The Alberta forage and grazing industry lost a prominent forage specialist with the sudden passing of Myron Bjorge on November 3, 2023. Bjorge began his career with Alberta Agriculture as a district agriculturist at Ponoka and Rocky Mountain House. Later he was the provincial forage specialist with the field crops branch of Alberta Agriculture at Lacombe. Bjorge was involved in the forage industry at the provincial, national and international levels. When the Western Forage Beef Group was formed at the Lacombe Research Centre, Bjorge was an active member of the group. Bjorge is best known as the co-author of the Alberta Forage Manual. His enthusiasm for forages and producers will be missed.
The Canadian Forage and Grasslands Association bestowed its 2023 Leadership Award on Dr. Dan Undersander (see photo at top) in late November. Undersander has worked as a forage specialist for 48 years, and specializes in forage production, harvesting, analysis and grazing. A few of his notable achievements include leading the development of the University of Wisconsin Team Forage website, use of Relative Feed Value and Relative Forage Quality and helping labs to standardize forage chemical analysis and consistently report chemical and near infrared spectroscopy of forages. He is a fellow of the American Society of Agronomy and Crop Science Society of America, and has 1,600 publications in forage production and use. Undersander has worked in 58 countries, through Asia, Europe, North America and South America, helping farmers improve forage quality and yield. Undersander is a professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
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Katlin Lange (see photo at top), co-founder of FarmSimple, was on hand at Canadian Western Agribition in Regina to receive “Rising Star” honours at the Canadian Animal Ag Tech Awards. Lange and his brother, Dustin, run the company from Vibank, Sask., providing remote water trough sensors that alert producers when water levels run low. Mokah Shmigelsky, founder of OneCup AI, received the “Business of the Year” award on behalf of the company. OneCup AI uses artificial intelligence and cameras, a system dubbed “BETSY,” to recognize individual cattle and monitor nutritional intake, growth, lameness and other health indicators. Darren Wolchyn, founder and CEO of Smart Paddock, was also in town to carry the flag for Smart Paddock, an Australian company that allows people to track and monitor cattle through GPS ear tags, monitor fence lines and water tanks and track other assets such as farm vehicles. Smart Paddock received the Innovation Award. Other finalists included Flokk, Dyneval, CATTLEytics Incorporated and HerdWhistle Technologies.
Donna Yoshitake Wuest and Joe W. Gardner have co-authored a book on Douglas Lake Ranch. Douglas Lake Ranch: Empire of Grass was published by Harbour Publishing in November 2023. The book covers 140 years of the ranch’s history, and also documents the modern daily operations of the cattle, forestry and recreation business. Wuest grew up on a B.C. ranch and is a freelance journalist and writer living in Vancouver, B.C. She previously authored Coldstream: The Ranch Where it all Began. Gardner began working on Douglas Lake Ranch in the ’60s, as a summer job, and managed the ranch from 1979 to 2019. He holds a graduate degree in agriculture and lives in Vernon, B.C. Their book is widely available through various bookstores, including online through Amazon.
Congratulations to the national winners of Canada’s Outstanding Young Farmer Award. This year saw a tie between Brad and Travis Hopcott of Pitt Meadows, B.C. and Greg and Sarah Stamp of Enchant, Alta. The Hopcotts run a 1,000-head beef feedlot and forage operation, plus a cranberry farm and an abattoir. Their sister, Jennifer, also runs a 17,000-square-foot retail store and wedding venue. The Stamp family, which also includes Greg’s parents and brothers, run three operations including a pedigreed seed retail business, a pedigreed seed production operation for retail and contracts, and Flourish Farms, which includes crop land.
Diedrah Kelly is the executive director of Canada’s new Indo-Pacific Agriculture and Agri-Food Office in Manila, Philippines. Appointed by federal ag minister Lawrence MacAulay in early December, Kelly has 20 years of international experience with Global Affairs Canada, including a recent stint as the consul general of Canada in Mumbai, India. She’s also served as Canada’s ambassador to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
Congratulations to everyone at Livestock Gentec for winning the 2023 Best in Agriculture Award from Alberta’s ASTech Awards program. Livestock Gentec, based at the University of Alberta, was founded by Drs. Graham Plastow and John Basarab in 2010. The organization focuses on genetic approaches to boosting the beef sector’s competitiveness, profitability and sustainability. For example, EnVigourHX is a genomics tool developed by Livestock Gentec to measure parentage, breed composition and hybrid vigour in crossbred cattle. Other tools include the Replacement Heifer Profit Index Score and the Feeder Profit Index. The ASTech Awards recognize achievement in the province’s science and technology innovation community.
