CRTC intends to invest over $750 million to support this initiative. In spite of the lack of details contained in the announcement, in terms of future costs for Canadians and businesses, it spells good news for Canadian agriculture and consumers alike.

Let’s face it: most Canadians take the Internet for granted. Being connected has become second nature for most of us. As an example, most knew the minute that George Michael or Carrie Fisher had passed on, even though it occurred during the holidays when many are not connected. You only need to experience a complete sense of disconnectedness once in order to really appreciate how important high-speed Internet is to modern living. In remote areas, the Internet can get choppy, simply due to high winds. Even precipitation can slow the Internet down to a point where work becomes impossible.

The CRTC’s focus on broadband Internet access comes at the right time. In agriculture, things will get much more interesting as getting sound data in real time will play a significant part in most farming businesses. In an era in which Donald Trump’s most outlandish message on Twitter can move markets in seconds, farmers need the proper information tools in order to keep up.

Rurality, of course, makes closing distances a challenge, which in turn makes communication critical. Therefore, the need for better and more efficient communication through a reliable network becomes obvious. For meetings, sharing data and most important, for anticipating unpredictable effects like climate change, access to data underlies almost every business decision. Crop prices and futures are also key information points for farmers who want to make their operations more sustainable.

The “Internet of Things” is an increasingly promising concept for a growing number of farmers, allowing them to anticipate the future before it happens. With devices like wireless sensor networks, network-connected weather stations, high-tech cameras and smartphones, farmers can obtain an impressive amount of environmental and crop performance data, collected by field sensors and cameras, and accumulated by human observations, which have been recorded via mobile smartphone applications. Triangulating data is what it’s all about. Farmers can analyze the data they have, filter out worthless data and compute personalized crop recommendations for any specific farm and commodities. But without proper, affordable bandwidth, all of this can be at best a very painstaking process.

Farmers are no longer rustic labourers on tractors. Things have changed. Given that Canada is losing farms at a yearly rate of seven per cent to nine per cent, agricultural operations have got larger — much larger — and smarter as well. With precision agriculture, resources are managed more sustainably, which lowers the carbon footprint of farms. Adapting production input based on localized needs for each individual animal allows better use of resources to maintain the quality of the environment, while improving the sustainability of the food supply.

This is what is happening already. What is not happening enough, however, is any systematic attempt to appreciate how more efficient Canadian farms could contribute meaningfully to global food systems, and increase profitability for the sector. Better Internet capacity can only help in this regard.

Canadian consumers will also gain on many levels. First off, allowing rural Canada to connect with the rest of the world would help urbanites better understand agriculture. This could potentially be the most significant contribution from the CRTC’s decision. Farmers will gain access to more data, but so could city dwellers. The great rural-urban divide could be narrowed, thus allowing citizens from both socio-economic segments of our nation to understand each other better.

Over the last century or so, public discourse around how we support agriculture in Canada has mostly been fuelled by misconceptions and confusion. We have seen interest groups repeatedly use ignorance as a weapon to serve their constituents. Data-driven debates can only bring farmers closer to people’s kitchen tables. In other words, better virtual connectivity could potentially lead to better agri-food policies in Canada.

What is more, Canada has almost 200,000 farms, many of which are still hobby farms. With access to broadband Internet service, it could become possible to operate small-scale farms more efficiently, thanks to better market access and perhaps in turn creating more variety for Canadians looking for locally grown products.

One day, expectations in grocery stores and in restaurants could be more aligned with how limiting agriculture can be at times. This may be a pipe dream, but if access to broadband Internet service can only accomplish half of what it is capable of, Canada will gain. However, we can only hope this access is affordable for farmers to use.

The post Wiring the farm for the Information Age appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

From satellite imagery and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs or drones) to smartphone apps, there are plenty of tools out there. Just don’t expect them to replace boots on the ground any time soon.

The limitation of current remote-sensing technology, such as satellite and aerial imagery, is that it can only detect variability in the field. The cause of that variability still has to be ground truthed using traditional scouting methods such as visual inspections, soil and tissue samples, and still relies heavily on the wisdom and experience of the person doing the scouting.

“The challenge isn’t collecting the data but the interpretation,” said Dr. Ignacio Ciampitti, crop production specialist with Kansas State University during his presentation to the Manitoba Agronomists Conference (MAC) in Winnipeg last week. “We are not removed from the system. All these technologies are tools, but we need people, they are the thinkers who will go back to the field and decide where the problem is coming from.”

Ciampitti showed images of a winter wheat field from a drone flown at low altitude to give a reasonably high-resolution image and create a normalized difference vegetative index (NDVI) map that showed weeds growing outside the rows. “But we can’t identify the weed species – it will need a person to go out in the field to do that,” says Ciampitti.

One of the biggest problems farmers face today is that they have too much information, added Ciampitti.

“We have a responsibility to simplify and integrate the data, and develop that into tools so advisors and farmers can start taking action,” he said.

UAVs are a relatively new technology in agriculture, and because they can fly at low altitudes, they can provide a much higher-resolution image of an area of concern in the field than a satellite can, which is why they are so useful to researchers, who are assessing many potential uses for the technology. Research is being conducted into using UAVs for weed identification, yield estimates, measuring herbicide drift, detecting plant height and crop uniformity, measuring canopy temperature and making replanting decisions, as well as detecting crop stress and pests.

As more of the information that UAVs collect is integrated with the information coming from other sources, such as traditional scouting, soil data, pest-detection networks and forecast maps and provincial databases of insects, weeds and diseases, they will become a better diagnostic tool for producers.

Center Field Solutions, an Alberta company, does a lot of on-farm research using various technologies like yield mapping, and UAVs.

“Our clients are good scouts too,” said Kelly Boles, owner and president of the company, in a panel discussion at MAC.

“They know the history of their fields, they have the expertise, and we are trying to channel a strategy, and work with them and industry to come up with really good solutions in-field,” said Boles, who added the biggest challenge is processing and analysing the huge amount of data they collect to provide an outcome for their clients.

Real-time agronomy

Boles said he believes the most important technological advancement in scouting is connectivity in the field via mobile devices such as smartphones, laptops and tablets. “To be able to document and use apps in the field in real time is huge and it’s sped things up for us,” he said. “We can tweet or Google a picture and it’s amazing how quick the interaction is. It’s pretty exciting how we can evolve these tools.”

More and more agronomists are going paperless, using mobile devices to take scouting pictures and correlate zone maps and soil and tissue sample data using apps to create reports for their clients about crop seeding, fertility and spraying decisions.

CropPro Consulting in Saskatchewan has six trucks on the road with specialized mapping equipment including computers, autosteer and a battery powered, in-field soil sampling unit, which uses GPS positioning and an automatic probe to collect soil samples. “We are fully connected in the sense that our agronomists can use our app in the field on any mobile device to do recommendations and scouting,” says Cory Willness, CropPro president. “Within each field we have maps of everything that farmers can load up on their Smartphone – electrical conductivity maps, elevation, flow accumulations, drainage files, anything they want.”

Around 60 per cent of agronomists and close to 50 per cent of Ontario producers are using apps to make management decisions on their farms according to an Ontario-based survey. It’s likely many them are using Pest Manager – a free app launched in 2015 with funding provided by the Grain Farmers of Ontario. Pest Manager helps producers identify weeds, insects and diseases right in the field, and suggests options to manage or control them. Ontario provincial weed specialist, Mike Cowbrough demonstrated the app’s key features to agronomists and advisors attending MAC, including the interactive pest identification key. Users filter according to crop type and choose from menus of different taxonomic traits about the pest or weed species – or the symptoms of diseases – that they are looking at in their field. The app identifies it and offers a menu of control options that can also be filtered by different variables i.e. crop system (GMO, non-GMO or organic), application timing, crop stage and the presence of herbicide-resistant weeds. It contains economic thresholds and also offers information about natural enemies of problem pests that may be present. Pest Manager also has an extensive pest library with Frequently asked questions, which is its most used feature. The app is updated in real time with the latest information about new products or emerging pest issues.

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But modern eyes instantly recognize a different symbol — a ‘QR code,’ those tiny blocks of black and white squares are for scanning with smartphones to learn something.

Those codes will soon be affixed to cemetery gates and kiosks throughout the RM of Dufferin, as a way for visitors to link to a new online guide. It will help them know not just what those symbols mean, but will bring to life many stories these sites tell, say its creators.

The Carman/Dufferin Municipal Heritage Committee has just posted its digital guide to nine local cemeteries, some dating to the late 1890s.

The QR code will help people visiting these sites digitally dig into the history of these places, say its creators.

The inspiration for their project was A Guide to Funerary Art in Manitoba, explains MHAC member Ina Bramadat. It was developed by architectural historian David Butterfield, now retired from the provincial Historic Resources Branch, where he documents the shapes, styles, symbolic meanings and materials used for tombstones in cemeteries he visited throughout Manitoba.

Bramadat was instantly intrigued when she saw it.

“I thought, ‘Isn’t this wonderful. These are things I never knew about,’” she said. “And then I thought, ‘Suppose we adapt it and do a little more with it in our own area.’”

Their finished guide includes a map to locate each of the public cemeteries, plus links to helping understand the grave markers and designs of each, and a glossary explaining traditional symbolic meaning of engravings on headstones.

The largest cemetery in the guide is the Greenwood Cemetery in Carman, described in the guide as “a time capsule of local heritage.” It encourages visitors to look more closely at the layout and craftsmanship of the site, as well as the changing trends and styles of the tombstones over time.

Some of the near-forgotten cemeteries in the guide include the tiny Îlets de Bois cemetery where some 100 burials took place when it served a Métis community here in the early 1800s. Another small cemetery is the Broad Valley cemetery, where Mennonites settled in the mid-1920s. Many of the 21 headstones there mark the graves of young children.

The guide also cites five abandoned burial sites in the RM too. These are located on private property and not accessible to the public.

The MHAC committee members say they hope this inspires more people to visit their local cemeteries and be able “see” so much more in them.

“It brings the history out,” says Nedra Burnett, chair of the group.

The guide also links to Butterfield’s funerary art guide.

He put it together because he was fascinated with cemeteries, and the shapes and styles and symbols on headstones.

Communities’ cemeteries highlight so many compelling stories of our past and can help us learn more about what was important to our Victorian- and Edwardian-era predecessors, he said.

They also reflect changing sensibilities. Headstones engravings have become much more personalized over time, he notes. Nowadays you may see images like tractors or a favourite pet or a meaningful saying on them.

What the Carman/Dufferin group has done is find an excellent way to share its communities’ histories and make them much more accessible to the public, Butterfield said.

“It’s a model for how other communities can get local people, local kids, visitors, people who have relatives there into the community and appreciate these places,” he said.

“These smaller rural ones… you can spend an hour wandering through and it’s just so interesting to explore these places and get a sense of what was kind of going on in these people’s minds 100 years ago.”

A Guide to Funerary Art in Manitoba notes more than 30,000 cemeteries in the province, according to the Manitoba Genealogical Society. Most are small plots containing the remains of a single pioneer family. At least 1,000 are large enough to sustain a high level of community interest.

Helpful links

Carman/Dufferin Cemeteries: A Guide to the Location, History, Art & Craft of Local Cemeteries

A Guide to Funerary Art in Manitoba

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In recent televised remarks, Jean-Pierre Blais said the necessity of broadband Internet access was a “self-evident truth,” shifting the focus of the current review of basic telecommunications services from proving the need for basic telecommunication, to examining how they can be delivered.

“That’s huge,” said Wayne Anderson, speaking by phone from the small island of cellular service that exists around the town of Piney. Anderson, who represents the Rural Municipality of Piney as reeve, and others lobbied hard for years to get service in the town site. They’re continuing to work with the Association of Manitoba Municipalities to bring cellular service to the southeast corner of the province.

“We had put forth a resolution to have the CRTC lobbied to make it an essential service, because it is an essential service,” he said.

In the spring of 2012 the need for better telecommunications was starkly illustrated, as massive wildfires across the rural municipalities of Piney and Stuartburn made communication both imperative and impossible.

“When we had those fires… emergency services lost radio contact and we have no cell service, then we had water bombers coming in, and it was just a fiasco,” said Anderson.

Accessing high-speed Internet is also challenging and expensive, if not impossible, in rural and northern areas of the province.

“We do have some MTS high-speed Internet in a couple of small hamlets, but it does not reach into the country at all and it’s very spotty. We had one Internet provider come by some years back and put up tiny towers, which don’t work very well,” Anderson said.

At the Keystone Agricultural Producers annual general meeting this winter, two of the resolutions put forward by members concerned telecommunications, expressing a desire for better cellular service as well as high-speed Internet access.

“It’s really good they are addressing this,” said Dan Mazier, KAP president. “Because our request is to have 25 megabits of service to all of Canada by the year 2020. Right now we are sitting around five or 10 megabits. You can get 12 or 15 through some service providers in rural Manitoba, but it is very, very expensive.”

Whether on their smartphones, a laptop or a desktop, Mazier said producers today rely on the Internet to run their businesses. Information, sales, purchases, regulations, program applications and more are all handled electronically, with data-heavy farming playing an increasingly important role in efficient production practices.

“I can do this job so much better now with Internet, with cell service,” Mazier said.

And then there is the safety aspect.

“There is a lot of hours, even on a large modern farm, where you or your employees are working by themselves, so that whole necessity to monitor and make sure everyone is looked after is more prevalent that ever,” said Mazier.

For Anderson, who operates an emergency tow truck, safety is also paramount when it comes to having cellular service.

“A lot of time I have customers who are stranded for long periods of time, and they are trying to use their cellphones, but there is no service like they are used to having in Winnipeg,” he said.

Neither Mazier or Anderson buy the argument that rural telecommunications can only be justified with a business plan, stressing the essential nature of the services.

MTS tells us it does not want to do anything about it, because it does not make business sense to provide phone service out there, that there are not enough customers to sign up is what it is saying,” explained Anderson. “But we don’t think that’s a fair yardstick. The yardstick should be things like safety. There are a lot of customers driving through the area who need service too.”

Mazier believes the ultimate responsibility lies with the federal government and regulatory bodies, like the CRTC.

“Government should have a set of rules to let business know that this is what will be provided, rather than you live in an urban centre or a rural or remote centre. It needs to say to the companies, you need to provide the same service across Canada, we don’t care how you do it, you figure it out, but the service has to be there if you want a licence,” said Mazier. “There is no reason why we can’t get service all over Manitoba. I mean to live in a modern-day society, we need access to these kinds of services.”

The findings of the CRTC’s review of basic telecom services are expected to be released later this year.

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“For the money, that $500 phone that you carry in your pocket probably has the highest rate of return of anything you have on the farm,” said Gredig, a partner in AgNition, a company that specializes in emerging technologies and mobile applications.

“I think the biggest challenge is to try and understand all of the things your phone can do. Most of us are using eight, 10, or 12 per cent of what our phones can actually do,” Gredig told Farm Credit Canada’s Ag Outlook here Feb. 7.

Gredig says being open minded and willing to try is the first step in harnessing the value that lies in today’s tech devices.

“Attitude is everything. It is really about identifying what the problems are that you are trying to solve and then looking for the technology to solve it,” he said.

He suggests looking to the younger generation for inspiration when exploring your device.

“If there is a 14-year-old kid or grandkid in the family, they are the experts and they can teach us. When you go to buy a phone, I really advocate that you buy them the exact same one,” said Gredig. “They are amazing on these things.”

He pointed out a number of basic mobile device features go underutilized on today’s farms and explained that producers could specifically benefit from transitioning from phone calls to video calling.

“Something breaks in the field on the cultivator or you have an employee who is encountering something, what do we do? — we call,” he said. “A 14-year-old kid doesn’t call. They Facetime or Skype, where you can hear and see and it’s free. So why aren’t we using this? Why aren’t we doing that with our mechanics, agronomist, veterinarians?”

Try non-ag apps

When exploring the app world, Gredig advises keeping in mind that there are a number that would be useful on the farm that aren’t ag specific.

“A lot of the technologies that will work for us were not designed for us. I have an app that I use called Sign Easy, and it is a big deal for me when I found it. Every time I sell grain, the elevator sends me an email with a PDF file. Before, I would go home, print off the PDF, sign it, scan it and email it back,” said Gredig. “Now I have this Sign Easy app and I can do all of that on my phone in 15 seconds.”

He also suggests looking at Field Manager Pro, which allows you to do field record-keeping, and Ag Expert for tracking spending.

“If you are in Canadian Tire and you make a purchase, you can take a picture of the receipt and it will go to your cloud and to your desktop. No more spending time in the office doing those tasks,” said Gredig.

Data collection

Gredig cautions producers of getting involved in too many devices and creating a data avalanche.

“I won’t discourage you from gathering data but I would say, know why you are collecting it and make sure there is a benefit.”

He warns of getting caught up in the hype of a product without finding real value in what it provides.

“It isn’t about buying something that is cool. It is more about identifying problems and finding what can help solve them,” said Gredig. “It is easy to get caught up in the hype. But, we need to be thinking about where the value is.”

The post Getting into the mobile mindset appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Today’s mobile technology is a perfect fit for farmers. The ability to access business and agronomic resources while on the move has enabled producers to spend more time in the field and less time in the office chair.

“A lot of these mobile tools were not created for the ag industry but it’s up to us to be thinking, how we can use this for our purposes,” said Peter Gredig, as he addressed an audience during a seminar on the use of mobile technology.

Gredig is a mobile technology specialist from AgNition Inc., a Canadian company dedicated to producing mobile technology for the agriculture industry.

“This technology has really evolved and it doesn’t matter what you have — iPhone, Android, or BlackBerry — it’s how you use it. All of these devices are amazing tools and it is up to us to figure out how we can best use them in our operations.”

Along with discussing a number of the latest apps geared toward the industry, Gredig spoke on how to get more from your smartdevice and different functions the technology can perform that save farmers time.

“A tablet is so much more useful than all of those monitors in tractor cabs. Fairly recently, ag companies have started moving away from selling in-cab monitors to rather utilize producers’ tablets and smartphones as the monitors.”

Even without downloading additional applications, Gredig notes that these devices come with a number of gadgets that are handy to farmers in the field, such as the flashlight, protractor, compass, speedometer and level.

“Many of us still think of these devices as phones that can do other things, whereas in reality they are incredible mobile tool boxes that include a phone. The industry certainly needs to be aware of and understand the power of real-time audio and video communication.

“If you don’t use these video communication apps, you are really missing the boat. Say you have something in your field that you see and you don’t know what to do about it. Sure, you can take a picture, GPS the location and email it but you could also video-call your agronomist,” said Gredig, suggesting use of the Facetime and Skype apps.

“If you were to Facetime your agronomist, they would be able to see exactly what you are dealing with at that moment. As an industry, we need to start doing this.”

Many of these modern-day devices also offer voice recognition or Bluetooth software. Employing these features on your device can be a time saver and increase your safety.

“When we look back at the advancement of this technology, it is not going to be these cool little apps that make life easier for us, it is going to be how we gather our data, store and manage it,” said Gredig.

According to Gredig, the real valuable feature of mobile technology is in the use of Cloud computing‚ — the practice of using a network of remote servers hosted on the Internet to store, manage and process data — rather than a local server or personal computer.

Gredig relates the Cloud to a virtual filing cabinet that allows you to store data on the Internet and access it with the security of a password.

“The liberation and freedom of the Cloud means that you don’t worry about the basement flooding, a fire or hard drive crashes, because as you are generating data it is wirelessly and immediately being stored.”

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Maybe, but probably not with the same zeal, says Michael Luke, chair of the eastern Manitoba town’s library board.

Now faced with circulation declines, including a recent double-digit drop in books checked out, he’s begun to wonder what’s ahead for small-town libraries such as theirs.

Pinawa residents borrow about one-third fewer books than 15 years ago, but a sudden stark decline last year caught everyone’s attention, Luke told the Manitoba Libraries Conference held in Winnipeg in May.

“Our circulation dropped 17 per cent in a single year,” he said.

So far, 2014 isn’t looking like a repeat, but the sudden decline has made them ask what’s going on.

They speculate that people are reading less, or buying more books than they borrow as cheap books are becoming more widely available.

More likely it’s a combination of those factors plus the uptick of e-book borrowing, either through e-libraries or purchasing online, to be read on high-tech gadgets at home, Luke said.

“I think that’s really beginning to bite now,” he said in a presentation that raised questions about how small-town libraries can adapt in the digital age.

Not long ago the library without the book was an absurdity, but with Kindles, Kobos and iPads and smartphones putting reading materials instantly at our fingertips, the prospect of the book without the library is at least a possibility.

“The library currently still attracts the public who will come in and sit down and read,” said Luke. “But I think that attractiveness is fading because you can also do that from your own home. You can sit down with your tablet or your smartphone and dial up the same kinds of things yourself.”

• More Country Crossroads: The iconic Irma Harding returns

Print still stable

The growth of e-book borrowing from public libraries has been phenomenal, while print book circulation in libraries across the rest of Manitoba (excluding Winnipeg) is seen as stable, say staff with Public Library Services, based in Brandon.

In 2013 the combined circulation of 59 public libraries (excluding Winnipeg) print books (children and adult) was 2,260,594, or about 200,000 fewer books than in 2008.

By contrast, borrowings through E-Libraries Manitoba has skyrocketed from 3,918 in 2008 to 169,007 in 2013.

“I think there’s definitely a shift going on there,” said Will Enns, library program consultant with Public Library Services. “It’s taken the public awhile to catch on to the e-lending service but the growth is incredible.”

But Enns also points out that even as people aren’t checking out as many books as they used to, traffic through library doors remains steady. Their “gate count” numbers show over 4.4 million Manitobans visited public libraries outside Winnipeg last year.

“Circulation is not the only performance indicator of a library,” said Enns, adding that people often come to libraries because they’re WiFi hot spots, or for computer and Internet access, and the availability of specialized electronic services such as Mango, Manitoba libraries’ online database to learn English or other languages.

Other uses

The public library is also one of the last public spaces in the community without a commercial agenda, said others at the libraries conference last month. Libraries are also used for toy-lending programs, music nights, art displays and writers’ workshops.

Pinawa is trying new things too, says Luke, who sees an opportunity ahead for libraries to encourage more local authorship through offerings of writers’ workshops and providing resources to help people get published.

But he also believes we’re only on the cusp of a trend started by the uptake of smartphones and tablets. If the trends continue, what happens to local libraries is an open question, he said.

“I think if people become generally disinterested in (physical) books, or a smaller and smaller number of people are, then I think it will be harder and harder to justify the funding that flows to the libraries,” Luke said.

Tailoring e-book collections to local interests may be one route, but maintaining a physical presence as a library depends on people remaining interested in physical books as well, he said.

“I think we’re faced with some very serious challenges,” he said, adding that the small town’s resource-limited libraries will be particularly challenged.

“The question I’m struggling with is what is the function of a local physical presence, if, say 60 or 70 or so per cent (of book loans) becomes e-book reading,” he said.

“Our only role could be as simple as handing out library memberships and choosing some e-books to be hosted by E-Libraries Manitoba. That’s not a big role.”

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“It’s really about what works for you,” said Peter Gredig, of Kettle Creek Communications and AgNition Inc. “It’s about communicating as best as you can.”

And while there may be a temptation to dismiss the technology used by your kids and grandkids to send selfies and photos of things they’re about to eat to the World Wide Web, Gredig urged producers at the recent CropConnect Conference in Winnipeg to step back and think outside the box.

The most valuable aspect of today’s smartphones and tablets? The ability to communicate in real time with audio and video.

“We think that’s not for us… but you talk to young mechanics and say, can I FaceTime you next time I have a problem in the field? And they’ll say, yes,” Gredig said. “And you’ll feel silly the first time you do it, but five minutes in you’re going to think, what, I was going to drive there? I was going to call, have them come out? I don’t think so.”

Rather than try and explain what a strange noise sounds like, or drive one farm over to see if a new employee has a seed drill properly set, Gredig said the right technology can save time, money and frustration.

But perhaps the biggest advantage provided by today’s digital devices is the ability to access copious amounts of information, without being tied to the hard copy of days past, the app developer said.

“Where I see the power is that we’ve been spending 20, 30 years gathering research, we have fact sheets, we have manuals, we have books, best management practices — where are they? They’re back in the room with the chair and the box, they need to be where we need them — in the field,” Gredig said.

From the Country Guide website: Farming the cloud

Crop scouting in particular can benefit from having information, and better yet, detailed images, available at the swipe of a finger, he added.

And the number of tools and apps available for crop scouting is growing.

“There is going to be a huge groundswell in the amount of apps that are going to be available to you, they are coming fast and furious now,” he said.

Even keeping track of day-to-day information should be streamlined by effective technology use.

“The world where I write in a notebook what I did today, then I go home and six to eight weeks later, or maybe never, I put it into my software, should not be. This should be over and we are getting there,” Gredig said. “The biggest future benefit I see to this is ending the chore of data entry, this should free us.”

While steering clear of recommending particular brands, Gredig said he finds the combination of a smartphone and tablet most effective, adding it allows access to portable communication as well as a larger screen for reading and viewing content like videos or charts.

But it doesn’t come cheap, expect to pay roughly $600 per device, he said.

“But if you can tell me of other investments in agriculture that we can make for around $1,000 that have an impact as these two tools, they don’t exist in my opinion,” said the developer.

He advised doing some homework before making a purchase. Any device you buy should be compatible with the programs and apps you want to use, and fit requirements like adequate battery life.

“There was a time 15 years ago when I would have told you that you were a CEO, farm manager, so be in the office… today I say get out of it,” Gredig said. “We have to get out of that mindset.”

shannon.vanraes@fbcpublishing.com

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University of Alberta researchers David Mitlin and post-doctoral fellow Zhi Li have developed a fast-charging supercapacitor using eggshell membranes — a plentiful egg industry byproduct.

“We sell the liquid egg whites and the yoke to food processors, and we have no use for the eggshells,” said Li. “But we have the technology to separate the eggshell membranes from the physical hard shell.”

The membranes have a unique structure that allows them to hold three times the electrical charge of a battery, making them ideal for use as a supercapacitor.

“It’s similar to a battery because it stores energy, but it’s different from a battery because it can charge very quickly,” said Li. “You can charge it in 30 seconds or, in some cases, even five seconds. That’s impossible for a battery.”

And like a battery, these egg-powered supercapacitors can be used in electronics, vehicles, and yes, even smartphones.

“If you have an iPhone, your battery is dying in one year or two years, but if you have a supercapacitor, it will probably last you more than 10 years,” he said. “That’s amazing for some applications.”

If it all works out, it’ll be great news for egg farmers, too, said Jenna Griffin, industry development officer for the Egg Farmers of Alberta.

“The market for shell eggs has been declining over the years,” she said. “There’s been a trend toward more processed and liquid egg products.”

While there are some low-value markets for eggshells, many processors simply send them to the landfill. But making batteries could use a fair number of them.

“If you do some back-of-the-envelope numbers, you can see the practicality of what they’re doing,” said Griffin. “There’s somewhere between 150 million to 200 million dozen eggs broken in Canada, and from that byproduct, they can make about seven million batteries.”

Every year, supercapacitor production in the world nearly doubles to meet the growing demand for better power sources. But this is the first supercapacitor built using eggshell membranes, said Li.

“There is a market for supercapacitors, and there are supercapacitors available,” said Li. “But there is no commercial capacitor available utilizing this kind of functionality.”

While Mitlin and Li have not yet commercialized their findings, they said they hope to scale up production as funding becomes available. Until then, Li will continue exploring the energy potential of other agricultural products and byproducts.

“There’s tons of biomass grown by farms or farmers, and each of them has a special structure,” he said. “Eggshells are just an example. There’s lots of things we’re interested in that are grown by farms or farmers.”

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Last week’s provincial budget holds the farmland education tax rebate at 80 per cent, while introducing a new $5,000 cap to limit rebate expenditures, which came in at $34.5 million in 2012.

“With land values going up, there was $4.5 million in additional costs to sustain the program,” said Ron Kostyshyn, minister of Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives (MAFRI).

His department’s budget will drop to $214.6 million, a 5.4 per cent cut.

“We’ve had to make some tough decisions,” said Kostyshyn, saying flood costs are a significant financial challenge for the provincial government.

Some spending cuts have already hit, with several regional offices being consolidated immediately after the move was announced April 11. They include the closures of regional offices at Neepawa, Treherne, Stonewall, Shoal Lake and Boissevain.

Farmers who had used the Treherne office will now be directed to Somerset, where Treherne staff will now work, and to Portage la Prairie. Stonewall office staff have been moved to the Teulon office, and farmers from the Stonewall area can go there or to Beausejour. Meanwhile with the Neepawa office merged with Minnedosa’s, farmers can go there or to offices in Carberry and Gladstone. As well, Shoal Lake will move to the Russell office, and service provided from there, Minnedosa or Hamiota, while service formerly provided in Boissevain will be provided from Killarney, Melita, Souris and Brandon.

The closures didn’t come as a surprise to Doug Chorney, president of Keystone Agricultural Producers.

“We have to face the reality that extension services are changing and the way farmers access those services is changing, with smartphones and the Internet,” said Chorney. “Young people don’t go to their local ag office the way they did 25 years ago.”

What’s important is that extension services remain available to producers who rely on them, he said.

However, the government’s decision to hold off on increasing the farmland education tax rebate didn’t sit well with the KAP leader.

The removal of school taxes from farmland was a promise made by the NDP in the 2011 provincial election, and Chorney said the $5,000 cap will put larger farms at a disadvantage.

“I don’t think a flawed tax system should be able to discriminate on farm size, I think all farms should be able to access the rebate in proportionate ways… it just doesn’t make sense,” he said, adding his organization will continue to push the government to keep its promise.

The cap takes effect in the 2013 tax year and is expected to save the province $6.2 million in 2013-14.

Also for the 2013 tax year, applications for the rebate for a given tax year must be filed no later than March 31 of the following year, the province said. Applications related to the 2011 and 2012 property tax years have until March 31, 2014 to apply for the rebate for those years.

The April 16 budget also expanded the province’s 10 per cent non-refundable corporate income tax credit on odour-control investments.

Set up in 2004, the tax credit is available for capital expenditures “for the purpose of preventing, eliminating or significantly reducing nuisance odours arising from the use or production of organic waste.”

The credit had been made refundable for farmers, based on income tax and on property tax on farmland paid by the farmer. However, the budget eliminates the cap, making it fully refundable to farmers — both individuals and corporations — on qualifying property purchased after 2012.

But funding for the jointly funded federal-provincial Manure Management Financial Assistance Program is being reduced from $8.5 million in 2012 to $3.6 million this year.

Kostyshyn said the move results from a lack of uptake in the program.

“It’s really not a cut, it’s a savings,” he said.

Overall, the budget projects a $518-million deficit for 2013-14, a drop of $65 million from the fiscal year that just ended. A one per cent increase to the provincial sales tax is forecast to more than cover increased spending.

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