Wilkie grew up in Calgary, where he lives today.

“Like many young men in Canada, I had a dream of becoming an NHL hockey player, and that’s where I focussed all my efforts and energy. I was fortunate to have some success at an early age, and get really close to living my dream,” he said.

At 17 years old, Wilkie moved to the Prairies for hockey. He lived in rural Saskatchewan and played for the Western Hockey League’s Swift Current Broncos. As a young man growing up on the Prairies in the 1970s and 1980s, he was never taught to express his feelings.

For the last 20 years, Wilkie worked with I Got Mind, which helps people understand what happens to them after trauma, or when they are dealing with mental stressors.

On Dec. 30, 1986, the Swift Current Broncos were on their bus on the way to Regina. About five minutes out of Swift Current, the bus hit a patch of black ice and went off the road. The bus flipped over. Four Swift Current Broncos perished that night.

“For those of you who were around at the time, and those of us who’ve read about it since, we know a traumatic event like that can have real impact,” said Massie. “I think your story resonates even more strongly again nowadays, because we have a slightly more recent (Humboldt) Broncos tragedy,” she said.

Wilkie said none of the surviving players knew what to do after losing their teammates.

“We didn’t know how to talk about it. It was a very difficult time. It’s very dark. Nightmares, reliving the trauma, having to get back on the bus 10 days later. All those things were extremely difficult for all of us, not just the players, but the coaches, the fans and the billets,” he said. “It impacted everybody.”

“I think that’s what I’ve learned about trauma, is that it may have happened to me, but it still can affect you, and until we understand that it’s hard to create those connections with people. What we went through in Swift Current, it taught us a lot about the darkness and where it could take us, but most importantly, how can we feel better in these moments?”

Wilkie found it difficult to continue after the accident.

“The darkness, being alone at the night was really tumultuous,” he said. “In one minute, I could feel so excited about the path and the direction and what I was learning, and then in the next, fear and worry if I could pull it off.”

Love helped Wilkie along his path of healing. He met his wife and had a daughter.

“When I knew I was going to be a father, that’s when I knew I had to work hard to get my life together, because if I was going to be a role model and responsible for raising this young life, I needed to do better.”

He began to find ways to rebuild, through conversations, books, seminars and training.

By starting to help people, he learned many people do not have a healthy perspective of what they have.

He practiced the attitude of gratitude and would write down three things he was grateful for every day when he woke up.

“Was it easy?” he said. “It was just different. I try and tell people not to look at it as difficult because it’s not. It’s just different. When we can adopt that, it’s easier to take those steps forward in the moments they are presented to you.”

Wilkie said reflecting in the morning helped him see the good things in his life, including relationships, opportunities, how he felt, and the places he got to go and see.

It changed his mindset and helped him when days were challenging.

Culture change

Massie asked Wilkie what it was like to cultivate a culture of wellbeing.

“It takes a commitment of everybody you know trying to be the best version of themselves. If we’re truly going to change the culture, then we need to understand and we each need to do our part. The only way healthy communities are built is people working hard at being healthy themselves,” he said.

Some people want to help others but are not in a good space to help.

“If we’re going to build a healthy culture, then we have to do the work ourselves, and when we do that, it’s amazing the impact that it starts to have on other people,” he said.

Wilkie played hockey for 14 years and was 30 when he retired. He had no other training.

“I tried a couple of things, and it was really when I was coaching young hockey kids that I started to see where my trauma started, and the disappointment and the struggle. I started working with these kids and having different conversations about their attitudes and their mindsets and how they communicated. I started to see a significant change,” he said.

Wilkie trained as a life coach and travelled across North America, speaking to a variety of audiences about mental wellness.

Wilkie eventually assembled a team of 15 which includes of psychologists, mental health clinicians, and training facilitators to join I Got Mind.

“These are experienced people, whether they are retired hockey coaches, or teachers or business leaders. We have young athletes coming back in to work with the even younger athletes,” he said.

“It’s been a real evolution in being able to support people who need different things,” he said.

Wilkie said his sessions with groups start with being vulnerable and sharing stories and experiences. This attitude is practiced with anyone from youth sport teams to community leaders.

“It’s the vulnerability that starts different conversations, giving people permission to talk about what they struggle with and how it affects them,” he said. I Got Mind was actively visiting teams after the Humboldt Broncos crash, touring communities and talking about mental health. The pandemic put an end to that.

I Got Mind worked with Trilight Entertainment to make a documentary accident. The documentary, which is based on a book of the same name is “Sideways; a story of trauma, resilience and healing.”

“It helps us even more in the community and starts conversations that need to happen,” said Wilkie

He hopes people are inspired by the story, which shows what the players went through, but also how they were able to be resilient and become Memorial Cup Champions two years later.

“Trauma happens to all of us. We live in a chaotic world,” he said. “When we see people do amazing things and overcome great things, we want to listen to them, because we’d like to do that ourselves,” he said.

“I think that people need to understand that you don’t ever fully recover from things that happen to you,” he said.

I Got Mind has shown the documentary in various communities and have gotten great reactions. They’ve done a showing with the Drumheller Dragons hockey team and other organizations that want to bring them in.

“When communities find out, and they think they could benefit, they just reach out to us at igotmind.ca and then we work together to get people out to watch the story,” he said. People can check the website to find out how they can watch the documentary online, available November 4.

“When we are connected, we can communicate and when we can communicate, we can solve problems, and those are three of the most important things we need to do,” he said.

I Got Mind has created four special scholarships to remember the boys who perished in the Swift Current Broncos accident. One of them is an agricultural scholarship, to honour player Brent Ruff, who grew up in Wetaskiwin and whose family was heavily involved in agriculture. More information on the scholarships can be found online.

I Got Mind has also created an online community on their website, and can be followed on social media at Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram. Organizations who wish to book a visit from Wilkie can book him through the organization’s web site.

The post Men’s mental health advocate says sharing personal stories and communicating crucial to mental health appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“AgTalk is an online space. I describe it as farmer coffee row, within the larger, powerful online space called Togetherall,” said Merle Massie, executive director of the Do More Agriculture Foundation.

AgTalk was launched in 2023 as a two-year pilot and has been renewed until 2027.

In the past two years, there have been more than 10,000 interactions from within AgTalk.

Aside from Togetherall, AgTalk has several funding partners: RBC, BASF and the McCain Foundation.

AgTalk is completely anonymous and is accessed through an online portal.

“It’s an important space. Let’s imagine you’re at home on your farm and you’ve had a tough day and you don’t feel like you can talk about what’s going on with you, or how you’re feeling with the people around you, because you work with them all day, and maybe they’re your family members,” said Massie, who farms between Biggar and Rosetown.

“Maybe they won’t understand, or you don’t want to lay that extra burden on them, but you’d still like to let it out because you’ll feel better if you do. AgTalk becomes a space where you can do that, because it’s peer to peer,” she said.

The top issues discussed on AgTalk are stress, depression, anxiety, loneliness and relationships.

The space is populated by farmers and people who understand agriculture.

“You say what’s on your mind and share what’s been happening with you, and then other people can read and respond, and it’s just like any other kind of online social media sharing site,” she said.

“It’s a centralized space where you can share what’s happening with you and read about what’s happening to other people. Maybe you can provide some advice, maybe you can hear some advice, just like you would on coffee row,” she said.

Massie said AgTalk gives people a safe space to talk about mental health.

“We know that it’s true that there are lots of communities or farm families where a conversation about mental health is not welcome,” she said.

People can chat in AgTalk by typing, as there is no oral component.

“We call it community at your fingertips,” she said.

Massie said AgTalk offers an option to farmers who may not be in crisis but may need some peers to talk to.

“We all have regular stresses and conversations. There’s stuff that happens to all of us. We’re not all in that binary of either we’re well or we need to call a crisis line. We’re regular people with regular lives and sometimes we just want to share what’s happening. That’s where AgTalk really shines,” said Massie.

In case someone needs more help, there is 24/7 clinical backup on AgTalk. Users can reach out to the clinicians if they want.

The clinicians will not interfere unless they are needed, but they are present on the site.

They can offer a one-on-one conversation with people who need to talk things out and help them access higher levels of support.

“Maybe they just want to have a little bit more understanding of an issue. The Togetherall platform does have the ability to escalate that and connect them with a call line so they can speak to someone one-on-one or even access 9-1-1 and send someone to them,” she said.

All the partners have been promoting the site, and there has been a rise in people signing up.

“We think we’re reaching the point where it’s going to tip and become a huge gathering place,” she said.

Togetherall and AgTalk have created a super peer training.

“These are people who really enjoy the platform, and who really want to reach out to one another. Again, it’s all anonymous, so it’s very simple to do. You’re not revealing anything about yourself. But some people want to take additional training so they can feel confident in their ability to interact with one another. If that’s something that people are interested in, they can feel free to reach out to me (merle@domore.ag) because I will be putting another cohort of super peers through their special training this fall,” she said.

The easiest way to find the AgTalk website is to go to the Do More Agriculture website and click on the AgTalk link. On the Togetherall platform, people can also join other chat groups, read articles and do some additional courses and learning.

Massie said most farms are businesses that don’t have employee assistance programs. AgTalk can help provide that support.

About 66 per cent of AgTalk users say they have no formal support outside of AgTalk.

About 33 per cent of users have no formal supports at all, which means they don’t have anybody that they feel comfortable talking about their mental health with.

Massie said the site is reaching across the generations, with users between the ages of 16 to 85 years. The site also attracts a diverse group including Indigenous people and people of colour.

“Agriculture across Canada has lots and lots of people who come from different countries and different backgrounds, and it’s a growing number,” she said.

The post AgTalk, an online “coffee row” for farmers, has been renewed for two more years appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Ukraine’s agriculture was hit very hard by the war. Most of the country’s farmers were on the verge of impoverishment and were forced to learn how to survive. From these farmers you may learn which lessons are better to learn in peacetime, to better be ready for possible shocks.

Farmers usually follow recommendations when planting and growing crops or raising livestock. A farmer knows that for best results, he should apply a certain amount of fertilizer and spray the plants with the necessary pesticides to protect them. Careful cultivation and preparation of the field are also necessary.

But in the past two years, Ukrainian farmers were forced to learn to grow grain with minimal budgets. If they used to apply 600 kilograms of fertilizer to a hectare of land, today they grow a crop using 150 or 200 kg.

This forces them to look for other ways to nourish their crops. It also changes how closely they sow seeds and the spacing between rows. In many cases it has promoted wider use of inexpensive biostimulants, though it’s not proven they will help.

As I have observed farmers throughout the war, I have seen that the best results come from farmers who actively experimented before the war, and sought to reduce their cost of production even in peacetime.

While storing grain on the farm may be commonplace in Canada, it’s more limited in Ukraine. If a farmer doesn’t have a place to store the grain they grow, this can become a serious problem during wartime.

Overloaded regional elevators may refuse to accept crop for drying and storage. Grain can spoil. Due to the instantaneous increase in energy prices, the cost of grain elevator services may increase several-fold and it will be unprofitable for the farmer to use.

Therefore, it is better to have their own storage, even if it is primitive. This will give the farmer time to make the best decision.

During the war it is almost impossible to sell grain at a normal price, while the cost of fuel, animal feed and various food products is high. Many Ukrainian farmers began to process their produce and sell finished products to earn additional money. Farmers’ interest in animal husbandry has also increased. But it is clear it was better to start doing all this long before the war, in order to have the opportunity to perfect production processes.

In times of war, banks and supply companies have limited resources and lend money and resources only to guaranteed reliable customers. If a farmer has such a reputation, they have a better chance of finding financial support to grow a crop.

Ukrainians have a good saying: “Friends are known in trouble.” A farmer must have many friends and good acquaintances, including other farmers, managers of supply companies and neighbours. In times of war and other disasters, this makes it possible to get quick support and coordinate efforts to overcome a problem.

For example, overcoming the consequences of rocket fire or clearing snow after a heavy snowfall.

It is worthwhile to create regional farmers’ clubs and communicate regularly to know everyone personally. A farmer will not survive apart from other people.

Before the war in Ukraine, some financially secure farmers believed it was not necessary to own their own seeders, high clearance sprayers or combines.

They thought this machinery could be easily rented and the farm wouldn’t have to own and maintain it.

Today,  agricultural companies that have their own agricultural machinery have the greatest chance of survival. It is more profitable, because the operating costs are lower than renting.
When there is a war in the country, all industries suffer, especially the provision of services. A farmer may simply not find a sprayer or combine in time.

So, if they have such an opportunity, they should buy their own agricultural machinery. It is also very useful to have their own excavators and trucks – especially trucks – because one of the biggest problems in wartime is logistics.

A farmer should try to buy fuel, fertilizers and pesticides for the next season as soon as they can afford it. This is what saved many farmers I know, when there was nothing to buy in the first months of the full-scale war.

Over time, the market normalized, but before that it was necessary to survive during four or five months of acute shortage of fuel, pesticides and spare parts, all during the spring sowing season.
No farmer should completely rely on third-party companies. If they have reliable and qualified employees, they should try to keep them at work.

In times of upheaval, it is better to have people around who know how to repair agricultural machinery and have a good knowledge of agronomy. A farm should have a few people it can rely on who are professional in their field.

Always keep in mind the possibility that electricity and natural gas may be out for extended periods of time. It is very good to have solar panels and wind generators and definitely diesel generators. Their power should be enough for basic life needs and to ensure the minimum functioning of a livestock farm.

It is very good if a farm can heat its buildings with firewood. This is an excellent backup option.

One of the biggest problems during the war is sudden disappearance of mobile communications and the internet due to missile attacks. A farmer can instantly lose touch with other people and won’t know what’s happening in the country or on the next street.

Therefore, farm workers must have wireless walkie-talkies and equipment that allows them to connect to the internet in the absence of electricity. Some farmers found that their traditional land lines worked best in these conditions.

A farmer who hopes to survive should not be paralyzed by fear, and should be ready to take control of their own destiny.

In times of wars and natural disasters, state bodies cannot save everything and help everyone at once. It makes no sense to sit back and wait for someone to come and solve problems.

Under such conditions, each farm turns into an island of stability for the surrounding residents. Farmers immediately take the initiative into their own hands. They provide people with food and organize people’s self-defence to maintain order. They solve infrastructure problems and organize support for the army. 

This makes it possible to prevent social upheaval, because all people receive the necessary means of living and see that law and order has not disappeared.

These are hard lessons, learned over the past two years, and I hope Canadian farmers never have to learn them first-hand.

—Ihor Pavliuk is a farm journalist based in Ukraine who has filed regular contributions to Glacier FarmMedia publications over the course of the war. 

The post War teaches Ukrainian farmers tough lessons  appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“There’s a number of loud voices that tend to dominate the conversations,” says Ian McCreary, a grain and cattle farmer from Bladworth, Sask. McCreary is co-leading the Prairie Farmer and Rancher Forum with Gord Bacon, former CEO of Pulse Canada. Farmers for Climate Solutions is organizing the forum.

McCreary says many of the innovative farmers and ranchers aren’t talking to each other about what they’re doing to improve sustainability on their farms. The forum organizers plan to bring together 36 randomly selected producers for three meetings, held in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Each meeting will run over two-and-a-half days.

Some producers will have received invitations in the mail, but other producers from the three Prairie provinces are welcome to register as well. The more people who register, the more representative it will be of western Canadian viewpoints, McCreary says.

Producers do not need to hold any particular view on the environment or climate change to participate, but they must earn most of their income from farming or ranching, and be able to attend all three forums. Forum organizers expect to recruit people with diverse opinions.

McCreary’s wife, Mary Smiley, is facilitating the discussions, and her goal will be to set the tone “to make sure that everybody, regardless of how much their opinions differ, treat each other respectfully,” says McCreary.

Participating producers will also get a phone call before the first session to ask questions, so forum organizers can build the agenda around those questions, he adds.

“And then similarly, the agenda for the second set of meetings will be determined by the discussions and the questions that come out of the first set of meetings.”

McCreary says that to some extent they’ll be able to manage diverse views “by answering people’s questions, providing information and creating an environment where people who disagree with each other can have respectful conversations about ideas that have the potential to work for more than just individuals.”

McCreary sees a few potential outcomes from the forums. One is a report that outlines how to create a more sustainable future. Another is a network of farmers and ranchers who are trying new things, who can discuss what works and what doesn’t on their operations. He also hopes to find a practical way to measure gains in sustainability on the farm.

“You can’t measure nitrous oxide coming off your fields. You can’t measure methane coming off your cattle herd and it’s really difficult to know the volume of carbon dioxide that came from the nitrogen fertilizer that you used and that was produced.”

McCreary is no stranger to farm politics, having been a Canadian Wheat Board director for 10 years and having chaired a community pasture patrons association. Afte that, he decided to take a break from farm boards, unless it was focused on long-term sustainability or relations with First Nations.

While combining one day, he got a call from someone asking if he’d be interested in chairing a task force looking at climate solutions for the farm. At first he tried to deflect the request, but then looked into who else was involved.

The people involved weren’t interested in “screaming and sort of waving placards. They’re interested in trying to find solutions. And so I agreed to chair this task force.”

Farmers for Climate Solutions is a relatively young organization focused on the science around climate, as well as what’s practical for producers. Part of McCreary’s focus is keeping it as grounded as he could on Prairie issues, as it’s difficult for people from the Maritimes or Vancouver Island “to understand how vast the Prairies are.”

Interested producers can register online or by calling 1-833-537-1758. The registration deadline is Nov. 28. More information is available on the FCS website.

— Lisa Guenther is editor of Canadian Cattlemen.

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They study team is “looking for farmers, ranchers, or anyone who works or lives on a farm” to participate, researchers said in a recent notice.

Their study is in the form of a 10- to 15-minute online survey.

Researchers involved in the study say global-level research shows farmers experience high levels of, or elevated risk for, stress, anxiety, depression and/or psychological distress.

Similarly, a national-level survey of 1,132 Canadian farmers found higher levels of stress, anxiety and depression but “lower levels of resilience” compared to the general population.

The sample group for that national survey, however, included just 98 Alberta farmers, or 8.7 per cent of the total sample, while Alberta farmers make up 21.4 per cent of Canada’s farmer population, the researchers said.

The survey would examine what aspects of running a farm are found to be most stressful, how farming stress impacts mental well-being, how farmers cope with stress and whether they experience burnout.

The study is led by Dr. Rebecca Purc-Stephenson, an applied social psychologist and professor at the university’s Augustana campus at Camrose.

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The Simpson Centre for Food and Agricultural Policy, a think tank operating out of the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy, says its three recently released reports aim at “providing a neutral and evidence-based analysis of each party and their respective election priorities for the future of the ag sector.”

The reports, it said, “are intended to be a tool for agricultural organizations and stakeholders to use as a jumping-off point for discussions in the lead-up to the Alberta elections.”

The second of the three, titled Primary Producers’ Voices on Policy in Alberta, details results from a survey of 297 Alberta farmers and their concerns on the topics of climate, spending, markets/commodities/trade and technology/research.

The demographics of the farmer respondents were broken down into categories of 18-39, 40-60 and 60 and older.

Sixty-one per cent of respondents in the 18-39 group agreed their farm has been positively affected by federal climate change regulations. The two older groups did not view the situation the same way, however, with only 56 and 23 per cent agreeing respectively.

All demographics strongly agreed investment in research for emissions reductions should be a government priority.

The responses related to spending were not as decisive. On the question of whether the Alberta government provides strong incentives for new farmers to begin their careers, 51 and 52 per cent of the 18-39 and 40-60 groups voted they agreed, while only 21 per cent of those over 60 did.

Agreement that the government should prioritize subsidizing agriculture input costs was similarly tepid, ranging from 40 to 60 per cent.

The category of markets and commodities saw more noticeable agreement, however. All demographics generally agreed upon priorities related to the topic, such as opening up in new international trade markets, ensuring fair returns for commodity producers, incentivizing Albertan commodities and investing in new processing facilities.

Likewise, in the category of technology and research, every group agreed Canadian agriculture research has benefited their farms and investment in innovation technology in Alberta should be a high priority.

There was also consensus that the government should have significant involvement in the agriculture sector.

The first report, The Role of Political Parties in Shaping Agriculture Policy, outlines the track records of Alberta’s previous United Conservative Party (UCP) and New Democratic Party (NDP) governments.

According to the report, “the NDP government funded investments in research, food safety and animal health,” whereas “the UCP government has taken a direct-investment approach with Albertan producers and decreased ministry expenses for increased capital spending.”

The report’s conclusion states the NDP has emphasized increased protection for those working on the agriculture sector, and the UCP has focused more on giving control over to agricultural workers to make decisions about their individual daily operations.

It also concludes the NDP has focused more on research and funding the ministry of agriculture, whereas the UCP has prioritized direct investments.

It also notes many similarities between the two parties, however, such as how they have both invested in agribusiness.

The third report, An Overview of Party Visions, was just released Thursday and summarizes what the parties have promised in their platforms.

Among the more significant pledges were the UCP commitment to expand the Feeder Assistance Loan Guarantee from $2 million to $3 million, and the NDP’s promises to “create an Alberta value-added incentive program to help companies access capital,” create a food incentive task force and “increase staff for services and agri-food and value-added approvals.”

More about the surveys, party history and election pledges can be found in the full reports.

— Jonah Grignon reports for Glacier FarmMedia from Ottawa.

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“The immigration of scientists, data engineers, and entrepreneurs has been recognized as critical to Canada’s growth. A similar approach needs to be adopted to attract farmers,” the authors wrote.

The report, released Sunday and titled Farmers Wanted: The labour renewal Canada needs to build the Next Green Revolution, is a collaboration of the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), Boston Consulting Group and the Arrell Food Insitute at the University of Guelph.

It notes there’s a global crunch coming as many farmers near retirement age, and not enough is being done to fill that gap.

In Canada, 40 per cent of farmers are expected to retire by 2033, “placing agriculture on the cusp of one of the biggest labour and leadership transitions in the country’s history,” the report reads. That will come on top of an already-expected shortfall of 24,000 farm workers over the same time frame.

MORE READING: Does Canada have enough young farmers?

The report’s authors say the first short-term step in addressing this crisis should be to identify and recruit 30,000 permanent immigrants who want to establish their own farms and greenhouses, or take over existing ones.

Canada, they wrote, has had a long history as a destination for international farmers from the Netherlands, U.S., U.K., China and India — and there are new opportunities to “attract operators who have lost their farms because of regulatory policies in other nations.”

In the Netherlands, for example, 3,000 farmers with the largest emissions will be bought out in a 24.3 billion-euro (C$35.6 billion) program. The country will also have to reduce its livestock population to a third of its current size over eight years. In New Zealand, a 2019 law that requires producers to reduce emissions by 10 per cent in the next three years is already forcing farms to scale back. The EU has lost more than four million farms since 2005. It all adds up to a potential talent pool for the agriculture sector, the authors said.

In the medium term, Canada needs to do a better job of promoting “agricultural education across colleges and universities to attract new students,” and the report says the blueprint to expanding agriculture education is already in place.

Faced with falling student numbers in the 1990s, education institutions expanded their reach by revisiting their curriculum with an eye to drawing in students who weren’t from a farm background. They focused on topics outside of agricultural science, and included topics such as food security, sustainability and international development. Enrolment at ag schools bottomed out in 2003, and since then has grown by 40 per cent. Canada now has among the highest post-secondary agriculture enrolments in the developed world.

Despite this, the authors said there’s still room to further expand the scope of agricultural education in Canada.

“For instance, no full-time MBA program among Canada’s top 10 business schools currently offers elective courses in agribusiness,” they noted.

Longer-term, Canada should “accelerate the adoption of autonomous and mechanized solutions on farms.”

They write that “smart” agriculture technology and practices will promote higher levels of efficiency and productivity, reduce environmental impact and promote sustainability, as well as “reduce the need for low-skilled labour.”

The national shortfall, they said, is in the investments needed to develop the technology: “We should strive to be more ambitious with funding as every dollar invested in R+D generates $10 to $20 in GDP.”

Most of the money spent on this research comes from the public purse, to the tune of about $450 million in 2020. Private sector investment lags, at just $108 million the same year.

Capital investment in agriculture has risen faster than in other Canadian industries over the last 15 years, but has mainly been concentrated in the crops sector.

For farmers themselves, the report urges putting a priority on succession planning. It notes Canada’s farm acreage has declined from 167.01 million acres in the 2006 census, to 153.69 million in 2021.

“Without clear transition plans, valuable farmland may sit idle and unproductive,” the report said. “By contrast, clear and established plans make the process of transferring land, knowledge, labour and ownership easier for new generations taking over.”

Farm operators who want to sell their farmland should consider the sale to “eager new producers entering the industry, productive operators, or farmers new to Canada” to help ensure their land’s productivity does not slow.

The post International farmers may ease Canadian human capital crunch appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

A former president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture is taking the helm of Canada’s largest general farmers’ organization.

Keith Currie of Collingwood, Ont. was acclaimed as the new president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture this week during the CFA’s annual general meeting in Ottawa.

As CFA president, Currie replaces Mary Robinson of Albany, P.E.I., who had led the organization since 2019 and decided to step down from the post this year, the OFA said in a release Tuesday.

Currie, who served as OFA president from 2016 to 2020 and as CFA first vice-president since 2019, said he “look(s) forward to working with our members and stakeholders to advance the interests of Canada’s agriculture sector.”

The OFA on Tuesday hailed Currie, a hay and sweet corn producer, as a long-time advocate for the agriculture industry at both the provincial and federal levels.

“Keith has a wealth of knowledge, experience and insight when it comes to Canadian agricultural production and will be a valuable leader for our industry, OFA president Peggy Brekveld said Tuesday. “We are privileged to have an Ontario representative in this role and I have no doubt that he will continue to be a strong voice for farmers across the country.”

Currie is expected to lead the CFA in “advocating for policies and programs that support Canadian farmers and promote sustainable and profitable agriculture” and work to strengthen the CFA’s relationships with government officials and other stakeholders, OFA said.

Currie is joined on the CFA’s new executive roster by Todd Lewis as first vice-president and Pierre Lampron as second vice-president.

Lewis, who farms at Gray, Sask., just south of Regina, previously served from 2016 to 2022 as president of the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan (APAS).

Lampron, a dairy farmer in Quebec’s Mauricie region, has been president of Dairy Farmers of Canada since 2017 and replaces Lewis as CFA’s second VP. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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The amendments were added to a gun control package that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government introduced last year after the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, where a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers in their elementary school.

The package includes a ban on the sale of handguns and prohibitions on the sale of large-capacity magazines.

“(The) government’s intent is to focus on AR-15s and other assault-style weapons — not guns commonly used for hunting,” Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino said in a statement. “(It’s) about certain guns that are too dangerous in other contexts.”

Mendicino said he was working with colleagues in parliament to find a solution “that will keep assault-style weapons off our streets.”

Trudeau enacted the handgun freeze in October under executive order, and in November, his government amended the package to ban certain rifles and shotguns that hold more than five rounds, among other changes.

While most of Trudeau’s gun-control measures have been popular among voters in the past, those amendments set off fierce criticism by the Conservative Party, the largest opposition bloc, who described them as an attack on Canadian hunters.

They also drew opposition from the left-leaning New Democratic Party (NDP). Trudeau’s Liberals have a minority in Parliament and they rely on the NDP to pass legislation.

“Hunting rifles are not the problem. No one believes that going after hunters will reduce violent crime across the country,” Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre said in a statement after the amendments were withdrawn.

Canada has stricter gun laws than the U.S., but Canadians can own firearms with a license. Some firearms must also be registered, though not most long guns: rifles and shotguns.

Canada’s gun homicide rate is a fraction of the United States’ rate, 2020 data showed, but is still higher than other wealthy countries and has been rising, with handguns the main weapon used in the majority of firearm-related violent crimes between 2009 and 2020.

— Reporting for Reuters by Rami Ayyub and Steve Scherer.

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Since the 1970s, the number of farms has been steadily declining, but not all farms have been impacted equally — mid-size farms have been hit the hardest, as the number of small and large farms increases.

The mid-size farm category used to cover the majority of agricultural operations.

These tended to be operated by a single farmer working on a full-time basis to support a single farm family. Now, a range of farm sizes exist, with small ones often being operated by farmers with off-farm employment, and larger ones being run by several farmers.

While mid-size farms used to be the average, it is now difficult to define what the average farm is.

This has implications on determining the need for policy intervention and what that policy will look like. It’s clear the one-size-fits-all approach to policy-making no longer works.

Changes in farm size over the last two generations are illustrated in several ways. The first is through the decline in total number of farms in Canada. The number of farms has fallen by 44 per cent to 189,874 farms in 2021 from 338,552 farms in 1976.

Secondly, there was a significant decline in the amount of mid-size farms. While the total number of farms has fallen, the decline is particularly evident among mid-size farms. In 1976, most farms were mid-size, but by 2021 that number had declined 59 per cent to 21,587.

Thirdly, there was an increase in the share of the smallest and largest farm size categories. The number of large farms increased to 16,966 in 2021 from 7,868 in 1976. The number of small farms has remained relatively constant at 12,000 since 1976, but this now represents seven per cent of the total, whereas it represented only four per cent in 1976.

Lastly, the shape of the distribution of farm size changed from a bell-shaped, normal distribution in 1976 to a flatter, more uniform shape in 2021. Farms are now spread more equally across the different size categories. It highlights the shift away from the average farmer being the typical one in the middle category to farms more likely to be small or large.

The change in farm size distribution has several crucial implications.

The first is that the largest farms represent an increasing share of overall food production in Canada. While a surprising four per cent of farms had no sales in 2021, 10 per cent of farms had sales over $1 million, and four per cent over $2 million, meaning 10 per cent of all farms now generate over two-thirds of the sales in Canada.

The 70 per cent of farms with sales less than $250,000 represent less than 10 per cent of total revenue from the agricultural sector.

The increase in farm size and sales can largely be attributed to the technological advances over the last 45 years, which have allowed people to manage greater areas on their own. Canadian farms have had to evolve and modernize to keep up with the shifting agricultural landscape.

Farms now must operate in a highly competitive market with low margins, and as such have had to increase in both size and workforce to generate sufficient returns. Other farms have adjusted by selling food products at a premium to be able to exist on a smaller scale.

The changing size distribution of Canadian farms also has significant policy implications.

There is no longer an average farmer that can be targeted with extension or business risk management programs. Instead, there is an increasingly large share of farms with distinct needs, and therefore distinct policy approaches are also required.

For example, if local goods and rural development are the policy objectives, then consideration of smaller farms is necessary for creating comprehensive agriculture policies. However, if sustainability and competitiveness of the sector are the policy objectives, then the focus needs to be on the larger farms managing the most land and generating the most output.

In order to maintain its farm size diversity, Canada needs a variety of policies to support small, medium and large farms. In particular, policy-makers should seek to support small and medium farms without discriminating against large farms, since they play a critical role in the Canadian food economy.

This is possible, but will require dialogue to take place between the agriculture industry and the government in order to appropriately address the stratification that has been taking place.

– Alfons Weersink is an agricultural economist at the University of Guelph.

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