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Scouting for pests with paws: Ontario farm uses dog to prevent pest outbreak

Oct 24, 2017

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This unconventional IPM team member has four legs and a tail

By Kaitlynn Anderson

Staff Reporter

Farms.com

For NatureFresh Farms, pepper weevils are one of the most threatening pests.

Humans have difficulties spotting pepper weevils and the insects cannot be controlled with a traditional Integrated Pest Management (IPM) system. As a result, the pest can cause a large amount of damage, according to the company website.

So, when an outbreak of pepper weevil threatened the bell pepper crop in Leamington last year, NatureFresh Farms came up with a unique pest management solution.

The company adopted Chili, a 15-month-old female Belgian shepherd.

Source: NatureFresh Farms

“We knew we needed to try something different,” Kara Badder, marketing project manager at NatureFresh, said in an interview with Farms.com.

“We (had a trainer) find a dog who would be perfect for this type work and thus Chili was brought to us.”

Chili is now part of the company’s IPM team.

“Chili has … helped us take preventative measures and mitigate risks when it comes to pepper weevil,” said Badder.

As the dog is able to locate the pest, NatureFresh can now reduce its chance of experiencing a widespread issue, she explained.

To learn more about Chili and her work, watch the video below.

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Border View Farms is a mid-sized family farm that sits on the Ohio-Michigan border. My name is Nathan. I make and edit all of the videos posted here. I farm with my dad, Mark and uncle, Phil. Our part-time employee, Brock, also helps with the filming. 1980 was our first year in Waldron where our main farm is now. Since then we have grown the operation from just a couple hundred acres to over 3,000. Watch my 500th video for a history of our farm I filmed with my dad.

I started making these videos in the fall of 2019 as a way to help show what I do on a daily basis as a farmer. Agriculture is different from any other industry and I believe the more people that are showing their small piece of agriculture, helps to build our story. We face unique challenges and stressful situations but have some of the most rewarding payoffs in the end. I get to spend everyday doing what I love, raising my kids on the farm, and trying to push our farm to be better every year. I hope that I can address questions or concerns that you might have about farms and agriculture.