Hog Industry Developing Regional Approach

The demise of the red meat sector would have far reaching implications for Island agriculture and, by extension, the provincial economy.

The loss of local markets for feed stock would severely handcuff the ability to continue environmentally sustainable crop rotations. The disappearance of livestock manure would increase the need of chemical fertilizers and increase the potential for soil run-off, due to the loss of organic matter from both waste and feed grain plow down.

Where is the hog industry headed? The Maritime region is in a more perilous situation than the rest of Canada. They are struggling to maintain processing capacity due to a significant loss of supply.

Over half of the provincial herd disappeared as a result of the recent national Cull Breeding Swine Program. Nova Scotia lost virtually all its market hog production, compared to peak production earlier this decade. This leaves P.E.I. as the major supplier of market hogs to Nova Scotia packinghouses, with Larsen Packers having to go outside the region to source animals.

A recent announcement by the federal government that is providing funding for more producers to exit the industry is not good news for the Maritimes. The larger producing central and western provinces, who previously exported most of their live hogs south of the border, need to cut back significantly if the industry is to survive. Unfortunately, this national initiative is basically a regional program designed for the west. Ultimately, it could finish the ability of the Maritimes to continue to produce pork locally.

Atlantic Canada is not self sufficient in pork or beef. The inevitability of escalating transportation costs lends itself to a trend of reverse globalization, and the potential of the region being unable to feed itself. If we do not act now to save our resource base and infrastructure, we may be saddled with a financially insurmountable task of trying to rebuild it in a few years time.

Discussions began in October of 2008 towards developing a regional approach for the red meat industry. A series of meetings were held with federal and provincial officials leading to the creation of the Maritime Feed Grain & Red Meat Working Group in April.

Since that time, work has been done to develop strategies for cattle producers in each of the Maritime provinces. A similar document is now being compiled for the pork industry. It is expected this group will reconvene this fall to begin the process of bringing each of the strategies together into a regional plan.

That document will provide the parameters for a pilot project designed to sustain the red meat sectors, until a long term plan can be implemented. The goal is to provide resilience and sustainability to not only the grains and red meat production, but ultimately the broader agriculture industry. It’s about acting as a Maritime community, value adding and buying locally on a commercial scale.

Potato Research Innovation

Soil fertility research conducted for the 2009 growing season by the PEI Department of Agriculture included both nutrient management split field trials in conjunction with the Province’s Crop Insurance Program and Zero Nitrogen Potato Trials. Producers participating in the split field trials through Crop Insurance receive a 4% discount off the total premium paid for crop insurance, for the combination of completing both an Environmental Farm Plan and Nutrient Management Plan. Producers had to have completed an Environmental Farm Plan for their farm within the last 5 years, and also were required to participate in nutrient management planning for their insured crops.

According to preliminary data, over 125 producers took advantage of the discount and at least 175 trials have been in place for the 2009 growing season. The largest numbers of trials were conducted on potatoes, followed by grains such as barley, wheat, oats, etc. The purpose of the split field trials is two-fold: one, to provide producers with the opportunity to trial nutrient management recommendations and improve confidence in nutrient management planning at NO risk to the producer; and two, to assist the nutrient management program in developing and fine tuning nutrient recommendations for PEI.

Zero Nitrogen Potato trials were conducted at five locations. The purpose of the project is to establish and calibrate a Soil Nitrogen Supply Test under a range of soil and climatic conditions in Atlantic Canada. In each trial, a small portion of the field received no nitrogen fertilizer application at all. The project is part of an Atlantic wide project over three consecutive seasons to establish soil nitrogen recommendations based on spring soil sampling.

National Research Council
Potato Nutriscience Research Highlights

Dr. Bourlaye Fofana is one of the new faces in potato research — his area of expertise is molecular biology and he is headquartered at the NRC facility at UPEI.

Potatoes are a major source of carbohydrate energy and mineral nutrients, and offer potential as an important source of beneficial metabolites such as anthocyanins, flavonoids, and carotenoids. Using a selenium solution applied to seed potatoes before planting, we were able to increase 4 – 8 times the selenium content in the daughter tubers of 5 different varieties. The ultimate goal is to see how the selenium-enriched potatoes in conjunction with anthocyanins, flavonoids, and carotenoids affect antioxidant capacity which ultimately affects chronic diseases.

BioPotato Network

There are four streams of research underway that involve researchers from a variety of Canadian Research Centres and universities including Holland College, UPEI and the Food Technology Centre.

The following description of the work underway was taken from the website www.biopotatonetwork.ca.

The BioPotato Network’s focus is currently structured into four research areas, which are referred to as streams.

Stream 1 – BioActives, Functional Food and Nutraceuticals
This stream encompasses the developing of potato varieties for use in the production of value-added functional food, nutraceutical and pharmaceutical products. Potential therapeutic benefits of these products will be examined in relation to a number of health conditions affecting Canadians including neurodegenerative diseases, stroke, auto-immune disorders, diabetes, allergies, infections, heart disease and obesity-related diseases.

Stream 2 – Low Glycemic Index and High Fibre Functional Food
This stream will look at developing new potato germplasm for the food sector, which is high in slowly digestible or resistant starches and fibre content. It will also look at the health benefits to the consumer.

Stream 3 – New Potato Starch for Functional Food, Pharmaceutical and Bioplastic Uses
This stream will focus on the development of cross-linked potato starch and hydrocolloid gums as functional food ingredients, resistant starch and functional pharmaceutical excipients. New technologies will also be developed through the work in this stream adding to the overall economy.

Stream 4 – Botanical Insecticides and Biopesticides for Insect Control
The focus of this stream will be to develop novel, environmentally compatible pest-control agents to replace pesticides that have been withdrawn for economic or regulatory reasons.