Green Hectares is a new model in “school” for farmers. It’s a little bit education centre, a little bit networking, and a little bit of business promotion — all mixed together in a non-profit company that puts its emphasis on learning, technology, and efficiency for better and more profitable farming.

In other words, it’s a different enough model that it takes some explaining. But Gould himself is convinced that it works, and he firmly believes Green Hectares has taught him more about his own personal potential in business than he has learned any other way, and it has also provided valuable information to move forward in this new age of farming.

The website also makes a clear promise, right at the top of its opening page: “At Green Hectares, we help develop opportunities for people to connect, collaborate and learn so they can be a thriving part of the agriculture industry, or a contributing force in their rural community.”

Green Hectares was launched in 2007 after a series of focus groups where early-career farmers and other rural youth identified a networking and mentoring organization as one of their key needs.

Organizers also studied the results of youth surveys (ages 18 to 25) in Alberta and Saskatchewan that included two key questions: “Why are young people leaving the areas they grew up in?” and, “How can we make it easier for them to stay or return and have success?”

Executive director Wendy Schneider says Green Hectares has an enabling mindset. Says Schneider: “We want to change the world, to help be a part of the change in the world and agriculture.”

Schneider has been involved with Green Hectares since before its inception, working first as a volunteer leader. True to form, Schneider also farms herself at Northline Angus at Ardrossan, Alta.

“Everything really is collaboration, we are big on that,” Schneider says about Green Hectares. “Decisions to be made and new things to introduce are talked about.”

In the beginning the plan was to have an actual demonstration farm to showcase and teach innovations in farming. As the project evolved, it became apparent to the group that being able to connect face to face and via the Internet was far more important.

Organizers also came to see the value of networking and mentorship, says Schneider. “One thing that we didn’t fully realize at the beginning was the importance and benefit of having in-depth, intense conversations, talking and collaborating and truly getting the whole picture of an idea or concern.”

Additional benefits come from another innovation, one that Gould, for instance, rates as one of his favourite resources. It’s The Hopper, an aggregator service that pulls together insights into education courses, useful websites and myriad other learning opportunities and resources. “The Hopper is great for looking things up and for connecting with people including experts we might have met at conferences,” Gould says. “It’s like a personalized and interactive search engine.”

The Hopper is a web page add-on which farmers can put on their own websites or log into through Green Hectares. Gould has created a web presence for Gould Ranching Ltd. which includes Twitter, Facebook, and a website about his own ranch that raises heritage Angus that is Halal certified and hormone and antibiotic free.

Green Hectares hopes through its programs and educational workshops to help make agriculture more sustainable, and it believes this can best be done by creating chances for people to meet and network, collaborate on projects, and learn new things.

Gould says the chance to meet people who are successful in farming and have specific knowledge about agriculture is another of the greater tools.

“It has taught me about my own personal potential and enhanced my leadership skills,” Gould says. “I don’t feel as restricted as farmers normally might — I can see that farming and the potential of it is all a matter of perception. Where before you might decide at a certain stage that you’ve done all you can with the farm, now you can see where all the new technology and ideas can take you.”

Green Hectares offerings are diverse and multi-layered. Current areas of focus include technology via RuralTech programs, as well as networking and creation through The Exchange where entrepreneurs and young farmers can talk about current issues and solutions in a speaker and panel format.

Through their site, participants can also access services through RuralVoices, RuralSpaces (which tells where public meeting areas are available and acts as a sort of reservation system for the gathering of events) and Community Connector (which sends mentor/facilitators into communities for hands-on learning and evaluation).

“We wanted to create an environment where anyone with an interest in agriculture and food could thrive and prosper, no matter where they live,” says Schneider. “We are a virtual organization, using technology to connect as a team. Our programs work anywhere, I’m proud to say that we developed them in Alberta, and the test communities we were in have all continued to use our services since. We are now spreading the programs across Canada online and face to face.”

Some programming is free while other services are fee based. For instance, The Hopper is free. As an entrepreneur you can participate in the Entrepreneur Exchange for free and you can get advice and connections from a facilitator in the Community Connector program for free.

If an organization wants to put on an Entrepreneur Exchange there is a cost, as there is if a municipality, school board or industry wants to support a Community Connector program, says Schneider.

Everything isn’t always smooth sailing in the world of the not for profit. There were times when communication was difficult, says Schneider. “It wasn’t always so easy to get people to understand and buy into it until we had our legs under us.”

A corner seems to have been turned, however.

Farm numbers are difficult to cite, since many Green Hectares programs appeal to rural youth, not only farmers. Still, the program’s RuralTech videos have been watched over 10,000 times, its labs are used on average 17 days a month, and its Community Connector program meets with an average 12 groups a month.

As well, the Entrepreneur Exchange has helped 127 youth businesses, engaging 94 high-level professionals as panellists and sharing over 1,700 connections and 1,200 business ideas.

Plus, The Hopper hub that Gould values so highly offers over 150,000 resources through some 3,380 unique websites.

Meanwhile, as Schneider and I talk, in the background I hear the sounds of farm equipment grunting and growling, backing up and beeping. Keeping an eye on her own business and steering the way for Green Hectares is something Schneider understands, and she sees Green Hectares in the same terms.

“We have moved out of the development stage and are now relying on our programs to be profitable,” Schneider says. “We are just transitioning. We are a lean machine.”

The post Green Hectares appeared first on Country Guide.

There, in a refurbished dairy plant, you will find a new business called EPIC, which stands for Egg Processing Innovations Cooperative. 

It’s owned by the United Egg Farmers of Alberta, and got a big send-off into the business world last June with the help of grants and support from the Alberta Livestock and Meat Agency (ALMA).

Inside Alberta, ALMA needs little introduction. For readers outside the province, it’s good to know that ALMA’s mandate is to encourage new farm initiatives with grants, information and investment “to help Alberta’s livestock and meat industry become more profitable, sustainable and internationally respected.”

In Lethbridge, the goal for the new EPIC plant has been differentiated from the outset for the province’s former but more modest egg-breaking endeavour at Airdrie, just north of Calgary. It’s also differentiated from the huge egg-breaking plants in the U.S. that cast a shadow over North America’s egg markets.

Between the two extremes, EPIC believes it has found a value niche.

The project in Airdrie was a 50/50 ownership between the egg farmers’ co-operative and Vanderpol’s Eggs. (The Vanderpol’s main branch is in Abbotsford, B.C.)

During its evolution, Vanderpol’s Eggs at Airdrie struck an agreement with biotech company IRI Separation Technologies. IRI’s goal was to focus on the extraction of antibodies from eggs for use in things such as natural food products and pharmaceuticals, since the antibodies that can be extracted from eggs are similar to the beneficial human kind.

At Airdrie, then, Vanderpol’s would handle the sale and distribution of liquid egg products, leaving IRI to focus on the separation technologies.

IRI struggled, however. By 2009 it was looking to restructure and merge with other companies, but its last public mention was in 2011, about the same time the Airdrie plant ceased operations.

In Lethbridge, meanwhile, Bruce Forbes was given the CEO’s job to get the EPIC plant off the ground. “I was hired to write the business plan and oversee things,” says Forbes, “We are very happy with how smoothly we were able to get things into place.”

With equipment from the former egg-breaking plant in Airdrie, it took about a year to finalize the deal and begin operations.

Raw, shelled eggs are used for many different products. To put it simply, the egg shell is used for calcium, while what’s inside the egg is used for convenience products such as liquid eggs, as well as a pet food additive for Champion Pets. However, the full lineup of end uses via EPIC’s processing methods is far longer.

• From the Manitoba Co-operator: Direct-farm-marketing initiative suffers growing pains

Making eggs

At the Lethbridge plant, a machine breaks some 18,750 dozen eggs a day and then separates yolks from whites, eggs from shells, and shells from membranes. Liquid egg is pasteurized and can be used in food products such as ice cream, mayonnaise and noodles, as well as in healthier “egg white only” liquid egg products. There are myriad other food markets as well, including markets for pasteurized liquid whole egg, pasteurized albumin (including pharmacology use among others), and pasteurized yolks.

A range of cooking and related products are blended for food-service companies as well, and users of egg shell membranes and egg shell calcium are other possible markets. 

On the non-food side, nutraceutical companies, researchers and other clientele are increasingly looking at new uses for the egg byproducts, yolks and whites. Egg membrane is important, as is the calcium inside the shell. Some future product partners could be companies making cinder-blocks, nutraceuticals (calcium based and joint health supplements) and more. 

At peak capacity, EPIC can process 2.1 million eggs per week, producing 90 tonnes of liquid egg products. Egg supply, however, is lagging behind the plant’s needs.

This slowed down the first half year of operations more than EPIC would like. “Things are starting to pick up now, but there is an overall egg shortage in the province so we are actively looking for bigger operations to get more eggs,” says Forbes.

The reason for needing larger-producing farms is that eggs must be from cage-free chickens, and it isn’t always the most fuel- or product-efficient to be sourcing from numerous smaller farms. Eggs must also be graded before delivery to EPIC. 

“Our facilities are great. Demand for our products currently exceeds supplies, however,” Forbes says. “We are taking all the eggs we can get our hands on. Going farm to farm, we are talking to farmers about switching to cage-free poultry farming and building our supply chain.”

Previously, non-table egg breaking and processing was shipped out to British Columbia and Saskatchewan plants. Starting in 2008, British Columbia, Manitoba and Ontario launched cage-free poultry campaigns. A 2012 ban in the EU of caged birds has motivated many producers to make the switch. EU poultry may reside only in enriched cages with perches, nest boxes and free-range setups.

According to an Egg Farmers of Alberta’s press release, 85 per cent of Alberta eggs came from hens in conventional cages in 2012. This number was down from 98 per cent in 2006.

Gordon Cove, CEO at ALMA, predicts expanding value for the egg sector. He calls egg breaking “a whole new area” and in media reports has said the Lethbridge plant “has the potential to be a catalyst for the entire egg industry.”

Currently at 14 employees, EPIC originally forecast revenues of  $2.5 million in the first year. Whether that will be met in the second half remains to be seen. However, the plant has room for future expansion and, at an originally predicted 22-employee capacity, might inject a total gross annual output of $5 million to the Alberta economy. The Lethbridge location also boasts the advantage of being near to many food-product companies and processors.

EPIC offers an “engineered” egg solution according to customer specifications. Enriched feed eggs, fertilized eggs and a range of unique traits can be important to nutraceutical manufacturers. In some product and research categories, customers may also be seeking such things as inseminated and incubated eggs. 

“Because we are producer-owned and we do work closely with our suppliers, we can ensure that our end-customer gets the exact product they are looking for,” says Forbes.

Currently, Alberta is the largest net importer of interprovincial egg products in Canada. Through the EPIC plant, Alberta’s egg industry hopes to boost its value-added capacity in egg processing.

At the grand opening, Verlyn Olson, Alberta agriculture minister, said, “We’re very proud to have the EPIC plant in Alberta. The work done here benefits our egg producers and the local economy by creating jobs and a steady source of demand for eggs. More importantly, it benefits all Albertans by giving consumers additional value-added options for egg products.”

In practical terms at EPIC, things will be running closer to original plans when egg supply meets demand.

EPIC wants egg producers with strong yields to take note, saying this is a chance to really get their sales figures cracking.

It’s also a chance to crack open new markets, Forbes says. “Nothing of the egg will be unused. We will be processing the entire product.”

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