Alberta Grains regional meetings underway

Oct 29, 2024

Alberta Grains regional meetings are scheduled across six regions within Alberta from October 28 to November 15.

These annual meetings offer Alberta’s 18,000+ barley and wheat farmers a detailed look at the commission's research, advocacy and extension efforts funded by their checkoff dollars.

“One of the pillars of the Alberta Grains strategic plan is to increase farmer engagement,” said Tara Sawyer, Alberta Grains chair and Region 2 director. “At our regional meetings, farmers and industry will hear in a very transparent manner exactly how wheat and barley levies are being used and leveraged to benefit their operations”

These meetings serve as a platform for farmers to voice feedback and shape Alberta Grains' priorities. With discussions centered on regional challenges, policy resolutions and potential board elections, this year’s meetings will emphasize interactivity, encouraging attendees to contribute to policy creation.

“We are a dynamic and nimble organization capable of pivoting direction as circumstances require. However, we need the engagement of our members to help us determine our strategic direction and to hold us accountable,” noted Alberta Grains Executive Director Michael Flynn.

In regions four, five and six, Alberta Grains will partner with Alberta Pulse Growers to offer sessions on topics such as water policy, agronomy and farm management, while regions one, two and three will feature presentations by internal experts.

The meetings are free to attend and include a complimentary lunch.

“We are incredibly proud of the work we do to benefit farmers, and we’re eager to share that information with them,” added Sawyer. “Consider this my personal invitation to Alberta’s 18,000 barley and wheat farmers to attend their regional event and find out what we’re up to and tell us what they think.”

2024 Alberta Grains Regional Meetings:

Region 1 - October 28, 2024 | Medicine Hat, AB
Region 2 – October 30, 2024 | Airdrie, AB
Region 3 – November 15, 2024 | Red Deer, AB
Region 4 – November 6, 2024 | Camrose, AB
Region 5 – November 5, 2024 | Barrhead, AB
Region 6 – November 12, 2024 | Fairview, AB

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Video: Western Canadian Agriculture: Hard Times Made the World's Best Farmers

Western Canadian agriculture produced the most advanced farmers in the world not through abundance but through adversity. The crow rate fell. The wheat price went nowhere. The brown envelopes stopped.

When the subsidies disappeared, the bad farmers left and the good ones stayed. And the ones who stayed could not just grow wheat anymore. They started growing lentils and canola and peas and flax and faba beans. They built crop rotation. They got serious about agronomy because there was no government backstop. That process produced the Western Canadian agriculture Dennis Bulani describes in this clip: the most advanced, most educated farming culture in the world.

His contrast with Iowa corn and soybean farmers is sharp. At a DeKalb farmer meeting in Okoboji, Iowa, he asked what crop rotation they ran. Beans on corn stubble, corn on bean stubble. How do you fertilize? The co-op agronomist handles it. Have you considered other crops? No need. We make so much money on corn and soybeans. Western Canadian agriculture was never allowed that comfort. And now those Iowa farmers are watching soybean markets lock up with China and corn prices slide, and they do not have the agronomy knowledge or the research base to pivot. Western Canadian farmers adapted on a dime because they had done it before.

Dennis also makes the case that Western Canadian agriculture keeps adapting in real time. Low commodity prices over the past year have pushed growers to look seriously at precision spot-spray technology. He knows a neighbor who bought a sprayer with the seeing-eye system and sprayed only 80 out of 320 acres. As a chemical retailer Dennis acknowledges that will affect his sales. He supports it anyway, because if it advances Canadian agriculture and makes farmers money, that is a good outcome.

The lesson Dennis draws from the tale of two farms: continuous improvement is the only durable strategy. When canola was $22 a bushel some growers went to Arizona instead of the Crop Production Show. When the price came down those same growers came back to the research and the discipline. Products do not go on Rack Petroleum's shelves unless they pass a replicated trial first. That is what Western Canadian agriculture built through hard times: farmers who do the work whether the times demand it or not.

Dennis Bulani is CEO of Rack Petroleum and Ultimate Yield in Biggar, Saskatchewan. Dan Aberhart hosts GTF Productions, Western Canadian Agriculture's foremost live briefing platform and its foremost AI training platform for ag operators