This week, Farm and Food Care Saskatchewan hosted the Ag Awareness Summit at Saskatoon where they announced the 2022 Champion Award winner, Alanna Koch.
The Farm and Food Care Champion Award recognizes an individual who has connected consumers with agriculture and built public trust in farming and food in Saskatchewan and beyond.
Koch farms along side her husband and two daughters at Edenwold, Sask. She is the current chair of the Global Institute for Food Security, and previously served as Deputy Minister to the Premier and Cabinet Secretary for the Government of Saskatchewan and Saskatchewan’s Deputy Minister of Agriculture.
She held the Deputy Minister of Agriculture position for nine years, making her one of the longest-serving deputy minister’s of agriculture in Saskatchewan and Canadian history.
Prior to her government service, Koch was president of the Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance and director with Agricore United and executive director of the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association.
In her service roles, Koch has maintained the priority of building and maintaining public trust in agriculture through focus on science-based decisions and informing the public on benefits of modern tools and technology, the organization says.
Koch has been recognized with many honours including the Regina YWCA’s Women of Distinction Award for excellence in Leadership and Management, the Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Medal, the Saskatchewan Centennial Medal, and has been recognized with her induction into the Saskatchewan Agricultural Hall of Fame.
“What better way to make a difference in the world than to champion the best people and the best industry?” says Koch “To be able to share our story of how we farm and why we need innovation and access to all the tools and technology to sustainably feed the world is where so much of our focus has been the last 10 years, since the very first Ag Awareness Summit. We have come so far and made huge progress on getting our message out—and we have so much more to do.”