The board of the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association has picked a rancher from Alberta’s northern Peace region as its new chairman.
Travis Toews, who operates the Melbern Holdings ranching operation at Beaverlodge, Alta., about 40 km west of Grande Prairie, was elected during the CCA’s annual meeting in Ottawa last week.
Toews , who until now has been the CCA’s vice-president, has been with the association since 2005, serving as its foreign trade committee chair and sitting on its committees for domestic agriculture policy and regulations and for value creation and competitiveness.
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Melbern Holdings currently runs 700 cows and over 1,000 yearlings, while the Toews family also backgrounds about 1,200 head of cattle, the CCA said in a release Friday.
Replacing Toews as the CCA’s vice-president is Martin Unrau, who owns and operates Bar 88 Ranch, a cow/calf, backgrounding and finishing cattle operation near MacGregor, Man., about 35 km west of Portage la Prairie.
Unrau is a former president of the Manitoba Cattle Producers Association and is one of the MCPA’s three appointees to the CCA board.
Four new directors were also appointed to the CCA board during the association’s meeting March 22-26. They include veterinarians Larry Delver of Calgary’s VM Agriculture Consulting and Brian Edge of Cochrane, Alta.; Bill Herron, a producer from Ontario’s Grey County; and George Smith, a producer from Nova Scotia’s Pictou County.
Toews in the CCA’s release described his election to the CCA chairmanship as “an honour” in an industry where “you find people across this country with integrity. These folks are constructive, co-operative and frank, but we share the same values by and large.”
Having completed a two-year term as president, Brad Wildeman of Lanigan, Sask. will remain on the CCA executive as past-president.
