On March 4th we said goodbye to Europe and headed West to North America.We hit the halfway mark in our Global Focus Program while in Washington, DC. After a short night’s sleep, we started the morning on March 5th with a meeting at the Canadian Embassy. It was interesting to have both a Canadian and… Read More
Category: Farm Travel
Almost 36 hours after leaving New Zealand, we arrived in Amsterdam at 6:00 am February 25th. We took a train to Rotterdam, then a bus to our hotel where we met up with all of the 2012 Nuffield Scholars. Over the past 3 days, I’ve gotten to know farmers from the UK, Ireland, France, India,… Read More
Crosby Devit is currently travelling completing his Nuffield Scholarship. You can check out more of his trip by checking out Crosby’s blog or by reading his blog posts on RealAgriculture.com. At the time of writing I am in the Hong Kong airport, on my way from New Zealand to the Netherlands. We wrapped up a great… Read More
This week, RealAgriculture.com brings you the first episode in a new segment we call Agri Treks. Agri Treks is a quarterly segment that chronicles the worldwide travels of Agri-Trend Group Founder Rob Saik. Each episode Rob visits a new and interesting agricultural or ag- related location. In this episode of Agri Treks Rob visits sites… Read More
At the Tiffin Conference at the Lethbridge College, one of the most popular speakers was Ryan Kasko from the Kasko Cattle Co. Ryan talked about his 2008 trip to Brazil and what some of his observations were. Ryan travelled to Brazil and visited ranches and feedyards. Ryan talks about the fact that Brazilian beef tastes… Read More
After visiting different fields across Chile, I really came to appreciate the differences in irrigation methods. On the larger fields, pivots are becoming more common but there is still many stationary guns and even flood irrigation. Most irrigation water is transported by dirt ditch while cement ditch infrastructure is underway. Chilean farmers are able to grow very… Read More
While looking at fields on a country back road we spotted a silage pit. Immediately I was interested because of the look of the pit. It was made very low to the ground due to small equipment owned by the farmer. The other key characteristic was that the pit was covered in dirt and plastic and not tires. The dirt… Read More
Very early into my trip I quickly noticed the forests lining the Route Cinco (main highway) were tree farms. Hectares and hectares of tree farms populate the landscape of Chile. Forestry is a major industry in Chile and tree farms are a big part of it. We don’t necessarily think of tree farming as agricultural… Read More
Like many industries based on plant science and biology, there is a lot of risk. This is definitely the case with the collapse of the Chilean salmon and winter canola industry. Due to lack of proper environmental practices and controls the salmon farms have been infected with a virus which is killing the salmon population…. Read More
I will be in Chile until February 14th. I am going to try and post to the blog as much as I can while I am here but I will probably be able to add the majority of the content after I get back. So far on my trip I have toured several canola fields… Read More