Take a dairy farmer with kids in 4H and a kindergarten teacher looking for remote learning opportunities, and you get an exciting, new farm-based program for school kids called ‘Adopt A Cow’. Modelled after a similar program in the U. S., farmer Heather Peters and teacher Melissa Pearce were overwhelmed by the response of local dairy farmers willing to participate.
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Janine Lock and Mark Ruiter are two of the faces of tomorrow’s agriculture – enthusiastic, optimistic and keen to continue learning after graduation. It’s that last quality, in particular, that bodes well for home-grown innovation in Canada’s agri-food industry…and it’s just what’s needed for competitiveness and sustainability in these challenging times.
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A commodity group’s name that fails to consider diversity of its customers, as well as the industry it represents, can appear out of touch — even when it’s a leader in so many other ways. Photo: conferenceboard.ca
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Colleges and universities in Canada serve thousands of meals every day…meals that are affordable, delicious and produced by accomplished chefs with local fare. Photo: Mark Kenny.
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Farmers feel the current federal carbon tax targets them unfairly. The carbon-based fertilizer and fuel they use are necessary to grow food. And it’s true that they’re not being compensated for measures like rotational grazing that actually sequester carbon in the soil. The public wants something done about climate change…so where’s the middle ground? Photo: globalnews.ca
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Owen Roberts is a faculty member in the Agricultural Leadership, Education and Communications program at the University of Illinois. As an agricultural journalist, he is the past president of the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists and a lifetime achievement award recipient from the Canadian Farm Writers' Federation. His programs and research papers have been recognized nationally and internationally through awards from the Journal of Applied Communications, the National Agri-Marketing Association, the Association for Communications Excellence, and others.