Having been involved with farming from a very young age, I have always wanted to learn how farming works in other countries, and I thought that Germany would be a great start for exploring and comparing agricultural practices to gain a new perspective and appreciation for the agriculture industry worldwide.

July 10, 2008, I left Canada on an evening flight to Hamburg, Germany for a three week adventure. This was my first overseas trip, as it is only now in my late twenties that I am able to travel abroad, and I was honoured to be selected to represent JFAO.

Shortly after landing I was greeted by my first host, Sandra Thomforde, who was from Bargstedt, a small community just outside of Hamburg. I met up with two other delegates, Helen Wheeler from England, and Owen Davies from Wales, who are members of the Young Farmers Club in Great Britain. Over the next few weeks the three of us formed a strong bond to work together in order to communicate or interpret the unique situations we faced in a foreign country.

Germany has a program very like JFAO in Ontario. It is called the Landjeund. They run very similar activities and also have many new ideas that I have brought back from the exchange. For example, each club performs a 72 hour project each year as a competition or challenge that the community gives, or the members of the Landjuend develop, ie. building a gazebo-like stage for the community to enjoy during the music in the warm months, assisting with the local parades, offering weekends of networking with a tour of a facility during the day (Cheese making, slaughter house, brewery, etc.)

In Bargstedt, we experienced some of the local night life and learned about the historical features of the city of Hamburg. On a pedal bike adventure we visited a nearby dairy farm actually found within a village, and a pig farm where mother sows were raising their young in a grass field outdoors, which is an unfamiliar sight here in Canada. I was very inquisitive and asked many questions. I wanted to understand the advantages, disadvantages, and the reasoning behind the milking and management procedures of the dairy farm located inside the village, and also why they pasture pigs outside rather than indoors.

On July 15th, we left on the train to rendezvous with our next host in a small town called Filsm. During the trip, no matter who we encountered, they only spoke German, so it was hard to know when to get off, how long we would be travelling on the train, or where we had to switch trains. But after four hours, we arrived at our destination, which was close the city of Leer, not too far from the Netherlands border.

My second host was the family of Kirsten Leerhof. They had me milking cows early in the morning and in the evening. In between they escorted us to local tourist destinations.

I was intrigued by the fact that the houses and barns were connected to each other and that different agricultural species were within walking distance of each other, and asked about the biosecurity between farms.

In Germany, grass and corn are the primary forms of silage. The cows are pastured on grass and some are even milked in parlours in the fields. The grass grows all the time because of the amount of rain the country receives, so I was very surprised that I did not see any alfalfa or soybean crops while I was on exchange. I did observe wheat, barley, and rye. Germany has an earlier growing season as they sow the fields at the end of March and into early April. The corn was all in tassel with cobs starting to form.

It was also surprising to see how many Canadian dairy bulls German farmers are using in their herds, and how impressed the farmers were with the quality of the livestock they were producing.

I accompanied my second host family to Pappenburg, where Meyers Ships builds its cruise ships for use around the world. They construct two ships per year and hope to soon manufacture three. When the ships are released up the river to the ocean, it is like watching a hotel moving through the landscape, and you can see it for miles because it is very flat land. Many people drive to come see the event. The ships are getting larger and larger and every six months they actually have to tear down the old bridges and build new ones, just so the cruise ships can make it to the ocean.

We also saw the Transpid just south of Pappenburg ,which is a magnetic train that can travel up to 270 km/hr. The technology was incredibly interesting, but very expensive and still in the testing stages.

Later that night we had an adventure touring around the countryside. We stopped to see an older gentleman who was driving a four horse hitch through a cross country course that he had built to resemble a competitive course. All of us jumped on board along with another German fellow who was going to steer the back of the wagon. I grabbed the reins, despite not knowing any of the commands in German, but I was excited to be involved in such an incredibly memorable experience.

We took off at a slow canter and approached the first small bridge. The horses’ ears were back, listening to the driver at the rear. Then the horses ears’ would move forward, and away they would go.There was another person on the back of the wagon, who would move it from side to side so that it would not hit any pylons or posts: a dangerous job. As we approached the straight away you could feel the horses picking up speed and pulling on the reins, going faster and faster into a dead gallop towards a dug-out half-full water hole.

All the while, the older gentleman in the back was speaking German to the English delegates, who didn’t understand a word. He was telling them to stand so they would not get wet. Water and mud were flying everywhere, and by the end, after going through the course several times, we were all completely soaked.