The Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame will induct Western Producer reporter Barry Wilson to its ranks this year.
He will join a list of men and women who have been major contributors to the agricultural industry.
Wilson’s induction, along with dairy farmer and master Chairbois breeder Bertrand Boisclair and AdFarm founder and communicator Kim McDonnell, was announced June 11. The three men will be officially inducted at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair this November in Toronto.
Wilson, the Producer’s Ottawa bureau chief, has been with the newspaper for 34 years, 32 of them in Ottawa. In that time he has provided coverage of a wide variety of national and international agricultural issues.
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He is also a featured columnist in the weekly newspaper, which itself will celebrate its 90th year of publication in 2013.
“Mr. Wilson’s work has taken him through every Canadian province and to many different international destinations,” said the Hall of Fame announcement.
“Barry has covered national and provincial agricultural policies, farm group dynamics, international trade and world food issues. His work has ensured that farmers and ranchers are provided with fair and honest reporting on issues and policies that will affect them, their agricultural operations and their families.”
Western Producer editor Joanne Paulson said the honour is well deserved.
“There is no better journalist than Barry Wilson, in agriculture or any other field of endeavour. His knowledge, experience, objectivity and humility are cornerstones of his reportage and commentary. I am honoured to know him, and we are privileged to have him at The Western Producer. I’m delighted that the Hall of Fame has welcomed him as an inductee.”
Wilson was humble about the recognition.
“I haven’t invented canola. I wasn’t a minister of agriculture. I did a job that the Producer gave me the tools to do,” he said.
The Quebec-born Wilson joins the late Cora Hind (1861-1942), an agricultural reporter who wrote for the Manitoba Free Press, as the only journalists in the hall of fame. He sees his induction as recognition of the importance of accurate information in the modern age of Canadian agriculture.
“Since 1960, there hasn’t been a sense that agricultural information and journalism is really part of the industry,” said Wilson.
“I’m hoping this is a sign that that has changed a bit and that the folks who run these honours have come to understand that information is as much a part of agriculture as knowing how to plant a crop or calve in the spring. It’s all part of the business.”
Various agricultural organizations and politicians supported Wilson’s nomination.
“Anyone that has achieved a better understanding of Canadian agriculture, more knowledge of the what, where, why and who, will undoubtedly owe a large part of that to Barry Wilson,” said former Canadian Federation of Agriculture president Bob Friesen, in a letter to the Hall.
Grain Growers of Canada president Stephen Vandervalk and executive director Richard Phillips said Wilson is “without a doubt Canada’s leading agriculture reporter and journalist.”
Former federal agriculture minister and current Wascana MP Ralph Goodale spoke of Wilson’s farm roots, wide range of contacts and accurate reporting.
“For a very long time he has been the most useful and trusted communications lifeline for producers and others in the agricultural community, during a period when truthful information is vital, but increasingly hard to get,” wrote Goodale.
Wilson is also the author of four books: The Politics of Defeat: The Decline of the Liberal Party in Saskatchewan, published in 1980; Beyond the Harvest: Canadian Grain at the Crossroads, published in 1981; Farming the System: How Politicians and Producers Shape Canadian Agricultural Policy, published in 1990; and Benedict Arnold, A Traitor in Our Midst, published in 2001.
