Ottawa, ON – As another National Grain Week (NGW) wraps up, the Grain Growers of Canada (GGC) is pleased to announce record engagement levels for its Grain Week 2020 events, despite the challenges of transitioning to virtual platforms.
“For us, a successful Grain Week means meeting our overall goal of putting more farmers in front of more policy makers, more often,” says GGC Chair Jeff Nielsen.
“Not only were we able to do that this year, despite the challenges of adapting to a virtual event, but we were able to actually expand our reach, including more GGC members in Grain Week events than ever before.”
GGC officials, including six staff members and 16 farmer directors, met with more than 30 parliamentarians last week, including representatives from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC), Senators and Members of Parliament (MPs) spanning all five political parties and two languages (French and English). GGC staff also had a total of 28 meetings, with four more scheduled for this week.
Last Monday, GGC and Crop Life Canada also launched Today’s Modern Grain Farm: A Harvest Across Canada, a video designed to help educate Canada’s legislators and policy makers about the business of a modern grain farm. To date, the film has more than 2,000 views and has attracted national media attention.
Throughout all the NGW meetings to date, GGC emphasized what has served as its messaging platform for several months now, Nielsen says, that Canadian grain farmers are uniquely positioned to help drive Canada’s economic recovery post COVID shutdowns. In order to do so, the industry needs government support in three key areas: prioritizing and enforcing current free trade agreements (FTA); modernizing regulations preventing innovation in agricultural research; and partnering with farmers in efforts to address climate change.
Source : GGC