Busy times. Let’s try to catch up.

A week ago last Sunday, a talk by Jon Steinman,

out at Muse Winery, was an attempt to draw together the gist of several years’ worth of radio (Deconstructing Dinner). He illustrated some of his concerns by deconstructing one of the agricultural multinationals who control the full spectrum of our food supply in Canada: Cargill. (The Deconstructing Dinner program upon which this is based: part 1 is here and part 2 is here.)

Cargill was established in 1865, in Minnesota. In Canada its headquarters are in Winnipeg. Here are the pies in which you’ll find its fingers:

Beef: Cargill owns 40% of the slaughter capacity in Canada (one of two companies that control 80% of capacity). It operates only two facilities: High River Alberta and Guelph, Ontario, which between them slaughter 5,400 cattle each day. Narrowing the field of operation in this way is undoubtedly cost-efficient for the company, but it shows very clearly the risks to consumers: any problem in one of those plants has grievous repercussions for consumers and meat producers alike, a point proven by the Maple Leaf experience, where we saw how large was the reach from a single production plant. And how great could be the financial repercussions for the company.

Animal feed: Cargill owns Nutrena, the largest feed company in the world, which makes pet food as well as feed for horses and pigs, chickens and cattle; and in 2000 they bought out their competitors, Agribrands Purina (not the pet food Purina, which is owned by Nestle).

Plant breeding: Cargill owns Renessen, partnered with Monsanto, producing such delights as genetically engineered corn. ‘Nuf said.

Fertilizers: Cargil is the largest phosphate producer in the world, operating with agricultural firm IMC Global as Mosaic, and is the second largest potassium producer.

Natural gas: Cargill is one of the world’s major traders and transporters of natural gas (an essential element in fertilizer production).

Salt: Cargill is the world’s largest salt producer and sells such products as water softener as well as manufacturing, agricultural and the Diamond Crystal retail salt brand.

Grain: Cargill commands 17% of the world’s grain trading.

Canola: Cargill operates the largest canola oilseed crushing plant in the world, in Clavet, Saskatchewan (selling under the trade name Canola Harvest).

Eggs: Cargill supplies most of the food service (Sunny Fresh) egg and breakfast products in Eastern Canada through its Kitchen Solutions brand.

Sugar: Cargill is partnering with Imperial Sugar Company to build the world’s largest sugar refinery, in Louisiana.

Malting: Cargill is a partner in Prairie Malt and is one of the two companies that control 75% of malting in Canada.

Chocolate: Cargill owns the production and processing of chocolate, and brands like Peter’s, Gerkens Cocoa, Veliche and Wilbur.

That’s some of what they own. They have many other interests including cotton, grain (through AgHorizons), High-Fructose Corn Syrup and other corn derivatives, frozen desserts, and ethanol.

And that’s only one company. Which is one extremely large reason why it feels safer to buy from small producers whenever possible.

In my continuing quest to understand the elusive factors in meat production and climate change, I came across an archived broadcast of BBC journalist Simon Parkes‘ investigation into the carbon footprint of milk in Britain. It’s an interesting story and the factors that affect methane production are not always what you might think. (Download RealPlayer if your media player has trouble with .ram files)

On Friday I was attended Kate Braid‘s reading at Planet Earth Poetry. She’s published two books this past year, and she treated us to readings from both: Turning Left To The Ladies – about her past as a construction worker; and A Well-Mannered Storm: The Glenn Gould Poems. Making reference to the passing of PK Page, she also read Page’s poem, “The Filled Pen” and another by Rumi.

And on Saturday I attended some of the Big Leaf Maple Syrup Festival in Duncan, which was positively mobbed by visitors of all sizes, and who wouldn’t be drawn by the twin attractions of sugar and train rides? I missed out on the train, but took in the syrup tasting, held in the old school house at the Forest Discovery Centre

hosted by Mara Jernigan

for Slow Food, using this Maple Products Flavour wheel as a guide to aromas and flavours. We sampled half a dozen local syrups and one Easterner for comparison.

A producer panel gave us a chance to hear from some of the Sap Suckers, who spoke about the ins and outs of tapping maples, as well as evaporation,

bottling and hygiene issues. One of the best we tasted, I thought, turned out to be a science project by a local schoolgirl!

It’s a different flavour from the commercial maple syrup, which is smooth and sweet with no real aftertaste. This stuff has more complex flavours, and, I thought, quite a bit of green twig on the finish. As the participants attested, many of them voting for the Eastern version, we tend to prefer what we’re used to, and if that is a fairly bland sweet taste, that’s what we’ll go for. Bitterness is a hard sell in North America, which doesn’t feature much from that part of the palate in its cultural preferences. The flavour wheel itself was developed around Quebec syrups, so maybe it needs a couple more spokes for Western ones.