Coming Events

May 21, 2009
Agriculture Mentorship Initiative Breakfast
Atrium Building (111 Research Drive), Saskatoon
The breakfast will allow prospective mentors and protégés to meet each other, as well as the other staff of ACS and BMI. The breakfast will include a presentation by BMI on the value of being a mentor and what the mentorship process entails. Please RSVP to Carleen Frey, BMI Chapter Liaison, by phone at 964-2011 or by e-mail at info@saskmentor.com.

June 17 to 19, 2009
Western Canada Farm Progress Show
Evraz Place, Regina, SK
The Western Canada Farm Progress Show is the largest dryland farm technology show in the country, attracting more than 700 exhibitors and 40,000 qualified attendees from 30 countries. Over its 30 plus year history, the event has earned the right to be called “Canada’s National Farm Show” and has continued to remain relevant to the industry it serves. For more information, please go to www.myfarmshow.com.

June 19, 2009
ACS Annual General Meeting
Salon 3, Queensbury Convention Centre, Regina
Featuring Professor Ken Wong of the Queen's School of Business, who will make the presentation "Marketing your Way to Profits". If you have any questions or need to RSVP, please contact ACS Communications Manager, Dallas Carpenter, by e-mail at carpenterd@agcouncil.ca or by phone at (306) 975-6856.

July 13 to 15, 2009
National Chicken Farmers’ Summer Conference
Saskatoon, SK
For more information on this event please contact the Chicken Farmers of Saskatchewan by phone at (306) 242-3611 or (toll free) 1-888-33CLUCK, or go to www.saskatchewanchicken.ca.

ACS AGM and Industry Forum - Friday, June 19, 2009

Salon 3, Queensbury Convention Centre, Evraz Place
Regina, Saskatchewan

ACS AGM: 10:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.
Complimentary Lunch: 12:00 p.m. to 12:30 p.m. (RSVP required)

Saskatchewan Agricultural Industry Forum: 12:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.

Featured Speaker: Professor Ken Wong, Queen’s School of Business

ACS is proud to present renowned marketing expert Ken Wong of Queen’s University. His presentation, “Marketing your Way to Profits,” will be an engaging and thought-provoking look at Saskatchewan’s agriculture and agri-food sector and how marketing plays a vital role in maintaining and improving its profitability. Attendees will learn the major sources of profit drain within the sector and how to address these sources to sustain premium prices, reduce costs, build market share and expand market size.

The Industry Forum is open to our members, supporters, guests and all who are attending the Farm Progress Show. The forum will include a presentation from students from the University of Saskatchewan’s College of Agriculture and Bioresources and Edwards School of Business. This past April, the students, who are a part of the Canadian Agri-Marketing Association, developed a marketing plan for a seabuckthorn beverage and entered the marketing plan in an agri-marketing competition at the National Agri-Marketing Association conference in the United States. 

Only ACS members and supporters are eligible to attend the business portion of the AGM. Only full-members who have paid their fees in advance of the AGM will be eligible to vote.

For ACS Members and supporters attending the morning AGM and lunch, please RSVP by Friday, June 5 to:

Dallas Carpenter
Communications Manager
E-mail: carpenterd@agcouncil.ca
Phone: (306) 975-6856
Fax: (306) 975-6850

ACS Membership Breakfast Series: Agriculture Mentorship Initiative - May 21

The Agriculture Council of Saskatchewan (ACS) Inc. is proud to present the first of our membership breakfast series. The first breakfast in the series will focus on mentorship.

The Agriculture Mentorship Initiative, which is being piloted by ACS under the guidance of the Business Mentorship Institute (BMI) Inc., will match protégé’s with mentors, establishing a relationship whereby the protégé will learn from the mentor’s experience and industry knowledge.

To kick-start the Initiative and get more people interested and familiar with the concept of mentorship, ACS and BMI will be hosting a breakfast on Thursday, May 21 at 7:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. in the Atrium Building at Innovation Place in Saskatoon.

The breakfast will be a tremendous networking opportunity for those in Saskatchewan’s agriculture and agri-food sector, allowing prospective mentors and protégés to meet each other and the staff of ACS and BMI while discussing other issues with their colleagues from across the sector. The breakfast will include presentations from ACS and BMI on the value of mentorship within the agriculture and agri-food sector and what the mentorship process entails. Dan Prefontaine, President of the Saskatchewan Food Industry Development Centre, will also make a short presentation on the benefits of mentorship for the agriculture and agri-food sector.

When:            Thursday, May 21, 2009 at 7:30 a.m.

Where:          The Candle/Span rooms on the main floor of the Atrium Building
                        111 Research Drive, Innovation Place
                        Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

Agenda:         7:30 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – Breakfast and networking opportunity
                        8:00 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. – Presentations from ACS, BMI and
                        Dan Prefontaine

The complementary breakfast will be provided to all who attend this event, but space is limited. If you are interested in attending, send your RSVP by Friday, May 15, 2009 to Carleen Frey, BMI Chapter Liaison, by phone at 964-2011 or by E-mail to info@saskmentor.com. Following the breakfast, we will be seeking ideas on the topic of the next event in the breakfast series.

For more information or if you are interested in becoming a mentor or protégé, please contact Bev Magill, ACS Project Officer, by phone at 975-8928 or by e-mail at magillb@agcouncil.ca. Please go to www.agcouncil.ca for more information.

ACAAFS program update

ACS is still accepting funding applications under the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s Advancing Canadian Agriculture and Agri-Food Saskatchewan (ACAAFS) program. Proponents who are submitting applications at this time should be aware that the ACAAFS program is nearing full allocation. Work on a successor program to ACAAFS is underway, although it may be late summer or early fall before ACS will have the final decision from the Government of Canada on whether there will be a new program.

Should ACAAFS reach full allocation, any eligible projects received that can not be funded under ACAAFS will be reviewed for eligibility under the new program.  Any movement of projects from ACAAFS to the new program will be at the discretion of the ACS Board of Directors.

We encourage any organizations considering ACAAFS funding to submit their applications. We will follow the usual screening process and keep each applicant updated on the status of their application.

To date, the ACS Board of Directors has approved 297 projects under ACAAFS and the Biofuels Opportunities for Producers Initiative (BOPI) for a funding commitment of $16,932,422. ACAAFS is a five-year grant program funded by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada which provides $3.7 million in funding annually to Saskatchewan projects to position Canada's agriculture and agri-food sector at the leading edge to capture new opportunities.

For an ACAAFS application form, please click here for a Word version or click here for a PDF. For a Speaker Sponsorship application form, please click here for a Word version or click here for a PDF. Please go to the ACAAFS page on the ACS website for more information.

Hogging less energy

More than three years ago, Saskatchewan pork producers noticed energy prices rising and began to consult with staff at Prairie Swine Centre Inc. (PSCI) and the Saskatchewan Pork Development Board to help address this increasing production cost component.

“In past years, explains Bernardo Predicala, Research Scientist at PSCI, “energy was not on the radar because it was cheap. Operations were typically not optimized to use energy efficiently. We started pondering various ways to help.”

Last year, Predicala’s research team did a benchmark survey of 28 Saskatchewan hog barns. They collected three years of energy bills and production numbers to calculate how much energy in dollars was being spent to produce each pig. Some barns were quite energy efficient, spending only $3 per pig; others were spending more than $12. “The wide range,” he says, “confirmed the fact that there are lots of opportunities across the industry to improve energy efficiency.”

Today, the same research team is building on that first study by examining in detail various measures to reduce energy consumption or use energy more efficiently in barns. Like last year’s study, this one is also funded by the Agriculture Council of Saskatchewan through Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s Advancing Canadian Agriculture and Agri-Food Saskatchewan (ACAAFS) Program, with additional support from the Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture.

For the rest of this article, please click here to open a PDF copy of the April, 2009 Opportunities: Building Saskatchewan newsletter.

If you have any questions, comments, or would like to submit an event, please contact us at info@agcouncil.ca.

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Agriculture Council of Saskatchewan Inc.
Box 21038
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan   S7H 5N9
Phone: (306) 975-6847 or toll free at 1-800-641-8256 
Fax: (306) 975-6850
http://www.agcouncil.ca