REGINA, Sask. – Agricultural students from Canadian universities converged on Saskatchewan for the ninth straight year to battle over the right to call themselves academic victors over their counterparts.
The Ag Challenge was held last week at the aged Exhibition Auditorium in the heart of this city. University of Guelph and Nova Scotia Agricultural College defeated the University of Saskatchewan and McGill in earlier rounds to reach the finals.
Black-suited Nova Scotian debaters extolled the virtues of organic fertilizers. The Guelph students, wearing crested sweaters, argued for high input, artificially produced products they believe to be the answer to farming’s future.
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None came with an agenda for the side they claim to be true. But as an exercise in agronomic knowledge, the debating process brought out the best of both arguments.
The debate forms one third of the competitions that take place during the week-long Western Canadian Farm Progress Show. Other battles took place over scientific papers and team-based problem solving with awards given out at a banquet at the end of the week.
In the end, western teams were shut out of the winner’s circle. Guelph won the aggregate trophy after taking two of the three titles, the debate and team challenges.
McGill placed third in the team event. Nova Scotia swept the technical paper division with a first and third place, and Guelph won second spot.
Nova Scotia ended with a second place finish in the debate portion.
Only four universities took part in the debates this year. Washington State and Laval were forced to drop out due to the high cost of travel and students’ need to be working as many weeks as possible through the summer.
“We provide for the teams once they are here but it gets harder each year for them to attend,” said Sandra Eppich, chair of the event.
More than 40 sponsors provided the $25,000 needed to host the event.
