An investment you can hug

BY RICHARD CHARTERIS

Randy Campbell's ancestors broke land in the Blenheim, Chatham-Kent area in the 1830s. In the long line of offspring of that founding father and mother there's not much in farming that hasn't been tried. Tobacco, sugar beets; dairying at one time; some cattle.

Randy, wife Carrie and boys Glenn, 12, and Doug, 13, crop 250 acres of corn and soybeans. Until recently, they had a 90-ewe sheep flock. And along with sellingcars part-time and handling territory sales for Direct Seed, Randy helps his dad and brother work another 300 or so cash crop acres. The guy's own experience, let alone that passed down, would appear to set off alarm bells for a livestock endeavour that involved laying out a six-figure sum for what he chuckles is "an investment I can hug."

Yet that's just what the Campbells did last spring in establishing Trillium Alpaca farm's herd of 12 alpacas, which mid-February grew to 14 with the birth of a male and a female.

For the time being, with a total Canadian herd numbering 4,000, profitability lies in breeding and selling pedigreed animals. Campbell is all too aware of what's befallen some investors in "exotic breeds" - thousands of dollars laid out for breeding pairs, and then little market for the offspring, which often wound up as inevitably expensive meat. He's convinced, though, that ultimately the profitability of the Canadian herd will depend on the sale of fleece, which is prized by textile manufacturers for the fine-gauge yarn that can be spun from it.

Veteran freelance fashion writer Leslie C. Smith, based in Toronto, says luxury fibres are "really hot right now," but they're always in vogue, particularly among Europeans and the Japanese. "Mohair, cashmere, vicuna, alpaca, merino...there's a constant demand," says Smith.

While sheep's wool ranges in thickness between 30 and 60 microns (human hair is around 100), alpaca fibre can be as thin as 16 microns. It also lacks guard hair - the spiky fibre in sheep wools that can make fabric rough on bare skin. The fleece grows in 22 colours.

Campbell is working to establish a local processing industry for his fleece, which he hopes would in turn fuel a provincial sweater-and-garment cottage industry. Other Ontario alpaca farmers have begun marketing fleece back to the animals' South American source through a co-op in Texas.

Pat Harrison and Judy Loukras take that route. The couple have a 33-head herd on Qolmesa Farm in Aurora, just north of Toronto. After the fleece has been sheared, it's sent to the co-op for sorting and weighing, then shipped back to Peru. There, it's spun and woven into finished products such as sweaters, which on their return can fetch up to $250.

Adult female alpacas (called hembras) generally produce one offspring - called a cria - each year; twinning is rare. Females can be bred between 12 and 14 months, while males (machos) begin breeding at around three years. Life span is 20 to 25 years- a long-term source of fibre.

Adults weigh up to 175 pounds. Indigenous to South America's high Andes mountains, they're hardy, with minimal health or housing needs. Feed's also cheap. About $20 a week in low-protein pellets, and three square bales of hay per week feeds the Campbell herd. Summer, they pasture on a grass mix that includes fescue, orchard, trefoil and alfalfa.

Used to fattening sheep, Campbell says he initially overfed his alpacas - "and as fat goes up, fibre quality goes down, so I got a handle on that quickly." As Campbell notes, despite quality females selling for between $20,000 and $40,000, and high-quality stud prospects costing between $15,000 and $35,000, "it's the fleece that's going to make the long-term viability of alpacas here."

© copyright 1999 Agricultural Publishing Company Limited.


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Pigeon to you, squab to the trade

BY CHRISTINA SELBY

Pigeons had always been a hobby for Pascal Vieira. He kept them as pets as a child, and for many years was a champion breeder of show birds. But 10 years ago, Vieira left Brampton with wife Joanne and daughters Simone and Tracy-Ann for the Orangeville area, and raising pigeon for meat - not accounting - is now his full-time occupation.

Back then, Vieira says, his was the only operation in the province. Today, there are about 15, many affiliated with Vieira's Premier Farms. He raises his birds - referred to as squab in the restaurant and retail trade - on his own five-acre Grand Valley farm and in a couple of nearby barns. The home farm includes a processing facility that markets his birds and those of the dozen or so others producing for him under the Premier banner. The provincially inspected plant processes about 1,000 squab a week - about one-third of total Ontario production, Vieira says. Since squab represents only one days' work per week, the plant also processes pheasants, partridge and muscovy ducks for area producers.

Squab are taken from the nest at four weeks, just before they are fully feathered and ready to fly. Vieira's plant processes squab three ways: New York-dressed birds are defeathered but not eviscerated; oven-ready birds are defeathered and eviscerated like a regular roasting chicken; and Hong Kong-dressed birds are defeathered and eviscerated, but the head and feet are left on. The majority of birds are vacuum packed and sold fresh, though one customer prefers frozen product. They dress out between one and 1G pounds.

Some birds are sold direct to restaurants; others go to distributors, which sell on to white table cloth, Italian and Chinese restaurants. "The Chinese market is the biggest," says Vieira.

When it comes to production, Vieira lets the birds take a relatively natural approach. He usually places about 36 young birds, six to eight weeks old, into a pen with 20 nesting boxes along one side. Birds choose their own mates and pick out a nesting box, and by the time they reach six months, they'll start laying. Sexing birds is tough, but Vieira estimates he's right about 90 per cent of the time. Surplus birds of one sex are removed, or mates are added to the pen.

Pigeons are monogamous and territorial, so they will always return to the same mate and nesting box, says Vieira, which makes breeding selection easier to track. Females produce two eggs at a time. Both parents participate in the 18-day incubation period, then will feed and raise the chicks themselves. Two weeks after hatching, the female will produce two more eggs.

A good breeding pair will produce 10 to 12 squab a year for five or six years, he says. Vieira usually replaces an entire pen once that prime breeding window closes. Older pigeons are processed and sold as soup birds for about $5.

Finding the right balance for pigeon feed can be a challenge, says Vieira. Because feed is also being regurgitated for the young squab, breeding pairs need high levels of protein. "It's like coming up with a feed for laying hens and broilers at the same time," he says. His feed is custom pelleted; the birds also get corn and grit.

For people getting into the squab business, Vieira suggests caution when buying breeding pairs. Since the pairs can cost between $60 and $100, depending on age and quality of offspring, checking the age band is a must. You won't get your money's worth out of a breeding pair that's close to the soup pot.

He also suggests buying pairs from a variety of breeders, rather than just one, where fast expansion might have led to the in-breeding of unwanted characteristics that only time can breed out.

Vieira says Ontario producers are in a position to fully supply the provincial market for squabs, even though there are imports coming in from B.C. and the U.S: "Now our job is to market squab and grow the market." He'd like to see Ontario producers form the sort of association that such small-scale livestock producers as emu and rabbit have. Of producers Vieira has suggested this to, "Some are interested and some are not."

© copyright 1999 Agricultural Publishing Company Limited.


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Making asparagus pay

Jeff Wilson is always on the lookout for ways to get the best return for on-farm investment

By CHRISTINA SELBY

Asparagus doesn't start paying for itself until four years after it's planted, so finding an edge - through new varieties and on-farm sales - has kept Wellington county grower Jeff Wilson in the industry.

Wilson also grows cabbage, potatoes, strawberries, raspberries, sweet corn and broccoli on 250-acre Birkbank Farm in Orton, Dufferin county. Asparagus fits in well with his crop mix and rotation and represents "a nice shot of money coming in" during the spring, when most farmers are seeing money going out, he says.

Research into new varieties at the University of Guelph is improving the lot of asparagus growers. Wilson put in just under two acres of the Guelph Millennium variety last year and will plant another three this year.

He's also planted unnamed experimental varieties 178 and 52, which have shown potential. The new varieties have shown good early vigour, something he partly attributes to last year's warm spring. "I was really pleased with the growth of all of them," says Wilson. "That seems to be the feedback from other growers as well."

David Wolyn, associate professor at the university, says the new variety is the result of efforts to produce a hybrid variety adapted to Canadian conditions, and that Millennium was being recommended for trialing for the first time last year.

The new variety lends itself to closer planting, says Wilson: "Industry standard at one time was two feet in the row and five feet between the rows. On our farm we're now going one foot in the row and four feet between the rows," which more than doubles the plants per acre. "I think we're going to see close to 4,000 pounds an acre here," compared to about 1,200 in his older stands. "If it's anywhere near that we have a winner," says Wilson.

Wolyn says trials were at one foot spacings, though he's heard that some growers are planting as close as six inches. He is recommending a limited harvest of Millennium in the third year and a full season in the fourth.

Higher yields come at a higher price, though. Wilson estimates the new variety cost him about $5,000 an acre, not including field or planting costs. "The investment for the seeds and plants on that old stuff was maybe $1,000 an acre."

The good news from Wolyn is that the price for the variety has dropped to $400 per pound of seed. "It's selling for less than U.S. hybrids, whereas last year it was more."

John Jaques, chairman of the Ontario Asparagus Growers' Marketing Board, says the Millennium variety shows great promise and is getting lots of attention from growers in Quebec and Michigan. "We're probably selling more to them than to Ontario growers," he says; he's disappointed that more Ontario growers don't see the value of new varieties.

Wilson's oldest field was planted in 1980, and productivity is falling off. "We'll replant the field when the economics don't make sense anymore," he says, probably in a year or two. Lower crown numbers also increase picking time, which is a big concern for a crop that's harvested by hand. Wilson is considering a move to mechanized picking if the new variety does as well as expected.

Wilson doesn't grow in the traditional asparagus zone, down in the Norfolk area, where he estimates that 85 per cent of the Ontario crop is produced. While he figures the lower heat units in his neck of the woods cut yield by 20 to 30 per cent, "I'm outperforming them on a dollar per pound basis by 20 or 30 per cent," he says. The edge comes from being the only asparagus grower in the area and having an on-farm retail operation.

Most of Wilson's asparagus is sold straight off the farm, either through the retail operation, area stores or a northern Ontario distributor. "I don't have to go to Toronto and compete with other growers for that sometimes lucrative, sometimes elusive, retail dollar," he says.

One thing that adds peace of mind to his business is getting a store to commit to a season-long price for asparagus. Last year, only two would do so. Prices were very volatile in 1998, running from $20 to $40 for 20 pounds of No. 1 grade. "If I could commit my crop to a store at $1.50 a pound, that would be great, because I'd know exactly where I stand."

But when retailers are trying to wrestle growers down to $1 a pound, the numbers just won't work, he says. "An accountant would tell a grower that fresh market asparagus costs about $1 a pound to produce, once you figure everything in and amortize it."

The on-farm store generates about one-third of income, Wilson estimates, with the majority of crops sold direct. Having a direct-selling venue helps with a crop like asparagus, where one day can make the difference between a No.1 and No. 2 grade stalk. The only difference is "visual quality," he says - opening heads puts the stalk in the No. 2 category - but the price difference is about $5 for 20 pounds wholesale. Wilson counts himself lucky that he can "get the retail upcharge" on No. 2s sold in the on-farm store.

Strict picking requirements are one of the challenges of asparagus. And getting the labour to do the picking is another challenge felt throughout the horticultural industry last year. "There's no question that there was a crunch in the traditional workforce," says Wilson.

The improved economy in the Guelph area is taking young people out of the fields and into new small manufacturing jobs, he says. But Wilson has been tapping a new source of labour: People who've taken early retirement are doing part-time planting work. "At this time of year, when most of the work deals with handling stored potatoes and cabbage, retirees can work two to three days a week. That's perfect since they don't want to be working 7 a.m. until 6 p.m., five, six, or seven days a week."

But Wilson says the "backbone of picking and weeding is still stoop labour no matter how you define it," and he relies on the offshore labour program bringing him workers from Mexico for that part of his workforce. - With files from Bernard Tobin

© copyright 1999 Agricultural Publishing Company Limited.


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