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Mashila Freight Services helps growers export their own hay takes mystery out of foreign hay markets
By Nick Forster - AgriNews Staff Writer

CORNWALL—You grow the hay, you bale the hay, you stack the hay. Now what? You sell it to someone. The question is, to whom?

There are a lot of under-used foreign markets for agricultural products, says Alice Fergusen, owner of Mashila Freight Services Inc. of Cornwall. She says instead of using a broker, or middle man to export, there are ways to do it yourself, and she’ll help you to do it.

"The Internet is a big, big factor here," says Ferguson. "Most (farmers) have computers, and if they don’t, they can go to a library, and all they have to do is search... Search for ‘hay’, and the market that comes up for hay internationally is phenomenal."

After finding a buyer for the product, the next step is export, and that’s where Ferguson comes in.

Export development "is very, very big in the Canadian government right now," she says. Moving products across international borders involves Canada Customs regulations like ‘point of entry,’ what kind of containers they are shipped in, or where, when and how they’re shipped, she says.

"Well that’s my specialty—to take care of that for them," Ferguson said. "I will take care of the transport for them...and facilitate all ways of exporting their product."

On May 26, Ferguson was a guest speaker at the Cornwall Small Business Conference and Info Fair at the Ramada Inn. She says the event, sponsored by Industry Canada, was full of small business owners looking to expand their markets. Stormont-Dundas MP Bob Kilger and Minister of State Don Boudria, MP for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell, attended the conference.

She says the Info Fair created opportunities for small businesses and she wants to expand on those opportunities by letting people know the benefits of exporting.

"If anybody wants to have their wares, whatever they may be, penetrate the international market, well, the export development people are wonderful to connect with," she says. "I’m hand in hand with these guys."

Mashila Freight Services Inc. can be reached toll-free at 1-877-930-2046, or by fax at 1-877-902-1986.

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