INNISFAIL – Area farmers, industry experts and chamber members gathered in Innisfail for the first Agriculture What’s Up For 2020 conference.
The event was organized by the Innisfail and District Chamber of Commerce and held at the Innisfail Library/Learning Centre on Jan. 30.
The one-day forum provided guests and area farmers with an agronomic update and outlook for 2020, and featured a number of keynote speakers.
They included Devin Dreeshen, provincial minister of agriculture and forestry, Keith Gabert with the Canola Council of Canada, Jeremy Boychyn of the Alberta Wheat Commission and Alberta Barley, Doug Sawyer with the Canadian Cattle Commission, Scott Dundas with the High School Green Certificate and Edwin Ten Hove with Agriculture Financial Services Corp. In addition, guests heard from event sponsors Slate Insurance and Scotiabank.
Keith Gabert, an agronomy specialist with the Canola Council of Canada, spoke on some of the challenges facing canola and grain farmers in 2020.
“I’m going to talk to growers about some of the management challenges that they’ll have growing the crop,” said Gabert, noting such things as proper seeding techniques, applications of fertilizer and the types of diseases that affect grain crops, like blackleg and clubroot.
Glen Carritt was one of several Innisfail town councillors and staff in attendance at the conference.
“I think it’s a great opportunity for agriculture and the town to come together and have some collaborative efforts,” said Carritt. “We’re in tough economic times right now and we all need to work hard at seeing how we can be prosperous in our province. There’s a lot of issues going on in agriculture with crime and crops …so we need to make sure we’re all working together to help everybody out in this community.”
Local farmer Rick Kemp runs a grain and cattle farm west of Innisfail and is concerned about the recent drop in grain prices.
“Our grain prices have dropped, canola especially has dropped seriously with the talk of the coronavirus. Today it was down another $5 a ton,” said Kemp, noting a price drop of 60 cents a bushel in the past two weeks. “When there’s uncertainty in the markets worldwide, it affects Canadian prices,” he added, noting the impact. “Right here in Central Alberta we’re feeling the effect from that coronavirus."
He noted other issues farmers are facing.
“We’re concerned with the carbon tax,” he added. “I’ve spent $15,000 on propane for drying grain and I’m not done.”
Dreeshen said his government is working to fight the carbon tax to help Alberta’s farmers.
“I’ve asked the federal agriculture minister to remove the carbon tax on natural gas and propane because so many farmers are having to pay that extra cost,” said Dreeshen, noting added costs to Alberta farmers to dry their grain is in the range of $7 million more with the carbon tax.
He noted the government is also looking at a grain drying program to help reduce costs to Alberta farmers.
During a question-and-answer period following his presentation, guests asked the minister about farmer-led research, business risk management and rural crime.
Dreeshen said it was encouraging to see a conference like this dedicated to agriculture.
“It’s great to see this type of attention given to agriculture. It’s something that we as a government are trying to increase investments in agriculture, increase jobs in agriculture, and do more value added here in the province of Alberta,” said Dreeshen. “That is one of the big priorities we have in the department.”
