Ontario Harvest on Hold

Nov 05, 2012

By Mark Wales, President, Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA)

It is often joked in rural communities that to start a conversation with a farmer, a person only needs to mention prices or weather. That’s because both topics are intrinsically linked to farm life, and can make or break a year. While prices for crops such as corn and soybeans are still holding strong this year, the question plaguing many farmers is whether Mother Nature will ever let up.

Ontario farms saw some damage as Superstorm Sandy passed through Ontario. Reports of damaged farm buildings and downed trees are not uncommon in storms of that magnitude. For Ontario farmers, weather – and adverse weather – is a daily fact of life, and emergency preparedness is a common requirement for family homes, barns, storage buildings and animal housing. While farmers can prepare to mitigate the effects of many weather-related situations on the farm, there remain pressing issues – such as harvesting a crop before winter – that require a “wait-and-see” approach.

After a year that started out promising ideal early planting conditions, the summer’s drought left many farmers with very little worth harvesting by season’s end. In crops that did survive the summer, some areas where plant health was compromised by the summer’s drought are left with weakened stalks that can’t stand up to intensive storm conditions.

Farmers who have yet to harvest their crops will be waiting longer than anticipated. Hurricane Sandy has created extremely wet conditions across the province, making it impossible for combines to get into fields. Farmers who still have soybeans and corn in the fields will be watching weather and moisture reports for the small window of opportunity to get their crop out of the field before winter sets in.

With harvest on hold for many farmers across the province, many will switch to indoor activities. And that might include taking the family to the city for the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair where there are sure to be like-minded individuals eager to chat about topics important to the farm.

Source: OFA

Video: Why Your Food Future Could be Trapped in a Seed Morgue

In a world of PowerPoint overload, Rex Bernardo stands out. No bullet points. No charts. No jargon. Just stories and photographs. At this year’s National Association for Plant Breeding conference on the Big Island of Hawaii, he stood before a room of peers — all experts in the science of seeds — and did something radical: he showed them images. He told them stories. And he asked them to remember not what they saw, but how they felt.

Bernardo, recipient of the 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award, has spent his career searching for the genetic treasures tucked inside what plant breeders call exotic germplasm — ancient, often wild genetic lines that hold secrets to resilience, taste, and traits we've forgotten to value.

But Bernardo didn’t always think this way.

“I worked in private industry for nearly a decade,” he recalls. “I remember one breeder saying, ‘We’re making new hybrids, but they’re basically the same genetics.’ That stuck with me. Where is the new diversity going to come from?”

For Bernardo, part of the answer lies in the world’s gene banks — vast vaults of seed samples collected from every corner of the globe. Yet, he says, many of these vaults have quietly become “seed morgues.” “Something goes in, but it never comes out,” he explains. “We need to start treating these collections like living investments, not museums of dead potential.”

That potential — and the barriers to unlocking it — are deeply personal for Bernardo. He’s wrestled with international policies that prevent access to valuable lines (like North Korean corn) and with the slow, painstaking science of transferring useful traits from wild relatives into elite lines that farmers can actually grow. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. But he’s convinced that success starts not in the lab, but in the way we communicate.

“The fact sheet model isn’t cutting it anymore,” he says. “We hand out a paper about a new variety and think that’s enough. But stories? Plants you can see and touch? That’s what stays with people.”

Bernardo practices what he preaches. At the University of Minnesota, he helped launch a student-led breeding program that’s working to adapt leafy African vegetables for the Twin Cities’ African diaspora. The goal? Culturally relevant crops that mature in Minnesota’s shorter growing season — and can be regrown year after year.

“That’s real impact,” he says. “Helping people grow food that’s meaningful to them, not just what's commercially viable.”

He’s also brewed plant breeding into something more relatable — literally. Coffee and beer have become unexpected tools in his mission to make science accessible. His undergraduate course on coffee, for instance, connects the dots between genetics, geography, and culture. “Everyone drinks coffee,” he says. “It’s a conversation starter. It’s a gateway into plant science.”