Agriculture Roundup for Friday January 13, 2023

Jan 13, 2023

There are leadership changes at the Canadian Pork Council.

René Roy, a pork producer from Quebec, was elected as the new chair, and Scott Peters of Manitoba has been elected as the new first vice chair.

The organization’s longest-serving chair in its history, Rick Bergmann, retired from the board after 5 years of service to the national organization.

Bergmann navigated the pork industry through several challenging issues since joining the board in 2008, such as the global pandemic, WTO challenges, CPTPP and NAFTA trade negotiations.

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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.