Harvesting Soybeans To Help A Farmer In Need

For anyone that knows Rick & his family, they’ll tell you that giving back is an important aspect of their farm. And that goes for whether it’s an initiative in their own community or helping a farmer on the other side of the world. On our tour today, we start from the combine seat as Rick harvests soybeans and tells about how he uses auto-steer technology all year long. But then we discuss where the money from some of these soybeans are going. That’s because he’s donating them to the Canadian Foodgrains Bank in order to support farmers in developing countries, so that they can support their own families and communities. So from a combine that is driving itself to helping another farmer, this is a tour you have to see!

Thanks for having me. Tell me first, what do you do at Brenair Farms ?

Thank you very much for coming here today, Andrew. We grow grain crops and we have laying hens, so we’re egg producers. We also have a Dekalb seed dealership and sell corn and soybean seed to a few other local farmers.

What a diverse farm you have. Today we’re here to learn more about the grain side and about harvesting soybeans. Tell us, what’s involved in your grain farm?

We grow grain corn, soybean and winter wheat. Today, we’re in a combine harvesting soybeans. This combine uses auto steer, which is driven by a GPS (autosteer). It is similar to the GPS technology that all newer cars and smart phones have today. It communicates with satellites and is able to steer the combine down the field. It is accurate to within an inch or so.

It is amazing technology. How wide of a space are we combining here?

We’re combining 35 feet (10.6 meters) of soybean rows. We also use GPS to plant our crops so the rows are straight and we can plant the soybeans exactly between the stubble from last year’s corn rows. Now we’re using GPS to combine straight down the rows.

When you have finished this field, do you get a map? What does that tell you?

We’re mapping here as we speak on the iPad monitor. Right now it is mapping soybean yield. We’ll take that map and use it as a guide for soil testing to check fertility in the field in certain spots. Although this year it might not be helpful because I think a lot of the variation has to do with the fact that we had so little rain in August, so that might throw it off. Sometimes you can use the map to guide taking soil samples. It’ll help you find out if there’s a problem with soil fertility or maybe there’s a pH problem in the field or a lack of a certain nutrient and then we can correct that.

That’s a lot of fine detail that goes into a pretty big field.

Yes. In fact, some farmers will actually use it to calculate the nutrients that have been used by the growing crop. Specifically they’d be looking at phosphorus and potash or potassium. Then they would be able to put in a fertilizer spreader that would spread the appropriate nutrients back in the field to supplement the nutrients that a crop has used during the year. We know a certain yield takes so much phosphorus and so much potash. So you can put back in the specific nutrients that are needed.

Tell us more about how the combine works.

On the front of the combine is a cutter bar or a knife that cuts the bean plant off very close to the ground then a reel sweeps past the knife back into an auger. The auger draws the bean plants with the soybeans on it into the centre of the combine and feeds them up into a rotating drum with some prongs that break the pod. The beans are separated from the pods and from the stems. The beans end up in a bin in the combine and the pods and the stems go out the back through a chopper and are spread back onto the field. When the bin is full, another auger is used to move it from the bin into a grain wagon/cart or a truck.

After you get it in the wagon, what happens to the soybean?

We take the soybeans to our elevator. If they’re dry, we’ll put them straight into a storage bin. If they’re not dry, we’ll put them through a drying system. They need to have about 13% moisture content to be considered dry. (If the soybeans are stored at a higher moisture, they could rot and become inedible)

The soybeans are then shipped from our elevator on trucks to crushing plants. In Ontario, there is one in Windsor and one in Hamilton. Soybeans are crushed into soybean oil (sometimes generically called vegetable oil) which would be used for all kinds of products and for cooking oil in your home. Soybean oil also has some industrial uses, such as printing ink.

After crushing, you’re left with a high-protein meal that is used to feed cattle and poultry. In other words, it is used by other farmers to feed their livestock.

That’s an efficient way of using soybeans with little to no waste. I wanted to ask you about a sign in your driveway that says Canadian Food Grains Bank. Tell us what that means.

We’ve always been interested in missions and outreach outside of Canada. This is our eighth year that we have donated the harvest from 15 acres on our farm to the Canadian Food Grains Bank. We do that by taking the actual grain to Cargill, and then they will sell the grain and send the money to a Canadian Food Grains Bank in Winnipeg.

That’s a pretty unique way to make a donation.

You say it’s a bit unusual but it’s not unusual for farmers. I know lots of friends and neighbours who are involved in food grains projects much like this.

Where does that money go when it goes to the food grains bank?

Initially when the Canadian Food Grains Bank started, the actual grain was loaded and shipped to areas where there was a need. But because of transportation costs and bureaucracy it has evolved. Now the crop is sold here and the money goes to the central office and is matched by government funding depending on the project. Sometimes it is matched two to one, sometimes three to one, it depends on the project and what the government has approved. That’s how the money eventually gets from here to where it can be useful.

What is this support used for?

For food-related projects or access to water or whatever can help farmers there. They might set up irrigation or transfer some of the technology that we have in seed and weed control and fertility to help the farmers in those areas to produce more food for themselves and for their neighbours.