Remembrance

I've been to France several times, and it seems, besides Paris, there's one other place that keeps drawing me back - the D-Day beaches.

For Canadians, war is something that's never really touched our soil. We've sent, and are still sending thousands of young people off to other countries to fight for freedom and democracy, but it's always away from Canada. Therefore it's sometimes more difficult for us to really understand Remembrance Day, but that hasn't been the case for me, thanks to my parents. I have vivid memories of walking around Vimy Ridge (WW l Canadian memorial in northern France), and through the preserved trenches, and seeing fields where farmers still couldn't go due to active mines. It was a childhood experience that was really significant for me.

As an adult, I've been back to Vimy, which was still as powerful an experience, and have also been to Verdun, Dieppe and the D-Day beaches - all significant battlefields for Canadians. Once again, on this trip, I headed back to the beaches to visit the new Canadian Memorial at Juno Beach, which is where the Canadians landed on D-Day). This area always amazes me for the number of Canadian flags that fly - not only on sites of the battles but also out in the middle of farmers' fields, or at the entrance to a town. It's quite remarkable.

Other than the Juno Beach Memorial, some of the Canadian sites are relatively difficult to find - but certainly worth it. The cemeteries are all on little back roads between small towns. Interestingly enough, the land on which the cemeteries lie is all designated as Canadian soil - and the maintenance of the gardens within the cemeteries is spectacular with thousands of rose bushes especially. No matter how many times I go there, I always find it an emotional experience. To see thousands of grave stones carved with a maple leaf, many of which just read "Knownst unto God" (the soldiers were never identified) is pretty sobering.

In my mind, all Canadians should visit at least one of these war memorials or cemeteries in their lifetime. Maybe it's my pilgrimage.

J'aime La France

With my travels in Holland over, I took the train from Amsterdam to Paris, to begin my studies in France. Oddly enough, I learned (the hard way) that a Rail Europe ticket from Amsterdam to Paris, cannot be picked up in Holland. I'm not sure why, but needless to say, it was a bit of a frustration.

After a night in Paris, including the necessary glass of wine at a street-side cafe, (more about Paris in an upcoming blog), I then took the train down to the city of Brest, located in the far south west of France in the region of Brittany, or Bretagne (in French).

I had the pleasure of staying with Olivier Glinec and his family, on their family dairy farm near Brest. Olivier completed the Nuffield program in 2002 where he examined the options for once-a-day milking.

French farmers have always been known to be quite demonstrative and this is still certainly the case. While Olivier isn't planning to participate, the majority of French dairy farmers are calling for a milk strike, where they'll dump their milk, beginning in the next few days. They are upset about plummeting milk prices, and an EU plan to end the milk quota system by 2015. Unfortunately as Olivier stated, the processors have at least a 30 days supply of milk on hand, so any strike needs to be lengthy for it to have any real impact.

Higher education in France is divided into different levels and students choose to either attend a local college, a grande école or a university. Grandes écoles are considered more prestigious than universities and their selection procedure is highly competitive. There are about three or four major Grandes écoles in France dealing with agriculture, none of which seem to have a problem with recruitment, due to their prestige.

Near Brest is a small agricultural college, Le Nivot, which is where Olivier attended school. Founded in the 1930's by a group of Catholic Brothers, Le Nivot has always focused on teaching technical agricultural skills. Students come to the college at age 15 and stay for 3-4 years, living in dorms on campus. Currently there are about 300 students but numbers are dropping. While the college has introduced new courses including bee keeping and equestrian, I was slightly disappointed that several staff members seemed to have the attitude that there was nothing they could do about decreased enrollment and that in less than ten year the college would be closed.

The college struggles with infrastructure as so many other institutions do. However, they have many old and dilapidated buildings which cannot be torn down as they are designated as being historically significant. With no money to fix them up, the back part of the campus looks quite run-down which is sad to see. The college has a working farm, including swine, sheep, poultry, apiary and dairy operations but students are not required to work in the barns. For the last number of years though the farm has failed to generate a profit too which adds to financial stress faced by the college.

Brittany is a very beautiful part of the country with many hills, trees and stone buildings. It maintains a strong heritage with ties to Wales, and Ireland. The Bretagne language is quite similar to Welsh, although not widely spoken. Agricultural-wise, the area has a lot of dairy, hogs, corn and potatoes. It's also famous for its crepes and Olivier took me to an award-winning creperie in a nearby town. I can say that the crepes I make are no longer as fabulous as I once thought!

Stay tuned for more notes on my travels en France.

The many sides of Amsterdam

After a busy week with lots of meetings and travelling, I was tired and was really looking forward to having a weekend in Amsterdam. I was in Holland twice as a kid – once when I was five and a second time when I was eight. My memories of those trips include an AMAZING playground (!!), cheese, windmills and wooden shoes.

Although I didn’t find the playground this time, I did re-experience the cheese, windmills and wooden shoes – and much more!

I have always loved history, and World War ll fascinates me on many levels. History, combined with my love of reading lead me (via a canal boat tour) to the Anne Frank House on Prinsengracht where on July 6, 1942, Anne, her sister Margot, and parents, Edith and Otto went into hiding from the Nazis in an annex on the back of Frank’s office building. Later they were joined by Hermann and Auguste van Pels, their son Peter and another man Fritz Pfeffer. Together the eight people lived in four small rooms, in complete darkness for more than two years before they were betrayed by someone and deported to concentration camps. To this day, no one knows who told the Nazis about their hiding spot. All but Otto Frank died in the camps with Anne dying of Typhoid only one month before liberation.

The museum is incredibly well done and visitors are able to explore the entire building – offices, warehouses and hiding rooms. The secret bookcase which hid the stairs to the annex is still in existence. Along with the tour, visitors can watch videos from Otto Frank, as well as several of the people who helped them hide, and one of Anne’s best friends who survived the camps. It is an incredibly moving and thought-provoking place, but one that is visited by more than 1 million people every year. It is not only a museum about Anne and her family, but also a place which works to ensure that genocide never happens again.

With the solemn side of my Amsterdam trip done, it was time to do more exploring and off I went on a bus tour through the countryside north of Amsterdam. Not very far out of the city life changes to a much slower pace and cows in green fields, windmills and beautiful little towns replace the bustle and noise. The tour stopped first at a local wooden shoe maker. It used to take a cobbler 3-4 days to make one pair of shoes (out of poplar) but now a machine can whip them out in just five minutes! Shoes of every size shape and colour filled the walls, and while I was tempted to buy a pair, I realized my suitcase was already a bit too full! With a set of miniature shoes in hand (a fridge magnet) we headed to a local and famous cheese farm where I sampled (and bought) some of the best cheese I’ve ever tasted in my life. Lunch was followed by a boat trip to a small and beautiful fishing town (Marken) before heading back to Amsterdam.

Amsterdam is a city of contrasts. On one hand it has lovely canals, beautiful old houses, little cobblestone streets and on the other hand there are most of the new buildings are very modern in design (and in my opinion, not pretty at all). Perhaps the biggest contrast though is the famous Red Light District, where (soft) drugs, pornography and prostitution are all legal. Luckily enough I was told before arriving in Amsterdam that coffee shops did not sell coffee, but rather all forms of drugs! It was thus with a big smile and an open mind that I joined in a group tour of this district. Following a visit to the Prostitution Information Centre where we had a glass of wine with a former prostitute who founded the centre as a way of providing health and safety information to the girls, we ventured off to see the ‘red lights’. All of the prostitutes in Holland must be 18 or older and must have an EU passport before applying for a license. They then ‘rent’ a small window and room with a bed and can work as much or as little as they want. They’re really self-employed. The majority of the girls are between the ages of 18 – 30 although the guide did say there was one famous lady in her 80’s! Walking along the streets you see girls of all shapes and sizes (including transvestites), wearing all forms of lingerie, standing or dancing in their small windows. When a man approached, they could either open the door or choose to ignore him altogether. Windows with closed curtains meant the girl had a customer. The girls certainly made good money, which was why most of them were in the business. The average ‘rate’ was 50 Euros for 15 minutes and rental of the window cost about 80 E per day. A few years ago some men tried renting windows to sell themselves as gigolos, but they all quickly went out of business as no women were interested!

The oddest part of the red light district is that it is centred around a large church. I guess people can stumble in for confession in the morning!

Next-Up Holland

Next up – Holland

I flew from Edinburgh to Holland, landing in Amsterdam where I was to make my way to Wageningen, the home of the major agricultural university (just over an hour’s train ride east of Amsterdam). Travelling by train, another train, a bus, and then my feet, I managed to get to the hotel where I met up with some great Dutch cheese and a glass of French wine!

The city of Wageningen reminded me a lot of Guelph as it is certainly the hub of agriculture in Holland with many of the farm organizations, agricultural businesses and research centres in close proximity to the University. It brands itself as the ‘City of Life Sciences”. The University is spread out in many different buildings across the city which is common for Holland. When Universities began, they had only a few buildings, and when they expanded, rather than trying to buy more buildings around them, they just bought wherever they could. Wageningen is trying to now to move to one central campus so there is construction everywhere.

I met with Chantal Van Lin who does communications and recruitment work for the animal science department. According to here, 5 years ago Wageningen switched to having what they terms as five k knowledge centres – environmental sciences, biological sciences, animal and plant science, social science and agro technology (i.e. engineering). There are about 9000 students altogether with the environmental programs and social sciences programs being the largest. The University offers three different degrees – after three years students have a BSc, another year allows them an HD and a fifth year gives them an MSc. About 50% of the graduates go on to farm, but the other half are involved in all aspects of not only Dutch but EU agriculture.

The majority of the kids come from Holland, although international numbers are growing and now account for about 30% of the student population. All of the studies are conducted in Dutch though so international students must quickly learn the language.

An interesting thing for me was that in the animal and plant science programs 50% of the students do not have an agricultural background. Six years ago the animal program changed to bring in courses devoted to non-agricultural animals which attracted many new students, especially kids who originally wanted to be vets, but were unable to get the high enough grades.

Chantal believes the success of Wageningen is due to a number of factors:

• It’s the only university offering agricultural or environmental degrees in Holland so is very unique

• It’s a small, friendly and ‘green’ city but with easy train access to Amsterdam.

• Students get a lot of individualized support from faculty and advisors. The goal for all professors and staff is to ensure that every student succeeds and do their best to ensure that students feel comfortable talking to them about anything and everything.

• Students have input into program development both during and after taking a course.

Recruitment is also done on a very personal level and again is done mainly by in-course (paid) students. Every high school in Holland is visited by students, kids, starting at age 15 are invited to attend open house days. Wageningen keeps track of email and mobile phone numbers for all interested kids, and follows up with them mainly via emails and text message throughout their high school years, although they realize there’s a very fine line between providing the students and their parents with relevant information, versus too much information. They work hard to keep up with new technologies and have information on Face book and various youth chat sites.

An interesting feature of their recruitment campaign is the development of a whole separate website and promotional materials just for parents.

Wageningen, like most agricultural universities struggles with the biases and stereotypical images people have about agriculture. They try to minimize the use of agricultural images in their promotional materials and have shifted their messaging more to their role in providing solutions to societal issues, especially the environment, food and health.

The struggles and opportunities at Wageningen are very much the same faced at OAC.

Scotland Day Two

Armed with a key to Jenny’s flat, and a hand-drawn map by Ian (complete with a drawing of my Mercedes), I ventured off to the Royal Highland Center to catch up with friends from the Royal Highland Show http://www.royalhighlandshow.org/) – a four day agricultural show held annually in Edinburgh in June. I had spent a couple of days at the Show last year so had met some of their staff at that time, and met more when they came to Toronto for our Royal Agricultural Winter Fair.

The Royal Highland Show has been in existence since the early 1800’s and yet while it remains true to its agricultural heritage with strong livestock shows, it’s also grown to include educational displays, a renewable energy feature area, and many areas dedicated to promoting local Scottish food. All of the major super market chains, as well as MacDonald’s put in large exhibits outlining how much food they buy from Scottish farmers. Sourcing local is big here. In just four days, over 140,000 people visit the Show and attendance keeps growing. This year both the Queen and Princess Anne attended, bringing with them additional crowds. Unfortunately the show are limited in how much larger they can grow as their facilities (right next to the airport) are at capacity and expansion isn’t possible. Plans are drawn up for brand-new show grounds but finances are not yet allowing them to build.

It’s interesting to note the difference between the Royal Highland Show and the Royal Agricultural Show in Britain, which hosted its final event this year. The Highland Show attributes their success to a couple of factors partly different health regimes for livestock (Scottish cattle were vaccinated much quicker for Blue Tongue) and partly due to their determination to combine tradition with innovation.

I must say I did envy their office space – in what they described as an old estate house – but what I would term a small castle!

Just behind the Royal Highland Offices lay the offices of the National Farmers’ Union (link) – the main farm organization in Scotland where I was lucky enough to meet with Bob Caruth, their marketing and communications manager. The NFU is very similar to the Ontario Federation of Agriculture with key functions being lobbying, developing member programs and generally being the “voice of Scottish agriculture”. An offshoot of the NFU, however is a new Eat Local campaign. (more …….).

Meetings over I headed back into Edinburgh and after making (several) wrong turns (Ian drew his map only one direction and there are dozens of one-ways streets in Edinburgh!) I made it back to the flat and got ready for a night on the town at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

This festival, held for three weeks each August brings hundreds of actors, comedians, musicians and buskers into the city (as well as thousands of tourists). Performances of all types run throughout the day and night and visitors hop from one show to the next. Ian, Jenny and I chose to go to see an Irish comedian named Neil Delameere. He was really good; although I was really glad I wasn’t sitting in the front row, and didn’t come in late, as those people really got his attention! Unfortunately I lack the ability to remember jokes so can’t relay any of them here! We followed up our laughs with a ‘wee dram’ of fine Scotch whiskey and headed to bed.





http://www.royalhighlandshow.org/

Welcome to Scotland Lassie. Fancy a wee dram?!

Welcome to Edinburgh.

I love this country (I can trace many of my relatives to Scotland and love pretty much everything about it except for the weather). Edinburgh has got to be one of the prettiest cities in the world – although not the easiest place to get around.

My visit to Scotland began with a free upgrade to a Mercedes sports car (the little automatic car I booked hadn’t yet been returned) so with a bit of trepidation at driving something so expensive (on the wrong side of the road), I headed off to find the Scottish Agricultural College (SAC), located at the University of Edinburgh where I was met by Bill Dingall. SAC began through the merger of three long-running agricultural colleges – Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Ayr in the mid 1990’s following a series of government cuts in educational funding. SAC offers 1, 2, and 3 and 4 year courses although the 4year honours degree must be validated by the University of Glasgow as SAC cannot grant degrees themselves.

Over the three campuses there are about 180 students, 80 of which are just in their first year. About 20 graduate from the full four-year program. The majority do two or three years. About 10 years ago, the school boasted close to 300 students so enrollment numbers have drastically declined, although in 2009 they have started to see a small increase again.

SAC is a very research and consultancy based institution with about 45% of its operating budget coming from the gov’t. Of the 900 faculty, only about 100 teach.

Agriculture, Horticulture and Outdoor Sports programs have the largest number of students. The school attracts a very traditional type of student – 17-18 year old white boys from farming backgrounds most of whom want to return to the farm. They have very few non-farm students.

While at SAC, I was lucky enough to meet with Ken Rundle, a former BBC TV presented and now head of marketing. Ken is working hard to brand the college as SAC as opposed to the Scottish Agricultural College – due to the difficulties faced in attracting non-traditional students into an “agricultural” school, something that OAC also battles with. With his media background Ken is actively working to get more coverage for the college and agrees that news must be catchy before it will be published. He laughed about one instance where he was trying to get the word out to farmers that researchers were more and more cases of lung worm in sheep. Since sheep intestines are a key ingredient in the making of Haggis, and since it was coming up to Robbie Burns’s day, Ken released the story as a “Possible Shortage of Haggis” which garnered media attention beyond his hopes, and while being interesting, did deliver the message of the need for lung worm treatments to farmers!

A few facts told to me by Ken:

• 98% of Scotland is classified as rural
• Scotland, by law, has to have a coalition (i.e. minority) government.
• Scottish, as well as EU students do not pay tuition fees. Oddly enough students from England, Ireland and Wales do!
• The Scottish government and people are very pro-agriculture, and the feeling is increasing with more news stories about food sustainability, local food, food safety and environmental practices.
• There are no trespassing laws in Scotland. People can walk anywhere they like, except for into buildings.
• The minimum wage for farm workers is higher than that of regular workers.

After my meetings were over, I met up with Ian MacDougall, a 2008 Nuffield Scholar who works for a an agricultural diagnostics and genetics lab just outside of Edinburgh. Following a tour of his office, I then followed Ian through downtown Edinburgh (driving chaos) to his fiancé Jenny’s flat where I was to stay for two nights. Jenny works in Sustainable Development for the City of Edinburgh so between the three of us, we had many great chats. Oddly enough Ian had just returned the previous day from meetings in Guelph in conjunction with his Nuffield project on animal disease traceability.

Harper Adams University

Harper Adams University, Shrewsbury, Shropshire

Monday morning found me heading to Harper Adams (HA) University located near the town of Telford (not too far north of Birmingham).

Harper Adams is easily the leading agricultural university in the UK, boasting close to 2000 students and a 99% employment rate. Their success is based on what they terms as “sandwich degrees” which are one-year work placements that are mandatory for all students. The work placement normally takes place in year three, of a four year degree, and is a paid position arranged through the University’s Career Services people.
Although working, students still must write papers and be graded on their work, be evaluated by their employers. They are also all visited by university faculty at least once per year.

Word of Mouth marketing is the basis of Harper Adam’s marketing and recruitment strategy. Now over 50% of agricultural grads in Britain are HA alumni and the sheer number of grads means that their network and contacts throughout the industry are extremely valuable. They don’t take their reputation for granted though and work hard to stay connected with “A level” (i.e. high school) students across the country. They attend shows and events, Higher Education Fairs in each county and host several campus open days per year. Every applicant must be interviewed, and must have at least 12 weeks on-farm experience before being accepted into an HA program. The strategy is working though as all of the eligible student spots are filled. While at capacity for full-time students, HA sees growth opportunities in the development of part-time specialty courses.

The Royal Agricultural College and Harper Adams are two entirely different institutions. RAC is much older and seen still as a private college (although it went public in 2002) for wealthy sons of land owners. The buildings at RAC are very old, ivy covered and historical. The buildings at Harper Adams on the other hand are new, bright, open and airy and construction projects are happening everywhere. It’s a very modern, busy campus. Interestingly enough
RAC sees HA as their main competition, while HA sees the University of Newcastle as being theirs.

Having successfully navigated 750 miles of roads in England (on the opposite side of the road remember) I headed into Birmingham to catch my flight to Edinburgh. On to Scotland.