Unifor members represented by Locals 4211, 4212 and 4323 in Ontario and Locals 4319 and 4320 in Quebec “have all delivered strong strike mandates,” the union said in a release Wednesday.

Locals 4211 and 4319, which represent the seaway’s supervisory and engineering group of workers, had already voted Aug. 1 to reject a tentative deal, Unifor said.

The maintenance, operations and administrative unit, represented by Locals 4212, 4323 and 4320, announced Oct. 12 its members had voted 99 per cent in favour of strike action if a deal isn’t reached by a deadline of Saturday (Oct. 21).

“Employers have seen that workers will absolutely use their right to strike when they feel it’s necessary, and our members in all units at the Seaway have had enough,” Lana Payne, Unifor’s national president, said in a release Wednesday.

“It’s time to come to the table with a serious wage offer or the employer can watch what happens when workers stand together and demand their fair share.”

“This employer has shown no willingness to address the workers’ concerns in the workplace or approach them with a respectful wage offer,” Unifor Quebec director Daniel Cloutier said in the same release.

Unifor said such a strike would “effectively shut down transit through the Seaway.”

SLSMC concurred in a separate release Wednesday, saying that “should the unionized workers proceed with strike action, the St. Lawrence Seaway will be closed to all traffic.”

The not-for-profit corporation, which handles movement of marine traffic through Canadian Seaway facilities — that is, 13 of the waterway’s 15 locks between Montreal and Lake Erie — said it has started to implement its plans for an “orderly and safe shutdown of the system” within the 72-hour notice period.

Meanwhile, SLSMC said it “remains committed to obtaining a fair settlement, and will continue to bargain in good faith with the assistance of a federally-appointed mediator.”

“Cargo movements through the Seaway are an important part of the North American economy
and supply chain,” the corporation said Wednesday.

“In particular, this labour action would impact grain movements during a period when the world is in dire need of this essential commodity, even as supply has been affected by the situation in Ukraine and the greater frequency of extreme weather events being experienced around the world.”

A separate U.S. government corporation, the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corp. (GLS), operates seaway facilities within U.S. territory, including two locks at Massena, N.Y., about 120 km southeast of Ottawa. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Mucci Farms, based at Kingsville, just west of Leamington, announced Wednesday it has bought a controlling stake in Leamington-based Orangeline Farms, the grower of Zing Healthy Foods greenhouse peppers.

Financial details weren’t disclosed in Mucci’s release Wednesday, but CBC in Windsor reported Friday that Mucci paid about $30 million for a 75 per cent stake in Orangeline.

Duffy Kniaziew, whose family founded Orangeline in 2000, keeps the remaining 25 per cent share, CBC said.

The deal for Orangeline comes with a 32-acre greenhouse plus a warehouse and 100 acres of additional land, Mucci Farms CEO Bert Mucci said in the company’s release.

“We also have plans in place to build on the additional land that was received as part of the agreement,” he said.

“It’s an exciting time for the company as we continue our aggressive expansion plans to increase our local and regional production,” he added. “Consumers are demanding more local production, and we’re listening.”

Mucci owns and operates 250 acres of tomato, pepper, cucumber, lettuce and strawberry greenhouses in Canada and the U.S. and works also with North American “partner-growers” covering another 1,500 acres.

Mucci said Wednesday it will continue to use Orangeline’s Zing brand “for the foreseeable future” since the brand has “quietly established itself among retailers and consumers.”

“Duffy and his team have done a great job with the brand and it’s familiar in our region, so we’re not looking to make any dramatic changes at the moment,” Mucci marketing director Emily Murracas said in Wednesday’s release.

“In searching for growth opportunities for both Orangeline’s staff and our ever loyal customers, the chance to partner with a world class organization like Mucci Farms was an easy decision to make,” Kniaziew said in Mucci’s release.

Mucci on Wednesday also said it has bought another 15 acres adjacent to the 60-acre tomato greenhouse operation it started developing in 2017 at Huron, Ohio, about 80 km west of Cleveland on Lake Erie.

“The first 24-acre phase is in its second season of harvesting, and we’ll be building two more identical ranges. Phase two construction is already underway,” Bert Mucci said.

The Leamington region, according to Mucci, has one of the warmest climates in Canada outside British Columbia’s lower mainland.

The region is also home to the largest concentration of greenhouses in North America, hosting most of Ontario’s 3,000-odd acres of crop production under glass, the company said. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Minneapolis-based Ceres Global Ag Corp. announced Tuesday it has a new long-term storage and handling agreement in place with London Agricultural Commodities (LAC). The agreement is to run through Ceres’ elevator at Port Colborne, Ont., at the Lake Erie end of the Welland Canal.

The 2.3 million-bushel capacity elevator, which Ceres has owned since 2010, dates back to 1940 when Robin Hood opened what was then known as its Humberstone mill at the site. Horizon Milling, now part of Ardent Mills, shut down the flour mill in 2008.

The agreement with LAC takes effect July 1 next year and lays out storage fees, in/out handling fees and minimum volumes to be handled, Ceres said Tuesday.

Ceres said it will continue to operate the elevator, receiving crops by truck and rail for drying, storing and/or loading onto truck, rail or laker vessels on behalf of LAC and its customers.

The deal allows for Ceres to use “a small portion” of the site’s storage capacity for its own oats and organic product programs, the company said.

The “majority” of the elevator, however, will be devoted to storing and handling commodities for LAC.

“This agreement connects the Port Colborne elevator to LAC’s vast origination network in Ontario and will allow Ceres to more effectively utilize its capacity and capabilities,” Ceres’ vice-president for risk management and trading, John Carroll, said Tuesday in a release.

London, Ont.-based LAC sources and handles corn, soybeans, wheat, feed grains and feed ingredients through a network of 16 sites across southern Ontario, and also sources crops from Prairie growers.

LAC is also the exclusive corn buyer for Suncor Energy’s ethanol plant at St. Clair, Ont., south of Sarnia. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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University of Guelph researchers reached the conclusions by analyzing multiple years of data collected by the Ausable Bayfield Conservation Authority during in-person interviews with farmers in the Gully Creek Watershed, near Bayfield, about 80 km northwest of London.

Jennifer Leslie analyzed the data, which included 16 farms of various sizes over a six-year period, ending in 2011.

There is concern with phosphorus contributing to algae growth in Lake Erie. The International Joint Commission, which works on Great Lakes health issues, estimates agriculture is responsible for 44 per cent of phosphorus contribution.

Most of the phosphorus comes from the U.S., but there is significant working happening on the Canadian side to find best management practices to reduce phosphorus going into Lake Erie. Canada and the U.S. have set a goal of reducing phosphorus loads to Lake Erie by 40 per cent in the next decade.

Leslie points out that the Gully Creek Watershed, where the study was conducted, drains to Lake Huron, not Lake Erie. However, Lake Huron itself flows into Lake St. Clair and then into the western basin of Lake Erie where there is most concern about algae.

Leslie, whose thesis advisor was Alfons Weersink, did the analysis from a Lake Huron watershed because there was no similar depth of data available from a Lake Erie watershed. In order to create wide-ranging policy, a broader study is needed, she said.

Leslie recorded how much nitrogen and phosphorus farmers applied to corn and winter wheat fields and compared it to the recommendations that would come from OMAFRA’s NMAN software, which helps determine what nutrient requirements should be supplied to a crop.

“In case of phosphorus in corn and winter wheat, there are statistically higher application rates. In almost every case, on every farm, every field we saw a rate higher than NMAN rate,” said Leslie, who has completed her master’s degree and is now working as a research assistant at Guelph.

In winter wheat, the overapplication of phosphorus compared to NMAN rates was 47.28 per cent, and for corn, 37.83 per cent.

Larger fields also received higher rates of phosphorus than smaller fields. The same was true of larger farm operations.

“We couldn’t go talk to farmers, but I would assume that larger farms are sole-income. They are relying on the crops for income,” and so they took no risks with being low in phosphorus.

The researchers looked to see if they could find a profit- and yield-maximizing rate that justified more application, but did not find it.

In the case of nitrogen, however, farmers applied only slightly higher rate in corn and winter wheat than was recommended by NMAN, almost four per cent for corn and a bit more than five per cent for winter wheat.

Leslie, who has a background in agronomics, said phosphorus is less expensive than nitrogen, it is applied in smaller increments and its correlation with yield is less understood than nitrogen. As a result, it costs farmers little more to apply insurance phosphorus.

Farmers apply around 200 lbs./ac. of nitrogen on corn, but phosphorus application may only be 15 lbs./ac. It doesn’t cost much more to add five more pounds, but that would be a 30 per cent increase. The extra phosphorus comes out of a farmer’s profit and it also comes at an environmental cost, so there’s little to encourage overuse of the nutrient.

However, farmers may say, “If my livelihood is based on this, then I’m going to go with my gut,” said Leslie.

NMAN is required to be used by farmers who operate under nutrient management plans, especially livestock farms, but there were no farms in this watershed that were required to use application rates based on NMAN.

Leslie’s research was published in 2017 in the scientific journal Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment.

— John Greig is a field editor for Glacier FarmMedia based at Ailsa Craig, Ont. Follow him at @jgreig on Twitter.

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None of the numerous recommendations are particularly new or surprising and mostly call for using existing funding programs to encourage certain production practices.

Recommendations include programs under the next federal/provincial agriculture policy framework that would encourage phosphorus reduction strategies from a whole-farm, multi-BMP (best management practice) approach.

The plan, posted March 10, calls for Ontario to continue to support development of a 4R strategy, led by industry, encouraging farmers and applicators to apply the right source of nutrients at the right rate, right time and right placement.

The continually growing greenhouse sector, especially in the Leamington area, is believed to be a source of increased phosphorus and it’s recommended that the province continue working with greenhouse growers to encourage nutrient recycling and reduce phosphorus levels in discharges to watercourses flowing to Lake Erie.

Several programs have already been created to encourage best management practices already, including the Great Lakes Agricultural Stewardship Initiative and its Farmland Health Checkup program, as well as the Environmental Farm Plan program and nutrient management plans.

The action plan recommends the harmonizing and streamlining of programs to create a whole-farm approach versus piecemeal programs addressing different parts of farm operations.

Other program recommendations include the planting of more trees, restoring native habitats including wetlands and riparian habitat, while focusing efforts on priority watersheds where phosphorus loadings are high and natural cover is low.

Other recommendations include encouraging dam owners to explore managing dams to reduce phosphorus outputs, and for public lands to be managed to minimize phosphorus losses.

Algae blooms in Lake Erie have been creating greater concern, especially in wet years. Most of the problems affect U.S. cities and most of the phosphorus entering the lake also comes from U.S. watercourses.

The federal-provincial plan says about “84 per cent of total phosphorus loads and 82 per cent soluble reactive phosphorus loads to Lake Erie are contributed by the United States, with smaller contributions from Canadian sources.”

There are concerns that a proposed Trump budget in the U.S. that slashed environmental programs includes a potential 97 per cent cut to the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative.

The Canadian plan is available for comment on the Ontario Environmental Registry website until May 9.

— John Greig is a field editor for Glacier FarmMedia based at Ailsa Craig, Ont. Follow him at @jgreig on Twitter.

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The Wigle Creek subwatershed, west of Leamington, has turned into ground zero in long-term research on how farmers can reduce phosphorus running into the lake. Phosphorus from various sources, including farm fields, is being blamed for an increase in algae growth in Lake Erie.

The watershed is perfect for finding a baseline for phosphorus levels in the soils and how they run to the lake, says Denotter, who recommended it to the Essex Regional Conservation Authority (ERCA) for its Priority Subwatershed Project.

The subwatershed project is part of the Great Lakes Agricultural Stewardship Initiative which funds changes to agricultural practices in watersheds that feed into Lake Erie.

The funding for the project is into its third year and the last intake for the project was in the late fall.

Projects gobbling up the entire funding were submitted in about the first five minutes, said Chris Snip, a certified crop advisor with Agris Co-operative. He is based at the Agris office in Cottam and was interviewed at the Chatham-Kent Farm Show.

Farmers who have got funding to help with new equipment have generally bought or modified equipment to more precisely place fertilizer or to strip till crops.

The starting point for farmers is a farmland health checkup, which involves working with a certified crop advisor to look at erosion, organic matter, soil health, soil chemistry and phosphorus levels.

Those who complete the free checkup are then eligible to apply for funding to improve best management practices. Farms in a subwatershed project are available for even greater funding — up to 80 per cent of projects.

That has allowed almost every farm in the Wigle Creek subwatershed to conduct soil tests, providing an extensive benchmark of phosphorus levels across the area.

Denotter said during an interview at the farm show that “the greatest thing about the watershed program is that we need a baseline.”

The Wigle Creek is already part of a monitoring program as part of a project to monitor greenhouse runoff. It has no greenhouses feeding water into its watershed, so serves as a baseline to other area watersheds.

Denotter, a past president of the Ontario Soil and Crop Improvement Association (OSCIA), has taken the funding he’s received and purchased a Salford 2000 variable rate fertilizer cart that allows him to place fertilizer more precisely. They no longer broadcaster fertilizer. He’s also customized a John Deere air seeder for precision fertilizer and seed placement.

Denotter says he and his family are conservationists and that he’s motivated to reduce his runoff of phosphorus because “I don’t like to see green water,” in the lake.

The second largest farmer in the watershed, he was an early adopter of no-till farming and was recognized in January by the conservation authority with its education award.

The other large farmer uses a lot of plowing, he noted, so the subwatershed is a good place to compare phosphorus movement and tillage practices.

The program has expanded the number of farmers who are soil testing, said Snip, who has been helping lead the Agris work on phosphorus reduction because of a personal interest: He lives near the lake.

Snip was recognized by Agris parent co-op Growmark with one of its Endure 4R Advocate awards last year, one of four winners in North America.

The 4R nutrient management program is a certification program that encourages the reduced and proper use of fertilizers across North America. About 10 per cent of Ontario certified crop advisors are certified under the 4R program, said Snip. The Agris board of directors recently adopted a 4R Stewardship pledge.

The GLASI program is administered by OSCIA.

— John Greig is a field editor for Glacier FarmMedia based at Ailsa Craig, Ont. Follow him at @jgreig on Twitter.

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Last year the seaway’s opening was delayed until the beginning of April, due to the amount of ice in the system, according to Bruce Hodgson, director of market development for St. Lawrence Seaway.

The seaway will have two opening dates this year, with the Welland Canal opening on March 21, and the Montreal/Lake Ontario section opening March 23.

“Certainly we’re ahead of last year, which bodes well for the shippers,” Hodgson said.

International ships will likely come into the system earlier, he added. “They typically hold back when there’s ice in the system; they don’t like to come in when it’s like that.”

Limited ice also allows ships to move more quickly than they otherwise could once they’re in the water.

“Last year we had ships in the system, but once they got to Lake Erie they literally couldn’t go anywhere, so this year we don’t anticipate that,” Hodgson said.

Hodgson’s early estimates for the amount of grain the seaway will be moving in the upcoming season is somewhere in the 7.5 million- to eight million-tonne range, but that could change as farmers start harvesting.

“I guess you could say there’s going to be a reasonable carryover from last year. So we expect the year to start off not strong, but not weak; it’ll be a medium start, I guess.”

Last year the St. Lawrence Seaway moved 10.8 million tonnes of grain.

— Jade Markus writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Winnipeg company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting.

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