Educate consumers | The organization plans to take all aspects of food production under its wing
The Farm Animal Council of Sask-atchewan has launched Farm and Food Care Saskatchewan in an effort to widen it focus and strengthen the gate to plate link.
FACS has represented the province’s livestock and poultry producers on responsible animal care since 1992.
The broader mandate is to build trust in food production while addressing the growing concern and awareness customers and consumers have about food and farming.
“We’ve seen over the last couple of years a shift in consumers’ interests with respect to farm and food and requests to information about farming,” said FACS executive director Adele Buettner.
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“FACS took the leadership in introducing this new organization because FACS felt like it was time to expand their mandate.”
Buettner said there have been lengthy discussions at the FACS board level since February that asked the question, “should we have one organization in this province that represented all of food and farming; all of agriculture?” she said.
“The support was an overwhelming yes.”
Members serving on the FFC SK advisory committee include theSaskatchewan Cattlemen’s Association, Saskatchewan Egg Producers, Chicken Farmers of Saskatchewan, Sask Pork, SaskMilk, SaskFlax, Sask Barley, Sask Wheat, SaskCanola, Sask Pulse, the Saskatchewan agriculture ministry, Sask Bison, the Saskatchewan Fruit Growers and FACS.
Buettner said FACS has mirrored the new organization after Farm and Food Care Ontario, which also originated as a farm animal council.
“Our board watched and said, ‘if they’re playing an important role in Ontario and if it’s serving both industries, maybe we need to look at that here too,’ ” she said.
Elections for the first board will take place in January.
The elected FFC SK board will include four representatives from the livestock industry and four from the crop industry. The elected board will appoint the remaining four members.
Buettner said all of the province’s main livestock and crop organizations have committed to work together. They and the agriculture ministry have also made a financial commitment.
The interim board has approved a work plan based on three pillars: advocacy and intelligence, industry programs and services and public trust and outreach.
Less than two percent of Canadians have a direct connection to farming, which means effective communication between farms and consumers is more important than ever.
Buettner said the organization is striving to introduce producers to their customers and consumers to their food.
One example of this outreach involves working with the chefs’ association in Saskatoon and Regina, including plans for culinary farm tours next fall.
“Chefs are very interested to have us organize it so that they can meet and learn from the farmers about food production. When they create and speak to their customers they want to speak with knowledge about where that product and how that product is grown,” she said.
“They’ll have a good understanding from the seed to the bin what goes through a canola farm, a wheat farm, a barley farm as examples but also the livestock side, too.”
FFC SK was to have been officially launched Dec. 11.
