Canadian Seed Trade Association Elects a New President

Jul 22, 2014

An Ontario man was elected the 2014-15 president of the Canadian Seed Trade Association (CSTA), at the organization’s 91^st annual meeting held in Banff, Alberta.

Dave Baute, the owner and president of Maizex Seeds, in Tilbury, Ontario, will take over the reins from Peter Entz, who works for Richardson International, based in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

“We need to take a proactive approach to bring this entire industry together with a unified voice and a profound positive message. A mostly uninformed public is beginning to speak out with an emotional, almost fearful cry. We need to listen, and we need to address it together. CSTA’s strength is in its diverse, but committed membership,” Baute said in his acceptance speech.

Baute says that he is looking forward to working with the seed industry to promote innovation and trade. According to the CSTA website, it is a voluntary association of about 130 seed companies across the country. These seed companies range from developing and marketing field to garden crops, including grains and oilseeds, specialty crops, forage/turf grasses, flowers, vegetables, and fruits.

At the annual meeting, CSTA also elected its 2014-15 Board of Directors. Todd Hyra of SeeCan was re-elected for a second term, and new directors included Ellen Sparry of C&M Seedsa and Wayne Gale of Stokes Seeds.

In a release, CSTA said that the AGM almost hit record attendance levels with 354 participants. Topics that were discussed ranged from bee health to progress being made in the area of plant breeding and variety development.

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.