And I have the CB radio. These days, most of my neighbours have FM radios which allow them to communicate over larger distances, but we’ve stuck with the CB. The radio signals aren’t quite what they used to be. These days, I can’t talk to the trucker if he’s on the other side of the quarter or if I’m down in a dip, but there’s nothing slicker than sidling up to the side of the truck and giving a few instructions or a well-timed quip to a co-worker. The fact that the CB doesn’t communicate across as great a distance as it used to may be less convenient, but it’s also more intimate. When I hear that voice crackle into my cab, I know the crew is not far away.

Once upon a time, all of my neighbours used the CB radio. Before cell phones it was a way to notify each other if a fire broke out. We were always on channel nine in the field, but sometimes yours truly was on channel four in the crib. During my first harvest — as a six month old — if my parents were combining close to our farm yard, my mom would put me to bed, then wrap an elastic band around the microphone on the kitchen CB radio, prop it next to the baby monitor and flip the dial to channel four. Back in the field, her and my dad would toggle between nine and four and if I was fussing she was close enough to go in and check on me.

They weren’t the only ones checking. The neighbours knew where to find me and one night after my mom had already headed into the house, several concerned voices popped on to the radio telling my dad,

“You better check on Sarah, she’s crying.” My dad assured them that his wife was in the house already — probably in the shower — and Sarah was well looked after.

My mom shared this story with me this harvest and I chuckled and thought of how lucky I am to call this community home. I have gone from the farmer’s kid to the farmer and all the while felt the same care and concern that my mom described in the story about the CB radio.

A new identity

Very recently I added a new feature to my identity: farmer’s wife. Curtis and I were married in November and since we both manage our families’ farms, I guess that makes him a farmer’s husband, too. He’s not exactly the boy next door. His farm is a good 250 kilometres from mine and we’re crazy enough to think we can manage both. With different weather patterns and crop rotations we’re hoping to make it all work, but I know we’re in for a challenging few years, so I’m open to advice from any of you readers who are also farming in two different locations.

Just as I know my community will welcome Curtis with open arms and a good ribbing, I’m looking forward to getting to know his community, although I’m a little bit anxious about maintaining friendships in two locations. It seems our lives are so busy with work and meetings that weeks can go by without seeing people that mean so much to us.

Much like when I moved back to Three Hills to farm full time, this next step seems full of unknowns but I have two communities and a new partner in life to walk with me through the ups and downs ahead. Thanks, dear readers, for your emails, phone calls and interest in our seed business. I consider you an extension of my community and look forward to sharing my stories and hearing yours as our journey in agriculture unfolds. †

The post Raised on the radio appeared first on Grainews.

Farmers on the road

Landon Friesen farms with his brother and father at Crystal City, Man. — a mere nine miles from the North Dakota border. They have hauled hay steadily to U.S. dairies since 1995, but began hauling wheat, soybeans and canola there as well in 2012.

“In North Dakota there are elevators everywhere, so the marketing opportunities are huge,” said Friesen. It takes him the same amount of time to haul a load of grain to the closest North Dakota elevator as it does to the nearest Canadian one. He now hauls about 90 per cent of his grain to the U.S.

Convenience isn’t the only reason Friesen hauls to the U.S.; he finds grain grading more favourable stateside.

“When I take a grain sample to my local elevator they’re nailing us for mildew and things they don’t have to,” said Friesen. “In the U.S. they don’t seem to be so particular in the grading room, less dockages and better grades.” Friesen mentioned that his wheat samples are tested for protein, moisture and falling numbers, a measure of the amount of sprout damage in cereals.

Many farmers see protein, moisture and falling numbers as more objective and fair assessments of a sample’s milling performance than the Canadian visual grading system. Chris Herrnbock, a farmer at St. Gregor, Sask., is one of those farmers.

“If your wheat is completely frozen or sprouted, it’s going to be feed wheat anywhere,” said Herrnbock, “But if it’s bran frost or one of our more subjective grading factors up here, then it’s best to go south.”

Herrnbock, like Friesen, hauls his own grain to the U.S. and also hauls grain south for his neighbours. Despite being about 400 kilometres from the border, Herrnbock said all of his oats, as well as about 80 per cent of his wheat and half of his peas will be sold into the States this year.

Problematic grain movement has been a big factor pushing both Friesen and Herrbock to go south with their grain. When we talked in mid-February, Friesen moved his February contracts to a North Dakota elevator in December and now he was working on March contracts.

“It seems they can always take grain,” said Friesen.

By the end of March 2014, when much of the western Canadian harvest was still land-locked and the federal government had mandated minimum grain movement by rail, Herrnbock managed to empty his bins by hauling into the States. Hauling oats to Iowa was pretty extreme, he said, but with American millers desperate for oats, it paid for him to drive to Cedar Rapids.

This year, Herrnbock said, he is 11 weeks behind on hauling his locally contracted canola. Peas that he had contracted for movement in September 2014 were still sitting in his bin in February, but he was trying to get out of those contracts so he could move them south. He’s also busy hauling “for-hire” as the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) refers to commercial truckers. Most winters Herrnbock works in the oilfield, but this year he suspected he would be hauling grain for neighbours.

Buyers bank on Canadian production

Farmers might be asking themselves, how eager are U.S. grain buyers to accept Canadian grown commodities? I’m sure the answer varies by location and product, but some companies are expanding their facilities for the express purpose of capturing the increased flow of grain from north to south.

One such company is Columbia Grain. I heard a while back that they were expanding their facility at Sweet Grass, Montana, which intrigued me as there’s not a lot of grain production in that area of Montana.

Jeff VanPevenage, senior vice president of Columbia Grain, acknowledged that that area of Montana is “mostly cattle country,” but he pointed out that, all things being equal, there’s a 35-40 mile radius of grain production in Alberta that should come to Sweet Grass rather than Lethbridge, based on proximity alone. VanPevenage estimates that 60 to 65 per cent of the grain handled at Sweet Grass now comes from Canada.

Columbia Grain acquired the original, smaller Sweet Grass facility in 2002 when they purchased General Mills’ assets in Montana. VanPevenage said they almost sold it then, but a decade later they are glad they didn’t. They expanded the facility and moved it from the Canadian Pacific railway line to the Burlington Northern line, where VanPevenage says freight is more “dependable, reliable and known.”

“We wouldn’t have done it if we hadn’t seen the Canadian potential,” VanPevenage said of the expansion. Canadian grain also motivated expansions at Columbia’s facilities at Plentywood and near the Port of Turner.

VanPevenage encouraged farmers interested in selling grain into the U.S. to bring or send their samples to a U.S. grain lab for official grading and then have a discussion with the buyer about price.

“In Montana, there’s a state law that the grower can take their grain to a third-party lab,” explained VanPevenage. “We as a grain company don’t want anything to do with grading. That’s too much intervention.”

Many grain buyers list their prices online, but an actual contracted price based on each sample’s specifications should be agreed on before farmers send their grain south.

“We handled a lot of durum this year and we did it grower by grower,” said VanPevenage. “It’s been an education for growers to figure out how our grading system works.

I asked Friesen and Herrbock if they ever saw different prices posted at U.S. elevators for Canadian grain. They both said sometimes, but not always. VanPevenage said they do post a different price for grain of Canadian origin and it’s generally lower. Reading between the lines, I believe the price differential might be the result of the commodity’s final destination.

VanPevenage explained that generally U.S. and Canadian grain can not be co-mingled in shipments bound for export. Some countries have different testing standards for grain originating from different countries. The cost of keeping the two streams of grain separate lowers the value of Canadian grain in the U.S. system.

I suspect in the cases where the price posted for Canadian grain is the same as American grain, the end user is a domestic processor and they see Canadian grain as equal in quality to that produced in the U.S. All this to say, don’t be surprised if you come across a different price for Canadian grain, but don’t take it as a given.

Find some hoops, learn how to jump

If reading about the experience of Friesen and Herrnbock motivates you to make some miles, the next step is to figure out what you need to do. As Herrnbock said, “It took longer to make phone calls to get the right information than anything.”

The first step is to obtain a DOT number, which is required for all vehicles or combination of vehicles over 10,001 pounds. A DOT number is free but requires a credit card number for identity verification.

No surprise, once you have a DOT number, both driver and vehicle are subject to DOT’s regulations, so make sure to read up on those. As in Canada, farm plates are acceptable if you are only hauling your own grain. However, you will still be considered a commercial vehicle on U.S. roadways. Drivers need to keep a log book and observe hours of service limitations. (There might be some exceptions to the log book requirement if you are within a certain radius of home). Dyed fuel is not allowed on U.S. highways.

Your vehicle will also have to be able to pass U.S. DOT safety inspections; drivers just starting to haul to the States can expect to have an inspector go through their truck and log books at least once during the first year.

“You’re going to get scaled, so make sure your weight distribution is correct,” said Herrnbock. While axle weight restrictions vary by state, 80,000 lbs. gross weight is the maximum on all interstates (without an overweight permit). A tandem trailer works in all jurisdictions and super-B configurations are generally not allowed, except within a short distance from the border in some Northern states.

For his loads into North Dakota, Friesen added a pusher axle (a non-driving axles that goes in front of the tandem driving axles) to his semi and along with his tridem trailer he will be able to haul 105,000 pounds year round.

All carriers traveling in more than one state or province need to apply for membership in the International Fuel Tax Agreement (IFTA). Depending on your home province, this will cost $15 to 65 for the company each year and $4 to $10 per truck. Carriers must report the number of kilometres driven in each province and state and the litres of fuel purchased in each jurisdiction. Since road taxes are embedded in fuel purchases, this program is meant to ensure that taxes are paid proportionately to the road usage in each area.

Each state and province has a different rate of taxation, so carriers could end up owing money or getting a refund depending on the scenario. For example, since Alberta taxes diesel fuel at $0.09 per litre and Saskatchewan’s rate is $0.15 cents per litre, if a driver bought all his fuel in Saskatchewan, but did all or most of his driving in Alberta, then he would get a refund. The opposite mean the operator owes money.

Anyone operating a commercial vehicle in the U.S. must also be enrolled in a random drug and alcohol testing program (read: pee in a cup). I spoke with Dr. Barry Kurtzer, medical director of DriverCheck Inc., a company that provides a range of medical testing services. According to Dr. Kurtzer, companies must create a drug and alcohol policy, provide supervisor and employee training and finally, provide testing for drivers. The testing step is not meant to be “punitive or a witch hunt” said Kurtzer.

“It’s meant to be a support and a barometer for the success of how companies have been able to introduce the policy and educate everyone on the risks of drug use on the job.”

Drivers must be pre-screened and pass a urine test before they are allowed to drive on U.S. roadways. Then they are entered into a random testing program, which requires them to give a sample at an accredited collection site on short notice.

According to DriverCheck communications co-ordinator, Sherry Morley, individual drivers are not normally asked to present proof of testing, but the DOT does audit companies for compliance on driver testing.

“Employers must keep accurate testing and random program enrolment records, must provide testing statistics to DOT upon request, and must provide actual individual testing records on demand as required under DOT testing regulations,” Morley wrote in an email. For a fee, DriverCheck can provide companies with a policy manual template and online or in-person supervisor training.

Getting through customs

Once your truck, driver, and fuel taxation requirements are met and you’ve delivered samples to U.S. grain buyers and agreed upon terms, the next step is customs brokerage.

When commercial goods move across borders, governments want to know about it. Customs brokers are licensed by the government to act as a communication agent between exporters, importers and their respective governments. Harry Wood II is president of International Trade Solutions (ITS), a North Dakota based customs broker that has been facilitating international trade for four generations.

“The primary services of a customs broker are that we help guide the exporter in compliance matters, keep the processes quick and easy, and train exporters on best practices used industry-wide to efficiently move shipments to the U.S., Canada, and elsewhere,” explained Wood.

A shipment of grain going into the U.S. must be properly reported to U.S. customs, the United States Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Mistakes on commercial entry are costly — around $10,000 at customs and up to three times the value of the shipment if handled incorrectly with the FDA.

Customs brokers like ITS help shippers avoid these expensive mistakes. For $500 per year they can provide exporters with a continuous bond, which is required by the U.S. government and ensures that if mistakes are made in the shipping process the government can collect any fines levied.

It can take up to two weeks to receive the continuous bond but after that, exporters can proceed with shipments as long as they provide two hours prior notice to the FDA and one hour pre-arrival notice to customs. Wood’s company provides a computer program that allows shippers to fill in their customs, FDA and electronic manifest documents on one interface. ITS then sends the information to the governing bodies, calling shippers if any issues arise that would delay entry at the border.

All imports of commercial goods must be reported to the U.S. government agencies with actual weights and values, which most shippers won’t have until the grain is delivered, unloaded and graded. To accommodate the delay between border crossing and final weights, exporters are allowed to submit prior notice and cross the border with estimated weights and values. Wood explained that their computer software allows people to go back and change the estimated units to actual ones when known.

Wood said 98 per cent of the paperwork can be processed in 10 minutes, but he encourages shippers to submit their documents a couple days early to ensure the smooth flow of goods and reduce FDA delays.

“If you have a shipment that’s going across on Friday, get us the information to submit the paperwork to the FDA by Tuesday and then they have a few days to review the information,” said Wood.

Wood wouldn’t say how much an individual shipment would cost someone exporting grain. Rates are “based on the time we spend to file entries and make sure they’re compliant,” he explained.

When I asked Chris Herrnbock and Landon Friesen about the cost for bringing a load across the border their answers were between $45 and $60 per load.

While the costs aren’t enormous, the paperwork can seem daunting. Wood said some producers may still find it in their commercial best interest to sell to a Canadian grain handler, but the import requirements shouldn’t deter farmers from exporting their own grain.

“For commercial trade, the border has never been easier to cross. If you get your profile set up and do your paperwork in advance, average booth time at the border is 40 seconds,” he said.

For Friesen, the upfront costs are enough that he doesn’t see this as a venture to jump in and out of.

“It’s a long term thing you have to look at.”

When Herrnbock compares prices locally and in the U.S., he figures he needs to make $1.20 per bushel more just to cover the costs associated with hauling south. Given the current exchange rate that amounts to a $1 difference between the U.S. and Canadian posted prices.

For farmers who don’t have the inclination or equipment to haul State-side themselves, a bonded trucking company can take care of much of the paperwork and all of the miles. Staying informed of the options and costs in marketing, however, are responsibilities now in the hands of producers — embrace them.

State-side hauling tips and websites

Herrnbock said if you don’t have an international cell roaming plan, turn off your data when you go to the States.

Manage currency exchange. Herrnbock has a U.S. chequing account for grain payments and a U.S. Visa to buy fuel or other goods in the U.S. He uses the U.S. chequing account to pay off the Visa and limit the number of times he loses money on the exchange. Friesen has a U.S. funds chequing account at his Canadian bank, but uses a money exchange company to exchange funds. He can already lock in exchange rates for the 2015 crop year.

Make sure you or your drivers have adequate personal health insurance and that you have appropriate liability on your trucks.

To get a DOT number, visit www.dot.gov for its page on Motor Carriers.

For International Fuel Tax Agreement information: Google your home province + IFTA.

The post How to haul your grain to the U.S. appeared first on Grainews.

How silly I was. I did end up chatting with her and that was the beginning of a great friendship. In the years since, I have become more comfortable in this male-dominated field, but I have also learned to value the female connections I make in agriculture. The reality is, if I had sat next to Allison’s husband, I would’ve had a good visit, but I probably wouldn’t have developed the friendship that I have with her.

Often humans are guilty of tribalism — avoiding anyone who looks different than themselves. Being the minority in one’s profession poses the opposite problem: you can work a long time without seeing someone who looks like you. With this reality, I was excited to attend the Advancing Women in Agriculture conference held in Calgary in April. I talk with men all day long about farm-related issues — how exciting to attend an event where I could talk about those same things with women. (Believe me, the experience is different, although it’s hard to pinpoint why.)

While I was anticipating this event, there was some chatter on social media about whether it was appropriate to have a women only event. I get it. Men are probably tired of being told they’re all privileged chauvinists. If my experience in agriculture has taught me anything, it’s that our menfolk are quite enlightened these days. I seldom get pushed around for being female and in fact I’ve encountered a lot of outright enthusiasm that I, as a young woman, would choose farming as a career. Men in our society receive a pretty clear message that women are not to be excluded, so why should there be venues for women to gather exclusively?

For the same reason that elementary school principals are excited to hire my brother. And for the same reason that a Swedish father and photographer I read about is documenting the lives of other dads on paternity leave with their children.

“I had a hard time finding literature, blogs or anything that was written for me as a father,” wrote Johan Bavman on his website.

Boys in school need male role models and men being hands-on fathers need to feel a sense of camaraderie. Similarly, when women see other women succeeding and in positions of leadership, they are empowered to strive for excellence in their career.

Kirstine Stewart, head of Twitter Canada and former head of English programming at CBC, expressed this sentiment on the second day of Advancing Women. She told us about a big announcement she made while at the CBC and her subsequent mortification when, rather than focusing on the content of her message, the media decided to talk about her shoes. It wasn’t until a young female CBC employee said, “It’s so good to see people that look like us up on that stage,” that Stewart realised she didn’t want or need to hide her femininity.

Of course, as women we shouldn’t confine ourselves to female ghettos (although, if we did the food and decor would probably improve dramatically). It’s important to meet the world in all its fullness and diversity and be challenged by it. We exist in social circles that are constantly dilating and constricting. If you’re a beef producer you might go to a cattlemen’s association meeting one month, a breed-specific gathering the next and a general farm meeting after that. The importance of gathering in both familiar and diverse crowds can apply to all facets of our lives, be they gender, age, religion, political affiliation or profession. Both like-mindedness and broad-mindedness make our lives richer.

A while back, Leeann asked me to write a column with advice for other young women starting out in agriculture. I thought for a while and realised that I didn’t have much — at least not particular to women, or even agriculture, really. Most of the lessons I’ve learned could apply to any young person starting any career. We’re not all that different, after all.

Nevertheless, most people are encouraged by seeing someone who looks like they do, succeeding at the thing they want to do. If you’re a man in agriculture — or a women in nursing or elementary education — that’ll happen without anyone thinking twice about it. So have empathy on those for whom it doesn’t come as easy.

If you’re an outlier in your field, there will be times you want your gender to disappear, but embrace the challenges of being in the minority and don’t make the mistake of being too proud to connect with those who look like you. At the combine clinic, I almost missed a great opportunity.

The post Women advancing in agriculture appeared first on Grainews.

In all seriousness, coriander production probably wasn’t the driving force behind this new program, but it will be eligible for coverage along with soybeans, dryland hemp seed, caraway, borage and several varieties of perennial seed, including brome grasses, wheat grass and common alfalfa and timothy.

Many of the crops covered under NCII are grown on small acreage and have access to straight hail insurance, but not multi-peril coverage. This program is AFSC’s answer to farmers who want to try growing new crops but also mitigate the risk involved.

Because AFSC lacks data yield data on these crops, coverage will be based on an average cost of production (includes: seed, seed treatment, herbicide, fertilizer, insecticide, fungicide and fuel) combined with a land opportunity cost.

Ken Handford, product development analyst with AFSC, describes the land opportunity cost as “analogous to a cash rent.”

“We look at the value of the land if [producers] were using it for another commodity,” explained Handford. The land cost is based on provincial data, not necessarily what you’re paying for cash rent in a given year. Most crops covered by NCII will also be eligible for the hail endorsement which is a significantly cheaper product than straight hail.

Where applicable, dryland and irrigated premiums and coverage will be determined separately to account for different management costs. For example, dryland soybeans will be eligible for up to $225 per acre with a premium of $8.89 and irrigated soybeans will be covered for $310 per acre at a cost of $5.36 per acre.

For producers to be eligible for NCII they need to have an active crop insurance contract on annual crops. NCII payouts will be based on the average loss producers have on all other annual crops covered by traditional insurance. So if you grow wheat, barley, canola and soybeans and average 30 per cent loss on your wheat, barley and canola, you’re eligible for $67.50 per acre on your soybeans (30 per cent of $225).

Handford noted that coverage areas are limited for some crops. For example, dryland soybeans are currently eligible for coverage in Township 50 and south (west of the fourth meridian only) and in the southern Peace region in risk areas 17, 18, and 19. Irrigated soybeans are covered in risk areas 2, 3, 4, 5 and 9.

Farmers must elect coverage under NCII by the usual AFSC deadline of April 30. Handford encouraged producers to speak to their local branch office about the options and if the crop you want to grow isn’t on the list, don’t assume the door is closed.

“We will definitely take a good hard look at other commodities that producers are growing and if it makes sense to offer coverage then we will,” said Handford. “From AFSCS’s point of view it gives us an avenue to get data on crops that we don’t have a lot of information on.”

As a producer accumulates farm data on a particular crop she will eventually be able to transition from provincial numbers to her individual records. If AFSC gathers enough information from across the risk areas, they may be able to move a crop from NCII to traditional crop insurance.

“Irrigated hemp seed is one of the commodities that we are bringing into regular production insurance in 2015,” said Handford, explaining that some crops may never be grown widely enough to be given multi-peril insurance, while others may move into the mainstream coverage quite rapidly.

It is with some personal interest that I explored this new program. We grow intermediate wheatgrass for seed and have not been eligible for crop insurance. I’m checking the details with my local branch.

John Kowalchuk farms near Rumsey, Alta. and plans to plant his first crop of soybeans in 2015. He said he would have grown soybeans regardless of coverage, but appreciates the peace of mind that comes with the program.

“I think the biggest thing for me is shared risk,” said Kowalchuk. “In the past the farmer took all the risk to test the viability of crops in new areas.”

Risk and reward: farmers need a balance of each. While insurance doesn’t add any weight to the reward side, it can reduce the burden on the risk side of the beam. Good on farmers and AFSC for working towards an equilibrium fitting of 21st century farming practices.

The post Looking at the new crop insurance initiative from AFSC appeared first on Grainews.

With acres approximately tripling in Alberta between 2013 and 2014, there were a lot of opportunities for farmers, agronomists and scientists to learn more about faba beans. As Mark Olson, pulse crop researcher at Alberta Agriculture said recently, “We’re learning with everyone else. I’ve never ran across 95 per cent of these weird things we see in the fields.”

These “weird” things include the affects of chemical residue, which don’t show up in research trials because the plots are planned with longer intervals between herbicides and sensitive crops.

In the field, however, sometimes herbicide history is overlooked or the complex relationship of soil pH, organic matter and moisture leads to unexpected results.

In the field

I had this experience in one of my fields of fababeans last year. We seeded our beans into a field that had been treated with Curtail M in 2013. I knew from a presentation that Olson and his colleague, Robynne Bowness, gave that clopyralid (the active ingredient in Curtail M) could be harmful to fababeans, but I overlooked this fact when it came time to seed my beans.

We did have a decent amount of rain in 2013 — about 174 mm — which probably saved our bacon. Overall the crop stand was healthy and yielded fairly well, except in the corners and around an oil well, where I assume the sprayer doubled up the Curtail M application. The plants in those areas started out healthy, but began twisting, perhaps as they reached the level to where the residue had washed down. Those areas were grass green when we combined the rest of the field.

And while the yield, in my opinion, was fairly good for the year we had, there is no way of knowing if the crop would have produced more if there hadn’t been that history of residual chemical.

There’s several chemicals to be concerned about when seeding fababeans and you won’t find mention of fababeans in the crop protection blue book, because there haven’t been enough acres to warrant research from the chemical companies. Most producers have probably followed field pea re-cropping restrictions, but Olson and others think it might be safer to follow the restrictions for lentils when seeding faba beans.

“I would say the sensitivity [of fababeans] is similar to lentils,” said Olson. “I don’t have a big body of research to support that, but that’s the consensus from talking to farmers and agronomists.”

This means if you’ve sprayed a herbicide like Infinity in your cereal crop, you’d probably be safe to seed peas 10 months later (if you’re in the black, gray-wooded or dark brown soil zone), but if you’re seeding lentils — and by this argument, faba beans — you should wait 22 months. Again, this is not based on repeatable research trials — which hopefully will be undertaken by the crop protection industry as faba bean acreage increases — but on anecdotal experience. Considering there’s nothing a farmer can do once his or her seeds are in ground with chemical residue, it’s better to be safe than sorry.

This year I double-checked my herbicide history when making my crop plan. We planned to seed faba beans on Invigor canola stubble that had a glyphosate pre-burn, so no worries there. My concern was the Prestige XC (which contains clopyralid as well) that I applied to wheat in 2013. The blue book says “if drought conditions are experienced during the months of June to August inclusive in the year of application (less than 140 mm of rain between June 1 and August 31 or less than 175 mm in the whole year), delay seeding field peas an additional 12 months (22 months following application).”

As mentioned, we had 174 mm between June and August of 2013; 251 mm between June and August of 2014 and 447 mm in all of 2014. With the full 22 months and that much moisture between fababeans and the Prestige XC, I am going ahead as planned.

Until we have verified re-cropping restrictions, Olson suggests considering moisture, soil organic matter, temperature, and application rate of residual herbicide when choosing a field.

Germination and disease

2014 saw early frost and snow in much of the fababean growing area of Alberta. This meant compromised quality. Some growers had a lot of black or dark grey beans amongst the typical off white colour fababeans.

According to Joanna Cathcart, germination analyst at 20/20 Seed Labs in Nisku, Alta., the range of germination results tells the story of weather challenges in the Alberta last year. The average germination for all fababeans samples submitted to the lab was in the 70s, with some as low as 10 per cent and others in the 90s.

Some growers found that by colour sorting by hand and removing the dark seeds from a sample, the germination results improved 30 to 40 per cent. Whether this is economical really depends on the situation. If all the beans were going as feed then cutting them in half to save some for seed might be a worthwhile option. If you’re giving up human edible grade pricing and end up with a bunch of screenings that can only go for feed, the value in cleaning the beans may be lost.

Whatever you decide to do, be prepared to wait a bit longer than usual for germination results from the lab. As Cathcart explained, her laboratory is accredited by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and therefore must use the approved crop testing methods as determined by the CFIA.

“Each crop type has specific requirements for temperature, media and testing period,” said Cathcart. Technicians usually test cereals between paper and the final germination count is done at seven days. Fababeans are typically tested in sand and technicians tally results after 14 days.

“Because they are a larger seed they do typically require more moisture and it can be easier to maintain that moisture level in a consistent way by using sand than a paper media,” said Cathcart.

The germination report will list what per cent of seeds had normal germination, abnormal or were dead. In my experience, it’s not unusual to see a higher percentage of “abnormal” seedlings in a faba bean lot than in other crops. Often the abnormal rate will be accompanied by a note saying “mechanical damage suspected.” Fabas are more susceptible than even peas to the blows combines, augers or seed cleaning plants.

“An abnormal seedling has initiated growth but has a critical defect on either its root or shoot system that will cause it to not produce a normal, healthy plant,” explained Cathcart.

Of course, mechanical damage is just one cause of poor germinating fababean seed. Disease can be another factor. Trevor Blois, disease diagnostician at 20/20 Seed Labs, mentioned a number of diseases he observed at varying levels on this year’s seed lots, including: botrytis, fusarium, sclerotinia and stemphylium blight. Botrytis can manifest itself on plant foliage and is commonly known as chocolate spot. Blois said most seed lots are below one per cent disease infection.

Most growers treat seed with a fungicide that controls most if not all of the above diseases. If you’re curious about how your seed will germinate when treated, ask the technicians to find out.

The post Fabas: residues and don’ts appeared first on Grainews.

We attended a briefing at the Canadian embassy where we learned that Koreans tend to be brand conscious and price sensitive buyers. The embassy staff were excited about the imminent ratification of the Canada-Korea Free Trade Agreement. The agreement eliminated 82 per cent of tariffs immediately and 98 per cent of tariffs will be reduced over time.

We learned some interesting facts about Korean demographics lifestyle. Twenty-five per cent of Korean households have only one person and by 2020, 16 per cent of Koreans will be over 65 years old. (In Canada’s 2011 Census, 14.8 per cent of the population was found to be 65 or older.)

According to the embassy staff, there is one restaurant in Seoul for every 100 people. By comparison, in North America, there is about one restaurant for every 300 people. We ate at just a handful of these many restaurants during our time in Seoul. Some of them only seat half a dozen people and sometimes there are four in a row that look like they’re serving the exact same thing. It makes you wonder how customers choose one over the other and how any of them make money.

• More Grainews: Part 1 of Sara’s trade mission to Asia 

The second day in Seoul was our trade show. As in Japan, the Alberta government provided interpreters for each exporter. Our interpreter that day was Sunny, but before long, we were calling in embassy staff to assist, as there were so many interested buyers at our booth.

In Japan, buyers would study our booth from a reserved distance before they came up and talked to us. In Korea, if the interpreter and I were talking to one buyer, that wouldn’t stop another party from coming up immediately initiating a conversation with Curtis.

Grain traders, feed buyers and food processors expressed interest in flax (fortunately Korea doesn’t have the same kind of import restrictions as in Japan), feed grains, oats, barley for tea and pulses (apparently a Korean pop-star recently blogged about having lentils for breakfast).

Korean buyers

Throughout the years that our company has exported rye seed to Korea, we have received several visits to our farm and seed plant from the Korean buyers. They are deeply interested not only in seeing our rye crops and the facility where the seed is cleaned, treated and bagged, but in all of our crops and in the various machines we use to plant and harvest it. Several buyers at the Korean trade show also expressed interest in visiting our farm.

One buyer said he was looking to secure 50,000 metric tonnes of feed barley, but he wanted “to meet the farmer who grew it.” When I said he might have to meet a dozen farmers to supply that kind of demand, he said yes, “I will come to your farm and you can organize the meeting.” The “farm to fork” movement is certainly alive and well in South Korea.

Since returning home I have been engaged in a number of email conversations with buyers I met at the trade show and some people who received my contact information from the embassy. I have a lot to learn as our previous export business and freight forwarding was handled by our broker.

If we make a deal, our grain would be travelaling by shipping container. Freight is relatively cheap for containers going from North America to Asia, since many containers travel here from Asia full of goods and have to return empty. The expensive part is actually the land transportation of the container. It costs about $30 per tonne to have a 40-foot container make the 260 kilometre round trip from Calgary to our loading facility and back to the rail yard. For a small shipper like ourselves, it then costs about $140 per tonne to have that container transported 8,600 kilometres from Calgary to Busan, Korea.

Economies of scale are the backbone of global shipping and I’m sure my rate from the steamship company would be much more favourable if I was shipping hundreds or thousands of containers a month. And, price is not the only factor. Availability is also integral. A steamship company might provide a good rate, but if they seldom spot containers in our area, we may be stymied.

At this point in the process, shipping grain overseas seems risky, confusing and a long way from reality. I know it won’t happen overnight and it may require some more overseas travel, but I am enjoying the challenge.

The post Farmers in Asia, Part 2 appeared first on Grainews.

I can’t remember if I was waiting for a shower to dry up or the snow to melt, but one morning in early September I read an article in one of the farm papers that highlighted an upcoming trip for businesses wanting to export food and food ingredients to Japan and Korea. I have been co-ordinating our farm’s export business for a couple years, but in 2014 our major Korean buyer severely reduced demand. The trade mission seemed like an opportunity to pursue new opportunities to export clean, packaged grain, ready for food processing.

The trade mission was organized by Alberta Agriculture in conjunction with the British Columbia and Saskatchewan agriculture departments. Between harvest and mid-November I created promotional material, had it translated into Japanese and Korean, booked flights and hotels and collected clean grain samples to show prospective buyers. My boyfriend, Curtis, who is also a farmer, joined me for the adventure.

After touching down in Tokyo and taking a couple days to adjust to the time change, we met up with the other Canadian exporters at the Canadian embassy for a day of introduction to the Japanese market.

We learned from both trade commissioners and Japanese business people that food safety followed by cost are the two most important factors to Japanese consumers. Vegetable oils, beef and bottled water are products in high demand.

We visited a warehouse where home-delivery grocery orders are processed. An amazing bar code system stores individual food packages in crates and compiles them to match the customers’ order forms with an employee loading all the goods into one final crate for delivery to its destination. According to the warehouse managers, they make about 50 mistakes in one million orders. One of the trade officers from the Alberta-Japan office pointed out that that is the level of precision the Japanese expect when doing business.

The next day the embassy hosted a day-long trade show. Japanese buyers visited the show and a lunch reception gave us the opportunity to mingle with them. The staff from the embassy and the provincial offices are well-connected and made sure to introduce us to as many relevant buyers as possible.

That night we took the bullet train to Osaka and had a similar trade show and reception the following day.

The trade mission was billed as the Western Canada Food Expo and it happens every two years. Most of the Canadian companies in attendance were exporting ready-to-retail foods like potato chips, candy, camelina oil, pork, rolled oats and honey. Many of the buyers at the Tokyo and Osaka expos were from grocery stores, restaurants, and other retail outlets and they wanted to buy ready-to-eat and ready-to-prepare products.

Buyer feedback

We did have a couple of traders and food manufacturers express interest in importing Canadian grains. Fababeans sorted to particular sizes were of interest, as were green peas for snack foods. Several buyers asked about non-GMO soybeans for food processing. There were also a couple of companies interested in importing flax, but flax has two strikes against it in the Japanese market: cyanide and GMOs.

I had no idea before I traveled to Japan that there are naturally occurring cyanide compounds in flax. We all know cyanide is poisonous, but as the saying goes, “the dose makes the poison.” There is no evidence of the cyanide content in flax harming any humans, but the Japanese will reject a shipment if the cyanide content is more than 10 parts per million. This standard is based on research on the cassava plant, which also contains cyanide. Cassava is a staple food in some parts of Africa and when consumed exclusively for an extended period of time the cyanide content can cause a paralytic disorder. Ten parts per million is considered a safe level of cyanide compounds in cassava.

It doesn’t make much sense to impose the same standard on flax, which is consumed in much smaller amounts than cassava, but this is good example of Japanese regulators prioritizing food safety. According to the trade commissioner I talked to, most raw flax contains 10 to 20 parts per million of cyanide, if a shipment were to arrive in Japan and test over the limit, it would be sent back at huge cost to the exporter. The only way around the cyanide problem is to roast the flax, which one Regina company is doing.

The other problem I mentioned is GMOs. In 2009, Japan found a trace amount of genetically modified flaxseed in a shipment. (A genetically modified variety of flax had been developed in Saskatchewan but was pulled from the market. However, not before trace amounts were found in a number of Canadian flax varieties.) Because GM flaxseed is not approved for human consumption in Japan, the load was rejected and all subsequent flax shipments destined for food are to be inspected until enough shipments pass the test that random testing can resume. Even if a lot of flax passes a Canadian GMO test, concerns remain that trace amounts will be detected on the other side of the Pacific.

Despite the supposed purging of GMO seed from the Canadian flax crop, exporters remain in a catch-22 situation. Canadian exporters are loathe to send a shipment to Japan in case it gets rejected, so the Canadian system can’t build up the good credit it needs to avoid intense scrutiny.

Another thing we learned is that all imports of wheat and barley to Japan are co-ordinated by their ministry of agriculture. Every year the government asks food processors to estimate their wheat and barley needs for the year. The country’s small domestic production is subtracted from this amount and then the government tasks private grain traders with bringing enough grain into the country to meet the demand. Part of the mark-up on the imported wheat and barley is used to subsidize domestic production.

It’s kind of a reverse Canadian Wheat Board: instead of a single desk buyer, Japanese food processors essentially have a single desk supplier. And it means that Canadian exporters can’t sell directly to a Japanese food processor.

If it sounds challenging to do business in Japan, that’s because it is and the staff from the Canadian embassy didn’t sugarcoat this reality. It can take a long time and many emails and visits to ink a deal. The trade-off? The Japanese desire for a long-term business relationship.

As one commissioner said, “The Japanese aren’t looking for a one night stand, they’re looking for a marriage.”

In my next column I’ll take you to Korea, where we experienced kimchi, Korean BBQ and an onslaught of keen Korean grain buyers.

The post Export sales mission to Asia appeared first on Grainews.

The first two years were a trial period for both myself and my parents, to decide if transitioning farm management and eventual ownership to me was in everyone’s best interest. There was a lot of crying the first year (me, not them), a lot of repeated explanations (them, not me) and a lot of learning (all three of us), but we survived, and my enjoyment of farming continues to grow.

In January 2012 my cousin came to work for us full time and with his excellent mechanical, welding and machinery operating skills, we had a very well-rounded team and farm life hummed along at an even rhythm.

However, 2014 brought some changes. My cousin decided to move on to other pursuits after harvest and throughout the year it became clear to my parents and myself that my dad wanted to pull back on his management responsibilities. 2015 feels like the beginning of the next step up in my farming career and this may lead to more crying, but I have much to be thankful for when I look back on all I’ve learned and experienced in the last few years.

Bubbles

As part of the farm transition, we are working with Merle Good, possibly the most famous name in Alberta farm-succession planning. Besides all the tax and accounting mumbo-jumbo for which there are others well-paid to understand better than I, he has given us some advice for the interpersonal side of things.

One such piece of advice is for each individual of the family farm team to divide the responsibilities on the farm into four or five over-arching areas of responsibility or “bubbles,” and list four to six tasks inside each bubble. Each bubble can be managed by an individual or the responsibilities in the bubble can be shared. If the responsibilities are shared, then list the person who is responsible for each task. Whoever is responsible for the bubble or task manages it and asks other team members for advice. If you’re not in charge of the bubble, you’re not supposed to be giving unrequested advice.

Once all farm members have created and labelled their individual bubbles, then everyone should sit down together and create a final set of bubbles with responsibilities divided in a way that everyone can agree to.

These exercises can seem painful, but once I sat down and started it, it was actually fairly easy and I think the results will be helpful. As I wear the hats of daughter, employee and now co-manager and my dad wears the hat of father, boss and eventually retiree, there can be confusion about who should be doing what task. Things get ordered twice or not done at all.

Over time I will manage more bubbles and tasks. Some tasks that moved into my bubble this year: seed sourcing, commercial grain sales (usually a small portion of our production) and hiring a new employee.

For the first time in our farm history we actually advertised for an employee. I put ads in print editions of the Manitoba Co-operator, the Western Producer and my local weekly paper. Online I advertised on Kijiji and AgEmploy.com. Prior to advertising we wracked our brains for anyone we knew locally who might be interested in farm work and came up empty, so I didn’t have high hopes for a local hire. Surprisingly, the local ad did yield two strong candidates, and while my parents were both part of the interview process, my dad gave me the responsibility for the final decision.

Make Good Spraying Decisions

One task that’s been in my bubble since year one is spraying. With a high clearance sprayer, this can be one of the most fun jobs on the farm. It can also be one of the most stressful as narrow spraying windows and variable weather can challenge farmers with even the longest booms and fastest sprayer filling station.

I started spring 2014 with the mantra “make good spraying decisions” and I repeated it to myself all season long. It can be difficult to manage the pressure of timeliness with the limitations of weather and there have been times in past years when I sprayed and later wished I had waited or prioritized spraying one field over another. There are not enough nice days in the year for every crop to be sprayed under ideal conditions, but it has been worth it to stop and ask myself, “Is there a better time to do this?”

Tillage

One job that hasn’t been in anyone’s bubble for several years on this farm is tillage. With an abnormally wet growing season we had some areas in our fields that held water all year long. Our neighbour suggested using a heavy disc to break up those areas. In his experience, it allows the moisture to penetrate the soil in the spring so the area can be seeded. We rented a disc and I committed my very first act of tillage. We smoothed over the lumps with a cultivator that we pulled out of the tall grasses (I think every farm has one of these).

Given the number of black or partially black fields I saw as I ambled around Alberta this fall, I know we weren’t the only farm going back to some “old-fashioned” ways. Hopefully the experiment proves fruitful and we can establish a strong crop on every acre this spring. I wish the same for all of you as you prepare for your 2015 growing season.

The post A look back and a step up appeared first on Grainews.

Considering the number of my fellow farmers who tell me that they bought some new variety of seed from their neighbour, I suspect that a lot of people don’t really understand the existing rules behind Plant Breeder’s Rights. If people don’t understand what’s currently in the legislation, it’s hard to make sense of the changes, and it’s easy to believe that something new and terrible is being imposed upon farmers, when in fact, not a whole lot is going to change if you’re already following the rules.

• From the Manitoba Co-operator: Canola growers debate UPOV ’91

The rules today

So what are the rules? In Canada, if a plant breeder has been granted plant breeders’ rights on a new variety of grain, then farmers must pay a royalty, usually embedded in the purchase of certified seed. Farmers are allowed to save and clean the seed produced for use on their own farms, but they can’t sell or trade it to another person. This form of intellectual property rights protects the investment of the company or public institution that invested time and money into developing this variety. Most newer varieties (with the noted exception of pulses coming out of the Crop Development Centre at Saskatoon) are protected.

As a seed grower I have to be familiar with which varieties are protected because I have to remit royalties to the breeder, be it a private company or a public institution like Agriculture Canada or the CDC. When you buy certified seed, somewhere between $0.80 and $1.50 per bushel (depending on the variety) goes back to the plant breeder.

People don’t usually advertise their illicit activities, so when a neighbour tells me that he sold bin run seed to the guy down the road or I see someone on Twitter who I know is not a seed grower advertising winter wheat seed for sale (true story), I’m guessing that they don’t know these rules. People who are aware of the law and flout it anyway tend to keep a lower profile.

Proposed changes

Bill C-18, which is currently being debated in the House of Commons, will, among other things, amend the current Plant Breeders’ Rights legislation to bring it in line with UPOV ’91. UPOV is an international convention that protects the intellectual property rights of plant breeders. Most of our trading partners and competitors conform to the 1991 convention, while Canadian legislation conforms to the now outdated 1978 version.

One of the big changes to the law is that buyers of “brown bagged” seed, as in “common” seed of a protected variety, will now have some liability. Currently, only the person producing and selling brown bagged seed could face punishment, but now, if a buyer is caught procuring seed without paying a royalty, there will be a legislative basis for the breeder to collect compensation (royalty and damages) on the harvested material instead (i.e. grain). The law is saying: if it’s wrong to sell protected varieties of seed, it should be wrong to buy it as well.

If you’re already abiding by PBR legislation and only using certified seed, your own seed or seed from a non-PBR protected variety, things aren’t going to change for you.

I’m fully supportive of the provision in this bill that says that the exclusive rights of plant breeders (and their authorized distributors) to produce, condition, sell or export their variety does not apply to harvested material of the plant grown by a farmer on his own farm for his own use (Section 5.3 of the bill if you want to look it up). This is known as the farmer’s privilege. While there have been some articles saying that farmers won’t be able to save their own seed, I think this clause makes it pretty clear that they can.

This system isn’t perfect, but it attempts to balance the needs of farmers and plant breeders. A majority of my fellow Alberta seed growers agree. At our last AGM we passed a resolution supporting the changes to PBR legislation, as long as it included the clause that allowed farmers to save their own seed.

When some of my customers want to try a new variety of seed they’ll come for 40 acres worth. I know they’ll clean a bin of that first generation production and use it for several years and I wouldn’t change that. You might be thinking, “You’re a pedigreed seed grower, of course you want to make it harder to buy common seed.” While I do want to sell more seed, I know the vast majority of farmers aren’t going to buy my seed, but please, if you’re thinking of trying a new variety, buy 40 acres worth from a seed grower, not your neighbour. Then some royalties will be going back into the system to fund further plant breeding.

Because that’s really the crux here — how will innovation in plant breeding be funded? I found it ironic that around the same time as the would-be winter wheat salesman was trumpeting his wares on Twitter, he was also raving about how well his new variety of feed barley — one developed at the University of Saskatchewan — was yielding. I really wanted to ask him, do you think new varieties fall out of the sky? These advancements take money and if we circumvent the means for paying for them, we will soon be without.

To those farmers who would never dream of using brown bagged canola seed, but do it all the time with wheat and barley, I ask: how would you like to sign a TUA and pay a technology fee on all your cereal seed? Because I honestly think that is what will happen if we continue to restrict cash flow to public and small private plant breeders. Biotech giants will step into the fill the space those entities can no longer afford to occupy, but they will be a lot more forceful about extracting a return on their investment.

The post You can’t have one without the other appeared first on Grainews.

Ancient crop, modern tech

I first heard rye described as “prehistoric” by Jamie Larsen, rye breeder at Agriculture and Agri-Food Lethbridge.

“Because rye is open pollinated and there hasn’t been much breeding work on it, it really is kind of prehistoric,” said Larsen. “You see all kinds of wacky stuff in it.” Unlike wheat and barley which are self-pollinating and have been bred for uniformity, rye from the same seed lot will have variation in plant height and seed colour. Other, less visible traits, like cold hardiness, threshability and falling numbers can be teased out through cross pollination and selection within populations developed from parental lines that are known to have these traits.

Canadian rye varieties already have world class cold tolerance (no surprise, really), so Larsen’s current research focuses on reducing straw height while improving falling numbers (the main quality specification for milling rye). Larsen is also addressing everyone’s main concern when it comes to rye: ergot. Larsen and colleague Kelly Turkington developed an ergot nursery at AAFC Lacombe where they put down the equivalent of 80 pounds of ergot bodies per acre and planted several lines of rye, with the hope of determining which varieties are more or less susceptible to ergot.

“Ultimately you want to see good infection, so the more you lay down the better,” said Larsen referring to the ergot. “If you see very low infection it’s hard to separate good lines from bad lines. If you get really high infections then you get some that are one per cent infected and some are 20 per cent.”

The Saskatchewan Winter Cereals Development Commission provides funding for Larsen’s research — this year he purchased a colour sorter with some of the funds. This machine will help him assess the percent of ergot per rye line. With ergot being an issue in wheat and barley recently, Larsen hopes that if his research on rye provides useful results, the project might be applied to other cereals.

Rye being on the extreme end of ergot susceptibility makes it a good candidate for research on ergot and the same principle applies with straw height and plant growth regulator (PGR) research. Brian Beres, research scientist, agronomy at AAFC Lethbridge included rye in his PGR trial this year because he wanted to make sure he had a crop in the trial that would have sufficient lodging susceptibility to demonstrate the effect of the PGR. The trial included two different rates and two different timing of application. Since this is the first year for the trial, results are still forthcoming, but it’s certainly a project I’m going to be following up on as lodging can be a big headache in rye.

Probably the biggest headline in fall rye right now, though, is the news that two new hybrid varieties have been registered in Canada. Brasetto and Guttino both come out of the German breeding company KWS and they are the first hybrid cereals to be registered in Canada.

A Regina based seed company, FP Genetics, won the rights to distribute Brasetto in Canada and they have several trials underway across the Prairies, comparing Brasetto with Hazlet, a high yielding conventional rye. According to Ron Weik, seed portfolio manager at FP Genetics, Brasetto has out-yielded the best open pollinated rye by about 25 per cent.

“It’s also shorter, so there isn’t as much straw,” said Weik. Shorter straw height also means less susceptibility to lodging. While rye tends to be grown on less productive land, Weik said this crop should be babied.

“Because this is a hybrid with the promise of yield, it needs to be grown on high productivity land. It needs to be fertilized and sprayed for disease as you would any cereal crop,” said Weik. Growers will pay considerably more to plant hybrid rye.

“Seed cost per acre is about $50,” said Weik. “I’ve talked to a number of people and thrown out that number and they didn’t hang up on me.” He likens the advent of hybrid cereal production to the initial years of hybrid canola seed.

“If there’s an econ advantage to growing the hybrid, then people will pay the price and if it doesn’t bring them value, they won’t do it.” In order to bring this profit to growers, FP Genetics partnered with Paterson Grain to develop an identity preserved program. Keith Bruch, Paterson’s vice president of operations, sees potential for sales into the milling and feed market given Brasetto’s high falling numbers and high fibre content. He believes the main economic advantage growers will see is through the yield gains, rather than a higher price compared to other rye varieties.

“There’s a big return on incremental yield gains,” said Bruch.

While the first cross hybrid side exhibits heterosis, or hybrid vigour, Weik pointed out that the production from harvested Brasetto will not make good seed.

“If you replant the seed of a hybrid you’ll notice a big yield decrease,” he said. While some farmers may balk at not being able to save seed, Weik sees this as “an opportunity to demonstrate to people the benefits of new technology that can be made available to cereals.”

The gift that keeps on giving

While there are innumerable wonderful things to be said about rye, it is not without its drawbacks. One being the fact that it volunteers so easily, sometimes for three or four years. Often after the first year the volunteer plants do not vernalize so there is no seed in the heads, but on our farm where we’re trying to produce other certified cereal crops, a crop can fail the inspection if there are too many volunteers visible. Our strategy has been to follow rye with Roundup Ready canola and then grow a year of commercial cereals, then maybe back to peas. Some growers follow rye with canola, then peas, but because we usually grow our rye on pea stubble it’s a bit of tight rotation to make it back to peas.

Recently I polled Twitter for suggestions on dealing with fall rye and one grower said he allowed all the volunteers to come up the following year, banded fertilizer on at early tillering and harvested a 55 bushel crop! Someone on Twitter reminded me that Clearfield wheat is also tool in the tool box. I’ve often thought the best solution would be to plant a cereal crop following rye and have it cut for silage or green feed (granted there’s a local feed market) and then go in with herbicide resistant canola, giving us an extra year and the added benefit of controlling both rye and weeds through cultural, rather than chemical means. Maybe the best tool for a farmer growing rye is a good sense of humour or a blind eye, because invariably, a few rye plants will escape even the best chemical and cultural controls and you’ll have to deal with your neighbours’ comments or your own ego.

The post Rye, oh rye: the second part appeared first on Grainews.