1. What is the gestation time for animals?
2. What is a ruminant?
3. What is Food Freedom Day?
4. What is fertilizer and why do Farmers use it?
5.What is BSE and how does it affect the farmers in Canada?
6. Why are most farm animals raised indoors in Canada?
7. Why do farmers have to use pesticides and herbicides?
8. What is biotechnology?
9. How big are they?
10. How big is agriculture in Canada?
11. What are natural or organic foods?
12. Is it wasteful to use grain to feed animals?
13. What are some things that food and animal by-products are used in?

Have other questions or comments about agriculture? TBFA would be happy to look into it for you! Contact us at inquiries@tbfarminfo.org, and we'll do our best to answer you.

1. What is the gestation time for animals?

Animal	Months	Number of offspring
Elephant	20-30	1
Buffalo	10-12	1
Cow	9-9 ½	1
Sheep and Goats	5	1-3
Pig	4	2-14
Dog	2	3-8

2. What is a ruminant?
A ruminant is any hoofed animal which has four stomachs such as cattle, sheep, goats, bison, llamas, elk and deer. These animals consume plant material which they are unable to digest directly. They eat grass and plants and later regurgitate their food which is semi-digested. This is known as the cud. They chew it again into smaller pieces mixed with saliva and swallow it again. It moves on to the next stomachs where it is broken down more and the nutrients are absorbed.

3. What is Food Freedom Day?
This is the calendar day on which the average Canadian has earned enough money to pay for their food for the entire year. The Canadian Federation of Agriculture tracks this spending. In 2005 Canadians spent 10.6% of their personal disposable income on food. This percentage has been reduced in recent years; in 1997, Canadians spent 12.5% of their personal disposable incomes on food.
In Canada we have one of the lowest food costs in the world.

Food Freedom Days in 2005
United States	February 4
Canada	February 8
Australia	February 12
Japan	February 20
Iceland	February 27
Mexico	March 4

4. What is fertilizer and why do Farmers use it?
Fertilizer is any material, natural or manufactured, which is added to the soil to supply plants nutrients. The most common elements are; Nitrogen, which helps plants produce strong stems and healthy foliage; Phosphorous, helps root development; potassium, helps develop strong stems and helps against disease.

In farming, many nutrients are taken away from the soil in the form of grain, fruit and flowers, so it is important to add them back. Farmers take soil samples regularly from their fields before they plant so they know if they have the right amount of nutrients they need for that particular crop. By adding the right amount of fertilizer to our fields, we make sure our plants will have the various elements they need to help them grow healthy. Too much of a certain nutrient could harm some crops and could just be wasted. Fertilizer is expensive, so farmers use only what they need at recommendations from their soil test results. Manure contains moderate amounts of nutrients, but is important by adding organic material to the soil and making a healthy environment for the growth of soil organisms.

5. What is BSE and how does it affect the farmers in Canada?
BSE , a.k.a. Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, is a fatal disease of the central nervous system of beef and dairy cattle. It is also called "Mad Cow Disease," because of the symptoms cattle with the disease have. BSE was first discovered in the U.K. in 1986. Most experts agree that BSE was most likely spread by cattle eating feed that contained Meat-and-Bone Meal, made from BSE-infected tissues. Since 1997, Canada has not allowed meat and bone meal from cattle, sheep, goats, bison, elk or deer to be fed to any ruminants.
Canada is the third largest exporter of beef and cattle with 90% of its exports sold to the United States.
When Canada's first case of BSE was found in May 2003, it led to a decision by more than 40 countries to impose import restrictions on live ruminant animals (cattle, sheep, goats, bison, elk, deer), meat products and by-products from Canada. This caused a surplus of beef and cattle, and led to prices dropping drastically. Farmers from all across Canada were left with taking almost nothing for their cattle, since Canadian processors were over-supplied. It was a huge financial loss to farmers who raised any animals that were ruminants but especially cattle farmers.
Most of the ban has since been lifted and prices for cattle have slowly been recovering.
The Government of Canada has continued to increase its safeguards to prevent any potential spread of BSE to other animals and to the human food chain.

6. Why are most farm animals raised indoors in Canada?
Grazing animals like sheep, horses and beef cattle do live outside with shelter, and access to food and water. However, many animals, like pigs and poultry, live in barns in Canada. Barns are designed to provide the animals with the right environment, protected from extreme weather and temperatures, and of course the age-old problem of predators like wolves and coyotes.
Barns keep livestock cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Some barns have water sprinklers to help keep their animals and birds cool and comfortable in hot weather. Another reason for indoor housing is for animal monitoring and care. It’s much easier to ensure each animal gets the right food, clean water, and general care in a barn that when they are outside on pasture.

Chemicals represent an expensive cost of doing business, so we only use them when absolutely necessary. Farmers in Ontario must take a safety course on storing, handling and applying pesticides and pass an exam in order to become certified to purchase and use them. In tandem with other methods of crop protection it has helped raised the yields and quality of our fruits, vegetable and field crops, as well as the reliability of supply to consistently great heights. They’ve also helped keep retail prices low. As farmers we rely on our regulatory system to ensure that the pesticides we use are safe. The Canadian system is one of the most stringent product approval, monitoring and control systems in the world. We need to know that what pesticides we use will not harm the health of our families or of our livestock. We live right on the farm, we breathe the air and drink the water from our own wells and we rely on healthy soils to keep us in business. If we thought chemicals were dangerous, we definitely wouldn’t use them.

8. What is biotechnology?
Biotechnology involves bringing desirable traits from organisms and biological substances to another. Bread, beer and wine, which are produced with the help of yeast, are early versions of this science. More recently vaccines, antibiotics, and other medicines have been produced using biological agents. When biotechnology is applied to food, the goal is to influence biological processes in ways that increase the supply, consistency, durability and quality of the plant and animal products we use.

9. How big are they?
Here’s a chart of an approximate weight of average males, and a few fun comparisons.

Chickens	2kg
Turkeys	6-10kg
Emu	45-50kg
Pig	100kg
Sheep	70-125kg
Quarter Horse	544kg
Elk	420-600kg
Beef Cattle	680kg
African Elephant	7,425kg
Big Bill – biggest pig on record	1.158kg

10. How big is agriculture in Canada?
1 in 7 Canadians works with the agri-food system. The agri-food system results in $94.7 billion in sales each year and employs over 300,000 people. The farm population has declined from 3.3 million in 1931 to 727,000 today. But the average farm size has risen from 50 hectares to 273 hectares.

11. What are natural or organic foods?
All unprocessed food is natural. The question is how it’s produced. Generally speaking, the organic food movement is supported by farmers and consumers who want to conserve soil and water, enhance beneficial biological interactions, and promote biodiversity, without the use of synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, medicines or genetically engineered materials. Organic farming isn’t easy. Farmers need to have a lot of information, available skilled labour, and time. Organic food is produced under a variety of standards which vary depending on the certifying organization. Yields tend to be lower or less reliable and more labour-intensive than with non-organic techniques. Third-party auditing may also be required. These extra costs are recovered through premium prices on organic products.

12. Is it wasteful to use grain to feed animals?
The notion that farm animals in Canada use food needed in developing countries is simply false. Livestock don’t compete with people for food grains. In countries without excess grain supplies, animal feed tends to consist mostly of grasses and forages. Farm animals also generally receive feed corn or barley, while humans eat mainly wheat and rice. Animals can consume grass, pest or weather-damaged grains, corn stalks, leaves and straw, and by-products from food processing such as unusable grains left over from the production of things like cereal. Hunger today is generally the result of political, economic, and distribution problems, not the lack of productive capacity. Globally, more food per person is available than ever before.

13. What are some things that food and animal byproducts are used in?
The by-products of food animals are used far and wide. There are obvious ones, such as leather, fertilizers and glue. Something new which is being used more and more is adding food by-products to things like plastic. Animal and plant-based products biodegrade quickly and can speed up the break-down process.