79th Annual Meeting of the Alberta Branch CSGA
Monday, January 21 to Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Westin Hotel, Edmonton

Presentations

Dissecting the Seed Industry
The presentations below pertain to the panel discussion on Monday, January 21st, 2008. Each presenter was asked to consider the following:
What changes need to be made in Canada and in particular the Alberta seed industry to be more competitive in the world?
Do we need policy changes? How do we get more investment in R&D?
What will the trends be in the marketplace in the next ten years?
What does the consumer want? Example, specialty oils, ethanol feed stocks, health and nutritional requirements for seed.
How can the grower position himself to benefit from these changes?

• Dr. Brian Rossnagel, Professor, Barley and Oat Breeder, CDC U of S - PDF
  Professor (CDC), Barley & Oat Breeder, Crop Development Centre, University of Saskatchewan for the past 30 years (1977 – 2007). Raised on a small mixed farm in the Tupper district near Plumas in south central Manitoba. Bachelor of Science in Agriculture - Univ. of Manitoba – 1973 Ph.D. - Plant Breeding & Agronomy - Univ. of Manitoba – 1978. Developed and released more than 50 barley and oat varieties since 1982 including Calibre, Derby, CDC Dancer and CDC SO-I oat; CDC Dolly, CDC Helgsaon and CDC Mindon feed barley; CDC McGwire hulless barley and CDC Candle, CDC Rattan, CDC Alamo and CDC Fibar hulless waxy food barley; and co-released, in collaboration with Dr. B. L. Harvey, 25 malting barley varieties including Harrington, CDC Kendall and CDC Copeland. Major research interests – development of premium quality 2R malting barley; development of hulless barley for feed, food and malting; development of high yielding, high quality hulled feed barley; and the development of high quality milling and feed oat, all in collaboration with cereal chemists, animal nutritionists, agronomists, plant biotechnologists and plant pathologists.
  
   
• John Cowan - Hyland Seeds - Thompson Ltd - PDF
  John is the General Manager of Hyland Seeds – Thompsons Ltd., and is also a Thompsons Limited member of the Executive committee. Prior to 1997 John was the Sales & Marketing Manager (1985-1997) and the District Sales Manager/Seed Corn Production Manager (1977-1985) with Hyland Seeds – Thompsons Ltd. Graduate of Business Marketing at Humber College (1974), Business Administration at York University (1975) and Ag Business at University of Guelph (1986). Committee and Association involvement includes Past President of CSTA, current Chair of the External Relations Committee CSTA, board liaison of the Biotechnology Committee CSTA, past Chair of the Corn Soybean Committee CSTA, past member Board of Directors of Ontario Agribusiness Association and member of the Canadian Agri-Marketing Association. John and his wife Kerry have been married 30 years and live at RR#1, Blenheim which is approximately 40km from Point Pelee, the southernmost point in Canada. They have 3 children who are all currently attending a university somewhere so John plans to stay working for some time yet!
  
   
• Dr. Greg Penner, President & CEO, NeoVentures Biotechnology Inc. - PDF
  Dr. Gregory Penner holds a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the Crop Science department at the University of Saskatchewan, a M.Sc. in Cytogentics from the Plant Science department of the University of Manitoba and a B.S.A. in Plant breeding/Genetics from the same university. He worked as a research associate for the National Research Council in Saskatoon and with AAFC in Ottawa before joining the Cereal Research Centre in Winnipeg, where he became the head of cereal biotechnology. In 1998 Gregory joined Monsanto Inc. in St. Louis, where he led economic evaluations of a number of business opportunities, and managed their advancement to commercialization from both a technical and a business perspective. In the fall of 2002, Dr. Penner obtained the contract to lead the Soy 20/20 Project, where he analysed soy-based market opportunities for Ontario. Gregory has been the President and CEO of NeoBio Consulting since 2002. NeoBio provides senior level advice and project management to private industry and government in regard to the development of biobased strategies. The primary focus has been working with chemical companies to identify and develop strategies for biobased replacement of petrochemicals.
   

Alberta Carbon Offset System - PDF
By Tom Goddard, Policy Secretariat with Alberta Agriculture and Food
World interest in reducing greenhouse gas emissions is increasing. Where companies desire to reduce emissions but cannot, they may purchase offset credits from someone
else who is able to reduce their emissions or sequester carbon. Alberta has created the first compliance carbon offset system in North America.

How Big is Big: Putting the Seed Business in Perspective - PDF
By Robynne Anderson, President, Issues Ink
How many companies does it take to make a seed industry? Fewer than it used to it seems. What’s the right size in the seed business? The sheer scale of Alberta makes it easy to forget that the province is but a small piece of the seed business. Some global figures will help put the seed business in a bit of perspective.

Get the Latest Tech Trends: RUUP4IT? - PDF
By Lynette Lefsrud, Lefsrud Communications
Technology is becoming a bigger and bigger part of our lives everyday. How many of us just can't get any work done when there is a power outage? Today laptops, iPods, and Blackberries rule. 2008 is going to be no different - the gadgets just keep rolling out the door.

Commercial Seed Analysts Association of Canada report to Alberta CSGA - PDF
By Terry McIntee, President, CSAAC

The Future is Upon Us! - PDF
By John Cowan, General Manager, Hyland Seeds - Thompsons Ltd.

National CSGA Report - PDF
By Edmund Lefsrud, President and Dale Adolphe, Executive Director

President's Message - PDF
By Ron Markert, President Alberta CSGA

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