The title of this post is also the title of an editorial in the City Journal, an English language newspaper in Kerala, India. Those of us in the agriculture business will agree with the title, and can likely relate to some of the content.
But the information about the farmer suicide rate in India is thankfully foreign to us. Though we may complain about certain elements of our agricultural lives, information here puts things in perspective.

In our farm garden, frequent discovery of an earthworm was cause for happiness. It meant the soil was healthy and the worms were doing their job of aeration and fertilization. Worms were pink and squirmy and fun to watch, besides.
Even as tots, my sisters and I would treat earthworms with care, reburying them if they were accidentally dug up while gardening, so they could continue on their subterranean way.
Unless we were digging them up for use as bait, of course, which happened once in awhile during the summer. That in no way diminished our respect for earthworms. Enhanced it, if anything.
I guess that’s where my fascination from worms stems from. I delight in finding earthworms in my yard and I have a bin full of red wigglers in the basement that eat the kitchen garbage.
They’re an industrious bunch, regularly eating entire over-ripe bananas and potato peelings. It’s kind of scary, really. A red wiggler is said to be able to eat its own weight in food every day, and though I’ve never tested the theory, I believe it.
Dan Rollingson of Coaldale, Alta., respects worms too. He runs Earthly Matters, a business that markets worm castings and potting soil. Castings is the polite term for worm poop, a material that enhances soil structure and microbial activity. Unlike most excrement, this stuff doesn’t smell.
I visited Earthly Matters earlier this week to interview Rollingson for a story that will soon appear in the Producer. It’s a different type of farming, but one I thought farmers might be interested in because of worms’ relationship to soil health. And what do his worms eat? Well, grain, of course!

Rollingson has about 100,000 worms that are busily producing product in his garage. They’re also busy breeding new worms so he can expand his business.
It would likely warm his heart to know that worms may hold the key to human survival in space. Not that Rollingson revealed any plans to go into space, though in truth, I didn’t ask him.
Worms, on the other hand, have been to space. And survived. A colony of them lived six months on the space station back in 2006 and their relatives continue to thrive now that they’re back here on Earth.
Researchers at Simon Fraser University continue to study them and in a November news release they said worms are good indicators of how humans could manage in space.
SFU biologist Bob Johnsen said the space worms, a microscopic species called C. elegans, went through a dozen generations while on board the station and were exposed to various environmental toxins and in-flight radiation.
“C. elegans is an excellent model system to study the genetic effects of radiation in deep space,” Johnsen said in an SFU news release. His research is based on developing countermeasures that will prolong manned space flights.
Worms: wriggly, hungry, resilient and intrepid. It’s good to know my early admiration for worms was not misplaced.

Though it was clear and sunny in Lethbridge last Friday, I drove into a snowstorm while travelling west to meet Joe Guy Brewer, a rangy Australian cowboy on a mission.
The same fast-moving snowstorm had affected him about an hour earlier but it was much more unpleasant. He was on horseback, starting day 22 of a 700-kilometre ride down Alberta’s scenic Cowboy Trail.

Brewer is a horse trainer. He’s also a singer, author and apparent jack-of-all-trades. He’s in Canada with his wife and three children on a work visa that he hopes to extend and while here, he is training horses and meeting people.
Brewer says he has wanted to ride the Cowboy Trail ever since driving it earlier this year. So he found a horse that needed training and started his trip at the northern end near Mayerthorpe.
November in southern Alberta is quixotic, weather-wise. The month began mildly, then turned to -22 for a time, then switched to 100 km/h Chinook winds, and followed up with a storm full of wind-driven wet snow.
It didn’t seem to faze the cowboy. He is used to long rides as described on his website at www.joeguylongrider.com. Brewer completed his ride at Cardston, the end of the Cowboy Trail, on Nov. 27, narrowly avoiding a grass fire that affected hundreds of acres to the north of that town.
The horse he was riding is trained now, a triumph considering that the black and white mare was destined for the meat market about one month ago after three different horse trainers failed to turn her into a working ranch horse that wouldn’t buck its rider.
“I save lives, is what I do,” Brewer says. “I save horses from getting their heads cut off and I save their owners from breaking their necks.”
This particular horse belongs to Dodie Greenwald of Fox Valley, Sask. She encountered Brewer when he was doing a horse-training clinic in southern Saskatchewan. Now she plans to use the horse for ranch work. Greenwald, like Brewer, is a country singer (listen to some of her work at www.dodiegreenwald.com) but she said horses rather than music brought her to the trainer.
Brewer understood Greenwald’s frustration with the horse, which had a nasty habit of throwing its head and striking at people with its flying hoofs.
“Her horse had bucked her off one too many times, she said, and when you start flying through the air, you start thinking about how you’re going to land and if you’re going to land and if you’re going to know that you landed,” says Brewer.
He’s an interesting character, the sum of numerous experiences he has recounted in an autobiography, Just Another Dream.
I interviewed Brewer as he sipped tea at O’Bies General Mercantile in Lundbreck, Alta. You can find it in an upcoming edition of the Producer.

Do you lock your vehicles when you park them in the farmyard? If not, think about changing that habit. It’s a different world from the seemingly safer one that many of us recall from our growing-up-on-the-farm years.
I’m about 30 years distant from those but locking vehicles wasn’t common practice back then. Not on our ranch and not on the farms and ranches of any of my friends. If you needed the pickup or the car or the grain truck, chances were that you could jump into the cab, fire it up and proceed about your business.
There was no need for those potentially time-consuming tasks of finding the keys and unlocking the doors before roaring off on the errand. Or the potentially troubling loss of said keys, requiring a search for duplicates, a tricky vehicle break-in, a call to a service person or an extra trip into town for new keys.
Farmers and ranchers have to be more circumspect about security now. As a regular reader of RCMP media releases, I’ve concluded that thieves are becoming bolder when it comes to rural farmyard visits.
Last week, RCMP in the Unity, Wilkie and Macklin areas of Saskatchewan reported theft of a 2009 Silverado from a farm north of Wilkie. At about the same time, a 2011 Ford F150 was stolen from another farm near the same town. Then another Ford F150 was reported stolen from a business in Macklin less than a day later.
Based on the warnings from the RCMP, it sounds as though the keys were in these vehicles at the time they were stolen. Or maybe the owners were a bit more wily, to no avail, based on this note from the police: “RCMP are suggesting the removal of any hidden keys left in the glove box or console, which gives thieves the ability to drive away behind the wheel of a stolen vehicle and commit further offences.”
On Nov. 17, the RCMP Battlefords detachment found nine stolen vehicles, all of them reported in the Battlefords, Biggar and Wilkie areas. On Nov. 21, another six stolen vehicles were found “in various remote locations” within 30 kilometres of the Battlefords.
Three young people were arrested in connection with the findings.
Court proceedings will determine if these three are the guilty parties. But their short-lived success in vehicle thievery should give all farmers pause.
Locking vehicles isn’t difficult. Keeping track of the keys on operations when there are a lot of vehicles to lock is more inconvenient, but not as inconvenient and expensive as having vehicles stolen and either damaged or permanently lost.
Now that I’m a “townie,” I always lock my vehicle. Or almost always. I feel a bit sheepish doing it when I visit someone’s farmyard to conduct an interview or buy produce. It feels sort of like I don’t trust the host folks, or that I’ve become obsessed by personal property protection. And besides, if I’m there and the hosts are there, who would have the gall to steal a vehicle from under our noses?
Sadly, some people have gall to spare. Though we may mourn the disappearance of times when people seemed to be more honest and less prone to thievery, we can’t let it get in the way of precaution.
Lock the vehicles and figure out a way to keep keys handy yet secure.

Facing weedlessness this winter? Did you ever think about how winter and Christmas traditions are affected by weeds? Me neither. And no, not that kind of weed. I’m talking about the weeds that farmers and gardeners fight during a good portion of the growing season.
The material below, from the Weed Science Society of America, puts a new perspective on weed control. Now that Halloween is over, the Americans are focusing on their Thanksgiving celebrations which, so far as I can tell, lead straight into Christmas in one extremely long holiday extravaganza, with attendant advertising overkill. But I digress.
The point of the Society’s material is that weeds, or rather their absence, help make holiday traditions merry and bright. Weed science is not typically seen as sexy, unless you work for an agriculture chemical company or you’re married to a weed scientist. And even that’s not guaranteed.
So the weed society has tailored its message to hit folks right where they live. Though some of the traditions noted are American in scope, it is still an interesting take on weed control. As the Society’s science director, Lee Van Wychen, puts it, “weed control may not sound like an issue close to home and hearth but it touches many aspects of our lives.
“A lot of behind-the-scenes effort is exerted by growers, land managers and other dedicated professionals to keep weeds at bay. The steps they take help us preserve many of our most treasured foods and fun.”
Here is the material from the Weed Science Society of America.

Christmas trees. A fragrant pine or fir tree is often the centerpiece of a holiday gathering. Successful weed control helps growers produce better-looking Christmas trees and far more of them. Weeds can shade out young trees, causing their bases to deform and inhibiting the growth of those lovely lateral branches that hold twinkling lights and our favourite ornaments.
Wrapping paper and cards. Those beautiful holiday cards and the festive wrapping paper you use to decorate gifts for family and friends owe their existence to effective weed control. That’s because companies producing paper products rely on a healthy crop of trees. Weeds left uncontrolled in commercial forests can crowd out the new seedlings planted to replace each year’s harvest.
Football. As you cheer for your favourite football team during holiday bowl games, remember success on the field starts at the ground level. A healthy stand of grass cushions falls and provides safe footing. As the turf thins from heavy use, weeds can crowd out the cushioning blades of grass. Turf management specialists use effective weed control techniques to keep the invaders “out of bounds.”
Holiday turkeys. Effective weed control also impacts the succulent birds gracing many a holiday table. Uncontrolled weeds on poultry farms interfere with ventilation in the houses where birds are raised, which can result in health problems. Dried weeds can endanger both birds and breeders by becoming a fire hazard, even on a free range farm.
Holiday hams. Farmers producing pork are especially sensitive to weed control issues. Several weed species are poisonous to pigs, including common cocklebur, jimsonweed and other invasive plants commonly found in pastures.
Sweet potatoes and pumpkins. Whether you prefer tasty sweet potatoes or pumpkin as a side dish or baked into a pie, say a special thanks to growers. To produce a bumper crop for holiday meals, both traditional and organic farmers focus on fighting back weeds that can crowd out crops. They use targeted synthetic or organic herbicides, tillage and hand weeding to ensure the best yield and quality.
Green beans, sweet peas and more. Equally vigilant weed control efforts are behind the beans and peas found on many holiday menus. Both annual and perennial weeds can be problems in all vegetable crops. Weeds compete for space, moisture and nutrients and can harbor insect and disease pests.
Cranberries. Colourful, perennial cranberries present a major weed control challenge. Their low, woody vines form a continuous, lawn-like swath across a bed or bog, making it impossible to till weeds without damaging the crop. Vigilant growers scout beds repeatedly through the growing season to spot problems and control them – pulling weeds by hand, suppressing them with sand, using selective herbicides and/or mowing the surrounding area to keep weeds from spreading.
Electricity. A happy holiday season depends on energy for lights, heating systems, ovens, TV sets and a host of other appliances. Behind the scenes, power companies emphasize effective weed control so workers can maintain and repair vital lines. Unchecked weedy trees and brush can damage lines and obstruct access during an outage.

Today the world’s population stands at seven billion and counting. The United Nations picked today somewhat arbitrarily, since no one can pinpoint exactly when number seven billion will join our ranks. Roughly 4.5 billion people have been added to the world population in just the last 60 years, according to UN estimates.
What does seven billion people look like? MSNBC has an interesting look at crowding. Check it out by clicking here.
After looking at these photos, I’m grateful to be living on the Prairies, where there are still wide open spaces where one can wander without seeing too many other people. Where one can see vast landscapes, wide skies and nature’s majesty in all its forms.

Two photos shown here were taken this fall, near Sundre and near Del Bonita in southern Alberta. They are quite a contrast to the MSNBC photos, aren’t they?

Agriculture isn’t a dirty word in Canada. On the contrary, surveys continue to show high mainstream consumer interest in food production and confidence in the safety of food produced on our farms. However, those of us involved in the industry know that people have numerous concerns about how their food is produced; concerns involving herbicide use, genetic modification, animal welfare, antibiotic use, water use and so forth.
In the United States, questions and concerns about agricultural production seem much more strident. My perceptions are doubtless coloured by the material presented in various mailing lists and news releases but they’ve led to a conclusion that certain agricultural methods and practices are under attack in the U.S. This should be a signal to the Canadian industry to pay attention and perhaps take some proactive measures.
Today I visited a website developed by the U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance, which you can see by clicking here. This group’s concerns about public perceptions toward agriculture led them to organize town hall meetings and engage more public debate in how food is produced.
Should Canadians follow suit? Modern agriculture is necessary to this economy and indeed to global food production. Public understanding and support is needed to sustain it. Have a look at this U.S. site see what you think.

One guy in America now owns 2.2 million acres, making him the largest private landowner in the United States.
Picture running the air-seeder, or riding the range, over that chunk of land.
John Malone of Denver, chair of Liberty Media, took over top spot this year from another media mogul, Ted Turner, who owns more than two million acres himself, according to The Land Report, a U.S. publication.
Turner has held top spot since the 1990s and was only recently ousted from No. 1, The Land Report said.
The two men are business partners and Malone got the land purchase bug while on a helicopter ride over some of Turner’s expansive ranch property, according to the report.
Now Malone owns land in Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming, Main and New Hampshire. And he also has his eye on Canadian land for future acquisition.
Like Turner, Malone is an ardent conservationist. And that’s a lot of land to conserve.

Earlier this summer, I visited one of Ted Turner’s bison ranches in Montana and it was mind-boggling to see such an expanse of land with nary a fence in sight, besides the perimeter, to contain thousands of bison.
There are some fences, however. One ranch employee told the story of Turner’s desire to make any needed fences unobtrusive, so green fiberglass posts were installed. They weren’t easily visible — by man or beast. Bison and wildlife wrecked so many fences that they had to revert back to traditional wood and wire.
You can access The Land Report’s top 100 U.S. landowners by clicking here. You’ll see a few recognizable names like Irving, King, Hunt, Ford and Hearst, to name just a few.

We often quote people in Western Producer news stories who say Canada has the safest food in the world. That is a difficult statement to prove or disprove but most Canadians believe it is true. A recent poll says so.
And farmers, the people who produce Canadian food, are the most confident in food safety of anyone, which I think we can take as a very good sign.
A government commissioned survey indicates 51 percent of consumers are very confident in the safety of food produced in Canada. Among farmers, 71 percent are very confident.
Though this 20 percent difference might indicate some work to be done in either shoring up consumer confidence or being more diligent about food safety (or both), consumer confidence in Canadian food has risen 10 points since 2009 and 16 points since 2007, according to the poll.
Neither Canadian consumers nor farmers have a lot of faith in the safety of imported food. Only 33 percent of consumers think imported foods are safe. Among farmers, only 10 percent said they are confident in the safety of imported food.
Do farmers know something that consumers don’t? Or are the survey results coloured by farmers’ desire to promote their own products? Or both?
It’s difficult to say what constitutes a good national food safety record. We know Canada is not problem-free. But most of us do have healthy suspicions about food produced in other countries, where we don’t know the safeguards and protocols that are in place, and whether they are monitored or enforced.
Food-borne illness occurs even in places where we assume there are reasonable precautions. Have you been following the cantaloupe situation in Colorado? Listeria monocytogenes bacteria on cantaloupe has killed 23 people and sickened 116 so far.
Clearly no country can afford to be complacent about food safety.

Check out the gorgeous blue sky that blazed near Star, Alta., last week as Edward Hoculak, 90, harvested a crop of oats.
“My father gets younger every harvest. He truly is amazing,” said his son, Ward, in an e-mail that accompanied these photos. Ward runs the farm but is glad of extra help at harvest.
Edward is a veteran of the Second World War who spent five years overseas between 1941 and 1945. Ward’s wife, Jacqueline, says Edward helps out every year at harvest. He is pictured here flying solo and also with his grandson, Matthew, who is 12.
“Where Dad goes, there is Matt right with him,” says Ward. “They are the dynamic duo.” Or maybe stars from Star?
Harvest was completed last Saturday on the farm, with good yields on the oats. There probably aren’t too many 90-year-olds who can easily get into a combine every fall. And it’s good to see the younger generation taking an interest in granddad as well as in harvest.