Farming isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when you think of similarities between Canada and Siberia.
The most glaring similarity is the oil and natural gas industry. At least that’s what first attracted government officials from the Tyumen region of Siberia to the province of Alberta.
The two regions have been working on joint oil and gas projects for about five years. The relationship has grown and now the Russian province of Tyumen is working with the consulting firm CanEd International Inc. on an agricultural project sponsored by the Canadian International Development Agency.
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A delegation of nine Russian officials from Tyumen are in Canada learning about agriculture extension services. The group consists of a farmer, a graduate student, a consultant, an interpreter and a number of government officials.
Four weeks of tours
CanEd is organizing the four-week visit, which includes three weeks at the University of Saskatchewan’s department of extension services. The group has toured all sorts of farms and feedlots and met with representatives from small and large co-ops. They have attended lectures and labs and talked to scientists, in an attempt to learn how to create their own extension service.
Sergei Pakhomchik, leader of the delegation, said Russia’s transition from an economy built on strong government rules to one that is market-oriented has created Russia’s first individual farms in place of collective and state farms.
“Our committee is involved in this activity: how to help big state and collective farms transform to market orientation units.”
In the former Soviet Union, those big farms once had their own economists and veterinarians and other specialists. The new individual farms, which emerged in Tyumen about seven years ago, don’t have those resources.
Pakhomchik said he is impressed at how research centres, universities, industry and various levels of government work together in Canada. In Russia, it is more fractured and disjointed. Some of the same kind of work is being done, but there isn’t a lot of co-operation.
“Our proposal is to try to join all of these units and create a whole system,” said Pakhomchik, who works for the department of agriculture.
The delegation, which has been in Canada since Nov. 6, flies back to Tyumen on Dec. 4.
Gaining trust
Once home, the challenge for the Russians will be to create a self-sustaining extension service, because it can’t rely on the government for money, said Dona Long, executive vice-president of CanEd.
Gaining the trust of Russian farmers is another obstacle.
“This is very much a new concept to the farmers in Russia,” said Long.
As part of the two-year project, CanEd will later send consultants over to Tyumen to help develop the extension service.
