Day 2: A day at the Farm

As the chariot pulled away from the Crown Plaza in Montreal this group of AALP participants knew they were in for an info-packed day starting off with McGill MacDonald Campus.

We all have our favourite post-secondary campus, but many participants on the bus were excited to visit McGill for the first time – especially the Macdonald Campus where their primary dairy research is conducted. Nestled on 250 hectares of farm land, this campus is home to 2,000 students in both diploma and university degree programs. The campus is designed for students to obtain practical experience in their degree programs. Elsa Vasseur, Assistant Professor in the Animal Science Department, described one of their main research programs, Proaction, which is working to determine what appropriate housing is required for a cow’s maximum comfort, longevity and locomotion.

Chantal Charette, Dairy Unit Manager of the MacDonald Campus Farm, provided the class with the background of the dairy barn that consists of Holsteins, Brown Swiss and Jerseys with 92 kg of quota total. What's her secret to success? Immunityplus, a reproductive typing offered by Semex allows you to select sires that have the highest health scores to ensure calves are born healthy and stay healthy.

Switching gears to biotechnology, Mark Lefsrud, Associate Professor who leads the Biomass Production Laboratory, discussed the many projects that McGill has been working on. One of the main research projects is to help greenhouse operators maximize efficiency both in North America as well as the Caribbean. Who knew that in Cuba those veggies have been picked for three weeks before they arrive? McGill wants to help developing countries be able to grow their own food through their greenhouse work.

McGill Feeding McGill is a great program where all the food produced on the farms goes into the cafeteria on the main campus. This is done in part by Valerie Gravel, Assistant Professor in the Plant Science Department, who works with strawberries and other horticulture products to determine stresses to the plant and how to mitigate these to improve yield.

After learning about the main research pillars of McGill, the class loaded the bus, stopped for a quick bite to eat and continued on to the L'Union des producteurs agricoles du Quebec (UPA) in downtown Montreal.

Quebec has a unique situation when it comes to the animal that supplies us with bacon. Quebec is the only province where the Éleveurs de porcs du Québec (the pork board) negotiates the price for both the producer and the buyer. The board also assumes income stability risk to ensure that the grower is making more money than their cost. As Gaëlle Leruste, Communications Advisor with Les Éleveurs de porcs du Québec, explained, this is a unique method of ensuring price protection and is a key factor for continuing growth in the pork industry.

Communications Director of UPA, Patrick Lareau, closed off the day with a few facts that makes Quebec farming unique:

3 million acres of agriculture
29,437 producers with an average of 279 acres per farm
12% of Quebec population works in agriculture
64 dairy cattle/herd
1 in 3 young farmers run his or her own business
Most maple syrup is from Quebec: 71% of world’s production
The large Christmas tree in downtown New York comes from a Quebec tree farm

As the class departed the UPA office, our trusty bus driver Nancy gave us a tour of downtown Montreal. This allowed us the opportunity to take in the sights and sounds of the city as well as experience the Montreal International Jazz Festival in the downtown core.

-Class 16

Comment

You need to be a member of Ontario Agriculture to add comments!

Join Ontario Agriculture

Welcome to
Ontario Agriculture

Sign Up
or Sign In

Agriculture Headlines from Farms.com Canada East News - click on title for full story

Climate change worries Canadian farmers: poll

A poll released Dec. 11 suggests that Canadian farmers worry more about the impacts of climate change than they do about input costs and market prices for canola, corn, wheat and cattle. The poll of 858 producers from coast to coast determined that farmers rank climate change as their No. 1 concern. “When farmers and ranchers were asked an open-ended question—at the very beginning of the poll—about the top challenge for the agricultural sector for the next decade, climate change was the number one answer,” says Farmers for Climate Solutions, a group, that as its name suggests, is focused on climate change mitigation and adaptation within Canadian agriculture. The organization hired Leger, a market research firm, to conduct the survey. It was done by phone from Aug. 8 to Sept. 8. The headline question from the poll asked farmers to identify the top challenge for the agriculture sector over the next 10 years. The results? 17.9 per cent said climate change. Input costs were 17.2 pe

Livestock producers are warned to watch for a larval disease

A disease that lives off the flesh of living mammals has been confirmed in Chiapas, Mexico. New World screwworm (NWS) is a parasitic larval disease of warm-blooded animals where the female fly will lay eggs near an open wound and the larvae can infest the wound and cause significant infections. NWS can infest livestock, pets, wildlife, occasionally birds, and in rare cases, people. Swine Health Information Center (SHIC) Associate Director Dr. Lisa Becton said the confirmation comes on the heels of a report in October from Guatemala where the first case was identified. “This larva and the fly were identified at the Mexican border in cattle that were coming through in Guatemala and so this is a very significant concern of especially grazing animals but really of any warm-blooded animal,” she said. “It does cause destruction when a wound gets infected.” Animals can exhibit very painful draining wounds that don’t heal. It has a negative impact on production and can include mortality o

Durum Ending Stocks Tighter from November

Agriculture Canada has whittled down its 2024-25 durum ending stocks estimate from last month, although it remains up from a year earlier. Monthly government supply-demand estimates released Thursday showed durum ending stocks at 650,000 tonnes, down 150,000 from the November forecast but still well up from the previous year’s 407,000. The reduction reflects Statistics Canada’s Dec. 5 crop production report which put this year’s Canadian durum crop to 5.87 million tonnes, down from the federal agency’s previous estimate in September of just over 6 million. However, this year’s durum crop is still 44% larger than the 2023 harvest, 20% above average and the sixth largest on record. Ag Canada trimmed its domestic use estimate slightly to reflect this month’s downward revision in the durum crop, but left its export forecast unchanged from last month at 4.9 million tonnes, up from 3.558 million in 2023-24 but still below over 5 million in 2022-23. At $325/tonne, the average expecte

Alberta Canola Seeks Grower Support for First Service Charge Increase in 20 Years

Alberta Canola is urging canola growers to approve its first service charge increase in over two decades. The proposed change—from $1 per tonne to $1.75 per tonne—will be put to a vote at the organization’s Annual General Meeting on Jan. 22, 2025. The increase is critical to addressing financial challenges and ensuring Alberta Canola can continue supporting farmers amid rising operating costs, declining production, and evolving industry pressures. A Challenging Landscape “Alberta Canola was built by farmers, for farmers, and that hasn’t changed in our 35 years,” says Karla Bergstrom, Executive Director of Alberta Canola. “What?has?changed is the world we operate within.” Bergstrom highlights the dual challenges of reduced public research funding and increased regulatory demands. Meanwhile, consumers, increasingly removed from farming, are demanding greater transparency in food production. With over 90% of its operating revenue coming from its service charge, Alberta Canola has face

BMO underscores trends affecting Canadian agriculture

The Bank of Montreal has published an in-depth analysis of nine key trends. Here’s a topline of several economic indicators and what to expect in 2025. ???????

More…

Badges | Report an Issue | Terms of Service