Sustainable beef roundtable meets
More than 55 organizations were represented at the Canadian Roundtable for Sustainable Beef’s annual general meeting in Saskatoon in September.
Topics of discussion included the sustainability benchmarking study, business strategy, indicator development and upcoming verification work.
Participants also toured Pound-Maker Agventures Ltd., Blair’s Family of Companies and the Western Beef Development Centre’s Termuende Research Ranch.
Three new directors were also elected: Ian Barnett of the Nature Conservancy of Canada, Trevor MacLean from Scotiabank and Page Stuart of the Alberta Cattle Feeders’ Association.
Read Also
Ag in Motion innovation awards showcase top 2025 ag technology
The 2025 Ag in Motion Innovation Awards celebrated winners across five categories: agronomics, agtech, business solutions, environmental sustainability and equipment.
For more information, visit www.crsb.ca.
Farm safety group gets new chair
Wendy Bennett is the new chair of the Canadian Agricultural Safety Association.
She is executive director of British Columbia’s Farm and Ranch Safety and Health Association.This is her second year on the CASA board.
Bennett has more than 20 years of experience in occupational health and safety and will continue to make safety a priority on farms and ranches.
She replaces outgoing chair, Dean Anderson of Strategic Advisor Agriculture Initiatives, Workplace Safety & Prevention Services, who takes the role of treasurer.
They are joined by first-time CASA board members Carolyn Van Den Heuvel, NSFA farm safety co-ordinator, Farm Safety Nova Scotia; and Jeff Shaw, safe farm co-ordinator, SAFE Work Manitoba.
CASA has been organizing agricultural safety conferences for more than two decades.
Video helps celebrate Agriculture Month
Jason and Karla Hicks of Bluestone Stock Farms near Parkbeg, Sask., recently received the Saskatchewan Stock Growers Association’s Environmental Stewardship Award.
Nurturing their native grasses helps the family sustain their beef herd.
The SSGA has released a video of the family ranch at http://bit.ly/1LF5BRv as part of Agriculture Month. This year’s theme is Stewards in Sustainability.
The program has recognized excellence and innovation in ranching stewardship since 1995.
However, the organization has been committed to conserving grasslands and ranching heritage since it was founded 102 years ago.
Almost all of Saskatchewan’s surviving native grass prairie is on privately managed ranchland such as the Hicks’s operation.
Guide helps relocate livestock facilities
Alberta Agriculture has released its new Relocation of Livestock Facilities Planning Guide.
The guide is for facilities that are located close to water resources and where the producer isn’t sure what the environmental impact to that site might be.
Producers are increasingly concerned with the impact that their sites have on the watershed and the perceptions of their neighbours and other water users.
The guide offers a process of looking at the site, assessing it and finding ways to improve it, such as mitigation.
It also has information to help producers pick a new site and move to a better location.
It can be downloaded from the department’s website or at publications.office@gov.ab.ca.
For more information, call 310-FARM (3276).
Sask. roads see fewerInjuries and fatalities
Saskatchewan drivers are becoming safer, according to Saskatchewan Government Insurance’s preliminary numbers.
There were 19 percent fewer fatalities and 18 percent fewer injuries in the first year of tougher traffic safety laws from July 1, 2014, to June 30, 2015.
For more information, visit www.sgi.sk.ca.
