From September 30 to October 3, many of Canada’s farm writers, corporate communications staff, editors, marketers, and freelancers descended on Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan for the 2010 CFWF annual conference. Held in a different province each year, the conference provides farm writers with an opportunity to network, tour different parts of Canada’s agricultural community and see what local success stories there have been. With Moose Jaw as the base this year, the tours ranged across southern Saskatchewan and featured visits to Canada’s largest land management operation – the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada Community Pasture Program, cattle farms and auction market, grain traders, a Hutterite colony, a dairy farm and more. The theme of the conference, “Big Land. Big Sky. Big Business.” was much in evidence throughout the tours. The first major stop, the Pasture Program, gave delegates a glimpse into the life on the Prairies of a cowboy. The tour saw one tiny segment of the 85 pastures that are part of the program – a program which governs 2.3 million acres or more land area than the entire province of Prince Edward Island. The next day, The West tour headed to a seed and special crop supplier, Simpson Seeds, then the Bluestone Stock Farm, visited the small but innovative town of Mortlach and finished up at Benbie Holsteins. From all accounts the tour was excellent and provided great insight into those big industries. The East tour (mine) started with a trip to Alliance Grain Traders in Regina. This one company is the largest lentil and pea splitting company in the world. As the world’s largest lentil processor and exporter, Alliance (and their subsidiaries) between 35 and 40 percent of the world’s lentil trade passes through their hands in one form or another. Their 21 facilities around the world ship products to over 85 countries. The second stop, the Lajord Hutterite colony played host to the delegates in grand fashion. With a dairy, a chicken barn, turkeys, a prized flock of free range geese, a cattle operation, a high-tech feed mill, many crops and a giant vegetable operation the colony is a whole different style of farming operation. With just under 100 residents, an onsite school, full working kitchen/cafeteria and a business office the colony is self-sustaining and has been since it was founded in 1977. The third stop, the Heartland Auction Market back in Moose Jaw, brought the tour to the oldest continuously operating auction market in Canada. With three auctions a week, the auction house continues to sell cattle the old-fashioned way but with several nods to new technology. Buyers can be there live or online and the auctioneer takes bids from both. Heartland operates 10 markets in Saskatchewan and Manitoba that, each year, handle 850,000 head of cattle. The Saturday program, the main professional development part of the conference, got back to the BIG theme of 2010:
- They grow ‘em BIG out here
- The BIG Picture
- BIG Exports
- Think BIG
- BIG Webisphere
- BIG Ethical Question
- BIG Research
- BIG Producers
- A BIG Success
