Third-World Farmers Getting Southwestern Ontario Help

Apr 16, 2014

A Southwestern Ontario farm service company and some volunteers are teaming up to help third-world farmers increase their yields by using modern techniques.

South West Ag Partners project manager Jim Hazzard says Lambton farmer Mark Lumley got the organization involved in helping small land owners in Zambia.

“He looked at it and did a trial corn plot of a quarter of an acre that did very well, and Mark contacted us and we went over to see if we could replicate this on a bigger scale,” he says. “They were planting around 22,000 seeds per acre and we upped that to what we plant around 32,000 and we upped the fertilizer.”

He says the company and volunteers have a three year commitment and believe there will be increased yields in the first crop which is nearing harvest.

Source: Agrimedia

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.