“There’s a huge talent pool that agriculture needs to pay attention to” quips BDO’s Jim Synder as we visit on the plane. Jim leads the agriculture component of a Canada-wide accounting firm and has experience with chartered banks as well.

He spent a lot of time on the road last year at seminars with Leona Dargis, an Albertan ag producer and Canada’s youngest Nuffield scholar, who is under 30 and running a large operation with her sisters and their spouses.

A few weeks ago I read a summary of the 2011 Census of Agriculture from Statistics Canada, a report that gets released every five years.

It included some interesting findings. For example, the number of farms in Canada is actually declining but the size of the average farm is increasing – a fact that suggests consolidation continues to be a significant force in Canadian agriculture.

Cows like it cool and they’re most comfortable and perform best when the air temperature is below 20°C. When temperatures get above 20°C for extended periods of time, a cow’s hormone levels change, altering her behaviour and decreasing her ability to get pregnant.

When analyzing national breeding indexes, we’ve learned one size does not fit all. In fact, indexes differ quite drastically to accommodate varying breeding philosophies. While these indexes all aim to create a unified ranking for selecting genetics, the development of any index is challenging.

One of the cows from Ferme Gillette has recently made history by breaking the previous world record for lifetime milk production. Gillette Emperor Smurf has produced more than 217,000 litres of milk in now 11 lactations and is still going strong.