It’s up to you folks!! I needed a push today to get moving on a few things sitting idle. As a person who wonders, wanders and questions the bigger picture of life… it comes back to this… it’s up to you! 

“Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.”

William Jennings Bryan, Secretary of State, USA, 1899 from Nebraska. This photo was taken outside the Huskers Stadium in Lincoln, Nebraska in July 2016 on my Nuffield Global Focus Program.

The past week was filled with conversation, exploration and laughter as I experienced first hand, Australian hospitality and culture. However the term ‘change’ best relates to my agricultural visits as each business has experienced varying degrees of change within their farm; bare in mind, change is not always bad. 

I began my week with a visit to Wade and Nicky Mann of Roses2Go, a greenhouse flower and fruit farm on the Central Coast. Both Nuffield alumni of 2016 and 2015 respectively, I have long been intrigued by their story of emigrating to Australia 15 years ago in search of a better life for their family after instability in their native Zimbabwe. I envy their perseverance and ability to adapt to change which wasn’t planned, but rather thrust upon them. The conversation we had about their combined enthusiasm of connecting to their consumers and growing a natural crop was a great way to start my week. I left our conversation being challenged to look at my business and to have confidence that sometimes change is difficult but to embrace it and shape your future and not have it determine your destiny. 

Staying on Mangrove Mountain, I was hosted for two days by Bernadette Mortensen and her family. With the sounds of little voices, it felt like home with constant chatter and excitement of a foreigner in the house. Bernadette farms with her parents Joe and Carmen and sister Andrea Galea. Their story of change infiltrates their business in a couple of ways; firstly the family was proactive in switching their large chicken broiler farm to outdoor access, free range production. This diversification was encouraged by their long term poultry processor as a way to differentiate in the market. As Joe pointed out, he could see the necessity to conform in an effort with reasonable scale to participate in a long term grower relationship. 

Given the location of their farm to a high mix of urban and rural neighbours, this ‘green’ way of farming serves as a negative as well; with poultry expansion in mind; Bernadette was declined the opportunity to build several more chicken sheds, instead she harnessed this energy for her 2015 Nuffield research; as such it is evident in the families passion for poultry the limitations they face from their neighbours and local council. It will be interesting to see the future of their farm, be it the avocados recently planted or another enterprise altogether.

Heading west over the Great Divide,  I called upon Rob Peffer in Molong. Rob works in a family corporation marketing eggs from 130,000 laying hens under the Canobolas Eggs brand; a combination cage, floor and aviary type production. Like any direct marketing firm, evolving with consumer needs is important, however for me, the essence of change revolved around the deregulation of the egg sector over 20 years ago. The Peffer family was faced with multiple decisions of the time, including that if developing their own regional brand despite the vast number of farmers who exited the market or chose to contract with a handful of large graders. As Rob spoke, change will continue to be part of their business in this highly competitive market.

Is I travelled south, Luke Mancini his brother Xavier and parents Sam and Liz welcomed me to their farm. As my first true introduction to flood irrigation, I soon realized how critical the system and water security is to the viability of their farm. I was fascinated to hear Sam’s experience as first generation Italian immigrants to the area and how their business evolved. 

The Mancini family business continues to change and adapt for the future. Past decisions to diversify into olives and grapes 20 years ago proved good decisions of the time. But today, as cotton genetics improve, coupled with a strong market, additional acreage of this high intensity crop continues to be a guiding force for now. But any family business wouldn’t be settled until the next generation is integrated into the farm. However as Luke and Sam toured me through the area; the one constant variable that inflicts change is water; it’s availability and consequently its price!

My last farm visit I would like to highlight is that of John and Michelle Keely of Cohunna. Operated as a family farm with their son Harrison, I was impressed at the dairying intensity of Northern Victoria. Like most dairy farms, John toured me through their farms and explained how the farm has grown and evolved with time. Again, water represents about half of the total real estate investment on farm, these channels are truly the ‘river of life’. Fascinated by the water flow, control and manipulation from the Murray River, the farm is fed through these channels which are perhaps more work than milking the cows themselves in finding a balance in supply of feed without the overuse of this limited resource. 

However aside from water, a key challenge faced by Australian dairy farmers is milk price! Unfortunately certain milk companies in Australia made poor decisions, ones that involved mismanagement of milk stocks and others around milk price manipulation. As such, the Keelys recently chose to invest in a new milk processing relationship, one that will provide the management, price and stability that farmers expect. Change is reflected in making decisions to react and better position the farm for the future. 

In addition to changes on farm, I was pleased to spend two days with large agribusiness firms, Baiada and Woolworths, learning about their poultry business. Intrigued about market connectivity, they were able to shed light about market decisions and how they affect farmers like myself.  As I will soon begin to draw conclusions on my own Nuffield report, the process by which decisions are made at this level, have an over riding affect on the success and profitability of the industry. 

Despite my blog pertaining to the more formal learnings of the week, I want to point out that my time, hospitality and social engagement with my hosts was a highlight! I truly appreciate the time and conversation shared, particularly over Easter Weekend.

Leadership In Action!

The subject of ‘Leadership’ struck me last weekend at a retirement celebration for my longest serving and highly motivating manager at National Bank; Denis Boudreau retired after 29 years. A man who stood just over five feet, four inches tall with English as a language he learned after turning 40 years old; demanded the full attention of any room with his boisterous personality and desire to be front and centre at every event and meeting. I most certainly don’t exhibit the extroverted characteristic, but rather I truly valued his positive, ‘can do’ attitude. Denis has a passion to excel and motivate others by encouraging his people and working as a constant advocate for their goals and that of creating his own corporate culture. Denis had the courage to always speak up! If it wasn’t for his commitment to bringing National Bank Agriculture to Ontatio, I would not be where I am today. It’s the power of persuasion, persistence, motivation and commitment are the values I take from the years of working with Denis. 

The adage ‘you work for people, not the company’ is alive and well in many workplaces. Certainly in my current role, I encourage sharing our corporate culture and values with my team, but I also know people are directly motivated by their managers and peers, as such this perpetuates responsibility and adds pressure to being the best person everyday, not just a manager, but a leader. At the same time, my team shines with individual leaders who step up each and everyday to not only do their job, but go beyond to coach, advise and influence clients and peers.

But leadership is not only in corporate environments, for me it starts at home, most people call it parenting. This is the most influential role I will ever play in life. I’m fortunate this is a shared role with my wife Kathryn, but the daily actions, large or small never go unnoticed. It is the most rewarding, yet challenging role in life. 

All influencers carry varying responsibility, however when I reflect on the leaders that influence my family’s life; it’s our extended family, selfless skating coaches, teachers and childcare providers to name a few who unknowingly build character in their young followers.

In the current political light; influencers Trudeau, Wynne & Trump may not reflect our personal values, however we allow labels to be applied including that of ‘leader’. However with any title, the power we grant is only as strong as the accountability we expect. But with every great leader, it is about knowing their strengths yet acknowledging other factors require greater support. Too often leaders are expected to be masters of every subject matter. As followers we generate feelings of  reluctance when their weaknesses appear; yet like any team, we should hold hope in their ability to assemble people with complementing skills to support the broader needs of their peers. 

Finally, as I reflect on the notion of leadership and how it has affected my life, I encourage you to reflect on those that impact your life and more importantly the lives you may be impacting, knowingly or not as a leader. Everyday it bares great responsibility yet takes courage to lead, labeled or not!

As a turkey farmer it is important to be able to share our family farm story.   Talking about how we grow and care for our turkeys is important to me, because I am proud of what we do and most of all, love eating turkey with my family. With the likes of social media, our community and even within our family it is not hard to be a part of the conversation or see the many posts about our birds and farm. However last night I took the opportunity to view the W5 program on CTV called ‘Fowl Business’ where our industry has been criticized for our handing of live turkeys from the farm to plate, mostly through the shackling and live stunning process at slaughter. My initial reaction was more mixed than I had anticipated, given our industry is directly impacted by consumer perceptions and influenced by media; perhaps there was some truth to this story.

I encourage you to watch this footage where the program relies on a ‘whistle blower’ from Mercy for Animals; an organization whose main purpose is to convert people into veganism. I could focus on the inaccuracies and clear bias presented by this organization as there were many, with an effort that W5 counterbalanced by the famous Temple Grandin, or focus on the food itself and how consumers connect to their meals which I think is more effective, long term. As a farmer, the company implicated in the report was Lilydale, a Sofina Foods owned company; a sister firm to the buyer of most of our birds.

To clarify a couple of points first; I take great issue with undercover employees, with direct motives to identify irregularities in meat processing systems while knowingly be supported by Mercy For Animals. As well, the Lilydale employee, who was referenced a number of times, should most certainly be reprimanded and I am sure no longer works for the firm based on his actions and general lack of concern for the animals. However, in reality we are always looking for the exception where rules are broken and people are not respecting the care and compassion for the animals.

However, the reality is the entire meat sector suffers from a similar crisis; their business of transforming a living animal into food, which for most people is not a nice process to watch! Sure, we all love the end product on the BBQ, but connecting consumers to where their food comes from stops short of the animal leaving the farm. Even as a farmer, after my turkeys are loaded on the truck, it is truly not my responsibility to what happens to them afterwards. What I do consider is ensuring that as close to 100% of the birds and meat were of superior quality as possible. As turkey farmers, I have personally undergone safe handling and loading of turkeys courses, not to mention our on farm food safety protocols, which include all animals be respected and those suffering must be immediately and humanly euthanized on farm.

Recently, farm commodity boards through media campaigns have been launched to share farmer stories, bring consumers, the media and influencers on farm to share real stories of the people that truly care about our food system. I truly believe that we have a great story to tell on farm, but it begs the question, how much information is enough and how much is too much?

As a farmer, my primary goal is to raise healthy and productive turkeys; I do everything possible to maintain a positive environment for them including nutrition, housing, bedding and even medication if it is required, the last thing I like seeing on my farm are sick or dead birds. So when it comes to slaughtering the turkeys, it is a difficult sight to watch; I don’t like blood in general and there are different sights, smells, movement and noises that come with the slaughter and processing of livestock. So like other consumers, the slaughter part of food production is never talked about, let alone seeing video footage of this stage. To me, the ‘Fowl Business’ highlights the fact that living animals die for us to eat them, let alone the issues they highlighted of the perceived mishandling.

This past April, I had the privilege of visiting the largest turkey processors in Germany. It is estimated that 60,000 turkeys are handled per day, which equates to the entire Canadian production in about 7 months at this one facility. Through using controlled atmospheric stunning, the facilities operated with utmost efficiency. When I spoke to the marketing manager, I asked “What message do you want me leaving the visit with?” His response was simple, that we value animal welfare from farm to plate and that their facility employs the latest technology which promotes efficient output of quality meat products. The visit in Germany left me with one on the most positive feelings regarding turkey meat, in that it was not a stomach turning, ethically questioning experience!

As an industry, I am interested to learn how Lilydale/Sofina will react to this news report, at the same time look forward to an overall industry reaction as I do believe it may be turkey today, but can easily be hogs or beef or chicken tomorrow. Yet at the same time, as a farmer, I am proud of our accomplishments on farm, yet we will only be successful in the future if we are part of an entire value chain that is effective at communicating our standards and expectations to all consumers, at the same time respecting their potential views on humane treatment of animals through the entire lifecycle.

The CTV show W5 called ‘Fowl Business’ continues to irritate me by relying animal rights group spies and unfortunate employees that either lack training and demonstrate unacceptable behaviors to speak about the humane issues of turkey. At the same time there are reasons we pay for Canadian Food Inspection Agency, work within organized marketing boards and abide by every increasing animal welfare protocols on farm that must work as succinct systems. I willingly continue to share our farm story in efforts of helping connect people with their food. Unfortunately delivering the message around the transformation from alive to dead is a difficult story to comprehend, but we must remember our food story does not end at the farm nor start at the grocery store.