Government of Canada announces appointment to Canadian Dairy Commission

Sep 28, 2022

The Honourable Marie-Claude Bibeau, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, today announced the appointment of Shikha Jain to the Board of Directors of the Canadian Dairy Commission (CDC). The appointment is a four year term, effective September 15, 2022.

Ms. Jain is the Chief Executive Officer of Green Energy Trading Corporation (GET Corp.), a green tech organization that supports climate farming and sustainability in the dairy industry. Through her work with numerous cross-jurisdictional stakeholders within the sector, Ms. Jain brings extensive experience in strategic and operational planning and is recognized as a trusted and collaborative leader.

As a member of the CDC Board of Directors, Ms. Jain will work closely with stakeholders across the value chain as they pursue their future vision for an innovative and sustainable sector.

The Board of Directors helps the CDC deliver on the priorities outlined in the CDC's mandate letter. The letter outlines priorities in the areas of transparency, innovation, international trade, engagement, and inclusivity. It recognizes the importance of a vibrant and sustainable dairy sector to Canada's economy, as well as the importance of dairy supply management for rural communities and farm families across the country.

The mandate letter also calls on the CDC to continue to advance the Government of Canada's ambitious environmental commitments and support climate resiliency.

In 2016, the Government of Canada implemented an open, transparent and merit-based process for selecting Governor in Council appointees. Appointees play a fundamental role in Canada's democracy by serving on commissions, boards, Crown corporations, agencies and tribunals across the country.

Source : Newswire.ca

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