BC Ranch Wins CCA's 2020 Environmental Stewardship Award

Aug 13, 2020

One of the highlights for the Canadian Beef Industry conference on Wednesday was the Environmental Stewardship Award presentation.

The Canadian Cattlemen's Association selection committee had a tough job again, but selected the Seelhof Family as the 2020 TESA award winners.

Ricky and Chad Seelhof from Woodjam Ranch in Horsefly, British Columbia.

" We would like to challenge other producers. The benefit we've seen from our environmental enhancements

has paid off ten-fold. Ranching is a difficult industry so if you can get help from any different sectors it's pretty huge.

We took advantage of the many different programs that are out there for environmental enhancement."

The Seelhof Family runs a 500 head Black Angus cow-calf operation with cultivated land, native grassland and crown grazing.

This year's other Regional TESA nominees included Thomas and Felicity Hagan from Manitoba,

Deer Creek Livestock from Alberta and Paul de Jong from Ontario.

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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.