Over the decades, attitudes, thoughts and ideas within the forage and grazing community have shifted; however, the passion that ranchers have for the land and their lifelong commitment to learning have not.
While at the Western Canada Conference on Soil Health and Grazing (WCCSHG) at Edmonton, Alta., last week, Grant Lastiwka of Renovo Seed spoke about the changes that he has seen as this conference has evolved over the past 30 years.
In the interview below, Lastiwka discusses how blessed those in the world of forages are to have the opportunity to learn from one another’s mistakes. Producers are quite often happy to talk about what didn’t work on their operations. This openness and transparency has led to the networking and hallway conversations among attendees being one of the major draws, he says.
The conference was first started with a forage-focus, with the intention of drawing in beef producers, Lastiwka says. While there was originally a concern about the possibility of losing the forage focus by gaining a beef focus at the conference, the organizers managed to maintain the initial intention behind bringing a variety of like-minded people together.
In 2015, recognized as the International Year of Soil, the organizers realized that after having moved from cattle to forages, they had “unlocked a new level of understanding” in soils. It was that year that the conference became what it is known for today as the Western Canada Conference on Soil Health and Grazing, Lastiwka says.
“It’s married itself together really well,” says Lastiwka.
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