Many of the articles and websites about opportunities in Manitoba focus on programs for immigrants and opportunities to get into Manitoba through the Provincial Nominee program. While this is essential, other opportunities abound in a variety of fields, open to a variety of groups, individuals, community undertakings and local government.
Housing. The following website links to financial support for transitional, heritage, green, affordable and other housing projects that aim to increase our available housing supply. Like all provinces, we currently have a shortage of affordable housing. Filling that need also requires skilled tradespeople. https://mnpha.com/resource-bank/funding-opportunities/
Climate. Environmental projects and climate action is a focal point with Canadian governments, as the following link to funding sources reveals. https://www.gov.mb.ca/grants/faqs-cc.html https://meia.mb.ca/tag/conservation-and-climate-fund/
Technology. Manitoba government encourages innovation in all fields, including technology. While the first link is to an expired project that is under review for renewal, the second link includes active funding opportunities. https://www.gov.mb.ca/jec/busdev/financial/igp/index.html (expired) https://researchmanitoba.ca/funding/programs/canada-foundation-for-innovation/
Health & Aging. Manitoba has an aging population with increasing demands on health care. To address this, the province works with our federal government to support beneficial projects through funding assistance. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/health-care-funding-agreements-manitoba-bilateral-1.7115976 https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/corporate/transparency/health-agreements/shared-health-priorities/aging-dignity-bilateral-agreements/manitoba-funding.html
We also have executive summaries and articles on a variety of rural business opportunity topics, including cohousing, biodiesel and innovative greenhouse businesses, as well as a discussion on innovative rural business ownershipw models. We have provided summaries of these opportunities below as well as in our posts.
Earthen Bale Greenhouse Planning
The typical cost of produce grown in a greenhouse in North America is four to 6 times the cost of the same produce field-grown. The most significant contributors to this cost of production differential are the cost of heating and lighting. However, other costs include growing medium, water systems and infrastructure operating and capital costs for items like the greenhouse itself, transportation & distribution and scalability.
In northern climates, like Canada, those operating costs rise enormously, but seasonal variations in prices of goods from southern growing regions also rise significantly in winter months. The gap between the two wholesale costs narrows by about 15-20%.
Since 2018, vegetable and fruit wholesale prices in many Canadian areas have risen by 13-28%, making the potential for growing some crops locally more appealing. Additionally, between 2016-2020, the American protectionist attitudes have soured a great many Canadians to buying American goods, so homegrown has an emotional appeal, at this time.
Still, whether you are in Canada or the USA, the lure of having fresh, local produce in mid-winter is attractive, but most consumers will not pay the huge price premium.
Therefore, if vegetables and fruits are to be grown in local areas that have harsh winter climates, the gap between conventional field-grown and greenhouse-grown goods must be closed in a huge way.
There are multiple areas where new technology, combined with a return to old methods, will narrow the wholesale price spread.
Distribution costs have been cited in many greenhouse business plans as a disadvantage for greenhouse operations. The rationale is that having a multitude of outlets for one’s goods, and a route with many clients, reduces cost of transportation per unit. However, this can be convoluted logic.
If a greenhouse is built as a community-driven and community-based operation, then local retailers my willingly buy locally, for at least a portion of their purchases. It is akin to the smaller organic section of a produce department, with its higher prices. This may be a niche market, but buying local, known-to-be-fresh goods is very appealing for many consumers.
The local operation holds another advantage over distant suppliers. It can operate a cooperative style of distribution model, in tandem with its wholesale division. It also can sell many (but not all) of its vegetables and fruit directly, in a store-front operation.
Pooling of resources to build and operate a greenhouse can drive down operating costs, as well. If a greenhouse is built on contributed (for a price) land of a local farmer, in exchange for a share in the business, savings can be realized. That land may already have other resources, or additional farmer shareholders may. These may be access to feedstocks for heating infrastructure (e.g. biomass), a water system that can be tapped, or a ready use for the waste materials produced. It may also supply organic fertilizers.
The heating costs are one of the largest costs for greenhouse operations. Geothermal is an excellent option, but biodiesel, biogas and gasification also can cut heating costs by 60-70%.
The lighting systems of yesterday are being replaced by modern systems, with LED lighting using less than 15% of what a conventional incandescent bulb would use. Not only does this reduce operating costs, but it eliminates the need for the costly installation of three-phase power that would be needed by a conventional greenhouse with electric heat and light.
Innovative design options can reduce heating costs and even capital costs by more than 60%. A straw-bale north wall, an earth-bermed greenhouse or a passive het collection system each will shave thousands of dollars off building costs, while reducing heating costs further.
Lastly, government and environmental group financial assistance for such projects may drop your initial costs by 10%.
Overall, innovative design and operation, in a community-owned greenhouse may not make winter produce 100% comparable to field-grown southern imports, but the gap can be narrowed, bringing wholesale costs to within 50% of imported goods, rather than the average 500% difference. That is a difference that would, without doubt, be appealing to local consumers.
Note: Currently, we are developing a template business plan for greenhouse design and operation for rural communities. If you are interested in learning more, or in participating in the plan development, please visit our blogs under the “Share It” menu.
Creative Heating Systems to Make Greenhouse Operations Affordable
With the price of imported vegetables skyrocketing, consumers are seeking affordable alternatives. In the summer and early fall, our own local produce competes, in price and quality with Mexican and southern USA crops, but by mid-October, only root crops remain competitive.
Root crops, however, are not suited to greenhouse growing, as they are not cost effective. That leaves tomatoes, short-season crops, some peas and other legumes and leafy vegetables grown locally in greenhouses to help ease the impact of shipping from southern regions. By November, those crops, too.
The major costs for greenhouse operations used to be heating and lighting. Today, with inexpensive LED lighting, only heat remains the major barrier to greenhouse operation.
Historically, off-season greenhouse production costed four times what it would cost to field-grow crops in the south. Some enthusiasts in Canada’s north (northern Manitoba and the northwest territories) found that they could cut costs by growing in abandoned mines, where temperatures remained relatively constant. Others, in urban areas, experimented with empty warehouses, but heating costs and retrofitting remained prohibitively expensive.
In examining these lessons, many of which were failures, a window of opportunity opened for rural greenhouse initiatives.
There are a number of factors at play that provide an advantage for rural greenhouses.
The movement away from synthetic chemicals means that an organic approach, relying on animal fertilizers, favours the country over the city.
Shipping costs from a hundred kilometres away is much less costly than fuel costs to ship from Texas or California.
Manitoba’s hydro resources means that cheap electricity for lighting is even cheaper, with LED lighting.
Our abundant supply of water is an advantage over California’s system of canals and waterways for irrigation.
Our ability to develop networks among easily reached communities, producers, grocers and local buyers means that we can establish and maintain a symbiotic network that acts as a barrier to imported goods.
Significantly, our ability to design cost-effective structures for greenhouses, using earthen bale designs, or bermed buildings significantly reduces capital costs.
But, most importantly for economical ongoing operating costs, we are able to tap into extremely low-cost heating resources. This means that we now can compete on a dollar-for-dollar basis with many of the imported vegetables coming from the southwest.
Of course, many citrus or delicate fruit crops remain unviable for production in the north, as do space-demanding crops like corn, long-season root crops and low-yield crops. But all leafy vegetables, tomatoes, some vegetable vines such as cucumbers, Asian crops like choy, and even most legumes can be grown as cheaply as southern crops whose prices spike in winter.
Those heating costs also provide revenue streams for farmers where none existed before.
Biomass (all green sources of mass)
Wood chips, old bales of hay and straw, remnants from forestry and even barnyard waste can be used as a biomass source for heating greenhouses. Abandoned buildings made of wood, deadfall and other ignored sources of lignin make viable heating materials, without contributing significantly to environmental degradation.
Hemp stalks, pressed into logs or nuggets, offers a high-fuel source. There even is residual value in tailings from biodiesel and ethanol production, potato tailings and waste, and so on. These may be burned, used as a gasifier source or converted into biofuels and the waste then used as heat, as well as the biofuels.
Manure, once it has been processed into biogas, still has usable and burnable mass for the furnaces that can heat a greenhouse.
Passive (and Active) Solar
The concept of using earth and bale construction as a backdrop (and back wall) for a greenhouse has two origins. First, it is an economical construction method, used in housing designs of the 1980s, known as “spaceship” housing. Second, it involves using the bales to store solar heat collected either actively or passively. Combined with a “stucco” type finish, it also provides a solid, permanent wall. By strategically applying a dark colour coating to the portions of that wall where the sun strikes in autumn and winter, solar heat is gathered more effectively.
The same concept works by using packed earth, or berming, to build this rear wall. Often, pipes are interwoven in the mass to distribute and recover the stored heat, which costs nothing to collect. On more northern latitudes, this rear, or north wall, may extend to the northwestern and northeastern sides, creating a more energy efficient building.
Then, by using thermal blankets inside or outside on the glazed roof, more energy is trapped in cold seasons. In the summer, the earthen, bale, or earthen bale walls give up cooler air to moderate the temperature inside the structure.
Biodiesel
Small scale biodiesel operations are missed opportunities, so far, in rural Canada. Estimates place lost oilseeds crops due to sprouting, heating or other degradation at 1 to 3 percent of total crop production. These waste crops generally are abandoned, deemed unfit for human consumption and undesirable for animal consumption. Yet, they produce biodiesel of as good quality as food-grade canola, mustard and soybean. Other sources of feedstock can include animal renderings (including poultry waste, industrial oil waste, and restaurant oil recovery. That biodiesel can fuel numerous greenhouses, and the production equipment purchased for as little as $12-15,000.
Biogas
Another missed opportunity, biogas can be readily produced from manure, whether it is chicken, cattle or hogs. When a greenhouse is collocated on a livestock operation, that biogas can be produced in a few simple steps, with no storage or transportation costs. And the waste from the biogas production can be used in other greenhouse operations. Infrastructure and equipment costs are nominal.
Geothermal
Geothermal heating is not new. In fact, it is merely passive solar heat collection: using the heat stored in the ground. While well-to-well geothermal is regulated by Water Stewardship, horizontal and vertical ground loop geothermal is not. With the abundant space on most farms, a horizontal loop geothermal system is relatively inexpensive to install and maintain, and its only cost is the cost of operating the heat pumps and in-building fans.
Gasifier
Gasification involves heating a biomass (e.g. bales of straw or wood debris) from below and burning the off-gases produced by this heating It is environmentally friendly, efficient and inexpensive. It also is a great way to use straw bales that have been standing for years when there is no market for them.
Storage of Heat
Heat storage requires developing the mass that holds the heat. For instance, a heavy salt water brine, in storage tanks, holds heat longer than water alone. A tank buried in insulative material, such as mulch, may hold heat for weeks. Simple heat exchangers can recover heat from what appears to be cold air or water. Storing heat for weeks extends the growing season in a greenhouse inexpensively, before the need for more intensive heating emerges as the autumn progresses.
The ability to store heat is demonstrated by new building regulations that require a basement or foundation to have rigid insulation extending four feet beyond the footing, to keep frost from penetrating below the footing and causing shifting. That same insulation can hold the heat in a ground-based reservoir at depths just below the frost line.
Insulation Ideas
Creative insulation ideas include curtain walls, reflective surfaces that direct sunlight toward dark, dense masses such as an inner concrete wall, earth and straw shored up against the east and west walls of a greenhouse in spring and autumn, dead air spaces between layers of light-penetrating fabric, and so on.
Co-located buildings and heat recovery
An on-farm manufacturing facility, such as are found on many Hutterite colonies, a barn heated for livestock, or other heated buildings may share heating and cooling resources.
One seniors facility, planned for a rural community, was designed to share geothermal with its neighbouring curling rink, with one needing heat when the other needed cooling, and so on. This meant that one building could be heated with the waste air from cooling the curling rink, in winter.
Another location pumped the excess heat in summer from his hog operation into underground insulted heat sinks, where the heat was used by his machine shop in the autumn.
These creative ideas for heat generation and storage offer cheap ways to operate local greenhouses, making them much more viable than standalone operations.
Ownership Ideas for Rural Innovation
One of the major hurdles to business development in rural communities is the base from which ownership and governance of those businesses can occur.
Provinces have enacted regulations allowing for the establishment of community development corporations, while the federal government supports creation and operation of community futures groups.
While these bodies generally are intended to help establish and foster business start-ups in the regions in which they operate, some also take active roles in creating business ideas and business opportunities. However, the municipal and county governments that sponsor or spearhead the groups (CDCs in particular) mostly are barred by provincial statute from direct tax relief or ownership of a for-profit business. Yet, those authorities also find creative ways around that barrier.
The role of for-profit business is, of course, to make a profit, and under our capitalist system, that is the job of entrepreneurs. Unfortunately, the “deep pockets” that spearhead urban large businesses are scarce in the countryside.
On the flip side, rural communities have an inherent advantage: they are comprised of people with common interest and a willingness to work together for mutual benefit, rather than compete at every turn. Since local government is made up of local residents, they, too, have a strong interest in working jointly with their neighbours to further the interests of the community.
This does not always mean growth, including commercial or industrial expansion. One community—the Village of Dunnottar, in Manitoba—bars commercial development without express authorization of the municipal council. They are a cottage area and do not wish to be infected with commercialism. Yet, although multiple family housing is deterred, construction of more homes, including year-round homes, is welcome.
Another municipality has resisted commercial hog and livestock operations, in order to protect its vast and pristine aquifer. But it endorsed a recent application to harvest that water commercially.
A third community, working jointly with other area municipalities and private business, is developing nuclear storage and mini-nuclear plant capabilities, with an eye to marketing these resources. It has absolutely no industrial capacity and a very limited retail presence, yet still is experiencing growth where other rural towns are declining.
And a fourth, almost two decades ago, decided it wanted to become a destination centre for the region, even though it was the fifth-largest centre in the area and on the farthest fringe of the catchment area. With its seniors housing and expanded medical services, it attracted nearby retirees, then worked on its retail segment, expanding it, and lured a major implement dealer to the area. Since the 1996 census, it has nearly doubled in size, while nearby towns, villages and municipalities have shrunk by as much as 40% in the same period.
The focus of these successes in creative management and ownership of various undertakings. The historical innovative spirit of farmers and country folk can overcome the disadvantages of size and location, and, actually provide advantages over urban development, through creative ownership models.
Incubators
A building block of rural business development and support is the business incubator. Successfully used in northern Europe and Australia, the incubator is under-utilized in North America. Partly, that is due to limited vision as to how to design and operate an incubator.
Many assume that incubators require a vast array of supports for business, including bricks-and-mortar and an arsenal of highly skilled professionals that rural areas usually lack. That vision is, to be trite, myopic. There are a variety of incubator designs that are inexpensive, yet effective. The key is, like the communities cited above, to be focused and responsive to the area needs.
One “remote” incubator design relies on the assorted business supports that are readily available in many towns: 1) free Internet access for research at the local library, with a trained staff member to guide users in searches, 2) photocopy facilities at the local pharmacy, 3) business supply and Amazon depot at the municipal office, 3) army of telephone answering services, office support staff, bookkeepers, Web developers, communications people, all operating in-home or small office businesses but who contract to the incubator to provide services at a discount.
Another converted an old retail building into a centre for start-up technology and online operations.
A third used a former grain elevator and adjoining warehouse to develop an array of equipment for local manufacturer start-ups to share.
The key to successful incubator operation is flexibility and adaptability in design and operation, coupled with tailoring its operation to focus on the vision that community leaders have for the area, along with the talents of local and lured-in entrepreneurs.
Keystone or Investment Corporation
In theory, investment corporations should not have specific projects as their objective prior to establishing. However, many housing initiatives started with an investment corporation. These corporations are supposed to be “friends and family” structures, which makes them ideally suited to rural settings where friends and family dominate. To avoid the more stringent oversight of large and public corporations, investors are limited to no more than 50 people or entities (a business can invest in a corporation).
Provinces have set up legislation that allows investment corporations to thrive in rural communities, including tax incentives. They operate a business in the same manner as any other legal entity, operating under established bylaws.
Cooperative
Cooperatives are governed by legislation specific to the concept, but all operate with a one person, one vote mandate. These are often used for food and supplies or credit union cooperatives in small towns (Red River Coop). In the northern USA, local cooperatives operate biofuels (ethanol and biodiesel) facilities, some operate wind and solar farms and a few are grower cooperatives.
Because the legislation governing cooperatives is very specific, the limits of what a business may do are governed by the province, as well as majority vote. The cooperatives are managed under the oversight of a cooperative board of directors, elected annually from members at large.
Recently, an urban idea—housing cooperatives—have been used to build affordable housing. Sometimes, these housing projects are a part of a larger project with private ownership, sharing infrastructure.
Blended or Hybrid Ownership
Blended ownership models, where feasible, offer great advantages for smaller communities. For instance, a local earthen bale greenhouse (see articles on this website) may be built on one farmer’s property, using materials (bales, timber) from another farm, fertilizers from another and biofuels from a third. These may be in-kind financing alternatives. The greenhouse may develop partnerships with other regional community greenhouses, have local government involvement and may be also partly owned by outside investors.
Using multiple investor strategies maximizes funds and expertise available.
Local housing projects, such as a co-housing project (see articles on this website), may involve government-funded affordable housing as one component, a cooperative as another, life lease through private ownership, and free-standing or condo developments, all sharing resources to reduce costs with each element operating in a relatively autonomous manner.
Participant-owned (not Coop)
This is the simplest business model, not unlike a sole proprietorship, partnership, or private corporation. Often, they arise as a result of community forums intended to explore the opportunities of specific projects. For instance, the Bifrost Biodiesel Ltd. facility in Manitoba was created by eighteen investors. While it originally had 22, several left because they disagreed with the operating philosophy of the majority.
Most of the owners were farmers who produced oilseed. However, other investors included local retailers and private persons with a penchant for environmentalism. Briefly, the local CDC examined ownership capabilities.
The business plan called for favourable treatment on the supply and distribution sides fore those participants, with different pricing structures for non-shareholders.
NPOs
Not-for-profit organizations serve the community, without the intent of generating a profit. They may be wholly governed by the local CDC, Community Futures, municipal authorities or local residents. Ideally, they work for housing initiatives, community recreation resources, transportation systems, seniors and health-limited citizens and environmental projects.
Planned Project
Planned project ownership usually is used to develop a string of ventures, one springing from the next as conditions warrant. Initial investors may have a short-term role then an opt-out condition, or may take ownership positions in the subsequent projects, at varying levels of commitment.
A beef feedlot, for instance, may plan to collocate with an ethanol facility to share the waste water and reduce overall costs. Then a sod business may be created to use the fertilizers effectively. A greenhouse may use the waste heat, some water and fertilizer. A trucking company may start up as part of the plan to move cattle and ethanol to blenders. A retail fuel station may result.
The list goes on, with the potential businesses often envisioned during start-up of the feedlot. At each stage, owners from the original and subsequent businesses may choose to participate in the next, or may opt out. This mechanism creates a ready baseline of investors for each of the following businesses.
Often, new businesses emerge, unrelated. Okno Manufacturing emerged from employees of Vidir Machine, north of Arborg. A machinist firm arose from employees of Okno. Employees of Vidir Machine built a local hardware store, and others set up personal warehouse storage facilities nearby.
From the planned project sequence, more than 150 jobs were created and more than a half dozen businesses, plus the three new businesses started by Vidir as part of the long0range planning. Each required original, plus new investors.
PPP
Public Private Partnerships have found a new popularity in urban centres. For instance, in Winnipeg, the Disraeli Freeway operates as a partnership between the builders (re-builders) and the city. It allows for log-term financing and planning.
Other PPPs may involve cement and asphalt plants for local communities, housing, Internet, heating resources (think biomass projects in landfills fueling public buildings or vehicles and private residences).
In-kind
In-kind operations require that owners/shareholders guarantee delivery of raw materials, supplies, equipment and other resources (sometimes for a set fee), and that other (or the same owners) guarantee a specific level of purchase of finished product or service. This can include biodiesel plants that produce oil from waste oilseed and which the farmer who supplied the oilseed commits to purchasing a specific amount of the finished product.
Such a concept allows for predictability in operations and a baseline, from which new and innovative products (e.g. biodiesel cleaning supplies, fuel pellets, natural pesticides, glycerine-based products, diesel conditioner, etc.) can emerge.
It minimizes the cash contribution needed by investors and provides them with both a market and a product source.
In addition to these business ownership models, various hybrids enable rural business and resource growth, limited only by regulation. opportunity and imagination.