4-H Streamlines The Organization

There's a merger happening involving 4-H in Alberta.

 

The three partners that make up the organization, the 4-H Council, 4-H Foundation and Alberta Agriculture and Forestry have come together as 4-H Alberta.

 

Chair of the Council Lanny Anderson says there will be one board with one CEO.

 

"We'll still have responsibility to be good stewards of the assets and investments, such as the 4-H Centre, the scholarships, those types of things that have been entrusted to 4-H and that will be governed by the 4-H Foundation of Alberta under the direction of a Board of Trustees which will work with that same CEO," Anderson says. "So operationally at the provincial level we'll be more streamlined, more effective and we'll be able to provide better programming for our members and make sure that we continue to have fun."

 

He says during extensive consultations they heard loud and clear that a more coordinated structure was needed to help grow and expand 4-H to a broader audience.

 

"Currently we have, the 4-H Council is the grassroots representation for the province so there's an elected members from each of the regions and two Directors At Large where we look at different skills and assets and abilities that we might need at that particular time and we put an open call out for people to apply for the Directors," he says. "In this new structure we're going to be creating an interim board which will hopefully be able to look at what is needed going forward in 4-H Alberta and grassroots regional representation is definitely something that's part of the criteria along with many other skills sets that we'll need to continue being successful for the next 100 years."

 

He says once that's done they'll put out the call for a permanent board.

 

The Province has committed $1 million per year for the next ten years.

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.