Innovation Key to Agriculture Success

Nova Scotia farmers face daily challenges in today's competitive, globalized marketplace. It isn't enough to grow top-quality fruits, vegetables, livestock and related products, farmers need to be in step with consumer needs and provide value-added products that consumers will embrace.

With that in mind, a one-day symposium designed to help producers, agri-businesses, and researchers embrace innovation as part of their working plans is being held in Truro on Tuesday, March 23.

"This session is designed to explore components of an innovation tool kit that we're building here in Nova Scotia," said Alan Grant, executive director, Department of Agriculture. "We must move beyond a traditional commodity approach to agri-business and toward advancing new and innovative business models, new approaches to product and service development, and creating new agri-food business partnerships and opportunities."

The event features a panel discussion with three Nova Scotia producers sharing how they embraced innovation to expand operations and improve their farm's bottom line.

"Innovation opens the doors to new opportunities," said Jeanita Rand of Fox Hill Farms in Port Williams.

Her family wanted to ensure the dairy farm's long-term viability by developing value-added products using their milk, and opened a cheese-making business. Today, Fox Hill produces Gouda, cheddar and Havarti cheeses as well as quark (a soft cheese), yogurt, cheese curds and gelato (an Italian ice cream).

"The consumer tells us what they'd like from us, in terms of products, and as innovative producers, we work to meet those requests. Happy consumers mean a more profitable future," Rand said.

"Businesses all use innovation -- a little or a lot -- to help keep them profitable and growing," said Mark Sawler of Sawler Gardens, a vegetable farm and processing facility near Berwick.

Building on the popularity of baby carrots as a raw snack food, Sawler Gardens has recently added precut, packaged turnip sticks to their production.

"We've been marketing baby carrots for over a decade and decided to add a product line using an equally great, but under-utilized, vegetable and help create a demand for it."

Curtis Millen grows strawberries and blueberries in Great Village, near Truro. In 2009, he became the first producer in Nova Scotia to use the FreshQC system. It tracks when, and in what part of the field, a box of berries was harvested, as well as which employee picked the fruit.

"We saw this system of traceability as a means to produce a consistently top-quality product for our customers," he said. "In this industry, if you're not innovative, you're soon not going to be part of the industry."

The symposium also includes presentations by Gus Swanson, LST Energy and Randy MacDonald, Van Dyk's Health Juice Producers on how they tapped into local research expertise to develop innovative products for customers, including the scientists who contributed to products.

"This event will highlight how farmers and agri-businesses are using their ingenuity to improve productivity and profitability," said Janet Steele, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada's Atlantic regional director. "Innovation is alive and well on Nova Scotia farms, and participants will hear first-hand success stories and learn more about programs and research resources that can help them, too."

The symposium will be hosted by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, the Department of Agriculture, the Nova Scotia Federation of Agriculture and the Nova Scotia Agricultural College as part of the federal-provincial Growing Forward initiative.

Advance registration, $40 including lunch, is required by Friday, March 19. To register or for more information, contact Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada at 902-896-3652, by e-mail at [email protected] or visit the agriculture federation website at www.nsfa-fane.ca/innovation-symposium .