Ag classroom program needs volunteers
Canadian Agriculture Literacy Month needs French and English speaking volunteers for a program that brings agriculture into classrooms.
Teachers will be provided with a hands-on agriculture activity and an agriculture themed book in addition to a virtual visit from volunteers.
About 150 volunteers are needed in March for Grades one to six for 30 to 60 minutes per class.
Registration opens Feb. 4.
Sustainable beef executive announced
The Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef recently announced its 2022 executive committee.
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Federal government supports soil health strategy
Sophie Beecher, director general at Agriculture Canada, said at a soil conference in Winnipeg that the feds support the idea of a national soil health strategy.
The six-member 2022 committee includes:
- president: Ian McConnel, Tyson Foods
- vice-president: Bob Lowe, Tri-L Ranch
- secretary-treasurer: Justin Sherrard, Rabobank
- member at large: Jeannette Ferran Astorga, Zoetis
- member at large: Lucas McKelvie, McDonalds Corp.
- immediate past-president: Bob McCan, McFaddin Enterprises
Leaders are elected from a membership that represents the full value chain, including beef producers and producer organizations, allied services and industries, processors, retail, civil societies and others who aim to improve beef sustainability around the world.
More information is at grsbeef.org.
Feds fund sheep and goat genetics
The federal government is contributing $495,000 to the Canadian Centre for Swine Improvement to create an integrated genetic services system, which will enable sheep and goat farmers to benefit from new developments in livestock genetics and improve product quality and productivity
Farmers will be able to use the new service system to access new developments and industry information on livestock genomics that can improve breeding and provide a more sustainable supply of products.
The system will include services such as phenotype measurements on traits such as growth rate and milk yield, training for farmers to adopt new technologies, genetic evaluation, and research and development.
Alberta Milk directors re-elected
Conrad Van Hierden and Heini Hehli were recently re-elected as directors at Alberta Milk.
Delegates voted for two director-at-large positions during the annual general meeting.
The 2022 Alberta Milk board of directors includes Stuart Boeve, chair, Gert Schrijver, vice-chair, Gerrit Haarman, second vice-chair, JP Brouwer, Greg Debbink, Heini Hehli, Gezinus Martens, Wim van de Brake, Michael Vanden Dool, Conrad Van Hierden and Miranda Verhoef.
Innovation centre receives donation
Assiniboine Community College has received a $500,000 donation toward its Prairie Innovation Centre, from local community and business leaders, Gord and Diane Peters and the Brandon Area Community Foundation.
The centre is the cornerstone of the future of agriculture-related training at the college and will address industry and economic needs in the sector.
In Manitoba, it’s projected that one in five jobs in agriculture will go unfilled by 2029. The Prairie Innovation Centre aims to increase available placements in agriculture-related programming from 300 to more than 800.
Once completed, the new project will bring together collaborative learning spaces, applied research laboratories and multipurpose spaces that will serve industry and the college community.
