Bob Mastin, an award-winning seed grower from the Sundre area, participated in an Alberta barley trade mission to Japan and Korea last month.
He attended to promote his own Sundre-grown barley in Asia, where he says he was treated like a “king”.
“If I wanted to take over the world with my company, that's where it would be,” Mastin said during an interview at his Eagle Valley farm last week.
During the trip Mastin made a presentation at the Canadian Embassy in Tokyo to the business elite of Japan, which was quite the experience, he said.
“What was really exciting, they had a display of Sundre barley at the back of the room, that I didn't know about beforehand,” he said.
While he was in Japan, he had a silk suit tailored for him to wear at that presentation, which was one of the highlights of the trip, he said.
The March 4 to March 20 tour saw Mastin promote Alberta barley along with representatives from Green Prairie in Lethbridge, the seed plant in Stony Plain, Canadian International Grains Institute, the Alberta Barley Commission and the Alberta government.
Other delegate members who took part in the trade mission included representatives from the international trade office out of Edmonton, the Alberta office in the Canadian Embassy in Korea, and the Alberta Japanese office in Japan.
Maston's recent discovery of a new winter wheat is partially responsible for his attendance in the trade mission, he explained.
“It has the highest winter hardiness of any wheat in Canada and that's essential for our climate,” he said. “By chance the Koreans were expressing interest in it.”
Overall the promotion tour was certainly a success, he said.
“Hopefully Sundre barley is going to be used for barley tea in Japan,” he said.
In December, Mastin attended the Alberta Barley Commission annual general meeting, held in Banff, for the first time.
There, he met the top Canadian trade commissioner in Tokyo, he said.
“That was the first barley commission meeting I'd gone to and I met some people there and I guess they put it together with my connections with barley and possible business in Japan,” he explained.
“This trade commission was being put together and they were looking for industry people.”
The invitation was on short notice, but the state of the seed-growing season allowed him to attend, he said.
“My name was put forward by somebody at the Alberta Barley Commission,” he said.
The provincial government paid for a large portion of the trip, along with the Canadian International Grains Institute and the Alberta Barley Commission, he said.
He also travelled to Germany four years ago, when a German company was promoting Sundre barley in Russia and invited him.
Mastin has been growing seeds on his Sundre pedigreed seed farm for 30 years and has been distributing seeds for the last six or seven, he said.
“I started out with the best barley that was ever bred at the Lacombe research centre and I was able to name it and that became Sundre barley,” he said.
“Today I have 14 varieties. I've got three barleys, three oats, two canolas, two peas, two wheats and a couple triticales.”
