A longtime agricultural policy official has joined the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association.
Blair Rutter has been hired as the executive director of the Regina-based farm organization, which briefly went out of business two years ago.
Rutter spent the previous nine years as manager of policy development for United Grain Growers and then Agricore United. Before that, he worked as the Manitoba policy manager for the wheat growers association.
Association chair Randy Hoback said hiring Rutter represents a major step in rebuilding the organization, which has been known for its staunch support of policies that favour the open market and its vociferous opposition to the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly.
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“He is widely recognized by the industry as a policy expert on a broad range of issues,” Hoback said in a Jan. 18 News release
news announcing the hiring.
He expressed confidence that Rutter will be able to increase the association’s membership and enable it to put forward its views more effectively.
“We are convinced he will help us restore the wheat growers to its once prominent position as an influential voice on behalf of innovative, free enterprise prairie farmers.”
Hoback added that hiring Rutter shows the association is back on a sound financial footing after its brief demise in 2003.
Rutter was raised on a farm in Miami, Man., and holds a bachelor of commerce degree and master’s in agricultural economics from the University of Manitoba.
