Advancing Women in Ag Conference joins Farms.com Group

Jun 28, 2024

Iris Meck joins the Farms.com Team

Farms.com is pleased to announce that the Advancing Women in Ag Conference (AWC) has joined the Farms.com Group.

AWC was created for every woman who is passionate about agriculture and food, from CEOs and CFOs to entrepreneur’s and farm owners, as well as university or college student studying agriculture who are just beginning their career in the agriculture industry.

“We are delighted that the Advancing Women in Ag leadership conferences will be joining the Farms.com Group” says Graham Dyer, Farms.com President and CEO. “We all know that the world of agriculture and food is undergoing dramatic change. To survive and thrive in these times, leading businesses need to have the best people on their teams providing input and advice from their unique perspectives. We believe the Advancing Women in Ag leadership conferences help to develop leaders of tomorrow.”

Farms.com is confident in the excellent synergies between the Media and Publishing side of our business (Better Farming and Small Farm Canada magazines) as well as the Talent Solutions side of the business (AgCareers.com, FoodGrads.com, and De Lacy Executive Recruitment) with the Advancing Women in Ag leadership conference.

"The AgCareers.com team is incredibly excited about our acquisition of Advancing Women in Ag conferences, as the conferences mark a significant milestone in our mission to drive positive change in agriculture and food,” shares Kathryn Doan CVO, Director AgCareers.com.

“Inspiring people about careers in these vital industries and fostering leadership development are passions close to our heart. By integrating these teams into our Talent Solutions division, and our group of companies, we are poised to elevate our commitment to excellence.

Together, we will empower individuals along their career paths and cultivate leaders, making a meaningful impact in our agriculture and food industry and beyond."

“How great it is to be on a team which is so passionate about agriculture and opportunities for women within agriculture,” says Advancing Women in Agriculture’s Iris Meck. “I am excited to grow our momentum by tapping into the relationships within the Farms.com and AgCareers.com communities.”

The next Advancing Women in Ag East Conference will be held November 17 to 19, 2024, at the Sheraton Fallsview in Niagara Falls Ontario. Save the dates for the next Advancing Women in Ag West Conference March 16 to 18, 2025, in Calgary.

Video: The 15-Year Bet Behind Every New Variety!

Canada is trying to decide how much agricultural research capacity it can afford to lose. Brian Rossnagel believes the better question is whether the country can afford to rebuild it.

The longtime barley and oat breeder makes the case with a simple fact about his profession: the consequences of today’s decisions may not become visible for 10 or 15 years.

“Pick the right parents. That’s the biggest thing,” Rossnagel says. “If you pick the wrong parents, you’re not going to get anywhere—and you don’t know that until 10 years, 15 years later.”

That warning carries particular weight as Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada moves to reduce spending and streamline parts of its science operations. The department’s 2026–27 plan anticipates the loss of approximately 665 positions by 2028–29 and says some research will be reduced where capacity exists in academia or industry. AAFC says the changes will make its science operations more cost-effective over the long term.

For Canada’s seed industry, Rossnagel’s career illustrates what is at stake.

This fall, the retired University of Saskatchewan breeder will be inducted into the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame. During his 35-year career at the Crop Development Centre, he helped develop more than 100 barley and oat varieties, including CDC Austenson—one of Western Canada’s most widely grown feed barleys. His induction recognizes not only those varieties, but the collaboration and research system that made them possible.

Rossnagel is quick to emphasize that none of it was the work of one person.

“The first thing I thought about was all the other people who contributed to whatever success I and my program had over the years,” he says. “We know that it’s not an individual who does this. It’s a group—a team.”

That team extends well beyond the breeder whose name appears beside a variety. It includes technicians, pathologists, quality specialists, statisticians, regional testing sites, seed growers and industry partners. It also includes the breeders who came before and those who will carry the germplasm forward.

CDC Fraser barley, for example, moved through three breeding careers. Its parents came from Brian Harvey’s program. Rossnagel advanced the material after Harvey retired, and Aaron Beattie later guided it through registration and release.

That kind of handoff is normal in plant breeding. The person who makes the original cross may never see the resulting variety reach farmers.

It also explains why lost research capacity cannot simply be switched back on when budgets improve.

“If you shut it off, it’s very, very difficult—and particularly costly—to start it up again,” Rossnagel says. “If you have to start from scratch, it’s going to be at least 10 years before anybody notices whether you’re getting anything done or not.”

The concern is not simply how many experimental lines Canada can process. Modern equipment, statistical tools and genetic technologies allow today’s breeding programs to evaluate tens of thousands of lines—far more than Rossnagel could handle when he entered the field in the early 1970s.

But efficiency and automation do not generate every idea.

“If you pare back down, and instead of having six or seven individual scientists concentrating on wheat breeding, you go down and say three people could handle all this, well, that’s half the ideas gone,” he says. “Particularly if you happen to lose the three people who had the really neat and innovative ideas, boy, that’s a problem.”

It is a timely distinction for Canadian agriculture. Consolidating programs may preserve the volume of material moving through a system, at least initially. It may not preserve the diversity of thinking, regional knowledge or willingness to pursue unconventional crosses.

That regional knowledge matters because Canadian agriculture is not one uniform production environment. A variety suited to southern Alberta may face different disease, moisture and maturity pressures than one grown in Manitoba, Ontario or Atlantic Canada.

“Agriculture is applied biology,” Rossnagel says. “Biology, all around the Earth, moves from the poles to the equator. It does not move from Newfoundland to B.C. like politics do.”