Six people will be inducted to the Saskatchewan Agricultural Hall of Fame in August.
Neale Abrey of Imperial, Ralph Baker of Flaxcombe, Roy Crawford of Saskatoon, William Farley of Grande Coulee, Glenn Flaten of Regina and Geoffrey Strudwick of Balgonie have been selected by the hall of fame committee.
Neale Abrey, who died in a 1993 tractor fire, was paralyzed as a young man but continued farming with his wife Betty. He succeeded, and also helped other disabled farmers cope with their handicaps.
Abrey helped found the Farmers With Disabilities Program of the Saskatchewan Abilities Council. He farmed from a wheelchair for 18 years and raised four children.
Read Also
Stock dogs show off herding skills at Ag in Motion
Stock dogs draw a crowd at Ag in Motion. Border collies and other herding breeds are well known for the work they do on the farm.
Ralph Baker, a cattle producer, served 24 years on the Saskatchewan Stock Growers Association, including a term as president. He represented that group on a number of other boards.
Baker also served on the board of United Grain Growers and was active in the Palliser Wheat Growers Association. He helped form Canadian Western Agribition in Regina. He died in 1995.
Roy Crawford is one of Canada’s leading poultry geneticists. At the University of Saskatchewan he headed the poultry science department and was three times voted professor of the year.
Crawford gained worldwide attention for his discovery of a mutation that causes seizures in chickens and its relationship with epilepsy in humans. He once had one of the largest collections of rare poultry breeds in Canada.
William Farley is a seed grower who helped found the Flax Growers of Western Canada, the Flax Council of Canada and the Flax Development Commission. He has been provincial seed growers association president and has served on the national board of the Canadian Seed Growers Association.
Farley also served on the provincial crop insurance board and oversaw program introductions for forage, specialty crops and organically grown crops. He was a founding member of Value Added Seeds Inc., a company that promotes independent seed processing on the Prairies.
Glenn Flaten is a broiler and hog producer who has served as president of the 51-nation International Federation of Agricultural Producers. On his way to that post, he served as president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture.
Flaten helped organize the Saskatchewan Chicken Marketing Board and served several years as secretary manager. He chaired the Saskatchewan Hog Marketing Commission in its formative years and is now a consultant on Canadian and international farm policy.
Geoffrey Strudwick operated a dairy farm near Balgonie. His dairy won trophies three times for highest production in the province.
He served as director and president of the Dairy Producers Co-operative, the Saskatchewan Dairy Association, Dairy Farms of Canada and four times as president of the Holstein Friesian Association of Canada.
Strudwick was also involved in the Regina Exhibition and in Canadian Western Agribition.
