It’s something Darren Dinsmore, Labrador’s only beef farmer, hopes to change. Dinsmore, who grew up living and working on farms in Ontario, moved to Goose Bay with his wife Amanda in 2013. They bought a house with a farm property, and in addition to pastoring a local congregation, Dinsmore began to set up to raise cattle.

“When we started on this journey, we hoped to help address the food security issues in Labrador,” says Dinsmore. “There was nowhere to process livestock and it felt like a catch-22. Someone had to go first, so I decided it would be me.”

The Big Land

Dinsmore admits when he first heard about Labrador, the mainland portion of Newfoundland and Labrador, he had to look it up on a map. Labrador is commonly referred to as “the Big Land” for its untouched wilderness. It is isolated, even by rural farming standards.

“Labrador is a remote place, and our geography naturally bars us off from the rest of Canada,” says Dinsmore. “There is only one road in and out of this part of the province, and it’s where all of our food comes from.”

The drive from Nova Scotia to Goose Bay takes more than 25 hours. Dinsmore transported his first three cows and nine calves in a 26-foot trailer. It was a gruelling drive through a primarily isolated land — a trip that he wouldn’t want to repeat. Today, he has 23 head of cattle, Highland and Angus.

For Dinsmore, the push for an abattoir is a push for food security in a region that has few options for locally produced food. An abattoir, vegetable processing and vegetable storage are basic foundations that would go a long way in supporting a local food economy.

“With an abattoir, farmers will be able to produce their own livestock and sell their own meats. And with livestock, we could produce manure — a hugely valuable resource for farmers because the cost of bringing granular fertilizer to Labrador is exorbitant,” says Dinsmore.

He says he has heard from local farmers who say they would be interested in raising beef or pork or lamb — even chicken and duck — if they had an abattoir nearby.

“All we need is infrastructure to kick-start an agricultural industry,” he says.

Forage farming

There is no feed store and no place to restock common farm supplies. The closest veterinarian flies up from Newfoundland once a year.

“We have had to bring feed in, but that’s quickly changing,” says Dinsmore. “Highlands take more time to mature, and that was a bit of grace for us in the beginning.”

Another grace, Dinsmore says, is the availability of Crown land for agricultural lease. He has 45 acres of forage in production, and in 2023 he fenced 25 acres for pasture. He plans to cut hay on a neighbour’s property in 2024, and he has applied to lease another 900 acres.

“I’m sure (the government) is wondering why in the world I need so much land, but if they only understood how long it takes to develop farmland up here,” Dinsmore says.

He estimates it will take at least two or three growing seasons to get a good stand of hay on new ground. Recent experience with soil amendment trials using peat and cow manure proved successful, with the grass returning the following year. The land beside the trial plot is still bare sand.

“It goes to show the better preparation you put into this groundwork, the greater your returns,” he says. “Next summer I hope for more rotational grazing, and I’m working toward feeding my herd for three or four months on pasture.”

Abattoir progress

Currently, Dinsmore’s only option for processing his livestock is a 12-hour journey by road and ferry, to the island of Newfoundland. It’s a difficult trip he doesn’t plan to make, but it means that five years in, he still can’t sell beef.

“We’ve been paying for the growth of our herd for five years without any return,” Dinsmore says. “I think as farmers, especially farmers in a small community, we think, ‘Let’s just keep working as hard as possible and it will get better.’ But the cost of production is just too high. Someday, we want to be competitive, and lower food prices, but we can’t do that without infrastructure.”

Dinsmore had some luck with an Angus-cross bull calf born on the farm a couple of years ago, and he hopes to breed him in 2024. Eventually, he hopes to build up to 80 head in his livestock facility, a number he acknowledges is small in relation to larger regions.

“We’ve found Angus-cross grow twice as fast as Highlands and twice as big, and they are mild-tempered,” Dinsmore says. “I’d like to see if we can get some more genetics in the short term.”

Before bringing his cows in, Dinsmore worked in the meat department at a local grocery store, as a wrapper and then a meat cutter. It was a valuable experience, which Dinsmore believed would set him up to someday own an abattoir. In 2022, he began the environmental assessment process for an abattoir.

“Now we have all of the government approvals in place. The only thing I would still need is a license to operate, and we certainly would love financial support from the government to build a small abattoir,” says Dinsmore.

In spring 2024, Dinsmore plans to scrape back the snow and build a small abattoir on his own.

“Our market research has shown that people want locally grown meats and we want to help them get there,” says Dinsmore. “I believe this project will be a catalyst for agricultural growth in Labrador.”

Opportunity in the North

There’s a new generation of local farmers who are hoping to restart their local agricultural association, an organization that died out six years ago. Dinsmore isn’t the only person who sees potential in Goose Bay.

“With the climate changing, and the North warming up, there’s a lot of land becoming available that previously wasn’t very useful for agricultural purposes,” says Dinsmore. “If Canada is going to have an impact on contributing food to the world, we need to farm more of the North.”

He says farming has taught him to be patient. There’s a lot of waiting. He can wait a little longer. It helps to keep his focus on the possibilities.

“I always try to be positive and remember we’re doing something that has never been done,” Dinsmore says. “When we start developing infrastructure, it will mean food security and jobs. It will be an opportunity to be good stewards of what has been given to us here. It just takes a lot of patience.” c

– Lisa McLean is a writer and issues management professional who has worked with agricultural groups for more than 15 years. She lives in Guelph, Ontario. You can find her on Twitter @lisammclean.

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Dr. Andrew Furey, who was sworn in Wednesday to replace Dwight Ball as premier, announced a new cabinet the same day for the province’s Liberal minority government.

Elvis Loveless, the rookie MHA for the southern Newfoundland riding of Fortune Bay-Cape La Hune, was named Wednesday as the new minister for fisheries, forestry and agriculture.

Furey’s announcement included the “realignment of a number of government departments,” with further details expected in “coming days.”

Agriculture until now has been an arm of the provincial fisheries and land resources department, and had previously been under the natural resources department’s oversight until 2015.

Loveless, originally from Seal Cove, had been active in provincial politics for years before recapturing Fortune Bay for the Liberals in last May’s election. He was named by Ball in June last year as parliamentary secretary to the minister of fisheries and land resources.

Gerry Byrne, the incumbent minister for fisheries and land resources since 2017, was named Wednesday as Furey’s minister for immigration, skills and labour and minister responsible for Workplace NL.

The Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of Agriculture on Wednesday tweeted congratulations for Loveless on the new post and said it “look(s) forward to working with you in the future,” while also thanking Byrne “for his support for the agriculture industry in N.L.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Thanks to longer summers, he has reaped three straight harvests. This spring he plans to sow canola on his family’s 450-acre farm near Whitehorse, a city not much further from the North Pole than from the heart of Canada’s crop belt in Saskatchewan.

“If you asked me five years ago if I would be growing wheat, I’d have laughed,” said Mackenzie-Grieve, 62, who harvested some 100 acres last year.

Canada’s average temperature over land has warmed by 1.7 C since 1948, with the north warming by 2.3 C, the government said in 2019.

More promising for Canada, one of the world’s top grain exporters, is that its frost-free season expanded by more than 20 days on average from 1948-2016, according to a 2018 paper by Environment Canada scientists.

Large-scale farming with quality harvests remains an elusive challenge in the far North, due to short summers and lack of infrastructure to store and transport commodities. But a warming climate makes crops possible in far-flung, isolated places.

Newfoundland and Labrador, with a tiny fraction of Canada’s arable land, plans to add farm area the size of Toronto, the nation’s largest city. The easternmost province has added 184 hectares (455 acres) of land for fruit and vegetable production since 2017, up nearly one-third, by converting public land to grow crops such as cabbages and cranberries.

It aims to produce 20 per cent of its own food by 2022 — double the existing rate — and has set aside 62,000 hectares for future farmland.

“Climate change will have a very negative climatic, social and economic impact on the province but there still may be some small offset gains by producing food,” provincial Fisheries and Land Resources Minister Gerry Byrne said in an interview.

Climate change has made Canada’s food prices “way more volatile” during the past five years, said Sylvain Charlebois, director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia. Prices of salad greens, for example, spiked due to droughts or excessive rains in California.

Canada ‘uniquely suited’

The warming trend has led Santosh Kumar, the scientist who leads Canada’s wheat-breeding program for the northern Prairies, to begin this year assessing test sites further north than ever before.

Kumar said Canada is “uniquely suited” to add arable land as it has a lot of permafrost, or ground frozen for at least two years straight, that could thaw and become available.

Russia and Canada have the greatest “frontier area” suitable for agriculture, with 4.3 million and 4.2 million square kilometres respectively, as early as 2060, based on temperature and moisture levels, though not soil suitability, scientific journal PLOS One said in a February paper. For Canada, that means a potential quadrupling of agricultural land.

Arable land made up 11 per cent of the world’s land mass in 2016, the most according to United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization records dating back to 1961. Canada’s arable land has dropped by nearly five per cent from a peak in 2001 to 43.8 million hectares.

Expansion in Canada would mean less destruction of the Amazon rainforest and other sensitive environments for farming, said Lenore Newman, associate professor of geography and the environment at University of the Fraser Valley.

But “hoping for some magical windfall from warming is wishful thinking,” as it is unknown how suitable boreal soils are for agriculture in the Northern Hemisphere, she added.

Expanding arable land can also hurt the environment as it releases carbon from the soil, the PLOS One paper said.

Obstacles to expanding agriculture

Whether farming in remote areas can be profitable is a key question, Kumar said. “Farmers don’t want to put something in the field just because it can grow.”

Chris Oram has cleared five acres of new arable land in Newfoundland in each of the last five years with a government subsidy. He grows modest volumes of corn and melons, covering young shoots in plastic in early spring to trap warmth because of unpredictable weather.

“It has been a bit hotter, but this year we never took a (corn) harvest because it was so cold and wet,” Oram said.

But there are limits to expanding farm production, as many vegetable growers in Newfoundland and Labrador have no access to cold storage that would allow them to supply grocers year-round.

Byrne’s department last month put out a call for “expressions of interest” to establish up to four regional co-op vegetable cold storage and packing facilities in separate regions of the province, with a deadline of April 30.

Having cold storage available would allow farmers to “extend their marketing periods, meet wholesaler requirements for consistent quality and supply and increase opportunities for secondary processing,” Melvin Rideout, president of the Newfoundland and Labrador Horticulture Producers Council, said in a release.

As for the Yukon, where Mackenzie-Grieve farms, much of the territory is too rocky for crops. Unlike southern Canadian farmers, he has no commercial grain handler to buy his wheat, so he blends it in livestock feed that he sells.

“It’s hard to do stuff here. We’re a long ways from anywhere. You just figure out how to make it work.”

— Reporting for Reuters by Rod Nickel in Winnipeg and Kelsey Johnson in Ottawa. Includes files from Glacier FarmMedia Network staff.

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Gerry Byrne, the Liberal MHA for Corner Brook since 2015 and the province’s minister of fisheries and land resources since 2017, held his riding on Thursday against Progressive Conservative challenger Tom Stewart by a spread of 754 votes.

Byrne, a former economic development officer, was a federal Liberal MP for 19 years before entering provincial politics. In Premier Dwight Ball’s cabinet Byrne had previously served as minister for advanced education and skills.

Jim Lester, who became the Tory MHA for Mount Pearl North in a byelection in 2017, kept his seat from Liberal challenger Nicole Kieley by a margin of 711 votes.

Lester, a Mount Pearl area farmer, was the Tories’ critic for lands and wildlife heading into the election, handling the agrifoods, forestry and Crown lands files, and critic for the Newfoundland and Labrador Housing Corporation.

Premier Dwight Ball’s Liberals lost 10 seats in Thursday’s election, ending the evening with 20, just one short of majority government status.

Ches Crosbie’s Tories held official opposition status with 15 seats, gaining seven, followed by Alison Coffin’s New Democrats with three seats, gaining one. Two independents, both former Liberals, hold the remaining seats in the House of Assembly.

Local media quoted Crosbie on Thursday night as saying he wouldn’t concede to the Liberals and calling for a coalition with the five other opposition MHAs.

A part of what’s now the fisheries and land resources department since 2017, the Forestry and Agrifoods Agency was set up in 2007 under the former natural resources department, then spun off to fisheries department oversight in 2015.

The Corner Brook-based agency’s Agrifoods Development Branch is responsible for promoting development, expansion and diversification of the primary and value-added agriculture and agrifoods sectors in the province, which today gross annual sales of about $500 million. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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The province on Tuesday put out a call for proposals from farmers to take on a five-year contract handling a herd of five breeding cows for “research and development purposes.”

The request seeks proposals from “existing commercial farmers or new farmers who have had past experience in raising beef cattle (and) who would like to help advance the genetic diversity of the beef industry in Newfoundland and Labrador.”

The deadline for proposals is 4:30 p.m. on Aug. 23.

Rising beef prices have boosted interest in the beef cattle industry in the province, the government said in a release.

The province said it hopes to “expand the level of breeding available so that there is less need for producers to acquire superior-quality, purebred beef cattle from outside the province.”

Bringing in purebreds “will eventually allow producers to look within the local industry to acquire breeding stock and to produce quality beef without the additional high costs of transportation from outside the province.”

The province’s fisheries and land resources department, which oversees support for the ag sector, last year partnered with a Daniel’s Harbour dairy farm to raise five beef cattle.

“Initial assessments of the growth and health of this herd at Spruce Grove Dairy Farm have been positive to date,” the province said Tuesday.

Spruce Grove Dairy Farm’s Shawn Perry said Tuesday the project has “resulted in significant growth and development in our operation” and that “as opportunities to improve the genetics of provincial beef herds arise, this will be a game changer for the beef industry.”

Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of Agriculture president Mervin Wiseman said the move “represents a significant building block in the establishment of a viable beef industry for the province.” — AGCanada.com Network

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Premier Dwight Ball on Wednesday announced what he billed as the “Flatter, Leaner Management Structure” for the provincial government, a reorganization which will see 287 management positions — including 90 already-vacant spots — eliminated across all departments.

In the restructuring, the Department of Fisheries, Forestry and Agrifoods will rebrand as the Department of Fisheries and Land Resources, and will include the Lands Branch from the former municipal affairs department.

The Lands Branch is responsible for Crown lands administration as well as land management, land use planning and surveys and mapping.

The province also said Wednesday it will “maximize the benefits of realigning the Lands Branch” by relocating the branch’s offices to Corner Brook.

Moving the Lands Branch, the government said, will “position it near the majority of agriculture and forestry activity within the province.”

The new ministry — which remains the portfolio for former Fisheries, Forestry and Agrifoods Minister Steve Crocker — also takes up responsibility for the former environment department’s Wildlife Division and the justice department’s Fish and Wildlife Enforcement Division.

The Fisheries and Land Resources department, the province said, “unites all aspects of support provided to renewable resource industries, and better positions the provincial government to support economic development and growth in these areas.”

The new department also gets a new deputy minister, as Lori Anne Companion was named Wednesday to replace David Lewis as the department’s top bureaucrat.

Companion, the deputy minister for the transportation and works department since January 2015, has been with the provincial public service since 1986, also serving stints as deputy minister for advanced education and skills and deputy minister for child, youth and family services.

Across all departments, the province’s restructuring is expected to save about $20 million to $25 million in salaries and benefits per year beyond 2016-17, the government said.

The management-level restructuring follows a previous 20 per cent cut in senior executive positions at the deputy minister and assistant deputy minister levels, and a 31 per cent cut last year in communications positions. — AGCanada.com Network

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The province’s Department of Fisheries, Forestry and Agrifoods announced Thursday it has now identified 62 “agriculture areas of interest” to date, totalling about 158,150 acres.

The added 43 areas of Crown land will mark a “significant increase” from the 19 areas already reserved for development, totalling about 38,300 acres, the province said.

“We consulted with farmers, municipalities and other stakeholders who had a great deal of knowledge and interest in this initiative,” Fisheries, Forestry and Agrifoods Minister Steve Crocker said in a release.

Increasing ag production in the province, he said, is also expected to “help farmers and producers reduce costs and dependency on imported dairy forage and grain.”

Also, Premier Dwight Ball said in the same release, “by making Crown land throughout the province available for agriculture development, we are helping farmers expand their operations and encouraging new entrants to see agricultural production as a viable and profitable opportunity.”

Increasing the amount of Crown land for farm use in the province was a recommendation in The Way Forward, the government’s vision document for economic development and improved efficiency, released in November.

The province also pledged in the document to provide Crown lands applications online and to have “new, publicly available, streamlined approval processes” in place, both in 2018. Its Crown Lands administration division today gets about 80 applications per year for agricultural development alone.

“By streamlining the application process it readily makes land available to all agricultural producers but most importantly to young farmers,” said David Simmons, who operates Pure Holsteins Ltd., where the province made its announcement Thursday, at Little Rapids, east of Corner Brook.

According to The Way Forward, Newfoundland and Labrador is now only about “10 per cent self-sufficient” in non-supply managed agrifood requirements.

“It is critical that our province makes significant progress towards food security in light of the global food crisis projected by 2050.” — AGCanada.com Network

CORRECTION, Feb. 28, 2017: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated 62 areas of Crown land had been identified for farm use in addition to, rather than including, the 19 areas already reserved for development. Steve Crocker, now minister of fisheries and land resources, said Feb. 28 the province is “progressing toward making much of the remaining 43 areas available in the very near future.”

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Finance Minister Cathy Bennett on Thursday mapped out an overall $8.48 billion provincial budget for 2016-17, with an expected deficit of $1.8 billion and a list of “measures to reduce spending.”

For the province’s ag sector — where public program spending is overseen by the Forestry and Agrifoods Agency, an arm of the fisheries and aquaculture ministry — those cuts will include the elimination of the Agriculture and Agrifoods Development Fund (AADF).

The AADF was set up in the 2006 budget, during Danny Williams’ Progressive Conservative administration, “to support large-scale agriculture and agrifoods projects throughout our province” in either primary or secondary processing.

The fund was to put priority on support for projects that “enhance competitive capability, support commercialization, expand market opportunities and create economic growth and employment in the agriculture and agrifoods industry.”

Ending the AADF, the province said Thursday, is a reflection of “low uptake for services (and/or) low demand for programming.”

Bennett’s budget calls for the AADF to be eliminated and its funding phased out over four years. The fund, which had been budgeted for $4 million in its first year, had $2.55 million earmarked for 2015-16.

Wrapping up the AADF is expected to save the province $1.05 million in 2016-17 and up to $2.55 million per year once the phase-out is complete, the province said.

The Forestry and Agrifoods Agency, which was budgeted for $62.65 million in 2015-16, will see $4.44 million in “line-by-line” cuts and “other operational savings” in 2016-17. The agency cuts planned Thursday are expected to save $4.065 million per year in future budgets.

New spending for the ag sector in Bennett’s budget includes $60,000 to hire a “funding co-ordinator” for the Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of Agriculture.

The budget also commits the province to develop a new “food security and agriculture growth strategy.”

Pesticide vendors and applicators will also see the fees hiked for their five-year licenses, starting June 1, including commercial pesticide operators (to $750, up from $500), commercial pesticide vendors (to $375, up from $250) and domestic pesticide vendors ($250, previously free).

Among other tax hikes, the harmonized sales tax (HST) will rise to 15 per cent, up from 13, effective July 1, and gasoline and diesel taxes will rise 16.5 and five cents per litre respectively, effective June 2. The gasoline tax hike was described as temporary and subject to review ahead of the province’s supplemental budget this fall.

Also, a new rebate of 10 cents per litre will be provided on gasoline used in the Labrador border zones (Labrador West, Southern Labrador) effective June 2.

Among income taxes, personal income tax rates will rise effective July 1; the general corporate income tax rate is 15 per cent, up one per cent, retroactive to Jan. 1; and a “temporary deficit reduction levy” based on taxable income, will be imposed effective July 1. — AGCanada.com Network

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Oversight for the agency, first set up in 2007 by then-natural resources minister Kathy Dunderdale, had been moved in March from the natural resources department to the fisheries and aquaculture department.

However, incoming Premier Dwight Ball on Monday turned the Forestry and Agrifoods Agency file over to Christopher Mitchelmore, his new minister for business, tourism, culture and rural development.

Ball on Nov. 30 led the provincial Liberals to defeat Paul Davis’ governing Tories, by a count of 31 seats to seven, with two seats going to the provincial New Democrats.

Mitchelmore, the MHA for St. Barbe-L’anse aux Meadows, was first elected as a rookie New Democrat in 2011 but crossed to the opposition Liberals in February last year. He then became the Liberals’ critic for environment and conservation, forestry and the Office of Public Engagement.

Originally from the fishing village of Green Island Cove, Mitchelmore has a commerce degree and worked as a client services officer and youth ventures co-ordinator with the Community Business Development Corporation (CBDC) Nortip before entering provincial politics. He also previously worked for the provincial innovation, business and rural development department. — AGCanada.com Network

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Premier Paul Davis on Thursday appointed provincial Fisheries and Aquaculture Minister Vaughn Granter to added responsibility for the Forestry and Agrifoods Agency.

The agency, headquartered in Corner Brook, was set up in 2007 by then-natural resources minister Kathy Dunderdale and has until now been under the Natural Resources department’s oversight.

However, a spokesperson for the premier’s office confirmed Friday by email that the agency’s management will now move under the purview of Fisheries and Aquaculture.

The agency’s role is to develop policy and programs and provide “support functions” to the agriculture, agrifood and forestry industries with an eye on “well-planned, sustainable growth and development and associated economic and employment opportunities.”

Such programs include the federal/provincial AgriInsurance plan, Environmental Farm Planning and the Agriculture and Agrifoods Development Fund, among others.

The agency also oversees livestock veterinary services, lab analyses for animal diagnostics and food safety, food quality, animal disease monitoring, and control of “heritage animals.”

The agency’s offices also handle licensing and permitting relating to protecting livestock from predators; big game distribution, export and transport; destruction of “problem animals;” and timber cutting, exports and sawmilling, as well as grants for groups such as 4-H and the Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of Agriculture.

Combining agriculture and fisheries under the same minister’s oversight is not new at the provincial level in Canada. Quebec and New Brunswick today operate joint agriculture and fisheries ministries, while in British Columbia, commercial fishery and aquaculture programs are overseen by the ag ministry. — AGCanada.com Network

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