News

Saturday, 13 August 2011

Good morning members,

I recently attended the Grazing Conference in Vermilion and I thought the idea to have it in the smaller community was a good one in my opinion. In particular having it in Vermilion for the college students to be able to attend was a great idea. The conference was well attended and with the college being there, approximately 1/3 of the attendees were probably college students, and it is nice to sit in a room with so many young faces that an industry function. As usual at any conference, there were good speakers and dry speakers. My favourites at the event were two young producers, the first being Bruce Downey of east central Alberta(I think around the Castor area) who gave a very good presentation on mob grazing. In his area, he was running about 2000 custom grazed steers. The other producer was Darcy Goodrich from Hardisty speaking about stockpile grazing - this was done in conjunction with Iain Aitken from west of Rimbey. The three of these producers did a good job and their sense of humor and unbridled enthusiasm were very refreshing. I also attended a stock dog demonstration, and thought this was a great idea that was a change from grazing and grass but drew a large audience and was informative at the same time. I picked up a few very good tips and my dogs are very happy to see that I took a clinic.

Lastly, they had two keynote speakers who were also interesting. The first being Wendy Holm, who is an award-winning resource economist, agrologist and journalist to give a very good presentation for most of industry but in particular are politicians and urban people should hear, I think she would be a good speaker for the stock growers to have some time. (You can go on her website and view her presentation which I recommend everyone do). Her closing statements were to the effect that it is all about respect and agriculture needs to regain its respect, I think this is a very true statement and perhaps one that we could use.

The other keynote speaker was Don Campbell, who is a rancher as well as a holistic educator. I've heard him several times before, each time I learn a little more from him one b ut this time, one statement that stood out was when he was talking about grazing riparian areas, he said he'd had a visitor at his ranch and they asked if he greased riparian areas he said yes and they asked him where those areas were his reply was that they started the highest hill. He was referring to how well-managed grazing system improves the water cycle.

Overall, the conference was informative, interesting and worth the trip. Again, it was nice to see young faces at an industry event and I hope to see you all at the next WSGA event.

Bill Hanson,
President
WSGA