It’s been a parade of PhDs, a cavalcade of scholars, an array of academics.
Call it what you will, but the number of researchers who have gone through an innovative mentorship program started as a one-year pilot eight years ago is well into the double digits.
The tally is now up to three dozen on the research side. Twice that number of mentors have welcomed them to their ranches, feedlots, vet practices or offices, shepherded them around conferences and introduced them to one person after another that ‘they’ve just got to meet.’
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“The networking opportunities you get through your mentors are really invaluable,” said Emma McGeough, one of a trio of researchers who made up the first cohort of the program created by the Beef Cattle Research Council.
Right after earning a doctorate in ruminant nutrition in her native Ireland, McGeough came to Canada. She did a post-doc at Agriculture Canada’s Lethbridge research centre and then landed a job at the University of Manitoba, where she is now an associate professor of sustainable grasslands and livestock production systems.
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McGeough was paired with two Saskatchewan cattle producers, who were also partners in a cattle consulting and marketing agency: Sandy Russell and Janice Bruynooghe (a former executive director of the Saskatchewan Forage Council).
“I expressed interest in the forage side, which Janice was really able to speak to, but also in the marketing and breeds side, which is where Sandy has more focus,” said McGeough.
She talked to them by phone, visited their farms and got a lot of introductions.
“They were instrumental in fostering relationships,” she said. “I was very fortunate to be able to do a lot of things in my mentorship program. I was able to visit with producers in Saskatchewan and in Manitoba. They helped expand my network of contacts to producers in both provinces.”
With more than 20 years of experience in contract work for research and extension groups in the cattle industry, Bruynooghe was never short of ideas on who the young professor might talk with.
“Because I had been working in the industry for as long as I had, I could easily make connections for her,” said Bruynooghe. “I didn’t do anything magic, and no mentor does. You just see those places and facilitate those relationships. It makes it a little bit quicker.”
And those connections are important, she said.
“The success of this mentorship program is bridging that gap for new researchers to make sure that they have the right connections and they can get the answers to their questions.
“Is this important to industry? Do producers across the country actually care about this?”
One of the key reasons for creating the program was the realization that a wave of retirements was about to hit the cattle research community, said Andrea Brocklebank, executive director of the Beef Cattle Research Council.
“We had a lot of researchers retiring and new researchers coming,” she said. “I think it truly worked in the way we envisioned. You’re linking them with industry mentors in their areas of interest and that’s where they really want to focus.”
Many in the new generation of researchers are from abroad, which makes it more challenging to build connections in the industry.
“Not all of them come from an ag background,” said Brocklebank. “Not all of them come from a Canadian ag background. They might have an ag background, but not be knowledgeable about Canadian beef production.”
Brocklebank said the council saw this with some of the proposals suggested by young researchers. They had great ideas but some couldn’t be implemented in the Canadian production system.
The heart of the program is giving researchers a deeper understanding of the problems and issues faced by producers and others in the beef sector.
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And nothing can match the simple act of meeting and talking to people, said Bruynooghe.
“Emma had a lot of ideas coming into her position, where she felt that industry might have an interest,” the cattle producer noted. “She was new, she was developing her research program. That’s the kind of detective work she was doing, not with me, but with other people that she met, to figure out what the industry demand was when it came to research.”
“I wouldn’t say that a specific project has come out of this,” added McGeough. “But when I’ve had research ideas or have been searching out people to potentially collaborate with, whether those are producers or other people in research, Janice has facilitated some of those conversations.
“It helps us identify the gaps that are there, that we can design our research programs around.”
The mentorship program has another significant impact. It allows the scholars to share their research with producers, McGeough said.
Brocklebank agreed.
“One early mentee said that the mentorship sped up his early engagement with industry and helped his confidence so much. We saw that,” she said. “Researchers felt more comfortable calling producers and making producer contacts.”
That makes a difference, said Bruynooghe.
“There’s a lot of good researchers that have made their mark, and the program has helped them along,” she said. “We’ve seen the benefits of that as an industry.”
McGeough and Bruynooghe still keep in touch, and sometimes the mentee is now in the role of mentor.
“Now she’s established in her career, I go to her with questions,” said Bruynooghe. “I look to her too. It’s a back-and-forth relationship.”
