Message from the Chair

Things have been exciting here at SARDA Ag Research with the changes within the Government of Alberta, including the restructuring of Alberta Agriculture getting out of research altogether. SARDA Ag Research was able to retain the forage seed specialist for Northern Alberta, Calvin Yoder in partnership with the Forage Seed Association. There has been a lot of uncertainty regarding provincial grants, as both budget and delivery have been altered. Alberta Agriculture has a new funding model that is farmer lead named Results Driven Agricultural Research (RDAR). RDAR’s mandate is to provide research funding to research associations, colleges and universities. Most of the grants we access are now reviewed by this group. We were fortunate to have our Executive Director, Vance Yaremko, appointed by Devin Dreeshen, the Honourable Minister of Agriculture, to be part of the initial start-up. SARDA Ag Research is an important component within the farming community and we need our funders to recognize our value. You can advocate for SARDA Ag Research to your local MLAs and the commissions. We are seeing a trend favouring centralization with services. The research done in Southern and Central Alberta does not reflect the best interests of the North. With your advocacy, we hope to keep our organization in the Peace Region.

The Board as well as staff faced some challenges this year. We felt the effects of the current Covid pandemic and had to adjust to the safety measures. In addition, the high precipitation during the beginning of the year cost us some of the research plots.

Our big news this year is that we are currently in the process of making a dream come true. We are working with funders to build SARDA Ag Research a new facility in line with higher standards of quality in applied research and extension. We are in the first stages of planning development for the location of the building as well. We will attract strong research capacity in the North with this building. We can’t wait to update you as this project progresses. content so that it is exclusive to our organization. We hope that the newsletter will be something that producers and industry look forward to reading, with updates on our research projects.

The Board would like to encourage you as a stakeholder to help guide us. Look out for our producer survey coming shortly, it is a great opportunity to assist us in future programing for SARDA Ag Research. The survey will be available on our website and will be sent via email newsletter which you can subscribe to at www.sarda.ca .

In partnership with the Alberta Wheat Commission, SARDA Ag Research will be bringing WheatStalk to the Donnelly area on August 5, 2021. We will be releasing more information in the near future, it is going to be a great event. Thank you and we look forward to seeing you at WheatStalk.

You may have noticed that our newsletter has changed a little. We have updated the look, rebranded from The Back Forty to SARDA Ag Research and streamlined

Cheers, Simon Lavoie, Chair SARDA Ag Research Board of Directors