Bayer and Corteva Agriscience recently announced they have joined the #stophateforprofit campaign, backed by organizations including the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), NAACP, LULAC, the National Hispanic Media Coalition, Common Sense, Free Press, Color of Change and Sleeping Giants and not-for-profit software firm Mozilla.

The campaign bills itself as a means to “convince social media companies to finally put people over profit” and asks advertisers to pause ad spending on Facebook — and on Facebook-owned Instagram — for July.

The campaign’s founding organizations “have been working with Facebook for years and we’ll continue to work with them” in the future, but say that “when it comes to dealing with rampant hate and harassment, the platform continues to come up short.”

Facebook’s “hate speech, incitement and misinformation policies are inequitable. Their harassment victim services are inadequate. Their advertising placement’s proximity to hateful content is haphazard,” the groups said on the campaign site.

“Every day, we see ads from companies placed adjacent to hateful content, occupying the same space as extremist recruitment groups and harmful disinformation campaigns… at the expense of vulnerable and marginalized communities who are often targets of hate groups on Facebook.”

Among its other recommendations, the campaign calls for Facebook to allow independent audits of “identity-based hate and misinformation;” to refund advertisers whose ads turn up next to content later removed for violating terms of service; and to find and remove “public and private groups focused on white supremacy, militia, antisemitism, violent conspiracies, Holocaust denialism, vaccine misinformation and climate denialism.”

In a statement on social media announcing its participation, Corteva said its purpose, “to enrich the lives of those who produce and those who consume, ensuring progress for generations to come” is at “the centre of all decisions we make as a company.”

The ag chem firm said it aims to “lead the agriculture industry in a way that is equitable for all people, current and future generations” and will also be “taking a hard look at additional, meaningful actions to address racism and hate speech.”

Bayer confirmed via email Tuesday it has “made a global commitment to halt advertising with Facebook this month” including its Canadian business and all divisions.

The chemical firm said Tuesday it “believes in, and actively supports, both freedom of speech and freedom of the press” and at the same time “is strongly committed to fostering, cultivating and preserving a culture of inclusion, diversity, equality and respect for all.”

Other major firms taking part in the advertising pause include food and consumer product manufacturers such as Diageo, Unilever, Beam Suntory, Hershey and J.M. Smucker and drugmaker Pfizer.

Facebook global affairs vice-president Nick Clegg, in a statement last week on the company’s website, said it “does not profit from hate.”

Users, he said, “don’t want to see hateful content, our advertisers don’t want to see it, and we don’t want to see it. There is no incentive for us to do anything but remove it.”

In a separate statement Tuesday, campaign organizers said after a meeting with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and company brass that it was clear the company “is not yet ready to address the vitriolic hate on their platform.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

The post Bayer, Corteva among companies stepping off Facebook appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

A quick scroll through their blogs, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter feeds shows pictures taken in the field, videos of feeding cattle, links to articles and posts on everything from beehive management to family birthdays.

On screen, Ian Steppler appears in what is obviously a phone video as he takes viewers through making a pollinator seed mix and replaces machine bearings.

On another social media account, this one managed by his brother and business partner, Andre, Andre Steppler sits in a parked tractor cab, surrounded by his children, as he talks about his morning chores and conception rates in the purebred Charolais herd that is his claim to fame.

“The easiest thing to do is just talk about what you know and everything just follows through and if you’ve got something to share and you’ve got a perspective that you want to convey to somebody else, then that just comes naturally,” Ian Steppler said.

The Stepplers are among the growing number of farmers to take their marketing online, one keystroke, YouTube upload and live stream at a time.

The farm’s website includes a blog, updated at least four times weekly by Ian, while the portion devoted to Steppler Charolais links to Andre Steppler’s active Twitter feed, while another tab connects to the farm’s official Facebook page.

Outside of those official accounts, both brothers run their own Facebook pages, while Ian Steppler is active on YouTube, where he posts everything about beekeeping, from winter storage to his own hive disease test results. Those feeds helped earn him speaking invites at beekeeping conferences in Winnipeg and Kelowna, B.C., appointments with MPs and the Manitoba government.

More interest

The Steppler bull sale, one of the farm’s largest events of the year, has seen a noted uptick since they shifted their online strategy to breeding stock. The family ramps up excitement weeks beforehand over social media, drawing audience to their website where stats and video of the animals up for sale are posted.

The farm blog usually sees about 2,000 hits a week, not counting social media, Ian said, numbers that could jump by three times in the weeks right before the sale.

The sale itself is live streamed across the globe.

“We’re getting a huge amount of traffic watching these bull sales and heifer sales,” Steppler said. “It’s translating into sales. We sell a lot of bulls out of our area and heifers too. We sell from Alberta right to — we have some animals in Nova Scotia.”

Other, global customers, are interested in their genetics, making the internet key.

Steppler’s story is not unique.

In Alberta, many rural residents know Dr. Cody Creelman of Veterinary Agri-Health Services by sight, even if they’ve never met him.

Creelman began “vlogging,” or video blogging, in 2015 after joining an old veterinary practice near Airdrie, Alta., and quickly deciding that the online presence needed a facelift.

“A lot of it just came down to me wanting to market the services that my veterinary practice provides and the way to do that was marketing in the age that we actually live in and that’s a lot of the digital media that we actually consume,” he said. “I needed to put myself out there on those platforms for us to be able to market that we are a veterinary practice and the services that we provide and that we provide high-quality medicine and that we’re OK people to talk with.”

The young vet eventually turned to social media and began documenting day-to-day activities on Instagram, a social media site using images and short videos.

Instagram soon morphed into Vine, a now defunct platform using seven-second video clips that Creelman says was “pivotal” to his transformation to a video blogger. Soon, Creelman was producing YouTube videos and found his niche.

The longer format allowed Creelman to go in depth, literally taking the viewer in the passenger seat of his pickup as he hit the road. His casual, friendly, style was the same attitude he found gained traction on other platforms.

“People enjoyed going out on the road with me for the day, so I tried to create that,” he said. “And some of that is literally the pace I am going to get to the next call. I only have the opportunity to turn on the camera when I’m jumping into the truck to say, ‘This is what we’re doing today,’ as we’re pulling out of the parking lot.”

Today, the Alberta vet has over 30,000 subscribers on YouTube, 25,700 on Instagram and 5,800 on Twitter. He is the co-founder of Mosiac Veterinary Partners, a veterinary investment group to support rural veterinarians, and his business has grown substantially since he first hit “post.”

The next wave

The latest generation of agriculture program graduates will already have many of those skills in their arsenal.

Agribusiness students at Assiniboine Community College, have two courses on marketing and public relations, including online. One of those tells students to create a marketing plan for an agricultural product or service, which could be a farm, instructor James Ellis said, although most ACC agribusiness graduates are bound for the industry, not the homestead.

“There is research on which demographic they’re going after and then trying to identify what is the best marketing tool or combination of marketing tools to go forward with that. And then they start to make it specific and customized based on that information,” he said. “Really, what I find so interesting is that there isn’t just one way. There’s many different ways to approach it.”

Challenges

Vlogging has been both a boon and drain to Creelman, since he has essentially added “videographer” onto his resume alongside “veterinarian.”

Once the refuge of amateur videos, successful YouTube personalities now spend hours on things like camera angles, background sound, scene cuts, angle shifts and video effects to make content enticing and drive traffic.

Creelman estimates that each video takes four hours of editing, hours he puts in on top of his regular work day.

It’s a strain that Steppler has also felt.

“If you’re going to catch that audience you’ve got to retain that, and to do that you’ve got to keep putting content out there,” he said. “If you’re just going to put content out there and it’s garbage, nobody wants that. You’ve got to put stuff out there of value, so it takes a lot of thought.”

Posting content on the farm’s blog or cattle comes with yet another time-consuming layer, he added.

While Ian Steppler regularly posts on the ins and outs of beekeeping, his beekeeping accounts are not technically linked to the farm and work on the farm’s blog may take a different tone.

“With my bees, it doesn’t matter. I have a lot of opinions and I talk about bees and I’m not selling anything and I try to keep everything professional and non-political, but with Andre, the way I see the cows and represent them online is different than the way he sees them and would like to see them represented online, because a bad picture will totally take away from what he’s trying to do,” he said. “We’re spending a lot of time on it and we really have to make sure that we control our content.”

Creelman’s role as a veterinarian throws another wrench in the works, since he is not only videoing his own work, but another producer’s animals.

“They trust me as a person, as a veterinarian and it was a slow, gradual progression of me telling that story through different means, of taking that picture, showing that video over Snapchat and it was that progression that then allowed them to trust me to be able to show that story,” he said, adding that his clients now often expect him to leave his truck, camera in hand.

Many times, they’re disappointed if he doesn’t, he said.

Beware of trolls

As with anything on the internet, posts on social media or YouTube have opened farmers up to criticism and “trolls,” users who purposefully post provocative comments for the sake of stirring up a response.

The comments section is infamous for critical, rude or inappropriate replies.

For those tied to agriculture, the danger is even more acute. Public trust has become a topic of discussion in almost all sectors of the industry, and the same recognition that puts a business on the map also opens the gates for negative comments.

For a conventional farmer, like the Stepplers, opening the farm for public view might draw the digital wrath of hardline organic proponents. For Creelman, filming the realities of veterinary work can and has earned negativity from animal welfare activists.

But while others might shy away from that negativity, the veterinarian says those are actually his favourite comments to address.

“The problem with things like some of the agriculture advocates on places like Twitter is a lot of times it’s preaching to the choir,” he said. “We’re beating our own drum in an industry and the only ears and eyes that are seeing that are people who are doing the same sort of thing.

“If we were trying to say that what we’re doing is to advocate for agriculture, that’s the only thing that we need to do; first and foremost we need to be talking to the potential consumers and they’re not going to be in some of those same places,” he added.

His counter-argument may not convince a true critic, he said, but his response will remain in writing for others who are less convinced. At the same time, he said, critical questions often let him address concerns around pain control, transforming the criticism into a teachable moment.

Steppler, meanwhile, says YouTube experience so far has been mostly positive. Personal communication has been more problematic. As a businessman with a published contact number, he has had to block harassing calls from viewers upset about something he has posted.

“I haven’t had too much trouble on YouTube per se, not yet,” he said. “I have a lot of trouble on Facebook and I just delete those guys, but I’ve been getting emails because now I’m putting myself out there.”

At the same time, he said, he also gets dozens of positive messages every day.

The post Selling the farm life, byte by byte appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

“Data is the new oil of the digital economy,” it proclaimed.

Data is everywhere, it said, an immensely valuable and untapped resource that will drive the digital economy forward just as oil fuelled the industrial economy.

Vast fortunes are available for the taking for those smart and fast enough to exploit it, the article concluded.

For oil that would have meant wildcatters sinking wells. Today, that means mining enormous amounts of data that could potentially be turned into information. Today data is used to maximize profits, ensure smooth delivery of goods and services and to tease out hidden patterns that can reveal opportunities. If something can be reliably measured, goes the thinking, it can surely be improved upon.

By now we’ve all heard plenty about the promises of Big Data. But for most of us, it’s just a catchy buzz phrase we’ve heard thrown around.

But make no mistake, the trend is already affecting our lives.

Have you ever been on a trip and suddenly found you need to call your credit card company to assure them your card hasn’t been stolen? That’s an annoying but very real application of Big Data in the real world. Finance companies are using Big Data techniques to monitor transactions in real time and flag suspicious activity. So if you’ve never been to New York City before, your card might get flagged if it’s suddenly being used there.

Most of the popular social media such as Facebook are really just a disguised form of data gathering. The old saying in the tech industry is that if you’re not paying for a product “you are the product.” Mark Zuckerberg and company have become extremely wealthy by convincing us we should give them our information and allow them to track our every online move. Other tech titans like Google are similar.

Zuckerberg once made an unvarnished comment to a colleague that later became public. The colleague was asking how Zuckerberg and Facebook had managed to amass such an enormous catalogue of personal information. “People just submitted it. I don’t know why. They ‘trust me,’” he wrote, adding an off-colour remark about the intelligence of his users.

A lack of information infrastructure has muted the effect of this trend back on the farm. But it’s certainly coming if the hype is to be believed. Large agriculture companies have begun making investments in the data business, with an eye to getting in on the ground floor. They’ve no guarantee of success. But their interest is a sign of what may be to come.

One of the key problems they all seem to be grappling with is assembling the required data into something large enough to be meaningful, because for Big Data to work there needs to be, well, big data. In this context big is truly enormous. Taking the example of fraud detection a bit further, it relies on sophisticated algorithms that are applied to millions of transactions a day.

Compare that to the average farm and its data stream. The individual data is far from worthless, but it must be combined with more data from other farmers for it to become valuable in the sense Wired is talking about.

This leads to the million-dollar question no one has yet answered — who are you going to trust with your data? And if you do, what will you get out of it?

One facet locally is the Enterprise Machine Intelligence and Learning Initiative (EMILI) which earlier this year got a boost in the form of some federal funding. Machine learning is a subfield of computer science that gives the computers the ability to learn without being specifically programmed. It’s a type of artificial intelligence that builds computer programs that can change when exposed to new data.

This initiative promises to directly target the agriculture sector and aims to make the province into a world leader in the field. It’s a lofty goal, but worth pursuing — and sooner or later it’s going to need data to crunch.

Another intriguing model is found south of the international boundary, in the form of the Midwest Big Data Hub, at the University of Illinois, but also involving the University of Michigan, Iowa State, Indiana University and the University of North Dakota. It’s a data-collection effort that aims to centralize data on a regional basis for better decision-making in a number of fields, including agriculture.

An example that’s closer to home is the data collected from farmers by the crop insurance system that allows farmers to see how crops, management and inputs affect performance locally.

Just what form Big Data in agriculture will take in the future is as yet unknown — but soon a lot of folks are going to be interested in seeing your data.

The challenge facing farmers is figuring out how to manage their collective data in such a way that they capture its value.

The post Editorial: Drilling for data appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Stig Enemark, professor emeritus of Land Management at Denmark’s Aalborg University, and British land reform expert Robin McLaren said only 30 per cent of the world population is protected by official land administration systems leaving the vast majority vulnerable to eviction and displacement.

They said the land sector needs to be more ambitious in its goals, calling for a campaign to seek security of tenure for 80 per cent of people by 2030 and involving new players to support the fight for land rights.

“The global eradication of infectious diseases through highly co-ordinated campaigns has been successful,” the two men said in a paper delivered at the World Bank’s Land and Poverty Conference involving more than 1,200 land experts.

“Although insecurity of tenure is not a disease, its impact is devastating in terms of trapping people in poverty, displacing communities and making them homeless, and reducing food security and creating hunger… this is a human rights issue.”

Enemark and McLaren said at a time when some countries are turning inward and ignoring the global challenges of the 21st century, sparking renewed attention on communication and solving global land issues has become even more important.

“Land professionals must not be complacent and need to rethink and reshape their message, providing clearer evidence to politicians on the benefits of their land interventions and investments,” McLaren told a panel discussion.

“Global technology players such as Facebook and Google, for example, need to be encouraged to support this campaign to provide innovative technology solutions.”

High-tech solutions

Facebook has already used artificial intelligence software to scan 14.6 billion satellite images to identify human-built structures in countries across Africa.

The social media network plans to use this information to determine where drones offering Internet connections could be best deployed. The data, say experts, if shared could also be applied to property rights projects.

The digital platform, Tomnod, is also using artificial intelligence (AI) powered by crowdsourcing to automatically identify features of interest in satellite and aerial imagery.

Tomnod, owned by Colorado-based satellite company DigitalGlobe, has led crowdsourcing campaigns that have attracted tens of thousands of volunteers around the globe, including work to map populations across Ethiopia.

Enemark and McLaren said emerging technologies could be potential “game changers” for land administration.

The United Nation’s latest set of global goals, adopted in 2015, contain six goals relating to land, including a target for all men and women to have equal rights to ownership and control over land and other forms of property by 2030.

“This new agenda presents a historic and unprecedented opportunity to bring the countries and citizens of the world together to decide and embark on new paths to improve the lives of people everywhere,” McLaren said.

“The perfect storm of change has arrived. The time is right to launch a global security of tenure campaign, but it requires strong political will.”

The post Tech giants should join global land rights campaign appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

In March 2015, an IARC monograph concluded that glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic.” Yet seven months later the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), an independent agency funded by the EU, published a different assessment, saying glyphosate is “unlikely to pose a carcinogenic hazard to humans.”

The EFSA study drew on work by the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment, which had concluded there was “no validated or significant relationship” between exposure to glyphosate and an increased risk of cancer.

Some campaign groups have suggested EFSA was unduly influenced by studies backed by Roundup’s manufacturer, Monsanto. An EFSA spokesman said its assessment considered hundreds of scientific studies, both independent and industry-sponsored.

“The status of a study — e.g. independent or industry-sponsored — is irrelevant to the assessment if the study is designed, carried out and reported well,” he said in an emailed response. He said EFSA had published detailed information about every study used in its glyphosate assessment, including regulatory studies submitted by companies.

The World Health Organization — IARC’s parent organization — and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which first assessed glyphosate in 1986 and has reviewed it several times since then, had also previously concluded that glyphosate “has low toxicity for humans.”

The differences might seem modest, but they have potentially huge implications for farmers, the food industry and consumers because IARC’s ruling may affect whether the European Union continues to authorize glyphosate for use in Europe. EU officials are now faced with conflicting scientific advice. Without the herbicide, say some campaigners, food production may suffer.

A public war of words between EFSA and IARC has ensued. It began with a letter last November from 96 scientists who wrote to a senior EU official urging him to ignore what they said was a “flawed” EFSA assessment of glyphosate and to prefer IARC’s judgment instead.

The letter was led by the American scientist Chris Portier, who has long had links to the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), a U.S. non-governmental campaign group. The EDF opposes the use of pesticides and describes its mission as preserving “the natural systems on which all life depends.” On IARC’s website Portier was listed in 2013 as affiliated to the EDF as a “Senior Collaborating Scientist.”

In 2014, Portier chaired an IARC meeting at which the agency’s priorities for the coming year were outlined. They included an evaluation of glyphosate. The following year, Portier served as an “invited specialist” to the working group which decided that glyphosate was probably carcinogenic.

Critics say Portier’s EDF connections represent a conflict of interest and argue IARC should not have allowed him to be involved in the glyphosate evaluation. IARC said his involvement presented no problem, since he took part only as an invited specialist, who does not draft any text or participate in the evaluation.

Asked by Reuters whether he had a conflict of interest, Portier said: “I agree that this has the appearance of being a conflict of interest. However, in my opinion, for this to be a real conflict of interest, I would have to be working for the EDF on pesticide-related issues and/or specifically on glyphosate-related issues. I am not.” He said IARC’s decision to include him as an invited specialist was “proper and reasonable.”

EFSA defended its finding on glyphosate and hit back. In a speech to the European parliament in December 2015, EFSA executive director Bernhard Url described the letter from 96 scientists as “Facebook science.” He said it was taking an approach where “you have a scientific assessment, you put it on Facebook and you count how many people like it.”

Url said that was not how EFSA operated: “For us, this is no way forward. We produce a scientific opinion, we stand for it, but we cannot take into account whether it will be liked or not.”

Url also published an 18-page response to the letter from the 96 scientists, explaining how EFSA took a different approach to IARC. In it he invited IARC to a meeting to discuss their evidence and methodologies. IARC declined, demanding instead that EFSA issue a correction to its letter, which it alleged contained “factual errors.”

Kurt Straif, the head of IARC’s monographs assessing whether substances cause cancer, said his agency had turned down the invitation because EFSA had failed “to correct false statements,” and because “we don’t see a basis for a discussion within closed doors.”

An EFSA spokesman said it was “regrettable that the meeting is not going to take place,” and said EFSA “restates its commitment to co-operate with IARC and any other scientific organisation involved in the assessment of pesticides.”

— Kate Kelland is a Reuters health and science correspondent based in London, England.

The post Scientists take sides: Who’s right about glyphosate? appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

“It is not a matter of if you should be on social media, you have to be on social media. Society has pushed us in that direction,” Burton told a recent workshop in Brandon. “Everyone is online. It is not something that can be ignored. If you are not on it, chances are your competitor is and they are beating you to it.”

The workshop on how to leverage the power of social media was sponsored by Entrepreneurship Manitoba, Economic Development Brandon and the Brandon Chamber of Commerce.

Dustin Redfern, equipment manager for Redfern Farm Services, says his company just recently joined the online world and he attended the workshop to gain a little insight on how to make the most of it.

“We have just started on social media within the last month. We joined Twitter. You see all of your competition online and using these social media. So, we wanted to get on there and make sure that we are just as accessible to our customers as they are,” said Redfern. “The online ag community is larger than I ever thought. It has been an eye-opener to see how well used it really is.”

For those who have yet to try social media, Burton says to be patient.

“Everyone has to start somewhere and it is still new technology to many. It takes time to grow your audience,” said Burton. “But, the benefits of engaging are huge. You are able to learn who your existing or potential customers are, what they are concerned about, the problems they may have and what they really want.”

Communication, not advertising

Burton says users should look at social media as a method of communication, not advertising.

“Social media is a conversation. It’s about talking and connecting. People don’t want advertising or to be constantly marketed to. They are on social media for engagement and social interaction,” said Burton. “It should be looked at as a way to pique people’s interest in what you have to offer.”

She said social media is a way to grab the audience’s attention and develop a relationship where you can further direct them to your website or collect their email.

A big part of being successful is understanding who you are trying to reach.

“If you are unclear about who your audience is or what you want to say, you won’t be getting the most out of it,” Burton said.

She recommends focusing on one social media platform at first.

“If the audience you are trying to reach is primarily on Twitter, then just focus on Twitter. It is better to be present and active on one platform than to have a number of platforms with little activity,” she said.

She also recommends sitting down and creating a social media strategy, outlining what you want to post and the points you are hoping to get across.

Redfern says that posting for his company has been a bit of a challenge, in comparison to posting personally.

“When you are posting for the company, you need to have meaning in your posts. I don’t want to put something out there that isn’t relevant,” Redfern said. “And, you’ve got to stay with it for sure and it takes time. Even just to go take a picture and write something about it takes time out of your day. Finding time can be an issue.”

To develop a larger audience, Burton suggests using your existing customers to help build up followers through testimonials.

“‘So and so said… that our product is…’ and tag the person offering the testimonial, and now all of their friends are seeing this and that expands your reach,” Burton said. “And, ask your friends and family to like and share your posts. By engaging their circle you are able to reach a larger audience.”

Burton said social media can also be an advocacy tool for the industry.

“I absolutely think that social media can be a venue to help the urban-rural divide. Urban residents want to hear from that rural voice but they don’t know where to get it,” said Burton.

“So use your voice, use the value that you have in your existing customers to engage with urban residents. This can also be an opportunity to bring in even more customers.”

The post Social media — use it, but have a plan appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

In the game, one person whispers a message into the ear of the person next to him or her, then that person repeats the message to the person next to him or her and so on. By the end of the communication chain, the person announces what he or she heard.

Often, the last person in the line received a message that had little to do with the first message.

I experienced something like the telephone game last week, except this time, social media in the form of Facebook served as the “telephone.” As with the telephone game, by the time the message reached people and was repeated, it was a bit distorted.

All eyes were on rhubarb after the cold temperature blast. I had no idea people liked rhubarb this much.

I received phone calls, emails and questions via Facebook. People were talking about the avalanche of rhubarb information on their Facebook news feeds. Some people thought I had launched the “great toxic rhubarb campaign of 2015.”

“I didn’t do it,” I said when someone asked.

Some parts of North Dakota and other states had experienced untimely freezing temperatures. According to a widely circulated Facebook post launched in another state, rhubarb could become toxic (poisonous) after a frost. Could that be true?

According to the post, a hard freeze drives the naturally present toxin, oxalic acid, from the leaves into the rhubarb stalks.

I hadn’t nabbed any rhubarb from either of my neighbours, but after all this concern about rhubarb, I felt compelled to check out their rhubarb crops. Upon investigation, the leaves were not curled or discoloured, and the stalks looked reddish green and ripe for making into cobblers, pies and other treats.

I grabbed a few stalks and we enjoyed the dessert recipe included with this column.

While at work, one of my students poked her head in my office and mentioned that someone in her apartment building was pulling up all her “poisonous rhubarb.” I was a little alarmed because I have a soft spot for rhubarb. This poor, defenseless, innocent rhubarb was reminding me of my childhood.

As a kid, I enjoyed bringing a cup of sugar to our garden and pulling a rhubarb stalk and dipping it in sugar. I wasn’t a food safety specialist back then, so I may have rinsed the rhubarb under a garden hose if my mother was looking.

When do you have to worry about rhubarb?

Rhubarb in your garden that has frozen to the point where the stalks become damaged or mushy should be discarded. Check the leaves, too. If the stalks are firm and upright and the leaves have little damage, the rhubarb is OK. Discard the damaged ones and enjoy the stalks that grow later.

As with anything, when in doubt, don’t eat it.

Consuming large amounts of oxalic acid could affect your heart, digestive system and respiratory system. According to some sources, a person would need to consume 11 pounds of rhubarb leaves to reach a fatal dose.

During the First World War food shortages, people were encouraged to consume rhubarb leaves as a vegetable. That was not a good idea because oxalic acid is found in abundance in the rhubarb leaves. Rhubarb stalks naturally contain a very small amount of oxalic acid.

The usual issue of concern with oxalic acid-containing foods is the production of calcium oxalates in our body, which comprise kidney stones.

Heed the earlier warning: Do not eat any rhubarb leaves and you will be fine.

Have you ever heard the expression “the dose is the poison?” Many vegetables, especially leafy greens such as spinach, swiss chard, beet greens and cabbage, also contain small amounts of oxalic acid. If you eat the recommended amount of vegetables, you are consuming some of this natural chemical.

Please do not stop eating your vegetables, by the way.

Vegetables do not contain enough oxalic acid to warrant concern unless a person has a rare medical condition. If you have this condition, your health-care provider probably will refer you to a dietitian for help in knowing what foods to limit or avoid.

As I was talking about rhubarb and cold temperatures, someone overheard me.

“So you shouldn’t freeze your extra rhubarb because it will become toxic?” she asked.

The game of “telephone” was getting worse by the minute.

“You can freeze rhubarb in your kitchen for next winter,” I replied. “Just rinse it, cut it and freeze it in a single layer on a cookie sheet and pop it in a freezer bag,” I added.

Rhubarb provides vitamin C, fibre and lots of tart flavour in a wide range of recipes. Botanically, rhubarb is considered a vegetable, although we may think of it as a fruit because it is served in sweet desserts.

Enjoy some delicious rhubarb this season. Remove the leaves and discard them. Be sure to rinse rhubarb thoroughly under cool, running water.

I was so inspired by all this discussion that I bought a rhubarb plant to plant in our garden. Here’s one of the first recipes I learned to make from the rhubarb that my grandmother planted in the yard of my childhood home about 100 years ago. That was right around the time of the First World War when people were advised to eat rhubarb leaves. My family must have ignored the recommendation.

Rhubarb Cake

• 1-1/2 c. brown sugar
• 1/2 c. butter
• 1 egg
• 1 c. buttermilk
• 2 c. flour
• 1 tsp. soda
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1-3/4 c. cut-up fresh or frozen rhubarb
• 1 tsp. vanilla

Topping:

• 1/4 c. sugar and 1/2 tsp. cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Cream sugar and butter. Add egg and buttermilk; mix thoroughly. Sift flour, soda, salt; add to sugar-buttermilk mixture. Add vanilla and rhubarb. Pour into greased and floured 9×13-inch pan. Sprinkle topping over batter. Bake for 40 to 50 minutes, until a knife comes out clean.

Makes 12 servings. Each serving has 260 calories, 4 grams (g) of protein, 9 g of fat, 41 g of carbohydrate, 1 g of fibre and 230 milligrams of sodium.

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“Mom, what’s the difference between cooking and baking?” my 11-year-old daughter asked.

We were about to bake some bread, so I think she was associating cookies and breads with baking.

My husband chuckled when he saw me wrinkling my brow and pondering her question. Is baking a subset of cooking, or are they completely different?

“Baking is a science and cooking is an art,” I replied. I needed to say something quickly while I double-checked my initial thoughts.

That wasn’t the answer she was seeking. Her hands were on her hips and she was looking at me with a skeptical expression on her face.

I grabbed my computer tablet and started looking up culinary terms. I propped my computer tablet in my new tablet holder and set it on the kitchen countertop. I didn’t want to get flour on it while we were on our culinary adventure.

My daughter giggled as she watched me perusing websites and said, “Well, Mom, you could write a column about it.”

Although the terminology sometimes is debated, cooking is the general term for a wide range of food preparation practices, and baking falls under the overall “cooking” umbrella. Baking usually refers to preparing food with dry heat in an oven, so it includes cookies as well as baked potatoes.

That answer satisfied my daughter, but her question made me think about how people access information about food and recipes.

Even though cookbooks remain bestsellers, people aren’t necessarily thumbing through pages in a book when they have questions about food. You might be reading this column in a newspaper. Maybe you received it in an email message or on your cellphone screen. You might have accessed it via an RSS feed, as a tweet on Twitter or as a link on Facebook. By the way, however you are reading this column, I appreciate it.

The Hartman Group, which does consumer research, conducted a study called “Clicks and Cravings: The Impact of Social Technology on Food Culture.” Half of the people who responded to the national phone survey said they use social media, such as Facebook, to learn about food. About 40 per cent visit blogs or websites or use apps to learn about food.

Yes, we have a lot of information about food available, and the technology makes it easy to access if you are interested in using the technology. Although I enjoy using technology, I have a large collection of cookbooks, too. I also use my computer tablet holder to prop up my cookbooks and hold my well-worn family recipe cards.

Is having access to all of these recipes making us eat more healthfully? Not necessarily. We do not know the full impact of technology on our diet decisions. Fortunately, I do not absorb calories through my fingertips from the screen of my technology as I peruse food information online.

Regardless of how you access your recipes, how can you evaluate their healthfulness? These are some tips:

• Look for nutrition information included with the recipe. Be sure to check the serving size because if you eat three servings, you are getting three times the calories, protein, carbohydrate, fat and other nutrients. That’s not necessarily a good thing.
• Check out the recipe ingredients. A healthful diet includes a variety of foods, so try to include a vegetable, fruit, protein, grain and milk on your lunch and dinner menus and at least three of the five food groups on your breakfast menu.
• What is the cooking method? Baking, grilling and broiling are lower-fat, lower-calorie methods compared with frying or deep-frying. However, stir-frying is a low-fat method because a small amount of oil or broth is used.
• To learn about recipe modification, see “Now Serving: Recipe Makeovers” (available at http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/pubs/yf/foods/fn1447.pdf). The publication shows how to decrease total calories and sodium, and increase fibre in your favourite recipes. Visit http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/food and check out the recipe database and our “Nourishing Boomers and Beyond” program for people 50-plus.

Regardless of what you choose to prepare and how you cook it, make your dining experience a pleasant one because food is something to enjoy. Here’s a fibre-rich muffin recipe that includes whole grain, vegetable and fruit ingredients.

Reduced-Fat Morning Glory Muffins

• 1 c. all-purpose flour
• 1 c. whole wheat flour
• 3/4 c. sugar
• 2 tsp. baking soda
• 2 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 2 c. chopped apples (unpeeled)
• 1/2 c. raisins (or dried cranberries)
• 3/4 c. grated carrots
• 2 tbsp. chopped pecans (optional)
• 3 eggs (or 3/4 c. egg substitute)
• 1/2 c. canola oil
• 1/2 c. unsweetened applesauce
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Sift or whisk together flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon and salt in a large bowl. Add the apples, raisins, carrots and nuts (if desired) and stir to combine. In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs with the oil, applesauce and vanilla. Combine the wet and dry ingredients. Spoon the batter into muffin tins lined with muffin cups (or sprayed with cooking spray). Fill fairly full. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. Cool muffins in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a rack to continue cooling.

Makes 18 muffins. Each muffin has 170 calories, 7 grams (g) of fat, 3 g of protein, 25 g of carbohydrate, 2 g of fibre and 200 milligrams of sodium.

If you’ve been to Brandon’s Royal Winter Fair recently, you may have picked up a package or two of spelt or barley pancake and waffle mixes.

That’s where Clarence Gross, owner of the small MacGregor, Man. company Flowing Grains, is test marketing his 700-g bags of whole grain, stone-ground spelt flour and barley flour.

Gross launched his company two years ago after becoming intrigued by consumer demand for alternative grains.

Spelt is gaining in popularity as consumers look for wheat alternatives and become familiar with spelt’s fibre-rich bran and nutritious germ. Likewise, barley flour is gaining popularity with home bakers for its taste, versatility and high beta-glucan soluble fibre which promotes healthy blood sugar.

Both grains are grown on Cascade Colony land near MacGregor. Sold with a recipe on the package for making a hearty breakfast, Flowing Grains spelt and barley flours are available at Co-op stores in Killarney, Morden, Portage la Prairie and Winkler, Two Farm Kids in Brandon, all Vita Health stores in Winnipeg and Family Foods in MacGregor.

Learn more at flowinggrains.com.

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That’s because it’s stayed true to its role providing networking opportunities and resources rural and farm women need, say conference attendees.

Tracy Chappell, who farms and runs a seed company with her husband at Hamiota, had a young family at home and couldn’t get away for a few years, but was back in 2013 — and glad to be, she said.

“My mom has been coming for probably as many years as there’s been a farm women’s conference,” said Chappell. “It’s a way to connect with other farm women. You meet different women with different farming experiences, and find out the ways they handle things.”

Deloraine-area farmer Brenda Gilson recently retired from teaching, and was a first-timer to the MFWC this year. Gilson said she got so much out of it, she’s put it on her calendar for 2014.

She attended a panel session on social media marketing, and workshops on human resource management and good mental health. She learned a lot from each, Gilson said. She’s also appreciated meeting so many other women who farm in Manitoba.

“We’re all in the same profession but we’re doing a lot of different things,” she said.

Throughout the year attendees also stay in touch through the MFWC’s Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter sites. Addresses are found on the conference website at www.manitobafarmwo mensconference.ca.

Professional home economist Ann Mandziuk, who retired this year from her job as rural leadership specialist with the Department of Agriculture, chaired this year’s conference with its 2013 theme of From Farm to Fork to Facebook.

Changes continue

Organizers were pleased with the turnout of 107, and saw quite a few first-timers, said Mandziuk.

Much has changed since that first conference, she said, noting advances in communications technology, and how computer hardware would have filled a granary back in 1986.

But farm women continue to recognize the importance of connecting with others, and this conference remains an important networking event, Mandziuk said. Organizers hope the ideas and resources gained at the conference continue to help women in their farm, family and community life, she added.

“I always say I hope they’ll take home one thing that they can use,” she said.

Chappell’s mom, Fran Dickenson of Waskada, hasn’t missed many conferences since the first in 1986, and says it’s because she always goes home with something valuable.

“I’m not really savvy with the computer, but I’m learning,” said Dickenson, who is also an active member of the Manitoba Women’s Institute.

“But when I come to these gatherings, there’s always something to take back to give to others. I’ll often say, ‘I found this out at the farm women’s conference,’ or, ‘I got that idea, or that pamphlet from there.’ That’s what I keep coming for.”

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Of the sales that were held at Winnipeg, Brandon, Virden and Grunthal, volumes were varied, ranging from as little as 275 cattle to as many as 904.

Marketings are slowing down because farmers in Manitoba are focusing more on finishing seeding and doing field work. According to the June 3 crop report from Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives, seeding progress was about 80 to 95 per cent complete across the province.

The auction yards that were closed, including Ste. Rose, Ashern, Killarney and Gladstone are preparing to shut down for the summer. See the summer schedule table for upcoming sale dates.

Activity is expected to be on the quieter side until the fall, with only four auction marts staying open throughout the summer months, and not necessarily holding sales every week. Most of those auction yards will attempt to hold weekly sales, though if numbers are too small they will cancel.

The feeder cattle that came on to the market during the week were selling for slightly stronger prices compared to the week prior.

Harold Unrau, of Grunthal Livestock Auction Mart, noted the strength in prices was due to better-quality cattle coming on to the market compared to the week prior.

All of the buying in Grunthal came from local buyers, as they were purchasing grass cattle now that they’re able to put them out to pasture.

“Grass is growing and we’ve had some good moisture here this spring,” said Unrau.

There was likely routine eastern and western demand seen at other auction yards in Manitoba, as well as some demand from the U.S. However, U.S. buyers are being cautious, as issues surrounding mandatory country-of-origin labelling (COOL) in the U.S. are still unresolved.

Unrau expects prices will continue to be steady to strong throughout the summer, and noted buying should remain steady.

“I think prices will stay steady until we have some new crop in, and then I think they’ll probably climb,” he said. “But it depends on the crop.”

So far, planting has been delayed for the new crops in Western Canada, which could mean later harvests, but yields and quality will depend on the weather throughout the growing season.

Saskatchewan has managed to catch up to its average planting pace, while Manitoba and Alberta were almost done as of early June.

Because the crops were planted a bit later, it was hotter, therefore some plants managed to emerge at the normal time as well. Crops also benefited from timely rains in the early part of the growing season.

If crop progress continues smoothly, there will be more feed supplies around in Western Canada in the fall, which will help relieve the tight supply situation and therefore take some pressure off cattle markets in Manitoba.

Prices on the slaughter side of the market were steady during the week, with continued support coming from strong demand as grilling season is well underway in North America.

Slaughter cattle numbers were starting to drop off at some auction yards and should continue that trend throughout the summer.

Trader assets frozen by U.S. court

U.S. regulators have obtained a court order freezing the assets of a Thailand-based trader, saying he reaped $3.2 million in illegal profits after getting a tip ahead of the announcement that a Chinese meat company was buying Smithfield Foods Inc.

The Securities and Exchange Commission said Badin Rungruangnavarat, 30, may have received the tip from a Facebook friend.

Shuanghui International Holdings, China’s largest meat processor, said last week it was buying U.S. pork producer Smithfield for $4.7 billion.

The agency said the friend is an associate director at a Thai investment bank that was advising a Shuanghui rival, Charoen Pokphand Foods Plc, which was also exploring a bid for Smithfield.

The SEC said Rungruangnavarat reaped $3.2 million in profits by trading Smithfield “out of the money” call options and single-stock futures in an account at Interactive Brokers LLC shortly before the announcement.

“Rungruangnavarat essentially cornered the market in Smithfield call options and futures contracts,” the SEC said in the complaint.

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