DFO announces five $8,000 bursaries in partnership with Ontario Minor Hockey Association

Apr 09, 2021

Dairy Farmers of Ontario (DFO) and the Ontario Minor Hockey Association (OMHA) have partnered to present a Bursary Program, which recognizes minor hockey players for their outstanding commitment to:

Community service: assisting in building stronger and healthier communities;
Athletics: on-ice success/achievement, as well a passion for the game of hockey;
Academics: dedication to studies and attainment of high grades in the classroom.

The OMHA Bursary Program comprises two awards – the Dairy Farmers of Ontario Bursary and the Wally Scott Bursary. Five DFO Bursaries will be awarded at $8,000 each and up to two Wally Scott Bursary recipient(s) can receive between $1,000 and $2,500.

Five DFO Bursaries will be awarded at $8,000 each and up to two Wally Scott Bursary recipient(s) can receive between $1,000 and $2,500.

"Dairy Farmers of Ontario fully supports Ontario youth to achieve their goals, both on and off the ice," said Cheryl Smith, Chief Executive Officer at DFO. “MilkUP is DFO's youth lifestyle brand that inspires, celebrates and motivates teens to find the strength and energy on their journey in realizing their untapped potential. The bursary program will recognize some of the outstanding Ontario youth athletes who demonstrate MilkUP's values: perseverance, originality and heart.”

“We are excited to partner with Dairy Farmers of Ontario for a second season to highlight the top student-athletes in the OMHA. These bursaries are a testament to the time commitment, focus and dedication needed to succeed at a high level both in the classroom and on the ice,” says OMHA Executive Director Ian Taylor. “We hope these bursaries help our players achieve their post-secondary education goals and that they can continue to give back within their communities.”

All applicants must adhere to the following guidelines:

Requests can only be made for active players aged up to 20 years and must have been a registered player in the Ontario Minor Hockey Association for a minimum of five years.
A player attending a post-secondary institution during the 2021-2022 school year.
Maintain a high standard of academic excellence.
Active in their local community programs (any community sport or social program).
Must be applying to a post-secondary institution in Ontario.

Candidates must complete the application form and submit it to the OMHA here on the website by May 9, 2021. Each application will be reviewed by a panel and only the winning recipients will be contacted by the OMHA. We wish the best of luck to all applicants.

Source : DFO

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.”