Value Chains: Strength Depends On Partners’ Commitment To Success

source: Farm and Food Report

Hands on the wheel, speaking into his cell phone, Gordon Schroeder drives up the Qu’Appelle Valley near Craven shortly before dawn, on his way to yet another meeting:

“We have Mediterranean lamb sausage, cooked lamb in Moroccan orange sauce, Parmesan and Greek Feta cheese meatballs… and yes, marinated lamb kabobs,” Schroeder says.

Just listening to this exotic list of dishes makes one want to go for lunch right away. Schroeder is a man on a mission, you see. He is both Executive Director of the Saskatchewan Sheep Development Board and now General Manager of Canadian Prairie Lamb — the producers’ latest bid toward industry development.

“Saskatchewan racks and lamb chops are moving well,” he says, “but we need to get the trim, shoulders and legs to the market somehow. We figure that, by preparing dishes that are fully cooked and ready from frozen to hot on the plate in four minutes, our partners and Canadian Prairie Lamb, together, can generate significant revenue through increased consumption of lamb.”

After incorporating in 2003 and issuing shares earlier this year, Canadian Prairie Lamb entered into a promising alliance with Sunterra Meats and the Saskatchewan Food Centre in Saskatoon. Their goal is to develop a new line of frozen lamb dishes out of Saskatchewan. These frozen meals are currently being marketed through small outlets such as butcher shops in the province, but the potential is great when looking at markets where lamb consumers abound in Eastern Canada. To harness that market,
Canadian Prairie Lamb has developed a value chain — a new approach to revenue generation.

Sherri Dobbs is a Value Chain Development Specialist at SAFRR:

“Call it a business philosophy or a business development tool, a value-chain does not simply mean that value is added to a product. It is much more than that. A value chain is developing alliances with different components of the supply chain, who work collaboratively for mutual benefits,” says Dobbs.

Dobbs explains that one of the greatest challenges in promoting the value chain concept is to ensure the audience has an accurate picture of how they work and how they differ from the traditional supplier/buyer business relationships. In the case of Canadian Prairie Lamb, primary producers have entered into an alliance with a processor that readies the meat for transformation at a food preparation facility, where the meat is cooked, the sauces are prepared, and the meals packaged for shipment and distribution to targeted markets.

“It takes work to put an arrangement like this into place. There has to be rewards for all members of the value chain — its strength is in the relationships built between the links themselves and the rewards that ensue from these relationships,” Dobbs says.

Prairie Berries’ Sandra Purdy knows it very well. The Keeler-based company grows, processes, and markets Saskatoon berries and Saskatoon berry value-add products nationally and internationally. Recently, Prairie Berries played a key role in the development of a new company comprised of 16 other independent Saskatoon berry growers who collectively market their Saskatoon berries through Saskatoon Berry Partners Inc.

“Our consortium of producers has committed to providing Saputo all the Saskatoon berry puree it requires to produce its Saskatoon berry-flavoured yogurts, through Prairie Berries’ processing facilities,” Purdy says. “Saputo will, in turn, distribute the yogurts through its own channels. This generates revenue opportunities much beyond those available for syrups, pie fillings and jams on their own.”

Purdy adds that the commitment between value chain partners goes much beyond simple volume deliveries. It actually touches on something much more fundamental: information-sharing at all levels.

“To give Saputo the exact product that it needs, we need to know what texture of berry puree works best for their processing needs. It is to Saputo’s advantage to share this with us. They know it; we know it. There has to be a collective commitment to increasing efficiencies at each step of the process, for it can reduce costs and eventually contribute to increasing each value chain partner’s share of the revenue.”

For instance, “if Prairie Berries knows that it is more convenient for Saputo to work with five-gallon pails of puree, rather than puree delivered in bags, steps can be taken to facilitate everyone’s tasks, and everyone will reap the benefits of this arrangement.”

Clearly, then, value chains are a long-term business development tool to seize new market opportunities. Purdy and all value chain converts are quite confident of the potential of this approach.

“It has to be a win/win situation for everyone from the start. As for the rest, the market will tell us in due course. We’re banking that markets will like our move in the long run.”

For more information, contact:

Sherri Dobbs
Value Chain Development Specialist
Saskatchewan Agriculture, Food and Rural Revitalization
(306) 787-8537

Cranking Out Top Teams Starts With Recruiting The Right Horses

source: Farm and Food Report

Like many parents with children in minor hockey, Bill Aulie spends a fair bit of time around arenas. A hockey scout once asked him what he did for a living. He answered: “I do what you do… with Clydesdales.”

“These scouts go around and look for the best athletes that will fit their team, and I travel Saskatchewan, Alberta and Manitoba — get a little bit out in Ontario — I just find the best athletes that are going to fit into our program, and bring them in, and hopefully they’ll work out.”

Aulie farms 2,800 acres of grain land at Rouleau. He also raises and trains Clydesdale horses for a living.

“If they do work, they stay until they are four year-olds, and they move on to the big leagues down in the U.S. or to some other big hitches in Canada. Or if they don’t work, they stay in the semi-pros or the junior leagues at somebody else’s farm, or with somebody who wants a nice show horse or pleasure horse — that’s where they’ll go.”

This love of Clydesdales started a long time ago. “Back when I was a young kid, my dad had Clydesdales, but he got rid of them when I was four or five years old. I got back into them when I was 13 — got my first team and just kept on driving them.”

Then Aulie found out that his grandfather, who had passed away at an early age, had also had the bug. “Everything he had was Clydesdales. He brought horses up from the States in rail cars, and would train them and sell them in Saskatchewan. Funny thing is, now, I’m gathering horses in Canada, training them and sending them down to the U.S. That’s my business.”

Indeed, Aulie has shown horses to international audiences at Canadian Western Agribition since 1985. In 1995, a buyer from the States came up and asked him to put together a hitch for him. “And since 1995, I’ve sent down 175 horses to the United States based on that connection. I have trained for him, and set up a world-class hitch for him and his operation down there.”

How did Aulie get so good at what he does? “It’s all about looking for the right attitudes; get them to work the right way; and get them to just perform at a top level. I’ve been lucky so far. We have had some good horses. We ended up with a U.S. National Champion six-horse hitch and eight-horse hitch from a bunch that I sent down. Budweiser has four of my horses off my breeding down there. And Budweiser Clydesdales are a pretty big hitch.”

Of course, nothing gets rewarded without effort. “As soon as I put the combine away, I start driving the horses. Every morning, they get hitched to haul their feed in for the 50 head and I drive all day long in the wintertime. I usually start by 7:00 a.m., I harness by 9:00 and drive through to supper time. I switch teams and start with the next team. I clean the barn with them everyday. When there is snow on the ground I use the sleigh, and a horse drawn manure spreader. I enjoy doing it, and every now and then you just get a good horse - you get a real thrill out of working with him. The next horse maybe is not so good, and he is not going to make you any money.”

Aulie is passionate not only about his horses, but also about the equipment he uses as well. “A good show harness costs between $5,000 and $6,000 dollars per horse. We have a source for it with the Amish farmers in Ontario. There are a couple of manufacturers there that specialize in making harness and tack for draft horses. I order all my harness from there and I spend the extra money to get the extra good stuff. Consequently, it’s been holding up real well.”

Synthetic, it seems, is the best. “Nylon and Biothane materials are a little tougher than the leather, more durable, easier to clean, easier to work with. The same with halters - very seldom do you ever see a leather halter anymore. It’s nylon… so the tack is relatively easy to find right now. Thanks to the Amish.”

Aulie has a soft spot for his training outfit. “At the farm, my dad rebuilt a dray wagon that was used in Assiniboia. It is a delivery wagon that was used to deliver goods — like a semi-truck 80 years ago, pulled by a team of horses. It would pick up goods at the rail car or the railway station and deliver to the various businesses around town, whether it would be lumber, salt or flour. This wagon was left rotting away when we found it. I took it home to my dad, with a load of steel, and told him I needed a real tough wagon. These horses are young and pretty anxious — we’re going to have some pretty fast rides. So, that’s my main training piece, this big dray wagon.”

Next time you drive around Rouleau, just remember to keep an eye out for Bill Aulie’s hot teams. Or you can always wait and watch them on TV, when they enter the world of professional athletes.

For more information, contact:

Bill Aulie
Aulie Farms
(306) 776-2275

Owner Of “Affordable Barns” Attributes Success To Know-How

source: Farm and Food Report

Jack Taylor has been manufacturing metal structures since the age of 14. More than 30 years later, he figures he has gained some pretty valuable insight into the art of crafting reliable, competitively-priced horse and calving barns that are built to last.

“The design is a bit of a trade secret -- you can’t share everything, you know. I will tell you this: we pre-make the components at our own factory, and then we take them out to our clients’ yard and set them up. Our success can be attributed to the system we use for building them. In essence, we’ve been able to really cut down the labour cost of these buildings. That is why we call them affordable barns.”

Taylor and his family have set up shop at their Melfort farm, where they also keep about 150 bison, and 10 horses that they train and work with. They rent out the cropland, and have invested most of their energy into this manufacturing endeavour. They sell their barns just about anywhere in Western Canada.

“We’ve been selling these buildings for three years now. They are all steel framed. They tend to appeal to acreage and farm people. It seems that the majority in the last couple of years have gone to acreages, for people who have horses and livestock — they’re busy people, professional people and they want us to put up a barn real quick so they don’t have to do a bunch of work. We just come and do the whole thing. We pull up in the yard and in a couple of days they have a nice barn they can start to use.”

Taylor believes that his own experience with horses plays a considerable role in the concepts he puts forward in his designs.

“The stalls are made so there are no exposed edges of the wood for the animals to start chewing on, because horses sometimes will do that. Structurally, we use metal, which makes the barn extremely strong. It really contains everything nicely. Everything is customizable: from the stalls, to the colour of the barn itself.”

Above all, Jack Taylor likes the new relationships this business venture has allowed him to establish since he started Affordable Barns. “We like selling to horse people because we are horse people. We have met a lot of really nice folks over the last few years selling barns. Some people have even invited us to stay with them. It’s pretty neat.”

Taylor figures that making new friends while doing business is a pretty good indicator that his barns and their competitive advantage will keep him going for a while yet.

For more information, contact:

Jack Taylor
Affordable Barns
1-866-500-2276
http://www.affordablebarns.com

Encouraging Beneficial Practices In Grazing And Riparian Area Management In The North West

source: Farm and Food Report

Environmental sustainability has always been front and centre to the way Herschel’s Leam Craig practices agriculture. Two years ago, Craig joined the Herschel Grazing Club, a group of cattle producers who meet regularly to share solutions and, at times, stories about wrecks.

Recently, the Club welcomed Glenn Barclay, a Forage Industry Development Specialist from Saskatchewan Agriculture, Food and Rural Revitalization, and Jeremy Brown, a Range Ecology Technician from the Saskatchewan Watershed Authority.

“We used them as resource people to learn from,” explains Craig. “I used to continuous crop 2,500 acres every year. Then we started to seed 300 to 400 acres a year back to grass. For the first two years, things went great. The grass just grew as it was supposed to. But the two next years were something else. We were hit by drought — we had to reseed everything. After that, I realized we needed all the knowledge we could get access to.”

That is where the North West Environmental Stewardship Project comes in. Jeremy Brown has been employed to deliver this multi-agency approach to promoting the adoption of beneficial management practices on rangelands and riparian areas. It is funded under the Greencover Technical Assistance Component, which falls under the Agricultural Policy Framework’s environment chapter. Besides SAFRR and SWA, Ducks Unlimited, Saskatchewan Soil Conservation Association, Western Applied Research Corporation and Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration are all active partners.

“During the next four years,” explains Brown, “we will conduct field days and winter extension meetings to help producers learn more about sustainable land-use practices in North West Saskatchewan. We will also conduct grazing schools to assist producers in developing a management plan for their farm or ranch; and we will address riparian, rangeland and tame forage issues with a view to increasing productivity and general carrying capacity in those pastures.”

SAFRR’s Glenn Barclay supports the initiative. “Production issues often have an associated environmental stewardship component, especially where riparian areas are involved.”

“ Society and the media are very concerned with having cattle near water sources, but the solution need not be complete exclusion,” explains Brown. “Providing alternative watering sources, combined with rotational grazing programs that give vegetation located in riparian zones a rest — particularly during sensitive periods like spring — can alleviate some of the less beneficial impacts on the environment.”

It has long been established that riparian areas produce above average amounts of biomass; they play a key role in sediment trapping, nutrient filtration, stream and wave energy dissipation — not to mention erosion control, streambank stabilization, and groundwater recharge.

Cattle producers are increasingly aware of these functions; as they are also aware of how rangelands, woodlands, and perennial cover contribute to soil moisture conservation, nutrient cycling and erosion control. When these functions are occurring, benefits in the form of improved livestock performance, opportunities for herd expansion, improved water quality and the provision of wildlife habitat are realized.

Grazing clubs provide an ideal forum to share and seek knowledge. The North West Environmental Stewardship Project partners can make this knowledge more accessible, but a good place to start is from within.

At the Herschel meeting, Jeremy Brown suggested to Grazing Club members that each make a presentation to the group about their own successes and failures as graziers. As grazier Leam Craig said himself, “we can all learn from our collective experience and improve our skills that much faster if we don’t have to reinvent the wheel.”

For more information, contact:

Jeremy Brown, AAg
Range Ecology Technician
Saskatchewan Watershed Authority
(306) 446-7460

Glenn Barclay, PAg
Forage Industry Development Specialist
Saskatchewan Agriculture, Food and Rural Revitalization
(306) 446-7650