New Initiative Fosters Beef Researchers

Aug 06, 2014

The Beef Cattle Research Council (BCRC) launched the Beef Researcher Mentorship Program, a new program that aims to support upcoming researchers in the Canadian beef industry.

According to BCRC, the mentorship program is in a pilot phase, but the goal is to provide researchers with the opportunity to increase their understanding of the beef cattle industry's needs.

Three applicants were selected to participate in the pilot phase: Emma McGeough, Bill Biligetu and Raquel Rodriquez Doce. The first round was an invitation process, but BCRC says that once the program becomes more established, that the public application process will be expanded.

“When scientists have a better understanding our of industry’s needs, and are motivated to produce applicable, solution-based research results and see them through to adoption, that’s extremely valuable to our industry,” Tim Oleksyn, Chair of the BCRC and a producer from Shellbrook, Saskatchewan said in a release.

The program has three objectives (the exact wording of the three goals can be found on the BCRC's website):

Bridge research interests with those that will best meet the Canadian beef industry’s needs
Cultivate the skills necessary for researchers to lead applied research/technology transfer creativities to improve innovation in Canada’s beef industry
Oversee collaborations to help new researchers in the beef research area create applied research and extension programs

Funding for the mentorship program is made available thanks to the technology transfer initiative under the second phase of the Beef Cattle Industry Science Cluster.

Video: Cleaning Sheep Barns & Setting Up Chutes

Indoor sheep farming in winter at pre-lambing time requires that, at Ewetopia Farms, we need to clean out the barns and manure in order to keep the sheep pens clean, dry and fresh for the pregnant ewes to stay healthy while indoors in confinement. In today’s vlog, we put fresh bedding into all of the barns and we remove manure from the first groups of ewes due to lamb so that they are all ready for lambs being born in the next few days. Also, in preparation for lambing, we moved one of the sorting chutes to the Coveralls with the replacement ewe lambs. This allows us to do sorting and vaccines more easily with them while the barnyard is snow covered and hard to move sheep safely around in. Additionally, it frees up space for the second groups of pregnant ewes where the chute was initially.