Agriculture is Life

Some days it's just very good to listen, be encouraged and get pumped to continue on the paths we've been called to in life.  Today was one of those days for us.

Farm Credit Corporation, our agricultural lending institution, conducts 10 forums across Canada each year and we attended the one in Red Deer.  Unfortunately we missed the morning session presented by Amanda Lang, CBC's senior business analyst where she talked about innovation.  Her remarks were referred to by people throughout the rest of the day and we hope to hear her some other time.  Loading a B-train full of grain and sending it out took first priority on this day!

The afternoon speakers were fantastic - so happy that we got to hear them.   First up was Martin Latullipe, captain of Canada's 2001 world university hockey team (he was injured while playing), now working as a motivational speaker.  This clip from his website says it all:

"Martin delivers a high-energy, theatrical performance characterized by humor, lots of fun, and great takeaways. He inspires and motivates. After listening to Martin’s presentation, audiences will never see their personal impact in the same way. They will immediately begin looking in the mirror of success and start creating legacy in their personal and professional lives."

(from martintullipe.com)

His examples were profound stories of how people make an impact, realize potential and create legacy. And he was such a cheerleader for agriculture but I guess that's what motivational speakers do!
Here are a few of my notes:
Our response determines our level of success.
3 seeds to keep winning:
1.  Focus on the dream, not the doubt.  (This is the challenging one for me - and by the jab in my side when Martin spoke those words, someone else in this partnership knows it too!)
2.  Choose to give what you do and how you do it, great purpose.  Create a legacy in other people's lives. 
3.  Celebrate progress, make it your measure of success.  Focus on the 3% chance of making it, not the 97% chance of failing, based on a true story he told.  Believe in miracles and live in the moment!

The second afternoon speaker was General Rick Hillier, former Chief of Defence Staff and overseer of the Canadian mission in Afghanistan.  He spoke about leadership and shared many stories from his military career, as well as some including his wife.  The crowd definitely related to him and emotions in the room went from hilarious laughter to sobering tears-in-our-eyes as he talked about the men and women serving our country around the world.  

(from generalhillier.com)

Things to remember:
Communicating is hardest with those closest to you.  (Ain't that the truth?!)
Leaders are all about people.  
Inspire your people to bring body and mind to work.  
Draw inspiration from the people around you so you can keep going.  
Practice perpetual optimism and a passion for what you do.  It will move others to do and be better.  
Be inspired by recognizing the hero models right around you.  As a leader, share their passion with others.

I'm going to write more about FCC's "Agriculture More Than Ever" campaign next year.  


  

South American Highlights #11

Fazenda Barcelona

Welcome back to South America! I still have so many things to document about our trip so let's head out to another farm today.



Owned by the Gorgen Brothers who emigrated from Argentina as tractor drivers , we spent the afternoon at -




their farm, Fazenda Barcelona.

It was a very big farm in terms of land base, production, equipment and workers. Brian, our guide (originally a farmer from Missouri), arranged for us to visit this showpiece farm in Bahia State.




This machine shed had 14 John Deere tractors




and 7 corn planters in it. There were more tractors outside parked with spraying equipment or moving trailers and other implements. I think the official count was 20+ - see what I mean by big operations?!




All machinery repairs were done on the farm by a crew of mechanics. I like this picture of used bearings.




Six gigantic grain storage bins each held 50,000 bushels of grain and were connected to the dryer with legs and elevators.




The crop manager was eager to show how healthy and big the cotton plants were out in the field. Their main crops here were soybeans, cotton and corn.




Cotton blossoms!




You can tell a fertilized blossom because it turns pink! You need to have a blossom like this in order to grow a cotton boll and for farmers in this area 8 or 9 bolls per plant would be a very good yield.




This farm had its own crop duster for spraying crops. The pilot was from Sao Paulo and came to the farm for 6 months during the growing season. My brother runs an aerial application business so it was fun to visit a bit with this young guy. I wished I'd taken along a picture of Brent's plane to show him. He did understand when I said it was an Ag-Cat biplane. (I hope I had it right!)




Here's one of the cotton pickers that goes between the rows and plucks the bolls off the plants. I think they had 4 or 5 of these guys.




These are the machines that would compress the picked cotton into modules which would be sent to the gin (remember that visit a while back?).




One of the first things we were shown on every farm in Brazil were the living quarters for workers. There are strict regulations protecting workers and assuring that they are provided with a good quality of life. Most workers stay on the farm during the week and go home on their one day off (which would likely vary according to the season and what needed to be done).




The green movement is alive and well in Brazil, we were glad to see. Many farms had little stations set up around the living quarters to make it easy for workers to recycle and compost. I think this would be a cool spot to take pictures!




The managers were so gracious and had arranged for us to be served coffee and snacks in the cafeteria area. It was a great visit to a very well-managed operation. Our hosts were patient with our many, many questions and took time to allow us to wander all over their farms.

And big thanks to Melinda for helping me change my banner around today! What do you think - like the new look?

South American Highlights #10

Golmur Cotton Gin

Join me for a tour of a cotton gin - a totally new experience for us!



This cotton gin produces only a small amount of cotton on their own land. Their work is processing the cotton of other farmers in Bahia state.




Our group, ready to see something new in Brazil.




At the Case IH dealership in town, we saw the cotton pickers being overhauled for the new season. The cage on the back would be filled/stuffed/packed with cotton to create the big bales that are packed into modules and hauled to the gin for processing. There were a few modules left at the gin so they could test all the machinery before harvest begins again.




The cotton modules come to the gin weighing 10,000 - 12,000 pounds and then begin the process of cleaning, seperating and combing that yields cotton lint. The lint looks and feels like a giant cotton ball. You can see that there are seeds and debris in this field cotton.




The plant was being retrofitted and prepared for this season's work while we were there. It would be quite the busy place once the cotton is harvested. It's in operation for about 6 months of the year in order to process all the cotton that's been harvested and contracted to them. In the plant, long air-filled tubes move the cotton from one machine to the next.




The big machinery is above ground but under the floor are just as many intricate parts and machines used in processing. Cleanliness and dust control are a big part of this operation - you can imagine the dust and how flammable it would be.




This machine has hundreds of little teeth on rotating saws that cut the seeds from the lint. It spins at a high speed and the seeds drop down under the floor and are later used to make oil or cottonseed meal for animals.




This is one of the owners who spent the morning with us, explaining details and touring us around the gin.




Bales are wrapped up in these bags. Taking pictures of personalized bags really helps me to remember where we were for sets of pictures!!




Once the cotton is cleaned and combed, it's baled up and ready to be shipped to textile factories. These bales are tightly compressed so they take up minimal room during shipping.




Baled cotton is carefully tarped and then stored in the yard until a farmer can ship it to the port and export it. The yard was nearly empty.

I didn't take very good notes so my knowledge of details about this process are lacking, I now realize. I need to buy some notes from a few people who actually wrote things down in a book as we visited these places!! And I should have probably showed you how cotton grows first but I'll do that in the next post.

South American Highlights #8

Sugarcane Fields

Welcome to the sugarcane field!



The top of the irrigation pivot is just visible over the top of the plants. They can grow to 20 feet tall. Brazil is the world's #1 producer of sugarcane and it is widely used in the production of ethanol. It produces a lot of fuel per tonne of crop, unlike corn which requires lots of raw material to get just a little fuel. Wikipedia says that in Brazil, 30% of the automobile fuel is made from sugar-based ethanol.




You can see the 2 crops growing side by side.




There was a group of workers in the field and they had this collection of things at the end of the row. It reminded me of the coolers and water jugs that our guys take to the fields too.




This researcher from a national research institute knew everything you could possibly want to know about breeding and growing sugarcane. Standing beside him is Brian, an American who now lives and manages a farm in Brazil. Brian was our Portuguese interpreter for the farm visits in this area and he did an awesome job of getting the answers to all of our questions.



This piece of cane would be placed in the furrow and new plants would grow out of each nodule. Once the stalks are mechanically harvested, new plants would grow from the rootstock that was left in the ground. Fields used to be burnt off before harvest to reduce the leaves but that resulted in lots of air pollution so the practice has been reduced.




It grows really tall and after it's cut down, it will regrow several times. Sugarcane requires at least 1500 mm of water and this research facility is trying to produce varieties that can thrive with less.




Taste testing! It's really fibrous and sweet. AFter you chew it, you end up with a mouthful of stalk that you just spit out.




Even the bugs are bright and colorful in Brazil!




Busy paying attention! We learnt alot about another new crop on this day!

South American Highlights #7

Sugar Cane and Pineapples

First, there were a couple of questions about this area of Brazil. One was about the climate. There are 2 definite crop seasons here - the wet season and the dry season. The dry season begins in June and lasts until September. There's not enough rainfall during that time for crops so irrigation needs to be used then. Of course that adds to the cost of production so only high value crops would be grown that way (think coffee and fruits!). The wet season lasts the other 8 months which means that sometimes 2 crops can be grown, depending on the time period needed for each crop to mature. We saw late soyabeans being grown where early wheat had already been harvested. The actual amount of precipitation varies depending how close to the 'cliff' (the Rio Francisco river banks) you are. Land closer to the cliff is higher priced because you can usually get higher production without irrigating. There's an incredible amount of sunlight here, being so close to the equator, so different varieties of wheat, corn and soyabeans are grown here than in Canada.

Secondly, about 25,000 people live in the town of Luis Eduardo Meghalles, in a variety of housing. There is a rich section of town with large houses and gates and then there's the rows of brick houses for the working class. Nearly all landowners live in town and drive out to the farm daily. Workers usually live on the farm in housing provided by the owners during the week and go home on weekends. Labour laws are very strict in Brazil (coming from a long tradition of slavery) - I'll tell you more about that in another post.

I hope those answers aren't too involved! It's kind of important to help you understand agriculture in another part of the world. Thanks for hanging in with my explanations. Now let's go out to the farm!



There isn't much infrastructure here and roads are a prime example of this. Main highways connect the towns but when you leave them, local roads are built and maintained - sort of! - by the farms that they lead to. It had rained the night before so we delayed our visit because there was some concern that the bus would have trouble getting us to the destination. This is some of what we had to navigate through. Our bus driver was very skilled and we did get safely in and out of here! Our destination was a farm that grew sugarcane, pineapple, coffee, citrus groups and a whole lot of other crops. We weren't able to meet the owners but we drove through the workers' village and over the river dam that creates a lake used for irrigation. Before we entered the farm property,because citrus crops are grown here, the bus had to drive through a fumigation station where a special water bath was sprayed over it (like an outdoor car wash).




When we got to the field, on one side of the road were pineapples and on the other side was sugarcane. We had come to see sugarcane and hear about how it's being used in ethanol production. Brazil is the world's #1 producer of sugarcane. The guide we had this day was a researcher for the sugarcane institute so he was an expert on everything you could possibly want to know about crossing varieties, water requirements, sugar content, and using the cane for ethanol production. This area is just moving into sugarcane production. The dry season which lasts for 4 months here means the cane has to be irrigated and the cost of doing that has been prohibitive to large scale production previously. That's changed now that the price of oil is so high. Brazil has encouraged the production of ethanol and biodiesel for a long time and most cars can run on either straight gasoline or ethanol.

Most of the women in our group were really interested in pineapple growing but our guide didn't touch on that topic. I want you to meet Alberta, a sweet, sweet lady from Ohio. We never forgot her name at all since it's the name of our province!! She and her husband, Ken, were the newlyweds in our group - they've only been married 2 years. They did get teased about that occasionally!




These pineapples were grown in fields irrigated by big pivots - you can see the wheel tracks going diagonally across this picture. These are fairly new plants - I have no idea how old they are and there were some parts of this field where mature fruit was being handpicked on this day.




This is what a pineapple looks like when it's very young. Did you know that each pineapple is actually made up of a group of tightly packed fruits? You can see each little fruit on this plant.




This is an older fruit but it still has a ways to go. After a fruit is mature and picked, new shoots will develop on the plant and it will continue to produce for several years.




I found this visit just fascinating and I will definitely be visiting a pineapple factory if I ever am near one. The pineapple we ate in Brazil (usually on the breakfast buffet) was delicious!!!

In tomorrow's post we'll walk across the road and see the sugarcane!