MOOSE JAW, Sask. – The Saskatchewan Young Ag-Entrepreneurs scored the top official when they invited a representative of the province’s agriculture department to speak to their convention.
The minister, Bob Bjornerud, showed up March 13 to speak to the group. It was “a nice surprise,” said Lynden Butler, chair of the SYA board.
Bjornerud noted the contrast in speaking engagements. The day before he had spoken to 2,000 people at the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities. The young farmers group, holding only its second annual meeting, has a membership of 60.
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The minister told the SYA that he would rather deal with fewer groups representing farmers, and for those to present a unified message. He pointed to the strength Quebec farmers have because they speak as one through their provincial organization.
Responding to a question about whether Saskatchewan would fund the young farmers group, Bjornerud said he’d keep it in mind but made no promises.
“We’re just starting to build that relationship,” with the agriculture department, said Butler. He was one of the founders of the SYA after he attended a meeting in Ottawa of the national group and realized Saskatchewan young farmers weren’t organized.
Butler noted that with rural depopulation, a formal group can help fill in those informal ties that used to exist.
“It’s not like you have a neighbour every mile you can run to if you have a problem.”
Butler added that the SYA does not lobby government. It was set up to educate the members and provide a social and information network.
Building organizations is not something that just happens, said Leona Dargis, a farmer from St. Paul, Alta., who sits on the board of the Canadian Young Farmers Forum.
She told the SYA conference March 14 that the national group has been around for 11 years and has 4,000 members organized into branches in all 10 provinces. It has an annual budget of about $350,000, mainly from the federal government, and holds seminars for its members. Dargis said the forum also acts as a sounding board for ideas that Agriculture Canada wants to bounce around. Young farmer representatives get phone calls that other “more pushy” groups don’t, she said.
In December, the Canadian group plans to host a meeting in Calgary of young farmers from North, Central and South America.
Dargis, who was one of the few women at the SYA meeting, couldn’t explain the gender gap.
“There are farm girls involved … but women tend to do it as a team with spouses.”
