source: Farm and Food Report
Alberta’s premier crop production and farm management conference will put global perspectives at the forefront again this year as it focuses on two major international competitors to Canada’s agriculture industry: China and Australia.
Rick Taillieu is Chair of the FarmTech 2005 Conference that takes place in Edmonton on January 26-28, 2005.
“Every year, we ask our delegates what topics they would like addressed at the following year’s conference. Last year, they expressed strong interest in what was happening in those two countries. We take delegates’ requests very seriously, and I think we’ve come through with this year’s selection of 40 speakers.”
Agricultural producer Peter Treloar will talk about Australia and Canada, and their affinities in agriculture. Treloar farms 7,000 acres in a family partnership in South Australia, growing wheat, barley, canola and pulse crops. He will be sharing his experiences as a recipient of a 2002 Nuffield Farming Scholarship. The scholarship allowed him to travel for four months throughout countries of South East Asia, the U.K. and France, along with the United States and Canada.
Another highly anticipated presentation will feature challenges and prospects around Chinese agriculture, with Agriteam Canada Vice President Alex Schumacher. With 30 years of experience in agricultural development, Schumacher has worked in Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and North America with a wide range of crops, cropping systems, cultures and languages. He regularly consults for the World Bank on project preparation, and has conducted workshops for the Bank on project design and management.
Chinese agriculture has grown at an annual rate of about six per cent, providing steadily improving nutrition and health to approximately 1.2 billion people, as well as employing about 70 per cent of that population. It now faces multiple challenges, including rapid loss of farmland to urbanization, depletion of major aquifers, rising fertilizer costs, external competition under WTO, and a growing urban-rural income divide. How will China respond? What are the prospects for Canada? This will be addressed at the Conference.
According to Rick Taillieu, about 1,200 delegates came last year from Alberta, Saskatchewan, Montana, Idaho and the State of Washington to attend FarmTech.
“I think our success can be attributed to how we mix research developments, knowledge, extension resources and farmers’ experiences to enrich the conference program,” Tallieu said. “For instance we will address soils issues around the world. The presentation on the role of oil and water resources in the rise and demise of civilizations with Daniel Hillel, a Professor Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts currently residing in Israel, is bound to be very popular.” The connection between humans and the world’s soil and water resources; the way early civilizations grew in intimate association with their environments; and, the vital role of soil and water resource availability and their sustainable use all played a pivotal role in allowing societies to thrive over extended periods.
Even in planning the future, lessons can be learned from the past. And planning the future of agriculture is what FarmTech 2005 is all about.
Alberta’s premier crop production and farm management conference will put global perspectives at the forefront again this year as it focuses on two major international competitors to Canada’s agriculture industry: China and Australia.
Rick Taillieu is Chair of the FarmTech 2005 Conference that takes place in Edmonton on January 26-28, 2005.
“Every year, we ask our delegates what topics they would like addressed at the following year’s conference. Last year, they expressed strong interest in what was happening in those two countries. We take delegates’ requests very seriously, and I think we’ve come through with this year’s selection of 40 speakers.”
Agricultural producer Peter Treloar will talk about Australia and Canada, and their affinities in agriculture. Treloar farms 7,000 acres in a family partnership in South Australia, growing wheat, barley, canola and pulse crops. He will be sharing his experiences as a recipient of a 2002 Nuffield Farming Scholarship. The scholarship allowed him to travel for four months throughout countries of South East Asia, the U.K. and France, along with the United States and Canada.
Another highly anticipated presentation will feature challenges and prospects around Chinese agriculture, with Agriteam Canada Vice President Alex Schumacher. With 30 years of experience in agricultural development, Schumacher has worked in Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and North America with a wide range of crops, cropping systems, cultures and languages. He regularly consults for the World Bank on project preparation, and has conducted workshops for the Bank on project design and management.
Chinese agriculture has grown at an annual rate of about six per cent, providing steadily improving nutrition and health to approximately 1.2 billion people, as well as employing about 70 per cent of that population. It now faces multiple challenges, including rapid loss of farmland to urbanization, depletion of major aquifers, rising fertilizer costs, external competition under WTO, and a growing urban-rural income divide. How will China respond? What are the prospects for Canada? This will be addressed at the Conference.
According to Rick Taillieu, about 1,200 delegates came last year from Alberta, Saskatchewan, Montana, Idaho and the State of Washington to attend FarmTech.
“I think our success can be attributed to how we mix research developments, knowledge, extension resources and farmers’ experiences to enrich the conference program,” Tallieu said. “For instance we will address soils issues around the world. The presentation on the role of oil and water resources in the rise and demise of civilizations with Daniel Hillel, a Professor Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts currently residing in Israel, is bound to be very popular.” The connection between humans and the world’s soil and water resources; the way early civilizations grew in intimate association with their environments; and, the vital role of soil and water resource availability and their sustainable use all played a pivotal role in allowing societies to thrive over extended periods.
Even in planning the future, lessons can be learned from the past. And planning the future of agriculture is what FarmTech 2005 is all about.
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