CCA elects new leadership team

Mar 28, 2023

The Canadian Cattle Association held their Annual General Meeting in Ottawa last week.

During the event they discussed a number of key issues from proposed changes to traceability regulations, to trade, animal welfare and the need for further enhancements to business risk management programs.

A new leadership team for 2023-24 was also elected with Nathan Phinney of New Brunswick named as President, and Tyler Fulton of Manitoba as Vice-President.

The CCA also welcomed the following new board members for 2023-24: Renee Ardill (BC), Jana Harman (AB), Graham Overguard (AB), Greg Schmidt (AB), Curtis Vander Heyden (AB), John Schuttenbeld (NB), and Kevin Simmons (PEI). With the election of Tyler Fulton to Vice President, a new board member from Manitoba is forthcoming.

Phinney took over the role of CCA President in December 2022, following the sudden passing of Reg Schellenberg.

"The transition to CCA President has not been an easy one, Reg left big shoes to fill. It’s an honour to have the support of CCA’s board members to lead our organization and continue our work on the issues of importance to Canadian cattle farmers and ranchers."

During the AGM the Schellenberg family was in attendance taking part in a dinner to honour Reg’s legacy and contributions to CCA and the broader Canadian beef industry.

Source : Pembinavalley online

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