Hi, hello, me again, out and about in Canada this week! I'm traveling with the Illinois Farm Bureau Young Leaders on their annual agriculture industry tour. For six days we will be traveling between Montreal and Toronto tour farms, meeting with Canadian agriculture officials, and checking out some tourist spots. Stay tuned for all the fun.
Travel Arrangements
Life is busy and I have the tendency to over schedule myself. Here's maybe my best example yet. My best friends Matt & Ashlen are getting married and that means one heck of a bachelorette party in the Ozarks. That party unfortunately overlapped with traveling to Canada. I had to be in Montreal by 2pm Sunday to meet up with the group so I picked up a rental car in St. Louis on our way down to the Ozarks Thursday evening. Then I had to leave the Ozarks at midnight on Saturday night to drive to St. Louis and catch my 6AM flight St Louis > Chicago > Montreal. Ouch. Needless to say I got less than 2 hours of sleep plus a couple cat naps on the plane and tour bus. Essentially I didn't sleep for a full 38 hours. That travel rivaled Japan > Denver > Panama. I ran into A bunch of other young leaders and was happy to be traveling in a group. I was pretty much a zombie. We had a couple hours to kill in Montreal before the tour bus arrived so we had lunch and a beer at the airport. While sitting there we made friends with a nice older Canadian man who was waiting to pick up his son. He offered us some hard candies, made by his family business. They were maple leaf shaped and in plain clear wrappers. I had enough sanity to ask if there were drugs in them but not quite enough sanity to not eat one. I literally took candy from a stranger. Sorry mom. In my defense, it was from a Canadian (aren't all Canadians super polite and honest and friendly?), and it was a maple syrup flavored, and I did live to tell the tale. It was delicious and I'm fairly certain it was drug-free. Be adventurous am I right? Haha
Dairy farms
The beginning of the trip started off with three dairy farms and GEA, a manufacturing plant that builds manure handling machinery like manure spreaders, pumps, and stall cleaners. Each of the dairies had a bit of a different flare. The first was super fancy, beautiful farm stead, well manicured and served us beer. This family farm had 2 robotic milkers and 100 cows. Everyone worked on the farm including two cute little girls in pink and purple overalls. They ran Case IH equipment. Each piece was licensed and had a state plate. Even their side by sides had license plates on them. Here we also learned about milk quotas in Canada. Quotas guarantee milk prices and are bought and sold by dairy farmers. The amount of quotas available (or production capacity) is set by the Canadian government. This basically guarantees income to their dairy farmers and based on this stop leads me to believe, it encourages dairy farmers to invest in efficiencies. Their farm was fully automated from how bedding is distributed (by rail in the ceiling) to how the bunks are cleaned, and how the milk is handled. Did I mention each of the robotic milkers cost $250,000?
The second was huge, boasting 22 robotic milkers and 1100 cows. They farm 3,800 acres of corn for silage, corn for grain, wheat, and alfalfa. The farm is ran by about 18 employees. Half of their production is kosher milk, when they are milking the cows, three days a week, they have a Rabi on the farm. Apparently this makes the milk "kosher". This speciality gains them about 15-20% premium on milk sales. There really isn't a market for organic milk in Canada. Another checkmark in the Canada vs America column.
The third dairy was more modest and traditional for Canada. They had 110 cows and 2 robotic milkers but they will expand to 3 robotic milkers yet this year. Their controlled flow barn sorts the cows based on their leg tag. Some go to be milked if it's time others just get moved to a feed area. This is different than the two earlier dairies that run on free flow. Their cows can go into the milking stall anytime but only get milked if its time.
Did you know Quebec-ians speak mostly French? Yea. Language barrier. I must be a stupid America because I wasn't expecting that. Let's just say ordering dinner last night and breakfast this morning was interesting. Delicious but challenging.
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