Agro 2011 - Seeding and tillage

As RB pointed out, it is easy to take teh boy from the farm but hard to take the farm from the boy.  I know I have a few rural or rural at heart readers so these pictures are for them.  Just a few more pictures folks and then on with the show. The next two Agro-2011 will be more interesting.  Promise.

The tillage equipment was mostly disks and cultivators.  Only one plow that I saw. I hate plows, having seen what they do to the soil.  Don't like disks much either.  Same reason.  Turns the trash under instead of leaving it on top to hold moisture and control weeds.  Seeding equipment ranged from the ancient to the ultra modern.  There was an end-wheel press drill that was much like the ones used on state and collective farms for decades.  And modern air seeders with complex multi openers and all sorts of electronic controls and monitors.

My grandfather used a similar model with steel wheels in the 1920's.

Crop duster. 

Corn planter for the small farmer

Agro 2011 - Combines and Tractors

I am always happy when Ukraine does things for itself, instead of importing.  Like make farm machinery.  (Now all my Saskatchewan buddies will be mad.  Sask, and Canada, exports a pile of machinery to Ukraine every year).  There were all kinds of Ukraine mfrd combines this year, along with the usual John Deere, New Holland and Caterpillar.  Combines made in Bila Tserkva, Kherson, Slavutych and Kharkiv, along with other made in Russia and Belarus.  Krasnoyarsk combines are now made in Ukraine at Bila Tserkva.  Not sure if there are other Russian brands built here or if they are local brands.

Lots of tractors too, built in Ukraine, along with Russian and the well known Belarus tractors.  Many small makes from China along with lots of equipment for small farms.  Nice to see stuff that is for the little guys too.

Agro 2011 - Livestock

Twelve years ago there were several hundred cattle and other livestock on display at the show.  There was no judging per se.  The cattle were there to advertise the various (at that time government-owned) genetics farms and AI centres.  Almost all of them have been privatized one way or another. 

The Main Selection Centre of Ukraine at Pereyaslav-Khmelnitsky was once flagship of the Ukraine SSR Genetics Farms and AI Centres.  Under  Director (the late) Irina Volenko the farm had several hundred beef cattle of five breeds and one of the best Holstein breeding herds. At one time they had a bull-stud in partnership with Semex Canada.  (You would love to hear the Semex version of events, I am sure) MSCU sold semen all over Ukraine; ran dairy and beef production schools, AI schools, ET schools, kept dairy and beef bull production records for Ukraine.  I was there so often from 1997 to 2005 that the professional staff were like family. 

MSCU was one of three Ukrainian partners in the 1999-2002 Beef Forage Development Project funded by CIDA, implemented by Saskatchewan Trade and Export Partnership (STEP).  My Tanya was a student in the first three week beef and forage school we taught at MSCU.

MSCU is still government owned but does virtually nothing.  It exists in name only.  The beef cattle are all gone.  the dairy cattle sold and the facilities leased.  All my friends are gone to new jobs.  Irina's daughter Svitlana started a genetics company and imports dairy semen from an American company.  She employs several of my friends.  My friend Volodya started his own genetics company and imports dairy and beef semen from another American company.  Both are doing well. Both companies had booths at the show.

There were maybe six farms with beef cattle at the show, to promote themselves.  There really is no market for beef bulls in the sense we would understand in North America.  There are only about 50,000 beef cattle in Ukraine and most of those are on (highly subsidized) purebred farms.

Charolais Bull (or Polissia breed; don't ask)

Sign promoting one farm's cattle

Limousin bull from France

Young Limousin bulls

Charolais bulls

Agro 2011 - Location

If I don't do my own blog before I start on the backlog of other people's that need reading, I will be another day without anything posted.

The  Agro 2011 show that Tanya and I attended last week was held in a new exhibition park in Kyiv.  It was just off the Metro so easy to reach by public transport but there were still cars parked everywhere for blocks around.  Kyiv now has three exhibition parks, one older one and two new ones.  The old one, which is quite far from public transportation, is where the show was last time I attended about three years ago.  That exhibition park is rumoured to now belong to the son of President Yanukovich, which is quite possible.

For many years, even in Soviet times, the show was held about 30 km from Kyiv by the village of Alexandrivka near Boryspil.  I attended twice at that location.  Not the best as after heavy rains it was 6" deep in water in many places.  However several years back, the location suddenly had new owners who wanted exorbitant fees for allowing the fair to continue there.

It was moved to Kyiv to the old exhibition grounds.  All the investment that many companies had put into the old location in terms of permanent structures were simply lost. The Kyiv location was better for machinery and worse for cattle.  Cattle numbers dropped considerably at the show. This year it was moved again to this new place - three huge halls plus outdoor space.  Again great for machinery bad for livestock but easy to get to for city dwellers.

With this picture and the one below, you can get an idea of the facility

Click on this to enlarge

Inside one of the halls.  The others were crowded so it was easier to take a panorama picture here.

Agro 2011

Tanya and I are sitting in Friday's just finished supper.  I had a Jack Daniels Sirloin RARE.  It was heaven.
We are in Kyiv for three days to see the Ag Machinery and Livestock show that is held here every early June.  It is 90% farm machinery and 10% livestock or maybe 85:15.  I have pictures which I will blog once we get home (Saturday night our time).  We met with a potential client, and just missed another but will connect next week.  Ran into several old friends.

Today I looked at the machinery and Tanya toured the market stalls set up on the outskirts, for more flowers. Tomorrow we go back so she can buy what she saw, just before we go to the train so the plants suffer less from the heat. She only bought bulbs today.

We are staying in a nicely furnished private flat on Vinograd street (Grapevine). I had actually stayed in that building several years back as it is quite close to the former STEP office and I know the area well.  Tonight we walked down Lipska street to Institutska and then down Institutska to Khreshchatik.  A 45 minute leisurely stroll.  Khreshchatick on a warm summer weekend evening is a wonderful street to stroll along.  All the buskers are out - break dancers, musicians, singers, bag ladies with their dogs and cats.

And of course the micro-skirts, barely there tops and 4" heels are all over the place.  Though I no longer care if I miss seeing any of them.  I have to smile at North American response to them - They look like they are hookers.  No, they look like hookers look like in North America.  Here it is standard dress up to go out wear.  Girl watchers paradise. I have no pictures, sorry boys.

Groaners

My thanks to Walt Dunn for these.  They truly are terrible abuse of the mother tongue.

Back in the 1800's the Tate's Watch Company of Massachusetts wanted to produce other products, and since they already made the cases for watches, they used them to produce compasses. The new  compasses were so bad that people often ended up in Canada or Mexico rather than California . This, of course, is the origin of the expression -- "He who has a Tate's  is lost!"

An Indian chief was feeling very sick, so he summoned the medicine man. After a brief examination, the medicine man took out a long, thin strip of elk rawhide and gave it to the chief, telling him to bite off, chew, and swallow one inch of the  leather every day. After a month, the medicine man returned  to see how the chief was feeling. The chief shrugged and said, "The thong is ended, but the malady lingers on."

Evidence has been found that William Tell and his family were avid bowlers.  Unfortunately, all the Swiss league records were destroyed in a fire, ...and so we'll never know for whom the Tells bowled.

King Ozymandias of Assyria was running low on cash after years of war with the Hittites. His last great possession was the Star of the Euphrates, the most valuable diamond in the ancient world. Desperate, he went to Croesus, the pawnbroker, to ask for a loan. Croesus said, "I'll give you 100,000 dinars for it." "But I paid a million dinars for it," the King protested. "Don't you know who I am? I am the king!" Croesus replied, "When you wish to pawn a Star, makes no difference who you are."

A skeptical anthropologist was cataloguing South American folk remedies with the assistance of a tribal elder who indicated that the leaves of a particular fern were a sure cure for any case of constipation. When the anthropologist expressed his doubts, the elder looked him in the eye and said, "Let me tell you, with fronds like these, you don't need enemas."

Flowers

Tanya said I should post this picture for MayB to show her the colours of this flower that she has in her garden.  They are actually floating in a dish of water but look like they are painted on a plate.