Filed under: All, Blog Posts for Class | Tags: alternative energy, autos, Bio-fuel, Biodiesel, Biofuel, cars, diesel, gasoline, petroleum industry
Money might not grow on trees, but diesel could according to Gary Strobel, a professor at Montana State University.
Strobel discovered that fungi growing in the Patagonian forests of South America are capable of producing gaseous diesel. The fungus, G. roseum grows on the Ulmo tree, and produces toxic fumes used to kill off competing species of fungus. Upon closer study, Strobel discovered that these fumes are “virtually identical” in structure to diesel. In fact, it’s a sufficiently close match that he claims the fumes would be adequate to power a diesel engine.
What makes the fungus a potential source for diesel is that the fungus is able to turn cellulose – the fibres in plant material – directly into diesel. This skips the fermentation process that normally occurs during the production of biodiesel, saving time and money. While G. roseum is found on the Ulmo tree in the wild, it could create fuel on any form of cellulose, be it trees, wood, sawdust or leftover husks after harvests.
Given its potential as a truly renewable source of energy, this fungus is certain to be a hot topic in the coming months and years.
Coutoure, J. The New Diesel Fuel… From Fungi? Sympatico/MSN autos. Nov. 10, 2008. http://en.autos.sympatico.msn.ca/GreenCentre/article.aspx?cp-documentid=12544462#toolbar Accessed Nov. 12, 2008.
Filed under: All, Blog Posts for Class | Tags: Alumni Stadium, Football, Greg Layson, Gryphon Athletics, Guelph Gryphons, Guelph Mecury, Guelph Turfgrass Institute, OUA, OUA football, University of Guelph, Yates Cup
According to its website, the Guelph Turfgrass Institute (GTI) was established in 1987 to conduct research and extension and provide information on turfgrass production and management to members of the Ontario turfgrass industry. The GTI is located approximately at the intersection of College Ave. And Victoria Rd. right here in Guelph, Ontario. I don’t really know what its actual address is, and it doesn’t really matter for the context of this article, all that matters is that you can tell when you’re passing by it because of the beautiful, sprawling greenery leading up to its front door. It’s some of the most beautiful grass I have ever seen. This summer there was even two gorgeous soccer fields that were there to test the latest in high traffic turf quality. Even in August, the soccer pitches were still immaculate. One of my friends from home mistook it for a high-end golf course because of how nice the grass looked. Let’s rewind the tape for a second and go back almost exactly one calendar year.
“When a university is born out of the Ontario Agricultural College and is home to the world class Guelph Turfgrass Institute, to have anything less than a beautifully groomed and manicured football field is almost inexcusable.”
Guelp returning the ball during the 100th Yates Cup - but what about that grass?
The above is the lead from the article “Kicking Grass”, written just before last year’s 100th Yates Cup football championship. The article goes on to explain how a carefully orchestrated team of grounds workers and athletics staff worked feverishly to prepare the football field so that it looked it’s best for the first playoff game hosted by the University of Guelph in 21 years. I work for athletics and even had a small hand in preparing the stadium for that game.
I do have one small concern though. And I want you to know, the context is not lack of pride, rather it is excessiveness of pride, if excessiveness is a proper English word. To be blunt, the turf wasn’t beautifully groomed and manicured, and that, is inexcusable, because it could have been better. The field could have been just as immaculate as those soccer fields. Failed potential always irritates me. From what I understand, in the midst of the live telecast during last year’s Yates Cup, one topic of the colour commentary was the dismal state of the turf. And it was pretty dismal again this year, with the exception of the Home opener, since the field hadn’t been played on since that game.
Guelph kicking off to Western during the 100th Yates Cup
The solution the athletics crew came up with to solve this problem was simple - Let the GTI take care of the football field. I don’t mean to suggest that the grounds crew is incapable of caring for the field, or that they don’t have pride in their field, because believe me they do. It is the most precious couple of acres to them on the entire campus, but they just don’t have the capacity to give it the attention it deserves. Think of how good our field might look under the care of the GTI. Think of how good all the athletic fields might look under the care of the GTI. I’ll say it again; the fields could have been just as immaculate as those soccer fields. And, it could be like a co-op kind of thing. The GTI could set aside placements for its students to learn firsthand what it takes to keep turf looking the best it possibly can, while earning credits! If I were a GTI student, I think it’d be pretty cool to have the oppourtunity to brag about how good my field looked on TV. Such a program would undoubtedly have positive benefits for the GTI. For starters, when the colour commentators say “Wow, this field sure looks great, I wonder who maintains it?” on national TV, the answer would be “The Guelph Turfgrass Institute”. Publicity, publicity, publicity. Hopefully the next time the Gryphons host the Yates Cup, the commentators can say “Wow, Check out that grass… It looks great!”.
Filed under: All, Blog Posts for Class, Just For Fun | Tags: on-the-street interview, Organic Farming, Organics, streeters
While diving into the depths of research for one of my blog posts, I cam across this streeters video. since we’re doing a streeters video for class and the topic is very relevant, I figure I’d share!!
Filed under: All, Blog Posts for Class | Tags: Agriculture, Environmental Policy, FDA, Genetic Engineering, Genetics, GMOs, Monsanto, PCBs, Roundup, Syngenta
I’m sure you’re familiar with the phrase “that’s just the tip of the iceberg”, referring, of course, to the observation that the majority of an iceberg remains hidden from view below the surface of the water it floats in. I feel like I may be slightly subject to this ‘iceberg’ phenomenon. The proverbial Iceberg is a single line in the speech I presented in class in mid October.
“Are Monsanto and Syngenta bad companies that make bad products?” is a rhetorical question I posed in my speech. At the time I simply considered it fodder to pad my illustrations that supported my message about leadership in agriculture, nothing more. In fact, the only reason I even included it was because my roommate had alluded to scandals involving Monsanto and I thought it would make a good illustrative reference if I mentioned I knew nothing about Monsanto. But, apparently there are a few people in this world who would vehemently answer “yes” despite the rhetorical nature of the question. The World According to Monsanto is the title of a documentary that puts Monsanto in the hot seat and examines the negative impacts the company has had on the world.
It starts off with a few ‘did-you-know?’ facts that establish Monsanto’s origin as a chemical company rather than a biotechnology company. Interestingly, Monsanto originally produced chemical additives for foods before entering the plastics market and finally the herbicide market. Monsanto is most famous for developing Roundup (Glyphosate); the most widely used herbicide world wide. After a brief history of the company, the movie explains negative impacts of Monsanto-produced chemicals, followed by allegations of a “revolving door” involving the United States Food and Drug Administration that hurried the introduction of biotechnology and transgenic crops that might not have been as safe as advertised; the film attacks recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH) and Roundup-Ready soybeans in this segment. A segway into transgenic crops provides the digression into patenting seed stock, and prohibiting seed saving, and ends with a discussion suggesting conspiracy theories where Monsanto is systematically converting all the crops in the world to their genetically modified crops. The use of global examples does an exceptional job of addressing the breadth of Monsanto’s influence on agriculture worldwide.
I took the message the movie had with a grain of salt because I had trouble believing it was the absolute truth. While I believe there is some truth in the stories, the film was fraught with anecdotal evidence and cynical musing that can’t possibly portray an accurate picture of Monsanto and its products. The apparent misrepresentation annoyed me, and I was disappointed with the audience who attended. Everyone took the bait, hook, line and sinker. Don’t get me wrong, Monsanto has been involved in some questionable business, but I think the film illustrated Monsanto as a sinister, mysterious corporation with as much to hide as Area 51. Something which I can’t fathom as being true. Check out the whole film on Google Video at:
Filed under: All, Blog Posts for Class | Tags: Agircultural Communication, Agriculture, Agriculture and Agri-food Canada, City Slicker, Communication, Farmer, Ontario, Toronto, Toronto Transit Commision, TTC, Urban
Agricultural Apathy: Lack of interest, emotion or concern, or feelings of indifference relating to agriculture and farming
As an ‘urbanite’ enrolled in an agricultural communications class I feel more and more of a responsibility to encourage my urban friends to become more engaged with agriculture. I get the impression the agricultural apathy runs rampant in the urban world. I can’t really give a good explanation why this is the case, but I do believe a lack of exposure is a large factor. The urban demographic needs to have their eyes opened to such an important sector of the Canadian economy.
An urbanite might ask why they should care about agriculture, and my answer to that person would be “If for no other reason than because farmers produce the food on you eat”. Another good reason might be because upwards of 13 million acres of land in Ontario are farmland. That’s 13 times the size of the Greater Toronto Region which includes the City of Toronto, Peel Region, Halton Region, York Region and Durham Region. In otherwords, from Burlington, Ontario eastward to Oshawa, Ontario and as far north as Newmarket, Ontario. I might also ask this person if they can trace the path their food takes from the farm to their table. When they can’t, I’ll suggest that that might be another good reason to be more concerned about agriculture.
Last week Michael Whittaker from Agriculture and Agri-food Canada (AAFC) gave a guest lecture in our class, and I couldn’t help but think to myself ‘this might be a mainstay of the agricultural apathy problem right here’. But allow me to explain. He described his role as the Deputy Minister of Communications and Consultations, and went on to describe exactly what that means. Believe me, Mr. Whittaker is a pretty important and busy man. Mr. Whittaker even provided us some samples of press releases the might find their way to his desk for a stamp of approval before being sent to the major media outlets. And in my opinion, that is where the problem lies. Press releases are boring. So automated and formulaic, that if any of them did find their way to an important place like the first few pages in a newspaper, that they’d be skimmed over and forgotten about. I wanted to ask what the main media outlet he dealt with was, but never found the proper oppourtunity. What about the radio or television? Press releases don’t really jive with the glitz and flash of TV, and they sure don’t have the proper lingo to translate well to mainstream urban radio. But maybe it’s not his job to care about how effectively the messages he approves are being conveyed. I do wonder if that thought crosses his mind from time to time.
I can think of a couple ways to fight agricultural apathy. My first idea is to keep agricultural learning in the city classroom. When I was in elementary school, agricultural trips and learning experiences were common. As I got older, they inexplicably stopped. That’s a pretty simple way agricultural knowledge could be brought into focus.
Another idea I have, but can’t really claim as my own, is an excessive advertising campaign. The Toronto Transit Commision (TTC) allows whole train cars (Domination packages) to be bought out for advertising purposes. Anyone who has been on a subway train at rush hour can attest that exposure to a large number of people is not a problem. If independent companies can afford to buy out whole subway trains, I’m sure AAFC can scrounge up some change from the couch in the lunch room to help out their cause.
Maybe I’m wrong, but those seem like fairly simple and logical ways to increase urban exposure to agriculture. Maybe AAFC needs to re-evaluate the modes of communication that are employed to invigorate agricultural communication and give it the two-handed ‘shove-in-the-right-direction’ it needs. I think stopping acricultural apathy isn’t as big of a problem as I originally thought, whoever is in charge of agricultural marketing just needs to take 10 minutes and brainstorm a couple of new ideas. Pardon my rant, but I think it has been some what of a catharic experience.
NB: CBS Outdoor is the advertising agency contracted by the TTC to manage advertising on their vehicles
Filed under: All, Blog Posts for Class | Tags: Agricultural Communication, Agricultural Leadership, Agriculture, City Slicker, Farmer
Imagine a place where you could go for enlightenment – Agricultural enlightenment. Somewhere a lot closer than Tibet and the Dalai Lama. If something about agriculture was confusing, simply by asking a question you could have more of an answer than you could ever have dreamed for. Real honest to goodness answers from real honest to goodness farmers.
Such a place may exist in the not too distant future. From what I understand, this place would be called the Centre for Applied Agricutural Communications. A place where farmers and town folk could converge to reach agricultural zen. Initial reactions to the proposal for the centre were positive. A survey showed that upwards of 80% of respondents indicated the centre was something they’d support and use. Representatives from surveyed agricultural companies and corporations indicated that they would even pay for a service like this.
But where would you put a place like this? I’m concerned that it might be under utilized if it is in a fixed location. I know that is a horrendously negative stance to take, but I think it might be a reality. Us ‘urbanites’ can be pretty oblivious to agriculture in Ontario and Canada and to the Centre for Applied Agricultural Communications. Let me bluntly illustrate this with a personal example. I wouldn’t be in this agricultural communications class if I hadn’t been approached and recruited by Owen Roberts. It just really wouldn’t have crossed my mind to sign up for it. As a student, I became so focused on my chosen line of study that I was successfully blinded to other learning oppourtunities around me. I think the same thing would plague the centre. People just wouldn’t think to use it because it might be out of sight and out of mind. While I think that a home base would be a good start, the operators (whoever they eventually are) should have the capability to take the centre to the public; the capability to make appearances at malls, plazas, schools, even special events in urban centres to give it the necessary exposure. I present a lot of problems and don’t really give any solutions, but that’s because I don’t know exactly what a good solution would be. I do know that being actively involved in promoting agriculture to my friends is a good start.
Filed under: All, Blog Posts for Class | Tags: Aggies, Agircultural Communication, Agricultural Leadership, City Slicker, Communication, Farmer, Leadership
My name is Cam and I’m from Toronto. My agricultural experiences can be counted on one hand. In kindergarten, I watched a chicken hatch from an egg. In grade one, I went on a school trip to Chudleigh’s Apple Farm. My favourite part was the hay wagon ride. In grade two, I went to the Royal Winter Fair. I got this cool milk button, but I’ve since lost it. In 2007, I lived on a small crop farm just outside of Listowel, Ontario for 8 weeks in the summer. The most striking memory I have from that experience was how far apart driveways are in the country. In fall 2008, after I followed Alice and that stupid rabbit down the rabbit hole, I clearly zigged when I should have zagged because I ended up in an agricultural communications class rather than Wonderland.
But all joking aside, let me tell you some things I don’t know about farming that might surprise you. I don’t know how many acres an average sized crop farm is. I don’t know exactly what a combine does. I don’t know how many trees an orchard might have, and I don’t know how much fruit they might produce. I don’t know how many head of cattle there are in an average sized herd. I don’t know how many times a day you’re supposed to milk a cow. And, other than ‘grain’, I really don’t know what to feed a cow… or a horse or a pig or sheep for that matter.
It’s time we had new leaders in agriculture. I’m taking about real people. Someone to step up and bridge the enormous gap between the city slicker and the farmer. I get the impression the farmers think all city folks are idiots, and that’s true, when it comes to agriculture. But how can you honestly expect a kid from the city to know anything about farming when his exposure to it is so limited. I wouldn’t expect you to come to the city and know exactly how the subway works. That’s unrealistic. It’s time we had new leaders. Someone to step up and start off by telling me that it’s okay that I know jack about agriculture.
Filed under: All, Blog Posts for Class | Tags: History, Plant genetics, University of Warwick, Wheat
To most of the world, the name Dr. Robin Allaby probably doesn’t mean anything particularly important. So then who cares about this Dr. Robin Allaby? Well, For starters, the good people at the University of Warwick in Wellesbourne, England probably care. Dr. Allaby is an assistant professor in the university’s HRI department currently studying plant evolutionary genetics, the evolution of plant domestication, molecular archaeobotany, molecular anthropology and phylogenomics. I can’t tell you exactly what the initials HRI stand for, but a good guess, based on what Dr. Allaby studies, suggests it’s probably something along the lines of ‘Horticulture Research Institute’. But I digress.
So let me enlighten you why Dr. Allaby shows up on agricultural radar. Because he’s really no big deal except that he established a timeline and sequence of events for the domestication of flax crops, established the origins of domestic wheat species in the ancient world, established the interactions of ancient civilizations around the globe based on crop genetics and developed software programs to make all of this possible. About half of his literature might as well be chinese to my human biology-based education. The other half I partially comprehend, but I had to read the summary at the end of each piece, before it all came together. This genetic mastermind is helping us learn the origins of agriculture. And lets face it, agriculture is the entire reason the University of Guelph came to be in the first place.
His most recent work is perhaps the most fascinating. The finding of plant remains in Syria pushed back the origin of crop development by some 10,000 years. Just in case you were wondering, an additional 10,000 years on the previous estimate puts the origins of crop agriculture in the time period just before the last ice age as opposed to just after it. In a news article published on the University of Warwick’s website, Allaby suggests that ancient Syrian civilizations began gathering and planting wild cereal seeds as early as 23,000 years ago. Yikes, how did those historians miss by that much? That’s like fishing with dynamite and still not catching anything.
It was also believed that the domestication of wheat through human artificial selection was a relatively quick process and spread rapidly through the Tigris-Euphrates valley and into Europe. The historians got half the story right. Allaby’s genetic experiments suggest that the domestication of certain wheat crops took much longer than originally speculated (in the ballpark of 3000 years) and was probably a result of multiple domestication attempts in different regions of the ancient world. At least 3000 years is a little bit more respectable than 10,000 years.
Read the full article when you’ve got a moment, it’s one of those history lessons that are actually cool.
Link to: Research Pushes Back History of Crop Development 10,000 Years
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/pressreleases/research_pushes_back/
Filed under: All, Blog Posts for Class | Tags: Bio-fuel, Cash Crops, Stock-to-use
My Grandfather was a grain and feed dealer. He owned a feed mill in Markham just north of Toronto, Ontario. From what I understand he was a Shur-Gain and Purina dealer. Despite having crop agriculture of some form in my family history I know virtually nothing about the economy of crops, in particular cash crops. From working in a greenhouse, the physical act of planting a seed and tending it until it is an adult plant is hardly rocket science. But, once harvesting begins, a discussion in plain English becomes gibberish to my ears. On the Ontario Farmer website one of the top stories was one about corn yields and crop acreage. After reading it several times, I think the main idea of the article was that the demand for corn was under-predicted and to make things worse, yields are expected to be low this harvesting season. As a result, next year more corn will need to be planted on limited acres of land to maintain stock-to-use ratios. Right on, things are starting to make some sense. But, who cares? Is the world going to run out of corn syrup to sweeten up our Twinkies with? Maybe I’m missing the point, but this really seems to have no impact on me as a consumer. Is it the end of the world if we have to use a bit of the stockpile to keep everyone happy? Are we spreading the corn loving too thin by allowing it to be diverted away from feeding North America when we put it towards other uses such as bio-fuel research? Now that’s something to think about and look into so I can write about it later.
http://www.ontariofarmer.com/pages/news_local_01.html
Filed under: All, Blog Posts for Class | Tags: Add new tag, Organic Farming, Organics, Sustainable Food
Sometime last year I was approached on campus to participate in a survey about agriculture and farming practices. Initially I was drawn to the survey because it involved a voucher good for 5 dollars worth of food at any on-campus cafeteria. The survey did more than satisfy my hunger that day. It made me think more critically about where my food comes from and how it is produced. Organic farming and “sustainable food” versus conventional farming methods was the underlying theme of the survey. Sometime later an article in the newspaper reminded me of the survey I’d participated in. It outlined the provincial criteria that defined organic from conventional products. Sustainable food is, for all intents and purposes, locally produced organic products. Local Food Plus (LPF) is a non-profit organization lobbying and pushing the general public to accept sustainable food as the norm in Ontario. As defined in the article in the Toronto Star, organic crops and produce are those free from genetic modification (e.g. round-up ready crops) and farmed without the use of fungicides, herbicides and/or pesticides. Organic animal products are taken from at least partially free-range animals who are raised on organic feed not fortified with hormones, antibiotics and/or animal by-products. But when is enough, enough? Is sustainable food realistically viable in the Ontario food economy? Despite being a more environmentally sound choice, sustainable food still is more expensive and cannot meet the demand for product. The more labour-intensive farming practices involved with organic agriculture cannot compete with the yield and time-efficiency of conventional farming methods. As concerned citizens, we can make conscious efforts to improve our habits as consumers, such as buying locally, but at some point, we have to give a little to get a little. We need to trust our farmers that their conventional products are reliable, safe food choices.
extra links:
http://wwwsustainweb.org/sustainablefood
http://www.thestar.com/article/263074
