more benefit from using farm management systems linked to readers linked to scales, all based on the ability to read the radio frequency identification (RFID) tags. From lost animals, to identification at export, to transport, to traceability, a lot hinges on the tag being present so it can be easily read.

The purebred beef breeds are also using them somewhat for breed identification, in the sense that the different-coloured backs indicate a breed such as Angus (green backs) or Simmental (blue backs).

Some breed organizations have given incentives to register early and receive tags — which are positive ways to ensure use.

The standard tags are still yellow and many of the different sire groups, as well as some of the purebred breeders, are sticking with straight yellow. Many purebred breeders raise two different purebred breeds, so have elected to stay yellow as well.

The bison industry has the white tags, and a marketing fee is attached to them, but it is really easy to see if a producer has put in the wrong tag.

All these options help with marketing or differentiation, and lately I have not seen one microchip fail.

Made to last

Emphasis is now being placed on retaining tags. Before 2020 about 18 per cent of tags were lost by about six years — which most beef cows get to. Dairy cattle on average would not get that old before being shipped. Breeding bulls are usually done by around five to six years on average, so we need to have tags we know are going to last for at least those six years.

From wear and tear, to ultraviolet light, to freezing and thawing in Canada, there is a lot the tag manufacturers are trying to compensate for — and they are doing it.

In tags, the industry leader, and current leader in market share, is Allflex. I know it has been working to strengthen the neck of the tags and a new tagger on the market (the white one) has replaced its green predecessor. It has slightly longer handles, gives more mechanical advantage and even fits smaller hands better. This makes it easier to tag and reduces fatigue if tagging many animals in a day.

If a pin is bent or broken it’s imperative that the same type of pin be used in the same brand of tag. They are all slightly different.

If there is ever a report of excessive tag loss, an investigation, involving either the tag manufacturer or the Canadian Cattle Identification Agency (CCIA), may follow. In every case I have heard of, the incorrect tagger or pin was used, application was in the wrong area or weather conditions were the potential culprit. Be careful when installing tags in extremely cold weather, as cold tags are not flexible enough.

One must try and put the tag in an area where it’s least likely to be caught or ripped out. An RFID tag should be put ideally a quarter of the way out from the head and in the middle, so the male back end is behind the ear and the thick radio frequency part is in the inside of the ear. This has been found to increase tag longevity. If placed in the top of the ear, the backing frequently gets caught.

I have seen many tags almost rubbed too thin by bulls; they are hard on tags, especially dangle tags, whether from fighting, rubbing, or throwing up dirt with their heads. This abuse gradually wears out the tag backing.

It will be interesting to see if ultraviolet light has any negative effect on some of the new coloured backs. Both the yellow and white tags have been good that way, so time will tell.

Robust systems

If we can keep the retainability creeping upward, tags may be incorporated with other devices that might measure temperature or ruminal movements and could detect disease earlier. Such tags are on the market, but not yet married to CCIA tags.

Even though the U.S. does not have a true national identification system, countries with lots of cattle, such as Brazil, are getting rather robust ones, so the world is changing.

It is great to see tags starting to give back valuable information to owners, and that the beef breeds see this as a valuable step in differentiating themselves. It is positive from world trade and food safety standpoints.

The changeover to ordering CCIA tags from the CCIA office or through the breed association has also gone rather seamlessly.

I encourage everyone to check out the CCIA website and learn the 10 guiding principles for tag application; some have been mentioned in this article.

There is also a user-friendly Canadian Livestock Tracking System (CLTS) mobile app where your password allows input and retrieval of your data. The technology is here; let’s use it.

I see RFID tags applied early in a calf’s life and I see good management, usually. Don’t buck progress, as it only makes lives easier, and traceable marketing improves.

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“Last year was a tough one for Alberta’s livestock producers and the expansion of this AgriRecovery initiative means that more producers can receive critical support for their breeding herds,” said Darryl Kay, CEO of the Agriculture Financial Services Corporation in a news release today.

The 2023 Canada-Alberta Drought Livestock Assistance initiative, funded through the AgriRecovery framework by the federal and provincial governments, offers payments of up to $150 per head to livestock producers who have 15 or more animals per type of livestock, and have altered usual grazing practices for more than 21 days due to drought.

Funding will open for the new regions on January 29, with a deadline of Feb. 22. Extraordinary costs can be incurred until March 31, the release said.

Additionally, livestock farmers and ranchers in those areas may be eligible for the 2023 Livestock Tax Deferral, which allows farmers who sell part of their breeding herd due to drought to defer a portion of the sale proceeds to the next year, as per the Government of Canada’s website.

The eligible regions now stretch from the province’s southern border to an area around Edmonton, with cutouts around Jasper National Park and Hinton in the west. The area around Grand Prairie is also eligible along with municipalities on the western half of the province, stretching to the north border.

The province is in the throes of what has been called a once-in-a-generation drought. In late October, the Canadian and Alberta governments opened applications for the livestock assistance program, promising up to $165 million in aid.

Alberta’s woes have continued into the winter. At a recent event in Lethbridge, Dennis Matis, Oldman basin infrastructure manager with Alberta Agriculture, warned that snowpack in the mountains–vital to irrigation in southern Alberta–is among the lowest seen in a generation.

He estimated that they’ve seen lower than normal water levels every year since 2015.

—Geralyn Wichers is associate digital editor of AgCanada. She writes from southeast Manitoba.

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While every situation is unique, the process can indirectly affect cost of production in some cases, while in others access is blocked, or at least delayed, compared to many other countries. The process has potential for production losses or animal death. It is important to keep bringing this to the forefront by communicating with the heads of the various production animal organizations.

There is no doubt the licensing process of products such as pharmaceuticals or insecticides needs to be cautious to protect safety of the food chain. But other countries combine forces or harmonize licensing, especially when there is a lot of trading between them. I believe Australia and New Zealand have a harmonized process already.

Canada’s government arm responsible for product licensing is called the Veterinary Drug Directorate (VDD), part of Health Canada’s Health Products and Food Branch.

Canadian Animal Health Institute (CAHI) aims to work closely with VDD to facilitate the licensing process. CAHI is made up of representatives of most of the major pharmaceutical companies as well as the various pharmaceutical distribution groups.

Delays cost money

It all comes down to economics. If it takes companies too long or costs too much to get new products through the approval system, they may not bother. Because Canada does not have a large population of production animals compared to many countries, it may not be worthwhile getting some products licensed — there may be no return on investment.

The VDD does allow veterinarians to bring in products under an Emergency Drug Release. This means a product is available elsewhere and can be used if there is a justified need in a particular herd or region. A good example is dairy cattle affected by Clostridium Perfringens A. That disease is covered in a very specific Clos Perf A vaccine or a multivalent vaccine that has Perfringens A in it as well as the other common clostridial diseases such as blackleg.

Even generics (meaning copycat products) need fairly rigorous testing. The product itself isn’t new, but may just be a different strength than one already registered. A lower or higher strength may already have been passed but strengths in the middle still need extensive testing. A good example is growth implants. Companies have both extremes tested, yet if they want to fine-tune their strategies to provide a growth implant in the middle, the same rigorous testing (with associated costs) needs to happen, so the companies simply don’t bother.

Withdrawal time can be another licensing issue. This is the recommended time between the last drug treatment and the slaughter of the animal or sale of milk, eggs or honey. It’s the time required for the drug residue to be reduced to safe levels before the food produced by that animal may be eaten. These times can be vastly different on the same product, depending on which side of the U.S./ Canada border you live.

This is because mathematical calculations are done on drug withdrawal based on how much meat they think we Canadians eat compared to Americans. This is why some withdrawals are almost double in Canada compared to the U.S. Yet meat is exported both ways under these two fairly different meat-withdrawal systems.

Insecticides a concern

I have been told that the time taken for applications for veterinary insecticides just to be looked at after submission is well over a year — kind of like you taking a year to open your important mail. This in my mind is unacceptable, and with insecticide categories being taken away and global warming causing a definite migration of ticks north, there may come a time when we have nothing effective because research has not been encouraged in this area.

There are management practices that can help reduce internal and external parasites and there are testing procedures we can do to avoid over-treatment. Genetic research to develop parasite resistance in animals is an expanding field, but there still needs to be treatment on occasion. Canada needs to have access to effective products.

These are usually proven safe and effective by the company that makes them and are already being used in other countries. It sometimes astonishes me as to what products are available elsewhere already.

Just as how many companies in different countries came together to develop COVID vaccines to protect humans, the same should be considered for many animal vaccines or treatments. It is already being done with things such as foot-and-mouth disease and vaccine banks, but more is needed.

Again, we need to keep mentioning to local, provincial and federal politicians the importance of Canadian producers having timely access to new products whether biologicals (vaccines), pharmaceuticals (antibiotics) or insecticides. There have been increasing licensing problems in all these areas in the last few years and we all need to work on making it better for you, the primary producers.

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Over the years the First Nation, just north of Meadow Lake, Sask., has been converting the alfalfa field into a potato field and expanding the vegetable garden. This year, it planted 18 tonnes of seed potatoes and harvested about 90. They expected to harvest about 120 tonnes, but they didn’t beat the frost, says Jason Cardinal.

Cardinal has a background in data science and mechanics, and he brings that high-tech lens to Flying Dusts’s agricultural ventures. Speaking at the 10th annual Indigenous Ag Summit, held during Canadian Western Agribition in Regina, Cardinal explained how they survey the land base with drones, using the images and maps for land use planning, elevation mapping, tree canopy counts, calculating flood risk and checking crops and bison.

That tech also attracts students and young people to the market garden.

“We do a lot of drones and that seems to really entice them because the technology is something they’re really interested in. It enables them to make videos, TikTok videos and things like that. Get cool footage. We’ve got a lot of bison running and things like that.”

Summer students are put to work doing everything from building a chicken coop to growing and selling produce. A community elder mentors the students, teaching them how to manage the greenhouse, as well as about traditional foods and medicines. This year, they also planted about 200 fruit trees, creating a “food forest.”

Students can also earn their green certification at the market garden over two years through the University of Saskatchewan.

The market garden produces a range of vegetables, including three types of potatoes, cabbage, carrots, peas, lettuce, squash, peppers, tomatoes and more. Right now vegetables are grown on five acres, but there are 20-25 acres available for vegetables.

Along with chickens and bison, the First Nation also has over 150 beehives, which is a relatively new venture for its members. Workers have been taking courses on bees and learning from a beekeeper, who hails from the Philippines, hired by the reserve.

The market garden has a temperature-controlled potato storage facility and commercial kitchen, Flying Dust’s website notes. Supervisors run the market garden, which also has a board of directors.

Cardinal says the biggest challenge right now is distributing the produce, as they are a bit short on transportation-related infrastructure. However, Flying Dust plans to purchase a new truck to help distribute produce in the community, which should alleviate some distribution pain.

The Riverside Market Garden aims to provide fresh produce to the community, as well as other communities within a 100-mile radius, says Cardinal. They’re also building a community meat shop to process meat from bison and cattle.

The market garden sells into the Co-op and the Meadow Lake Farmers’ Market. It also has sales agreements with Sobeys and Thomas Fresh (which sells to Costco and Walmart). Cardinal says they’re looking for more customers, as currently, the market garden is producing more than the people in their community consume.

This year, they did a lot of food preservation, such as freeze-drying and canning, and involved students. “We did pickles and peppers and beets and stuff like that. So it was a really nice experience, getting to see that firsthand.”

— Lisa Guenther is editor of Canadian Cattlemen.

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The report, titled Forces Impacting Animal Agriculture In Canada: A Synthesis, delves into the issues surrounding cattle, dairy and poultry production in the country and how it is interconnected within various factors in day-to-day life of residents.

Al Mussell, CAPI’s director of research, said the report draws from a lengthy technical report and while both that and the Synthesis document come to the conclusion of the importance of animal agriculture, the actual economic impact may not be so clear.

“It makes the point, and really drives home, that animal agriculture is extremely important in Canada. It’s extremely important from an economic growth perspective but it is particularly important regionally in rural areas that otherwise would not have the same levels of employment, levels of income in local communities,” said Mussell.

It’s also an industry that is built on using farming byproducts to increase the value of animals.

The report also highlights that Canada has some of the lowest CO2 emissions from the production of pork and beef, outclassing Western Europe, South America and Australia.

As well, the report highlights that farmers are the most trusted people in the Canadian food system and that animal agriculture in the country produces $90 billion in sales, 164,000 direct jobs and roughly two-and-a-half times that in indirect jobs.

The importance of animal agriculture provides options to farmers whose crops have been ravaged by hail and drought, and enhances pasture lands through grazing.

Mussell said such points can get lost in the complexity of the agricultural food production system.

“The motivation for writing this report, this major initiative on our part, comes out of the concern there are quite a number of people who need to be involved in decisions that relate to animal agriculture but don’t bring particular expertise to it,” said Mussell.

“Those people are in a difficult spot because there is always a tendency to fall into a subset of isolated facts that might take you in a particular direction when in fact this is a much more complicated type of a system.”

The report is designed to provide a well-rounded perspective to such decision makers to offer a balanced understanding of the value of animal agriculture and its importance to many communities.

“In Canada, we have an excellent animal agriculture system. It’s not perfect. There are problems. There are challenges and they need supportive policy to make headway on those challenges,” Mussell said.

One is the continuing diminishing of cattle inventories in the country over the past two decades.

On the other side, the positive parts of the industry when it comes to improving biodiversity through responsible grazing techniques might not be fully understood, Mussell said.

“You look at what we are able to do today to make better use of grasslands, lighten up the footprint of animal agriculture within that — pretty impressive and that’s over and above the basic conversion efficiency of animal agriculture.”

That conversion efficiency applies across Canada and involves calculating land not suitable for crop production and otherwise would be wasted if it were not used for livestock feed, said Mussell.

“We manage all of this in a manner which is profitable for each of the segments involved and which also supports communities that can work together to deal with the many issues that can come up and mitigate those by working together,” said Mussell.

The Forces Impacting Animal Agriculture In Canada: A Synthesis report can be found on the CAPI website.

— Alex McCuaig reports for Glacier FarmMedia from Medicine Hat, Alta.

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