Agriculture in the Classroom Canada (AITC-C) has partnered with CropLife Canada to develop interactive teaching resources designed to help students explore some of the realities of modern farming by seeing how to successfully grow carrots, turnips and potatoes.

The resources draw on CropLife Canada’s Real Farm Lives documentary web series, which was created to showcase the work and lives of farm families across the country.

“Teachers play an instrumental role in shaping the future of our next generation by guiding students towards a deeper understanding and appreciation of the vital role agriculture has to play in our lives,” Mathieu Rouleau, Executive Director of AITC-C, said in a news release. “By fostering a deeper understanding of our agriculture and food system, we empower students to become informed citizens and stewards of our planet’s future.”

Season 3 of Real Farm Lives, which these resources are focused on, features the McKenna family from Prince Edward Island, who are deeply committed to growing high-quality food for their family and families across the country while leaving the land in better condition for the next generation.

Both AITC-C and CropLife Canada said they believe in providing accurate, balanced and current information to educators to promote agriculture education in Canadian classrooms. Resources like these help students build knowledge around key ideas such as food preparation, food waste and crop protection.

“We know that fewer and fewer kids have a direct connection to the farm. Through Real Farm Lives, we’ve provided an easy and engaging way for Canadians to look inside the lives of Canadian farm families and what it takes to grow our food.

“By connecting students with real farmers who sustainably grow safe, high-quality food, we hope they learn about some of the obstacles farmers have to tackle and the tools they need to do their jobs,” said Pierre Petelle, president and CEO, of CropLife Canada.

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Hepworth was among 78 appointments announced by governor general Mary Simon in late December.

The London, Ont., resident was recognized for his contributions to agriculture and research “which have propelled the sector to new heights,” according to Simon’s office.

He was a farmer and veterinarian in Saskatchewan before entering provincial politics during premier Grant Devine’s Progressive Conservative governments, where he served in several portfolios until 1991.

After his political career, Hepworth moved to Ontario and began working with the Crop Protection Institute and Canadian Agra Group of Companies. He was instrumental in the formation of CropLife Canada and retired as its chief executive officer and president in 2014 after 17 years. He was appointed to the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame that year.

Hepworth has also served as chair of Genome Canada and the Global Institute for Food Security at the University of Saskatchewan. The list of his involvement with other institutions includes the Canadian Council of Academies Expert Panel on Sustainable Management of water in agricultural landscapes, the Scientific Advisory and Governance Committees of the Canadian International Food Security Research Fund, the advisory board of the National Research Council of Canada’s Plant Biotechnology Institute, the Canadian Agri-Food Research Council and the federal pest management and national biotechnology advisory committees.

He was on the board of Input Capital Corp. and a director and chair of Canterra Farmland Holdings LP.

He received the Saskatchewan Order of Merit in 2020.

—Karen Briere is a reporter for the Western Producer. She writes from Saskatchewan.

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CFIA officials, however, reject the NFU’s allegation that the metadata attached to the proposal document in question may suggest plant science industry lobbyists are “effectively directing” the CFIA.

The NFU, in an Oct. 17 release, cited a report last month by Radio Canada examining a embargoed Microsoft Word document it obtained on the topic of environmental release of seed.

Under “author,” the document’s metadata names Jennifer Hubert, the same name as the executive director for plant biotechnology at plant science trade organization CropLife Canada.

The NFU on Oct. 17 called the Radio Canada report “alarming evidence of inappropriate collaboration between our public regulator and the private corporations whose products it regulates, to the point that it appears CropLife is effectively directing the CFIA.”

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The NFU said the document “puts forward a system that would benefit the multinational seed corporations by allowing them to release many new gene-edited seed varieties without independent government safety assessments or other government oversight, and without disclosing they are gene-edited to government or the public.”

NFU president Katie Ward, in the same release, said the regulatory guidance as proposed would “weaken public trust in our food regulatory system by preventing independent scientific evaluation by government regulators before these products are sold.”

In the NFU’s letter to Ag Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau, Ward said the biotechnology companies represented by CropLife and like-minded groups “will be the main beneficiaries of regulatory guidance that excludes gene-edited plants from government safety assessments and public disclosure.”

In the guidance, “neither the concerns of farmers, nor the broader public interest have been properly addressed,” Ward wrote in the letter.

NFU’s former president Terry Boehm, in its Oct. 17 release, said CFIA is “formally committed to maintain regulatory independence from all external stakeholders” — thus the agency’s head Dr. Siddika Mithani should be replaced with “a new president who we can count on to put this value into practice at all times.”

‘Never’

Responding Thursday via email, CFIA representatives called out “inaccuracies” in the NFU’s release, emphasizing the CFIA remains “an independent, scientific and evidence-based federal regulatory agency committed to ethical transparency and accountability” and “always authors its own independent guidance and policies.”

The document, CFIA said, was developed in the wake of four months’ consultations in 2021 with the public, plant breeders, ag industry and not-for-profits.

Later consultations, CFIA said, were held with “seed and grain industry associations” including CropLife as well as plant breeders, researchers, organic industry associations and “non-government organizations” — including the NFU, Canadian Biotechnology Action Network and Vigilance OGM, all of which signed onto the NFU’s letter to Bibeau.

“After considering and then incorporating some of the stakeholder feedback on the draft guidance, the CFIA updated all its working documents within one of the returned copies,” the agency said, and the revised document then went out to stakeholders for further comment.

“For this reason, the metadata erroneously identifies the ‘author’ of this document as someone other than a CFIA employee,” CFIA said, but “in fact, the entire draft guidance document, including the proposed key directions, was written by the CFIA, incorporating some of the feedback from multiple stakeholders.”

External parties, including industry associations, “are never the authors of CFIA documents,” the agency said.

CropLife’s Hubert, for her part, is quoted in the Radio Canada report as saying she is not the author of the document but did provide “suggestions and recommendations.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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