Happy Birthday CIGI!!!!
That’s a heartfelt sentiment in the Winnipeg grain industry this summer, as the Canadian International Grains Institute celebrates its 40th anniversary.
Last Thursday night I was at the organization’s birthday celebration banquet and there was an impressive turnout of senior grain industry insiders and CIGI staff and board members from 1972 until now. There were squads of people from the grain companies, the entire executive leadership teams of organizations like the Canadian Grain Commission and a gaggle of well-wishers there to recognize CIGI’s market-building efforts over the last 40 years and encourage it to keep up the good work for the next 40.
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All the good wishes seemed very sincere and while I was there it made me realize that CIGI is the one part of the prairie grain industry – a vast and complex mechanism – that everyone seems to support and is proud of. In an industry torn apart by ideological differences, by nasty politics, by cynicism, greed and envy, I almost never hear anyone say anything bad about CIGI.
What’s there to complain about? Not much. The agency seems to be the kind of thing that people of left, right and centre, from commercial and cooperative backgrounds, get a lot of value from. Over the years it has educated 36,000 people from around the world and across the prairies in how to best use prairie varieties of crops and that has kept us closely connected to our buyers everywhere. Every time I wander from my office across Portage and Main to meet CIGI course attendees I am impressed by the confidence foreign buyers have in Canadian grain and the comfort they have in working with our people. That all exists because CIGI creates tight bonds with the buyers of Canadian grain and it’s easy for them to work with us.
When over there I have interviewed groups of Japanese millers, Latin American millers, female prairie farmers and young farmers. I have seen roomfuls of Saudi millers learning the ins and outs of dealing with prairie grains. Last December when I was over there I spoke to one of their staff about an industrial hand cleaner he had helped develop out of flax and canola oil, while another was just getting back from a trip to meet millers in South America and another couple of staff had just flown off to Malaysia to help a miller there deal with technical problem that had suddenly developed. That’s impressive market development and it happens at CIGI all the time.
So it shouldn’t be surprised that CIGI seems beloved by all and supported across the spectrum. But it’s nice to see, especially in this time of turmoil and division.
There’s lots to work out in the next few years to ensure that CIGI can keep doing its work, including finalizing how it will fund itself now that its primary benefactor – the CWB – is heading over the horizon. But with widespread support that should happen.
So let me add my voice to the chorus and say: Happy Birthday CIGI. Live long and prosper!
