Behind the scenes at Alberta Beef Producers: 2024 in Review

What’s been happening in the Alberta cattle industry? 

Kara Mastel gives us a front-row seat to Alberta Beef Producers' (ABP) 2024 Year in Review. 

Featuring key ABP staff—this discussion covers the pressing issues, research initiatives, and policy efforts shaping the future of beef production in Alberta. 

From risk management and conservation to disease preparedness and marketing, this episode dives deep into the work happening behind the scenes to support Alberta’s beef producers.

Listen For:

04:19 – Investing in Research: Big Impact, Small Budget
 12:51 – The Policies That Could Change Beef Production
 27:39 – Living Labs: Research in Real-World Conditions
 33:35 – The Power of Producer Involvement & Resolutions

GUESTS: 

Brad Dubeau, General Manager

Debra Murphy, Stakeholder Relations Manager

Mark Lyseng, Government Relations and Policy

Kaley Edge, VBP Coordinator and ABP Stewardship Lead

Karin Schmid, Beef Production and Extension Lead

CONNECT WITH HOST: KARA MASTEL 

Email | Website | LinkedIn | Phone 

Have ideas for future shows? Drop us a note, on social media or via email.

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Chapters

• 4:19 Investing in Research: Big Impact, Small Budget
• 12:51 The Policies That Could Change Beef Production
• 27:39 Living Labs: Research in Real-World Conditions
• 33:35 The Power of Producer Involvement & Resolutions

Transcript

Kara Mastel (00:10):

Hey everyone, and welcome back to another episode of The Bovine. I'm your host, Kara Mastel. On today's episode, we're mixing things up a little bit, so hold on to your hat so it could get a little crazy. Just kidding. It's not actually going to be crazy. But anyways, we are set for a great episode here at the end of 2024 A BP. Put together a fantastic video that we showcased at producer meetings across the province in January and February. Think of it as an a BP year in review. In this episode of The Bovine, we're going to let you listen into the conversation featuring some of our amazing A BP staff, Brad Dubeau, our general manager, marking our government relations and policy lead, Debra Murphy, our stakeholder relations manager, Karin Schmid, our beef production and extension lead and Kaley Edge, our VP plus coordinator and a BP stewardship lead. The group dives into many of the current issues facing the cattle industry. However, I just want to put a little caveat in here. This was recorded a little while ago, so tariffs are not a part of the discussion. If you're interested in that topic, check out the episode from a few weeks ago where I chat with Brenna Grant from canfax about the potential implications of tariffs on the cattle industry. Alright, without further ado, let's get into it.

Brad Dubeau (01:34):

Hi there. My name's Brad Dubeau and I'm the General Manager of Alberta Beef Producers New this year. We wanted to come to producers in a little different format than we have in the past. We're going to sit down and we're going to speak with all of our leads in the different areas to give you a bit of an idea of the day-to-day activities that take place at a BP. The individuals that we're going to be chatting with today is Karin Schmidt, beef Production and extension mark ing, government relations and policy, Debra Murphy, stakeholder relations, Kaley Seg, edge Stewardship, and VBP plus coordinator, as well as briefly, I'm going to touch on our marketing activities now. We're going to take a moment to come together in the A BP boardroom, have a discussion with the staff on things that they're working on on your behalf. So thank you very much everyone for joining me today. This is wonderful to have us all in the A BP boardroom. We're going to talk a little bit about some of the priorities, some of your priorities in each of your areas, and we're here to try and help our producers understand a little bit more what we do on a day-to-day basis at a BP. For that.

Karin Schmid (02:45):

Hi, I'm Karin Schmid and at Alberta Beef Producers, I am the beef production and extension lead. This means that I manage all of our animal health and welfare files, research, investments and projects, and basically anything related to beef production. I spend a lot of time trying my best to ensure that producers, researchers, government employees, and other stakeholders all understand each other's needs and priorities.

Mark Lyseng (03:12):

Hi everyone. My name is Mark Lyseng, and I'm government relations and policy lead with Alberta Beef Producers. This means that I work with the government on a variety of issues.

Debra Murphy (03:22):

Hi there. I'm Debra Murphy, stakeholder relations manager with Alberta Beef Producers. My main areas of focus are producer facing communications and engagement, media relations, as well as the Environmental Stewardship Award and our youth engagement file.

Kaley Edge (03:37):

Hello, my name is Kaley Edge. I'm the stewardship lead and VBP coordinator for Alberta Beef Producers. As such, half my role is working with the Wildlife Working Group to develop the Wildlife Conflict stakeholder strategy and outline the research that is needed. I represent the Alberta Beef Producers on a number of committees related to water quality environmental farm plan and such. The other half of my role is managing the Verified Beef Producer support in Alberta, including the A BP grant program for biosecurity and animal care upgrades.

Brad Dubeau (04:11):

So we're going to start with Karin today. Is there three things that you'd like to highlight and then you can dive into one or two or whatever works for you?

Karin Schmid (04:19):

Sure. I think we probably would like to focus on some of our research investments over the past year and some upcoming potential investments as well as the work that's been progressing in conjunction with Animal Health Canada on foot and mouth disease preparedness and planning.

Brad Dubeau (04:36):

Perfect. That's awesome. Anything that you'd want to expand a little more on?

Karin Schmid (04:40):

Of course. All of those things.

Brad Dubeau (04:42):

All of them. Then tell us a little bit about 'EM

Karin Schmid (04:43):

Right now. Yes. Okay. So in 2023, A BP has a fairly small research budget, but we allocated just over a hundred thousand dollars to five different projects. The project topics are in your annual report if you want to go have a look at 'em, but one of the really cool things is for every dollar a BP put into those research projects, it was matched by almost $13 in other funding. So those five projects actually total about a $1.3 million and all of our research funding decisions are made by our research committee. So the decisions are made by producers for producers. Additionally, we have supported Western Crop Innovations to the tune of about $300,000 over the next three years. I think A BP sees a lot of value in this program. It's the only barley breeding program that focuses, has a large proportion of its focus in feed grain and forage barley. It's the only one in Canada, and I think we see a lot of potential if we can achieve stable resourcing over the long term for

Brad Dubeau (05:52):

WCI. Perfect. That's awesome. It's good to hear. I love to see the investment that we're trying to embrace in Alberta and some of these things to help these innovations move forward, and I think it's important that Alberta or a BP plays a significant role, which leads me to talk to you a little bit about FMD, and that's on everybody's minds. It's a major, major concern. Do you want to talk to us a little bit about who we're working with and some of the progress that we've made there?

Karin Schmid (06:20):

Sure. I think one of the big things to think about with regards to foot and mouth disease is that it's a really complicated topic, but if we get it figured out, it makes all of our other diseases quite easy. So with Animal Health Canada, which includes national commodity organizations, provincial governments, as well as the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, we've been working to write chapters for integrated emergency response plan, very similar to what has been accomplished for African swine fever in the pork sector. We're also looking at developing step-by-step producer facing protocols. So if an outbreak were to occur, we could hand producers information and say, these are the things that are different from your day-to-day operations and have them be able to be implemented. We are going to be testing some of these elements, especially our vaccination strategy if vaccination were to be employed at some tabletop exercises coming up. I'm also in conversations with our provincial government, the office of the chief provincial veterinarian, as well as a couple of other commodities in Alberta, looking at some potential investigations into mass disposal sites.

Brad Dubeau (07:32):

Anything else you'd like to add before we jump to the next individual?

Karin Schmid (07:35):

Every day is an adventure at a VP.

Brad Dubeau (07:38):

Perfect. That's awesome. So we're going to jump over to stakeholder relations. Now we're going to talk to Debra. Debra, what are three, maybe three things? We know that in all cases, all of you have so many more things than just three priorities, but we can't go into everything. So if you could pick three, what would those be?

Debra Murphy (07:57):

Yeah, I'm not going to. I'm pick four. Perfect.

Brad Dubeau (07:59):

Okay.

Debra Murphy (08:00):

So really my role is in producer communications, media relations, and then I also manage the Environmental Stewardship Award, and the fourth is the youth initiatives. I think they're all really exciting. I'm very excited right now about our website. So we are currently developing a new website for alberta beef.org. In the past, we have utilized our website basically to the extent we can, but it's like if you took a house, you moved into a house and it wasn't quite good enough, so you thought, I'll build a floor here and I'll build another room over here. And pretty soon it's complicated to navigate and that's what's happened to our website. So we're relaunching it. It's going to be pretty exciting. You'll be able to search our different areas, everything that we're talking about today. Yeah, that's a huge piece of my last year.

Brad Dubeau (08:58):

I think the different pieces that I've had the opportunity to see so far, and I know it's the same from others, everybody's excited to see what that new site looks like. We also sometimes refer to it as our static site

Debra Murphy (09:12):

Versus

Brad Dubeau (09:12):

Our realtime site. Could you explain a little of the difference?

Debra Murphy (09:15):

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. We have two main sites, so Alberta beef.org is kind of our home base, our resource hub I like to call it. And then a BP daily is our news and information site. It's every day it's being updated with the current market reports and news in the industry. Yeah, that's also a pretty cool success story. We have about 80,000 users per year on a BP daily, and most of them are coming to the Market Reports page, but we're starting to see a lot of movement across the website as well,

Brad Dubeau (09:47):

Which is wonderful because it gives me the feeling that people are starting to utilize it as kind of the place to go. And it's wonderful because it reminds people of the work that we're doing for producers, but at the same time, it hopefully is providing valuable useful information that they want to keep coming back for. And so kudos to you and your team for continuing to build on a BP daily. That's wonderful.

Karin Schmid (10:13):

You know what I'm really excited for on the new website? Yes. Our research fact sheet page,

Brad Dubeau (10:19):

Yes.

Karin Schmid (10:19):

It's going to be so much easier to find new information and sort and search research fact sheets so you can always find what you're looking for. The

Brad Dubeau (10:28):

Very exciting that we put into those fact sheets, and we need to help producers to be able to understand where they're at and make it user friendly. And I think that's accomplished with the new site.

Debra Murphy (10:40):

Yeah, keyword search is going to be pretty huge for that and for resolutions and for the policy manual and I think as a hub for vbp plus and stewardship initiatives, it's going to kind of bring us all together, which I'm really excited about.

Brad Dubeau (10:54):

Just before we move on, do you want to touch a little bit on media? We've had a lot of interest at EBP with media nationally, provincially, locally. Can you touch a little bit about it?

Debra Murphy (11:04):

For sure. Yeah, I think you'll see in the annual report that we've had about 30 media interviews over the course of 2024. I bet you that'll get up to 40 before the end of the year, and we mostly focus on our executive, so they would see the bulk of those media requests come to them, but our staff field requests as well, and we do have delegates jumping in there.

Brad Dubeau (11:26):

Yeah, it's been wonderful to see and to have ABPs voice through our executive or through our staff leadership and so forth front and center, making sure that the public is aware that we're out there trying to advocate on their behalf every day. I think it's wonderful. And speaking of media, a lot of that media comes from the gentleman sitting beside you, mark and talking about government relations and that typically has been a lot of what's driving some of our media as with all the rest of the staff, lots and lots of different pieces to your area, but would you like to highlight three areas and then dive a little deeper into one?

Mark Lyseng (12:03):

Yeah, so risk management has been big since I've started with a BP, been a priority. I think coming from the droughts over the last few years we've had a lot of motivation to try to get some good BRM programs under our belt as well as private land conservation. So that's come up more in the last two years, but I think it does align with a lot of producers and wanting to get out there and get payments for ecological goods and services. So we're trying to marry those two points. And then the other one that's been big for us in the last year is federal and provincial bills. A lot have been impacting us and I must say it's been a group effort from a BP, we're all tied to these and so we all work together. DE has been doing a lot of work with the media on the last few bills that have been busy this fall.

(12:51):

We have two that are with the Canadian Senate C 2 82, which is supply managed bill dealing with foreign trade and then 2 93, which is a pandemic preparedness bill that will bias against animal agriculture. And Karin has been working on that, but both of those I believe have been pretty busy for you. Yeah, both have done and then recently we had a provincial bill dealing with a legal slaughter and it was definitely needed. We don't want a legal slaughter and so the province has stepped up and we've got some media requests on that and I think that's definitely been a pressure. It's something that's been building here at A BP and we're glad to see the government move with it.

Brad Dubeau (13:35):

Absolutely. And I appreciate you talked about the team effort and I don't know if producers really understand just how much a team orientated effort around different scenarios is so important for a small group like us at A BP and I depend on the expertise in all of the areas that you folks bring to the table and then just watching you folks all start to meld together and develop some of the wonderful responses is fantastic. So it is very much a team effort here and that also leads into a little bit, it sometimes goes beyond a BP and for example, 2 9 3, we were fortunate enough to have pork cattle feeders.

Mark Lyseng (14:22):

Well that's two A two. Yeah. We partnered with a bunch of other organizations, so pork cattle feeders as well as Team Alberta crops, which is six or seven organizations within itself. And we want to be free trade and really want to stay focused on being free trade

Brad Dubeau (14:42):

And those letters that we're developing, that goes back to that new website as well because we're going to be putting those letters up and making sure they're available for folks to be able to see, understand and see the work that we're doing there. Tell us a little bit about stability, Merck. This is something that you and I spoke about the day that you said yes to come work at a BP and that was about four years ago. And here we are still talking agri stability.

Mark Lyseng (15:07):

Yeah, I remember in my interview you asked about risk management. I was like, I don't know a whole lot, but man, do I know a lot now? Yeah, so we went through the scap negotiations in 2022, so a while ago, and we really wanted to push for some change because for risk management there is programs available to beef producers like livestock price insurance and moisture deficiency, but none are really as effective as on the crop side. You have crop insurance and they've always been very effective. So we've identified that agri stability might be the best path forward to getting us something like that because it is a margin insurance, so it takes into that cost of production as well as that price risk piece. And so we've done a lot of analysis in this and we've worked closely with A FSC and A FSC just completed a study that shows that if we change non-market feed adjustment and the payment for land, so mortgage payments, rental, all that, and we put those in the cost of production, we could have a very different program that's much more responsive to producers. It might not pay out more overall, but it'll give you more in the years that you need it and not just random payments whenever. And that's where we want to get, I don't think it's not going to be a perfect program. I think it still has to tackle that mixed farmed issue, but it's definitely a step forward and a definitely good for extensive livestock like cow calf producers

Brad Dubeau (16:38):

A hundred percent. And of course we continue to advocate for an increase in the cap, especially around today's values

Mark Lyseng (16:44):

And the cap we just need to review. It hasn't been reviewed in such a long time and with inflation, $3 million doesn't go a long way, especially for some of the big feedlots and big cow calf producers. Exactly.

Karin Schmid (16:57):

There will be some more business risk management stuff I think coming your way too, mark, as we work through some of the FMD preparedness work, none of the existing programs really cover off event of that potential magnitude. So actually I think we're going to be working with Can facts as well to kind of do some economic modeling around some of those scenarios and what we would need out of a program if the worst were to happen here.

Mark Lyseng (17:23):

And I think the droughts we've had in the last four years, I think they signaled issues because we've had to trigger anger recovery trite twice and it's supposed to be a one in 15 year program. And I think we're prepping ourselves for that major event and we want to get away from Agri Recovery. We want a program that automatically triggers for producers and they know that they have that support. And right now, how long did it take us to negotiate the last two recoveries? Probably six months

Brad Dubeau (17:52):

Easily.

Mark Lyseng (17:52):

And that was thought of record time, so it's not quick. So we need to get these programs in place beforehand.

Brad Dubeau (18:01):

I know I and you folks here from producers, are we working on things? Are we getting these types of things done? And this is so much of what is happening behind the scenes that we're all very aware of, but it takes time, so much time. And two of the things both of you, mark and Karin in your areas of expertise we're always to some degree trying to focus on some stewardship and wildlife stuff over the course of the last little bit. And we recognized as resolutions coming forward and how we were hearing from producers or what we were hearing from producers when it came to stewardship and wildlife that it was important to maybe a BP needed to reach out a little bit, branch out and embrace a halftime position. So moving over to Kaley and now looking after our stewardship side of things and working as a team with Mark and Karin of course, and Debra, tell us a little bit about some of the things you're working on in that area. And of course on the other side, your other half of your position is our VBP plus coordinator, so I'll let you decide what you'd like to chat about first and then we'll go from there.

Kaley Edge (19:08):

Well, I think stewardship is the really easy lead in, since I've worked so closely with Mark and Karin on it as well as Deb, my first interview was on Coyotes, which we just actually have included in our recently board supported predator management project. And as Mark said, that was one of the pieces as taking on this role in this last year and really learning about predator issues that our producers are facing is this is a big issue that takes time. It's a behind the scenes of having to kind of nudge and push and pull and learn. So that's where we're seeing building what we want to see happen and looking at those pieces of compensation prevention and mitigation and then how can we work and engage with all of the stakeholders because it isn't just a beef producers managing and working with wildlife. There's so many stakeholders.

(20:04):

And then on the next front, having that past building on it with the ungulates and a lot of the challenges I think between predators or ungulates beef producers or dealing with some sort of wildlife, those are our two big areas. So really focusing on them and working. We have a wildlife working group now that we've reinstated. So working with those producers, they're great delegates that are really passionate about it. And then bringing all of these stakeholders together is the next piece in our plan here that we'll be doing in the new year so we can kind of develop a path forward and how we can slowly shift these programs, not just our program. So that's a big piece and with it developing those pieces behind the scenes, so the research that we need, so we're talking with those stakeholders, they can understand the challenges as well as some other additional communication for so that those stakeholders can understand the margin issues,

(20:58):

The risk management tools, the urbanization, all of those things impact how our producers are managing wildlife and that coexistence. So that's that big piece and I've again, like I said, working with Mark, working with Karin because they've spent years working on it and trying to build on their knowledge and that's actually where I guess what the Verified Beef program and being able to, we talked about FMD, we were able to secure that funding this year, which was really exciting through the sustainable Canadian Agriculture Partnership in Alberta government. So we're able to actually help support producers in some of that risk mitigation on farm, which is really exciting. We haven't seen a program like that in Alberta for several years. And so it's recognizing producers for participating in the verified Beef Production plus program VBP or VBB plus. We use our short acronym. And so with that securement of funding, we have 1.9 million over two the next five year period going back to 2023, so up to 2028.

(22:06):

And it's supporting not only the producers and adoption, they can receive a grant up to five grand, which is really great to be able to support them. That's huge. On the flip side, we also have more extension support and being able to help support. We've been able to bring in some more staff and capacity and also looking at ways of how we can get the Verified Beef program into different producers that we haven't necessarily engaged with. And so that's been the big kind of three areas I guess I've been focusing on the last bit and that FMD is Karin's working on that top level. It's always like I trickles down and we're taking it when we're going to talk with producers about the Verified Beef Program.

Brad Dubeau (22:44):

I'm going to briefly touch on a little bit about marketing. I'm going to invite all of you if I miss something. I'm going to go from some notes here just as we're in the transition. We're hopeful that we're going to have a new individual being taking over the marketing manager position very, very soon. But just a bit of a recap from 2024, we embraced for the second year our always Alberta beef campaign. This is a campaign that we work coincides with Canada Beef. It's been a wonderful partnership and it gives us an opportunity to make sure that our consumers align with both Alberta beef as well as Canada Beef because together we're proud of both products and it is the same product. We're back on tv, which is wonderful. We started on TV around nutrition and stewardship and that began back in January, I think it was of 2024.

(23:38):

It went through right through the Calgary Stampede. There's new commercials coming on TV now and it's around land and legacy. This is the connection of Alberta beef being on Alberta's landscapes and all the positive that brings there. And of course the magazine, which is now going into its fourth or fifth year, it's grown. It's so exciting to see how that magazine continues to expand and it becomes a part of our tools. So we have digital and we have printed and we hope that producers embrace whichever tool works best for them to understand or to learn more about what we're doing at A BEP. Anything you folks want to add about the marketing side?

Mark Lyseng (24:20):

From my perspective, the magazine and even a BP Daily has been great for getting messages out that we want even just quick notes to producers making sure we do our due diligence as an org because we represent producers a lot and so we want to make sure that they're getting their message too. And so it's opened up that channel for communication and I think that's been a huge step forward for a BP.

Brad Dubeau (24:45):

You bet. The magazine gives us an opportunity to put something in print that stays there, but then you can take pieces and it slides over to stakeholder relations and then you start to populate a BP daily. And we can do that with research and we can do that with government, we can do it with stewardship and making sure that we're communicating as best we can on a consistent basis on things that we're doing. So this has been a wonderful opportunity to talk about very specific things that you're working on in your areas, but I'd like to just now kind of open it up and let's talk about some of our major events or functions or some of the things that we've been working on that is much more broader. Scope involves everybody in our group and our team. And I'd like to start with maybe the private land conservation and Mark, can you maybe talk about the other orgs that were involved and where we landed, where we're at today?

Mark Lyseng (25:41):

Yeah, so we worked with stock growers and some NGOs, some conservation groups to develop a policy. So the board passed in September, I believe, a policy around private land conservation. It kind of gives more Kaley and I some direction on how to proceed with some of those grasslands things. And it was interesting, the board's priorities were very much to protect property rights of the landowner while still giving them the option or the ability to get payment for ecological goods and services. And that's really what the direction we got is to kind of marry that and make it work going forward. And so now it's next steps in trying to implement some of their objectives and trying to broaden the tools available to producers to make sure they have access to term payments and annual payments similar to they have in the states. We don't have that currently in Western Canada or Alberta least, and so we really want to get there. Ducks Unlimited has been doing some work and is getting there, but we want to make sure that expands and expands quickly. So producers have those options, they should be paid for. The work government is really focusing on grasslands and carbon and ecological goods and services, but they haven't really got to paying producers who produce them. So

Karin Schmid (27:07):

I think maybe the living labs can actually help maybe ground truth some of that and figure out what sort of incentives are necessary for some of these practices. I think some of the socioeconomic work occurring under the Alberta Agri Systems Living Lab will kind of highlight the trade-offs of some of these practices in terms of that productivity and profitability, but with that environmental lens of greenhouse gas emission and carbon sequestration,

Mark Lyseng (27:34):

Absolutely.

Brad Dubeau (27:35):

You want to talk about that a little bit real quick here in the Living Labs is going into year

Karin Schmid (27:39):

Three. Well technically I guess year three, it's really only our second growing season where we've been able to take measurements. We had our first one in 2023 and then 2024. So we're busy analyzing all sorts of data. As I'm sure you can imagine, nothing on a producer farm really represents a laboratory environment. So there's a lot of noise in the data. We're going to have a lot of work ahead of us to sort through that. But part of, I think the objectives are really to look at where those win-wins are in certain management practices where you can see maybe some time savings or some yield increases or some sort of other benefit that maybe also has some co-benefits

Brad Dubeau (28:27):

Environmentally. That's awesome. That leads me in my next thing because we need to talk a little bit about research showcase.

Karin Schmid (28:34):

Well, I don't have a lot of details for you on our research showcase yet, but last year we did expand it. It was something we used to do quite a while ago with just the research committee and just kind of talk about projects that had wrapped up, what were the results? And the research committee for last year said, why don't we broaden this out from more producers and more stakeholders can learn about the research that not only we're funding, but groups like the Beef Cattle Research Council or other organizations are funding that is benefiting the industry. So we had a full day at Old College and we're going to continue to do an expanded version of the research showcase moving forward. I'm not quite sure what 2025 looks like, but once we do, we'll put it out through all of our communication channels.

Brad Dubeau (29:20):

So

Karin Schmid (29:20):

Magazine Daily, stay tuned.

Brad Dubeau (29:23):

Exactly. And we really want to encourage producers to embrace it because research is one of those things that's probably not smart and sexy really fast. It takes time to learn from the different projects that are taking place. It's an investment that we make in our future and it's important that producers understand that this is for down the road, it's for future. It's to make the next generations hopefully lives easier. And I think it's important that if we can help producers to understand that and the showcase is a wonderful opportunity to learn more about some of those tools or projects that are taking place. So kudos

Karin Schmid (30:04):

And have interactions with the researchers too. I think that's one of the things that people involved directly with the Living Labs have really appreciated. So one of the things we heard from last year showcases they'd like to have some time to actually network with the researchers themselves. So I think we'll build that in as well.

Brad Dubeau (30:20):

So one of the things that we haven't spoke about today is probably one of the most unique events that we embraced about two or three years ago, I guess it is now. And we call it the Alberta Beef Industry Summit. This is very much a team effort. It is an opportunity for all of us to work very closely together and there's no doubt that there are days that we all want to pull out our hair and other days that we're excited. But Mark, why don't you talk to us a little bit more about the summit and tell folks about it.

Mark Lyseng (30:53):

Yeah, so Summit we started a few years ago, my first year at A BP, we went to Stampede and I know that there's a lot of politicians around Stampede and a BEA beef never really did anything. And I was like, well, this is cowboy culture, this is us. We got to take more control of this. So we started having our first summit and we had some meetings with it and then had an event where we invited politicians, federally, provincial, and even some municipal ones to be involved and to meet some producers. So we invited a bunch of a BP people as well as other organizations in the beef industry like stock grows and Alberta grazing lease holders and cattle feeders. And so we made this big group of producers and big group of politicians and then we just had a stampede event for an afternoon and it has worked really well for building relationships. It got us invited to witness to set it Senate and House of Commons because of those relationships and it continues to keep building that. This year we were really lucky. Premier came out to the event and spoke and that was great as well as Federal Minister of Agriculture, minister McCulley and Minister RJ Seon, they both spoke at the event. And so really good attendance by politicians and we want to keep that going and make sure that connection and those conversations between producers and politicians continues to happen.

Debra Murphy (32:19):

We had the US ambassador too.

Brad Dubeau (32:21):

I was just going to say it was a unique opportunity. The US Ambassador, ambassador Colon use that opportunity to connect with more Alberta politicians and at the federal level to visit with McCulley

Mark Lyseng (32:33):

And we even had people from attend. So it's become more of a staple at stampede, which is really good to see. I know it's probably nerve wracking for us to implement. Well, it is for me to actually get it going and get those invites out and get people organized for it. But I think it's paying dividends for sure of just building those connections and being an organization politicians and egg leaders look to.

Brad Dubeau (33:03):

I think it's important for producers to realize that that summit, like you said, it's a relationship building, but it's good to have built, created some base

Mark Lyseng (33:13):

In

Brad Dubeau (33:14):

The relationship. So when conversations typically get more challenging, you have a bit of a base, you have some relationship there to have the more difficult conversations. When we need to advocate for producers if things aren't quite,

Mark Lyseng (33:35):

I think it helps put that face to an organization or to a producer. I know a lot of the politicians that attend these, they have never been on a farm. They've never been. So when they meet people, you're more than just a random farmer that's this person in a far off land or someone that they've talked to that they give a card to, that they talk to potentially afterwards. And that's why we kind of added in This year we added a tour, so we did a tour of Westway farms and that was really interesting. It has a feedlot cow calf side and a fairly large crop side. And we took politicians, ministers and other politicians, federal and provincial as well as UN and some senators, and we toured westways and I think it gave them a unique experience because a lot of them haven't been on a farm, haven't seen what silage is or what a feedlot looks like. So I think that was a good step forward this year.

Brad Dubeau (34:37):

Yeah, absolutely. It's so important for those individuals that are in positions of decision-making power to understand the work that you're doing around research and some of the massive advancements that we're making there in reducing our carbon footprint. And you can go on and on and on and mark the conversations around some of the things that we're working forward that help producers in the long run, but also makes them, makes our industry more resilient and Kaley and the stewardship embracing that. And then all of this comes through our communications department. And so that's where I come back to our team effort. We're a group that work together on a day-to-day basis and we're small team. And so it's so important that when we are working together that we can push our files forward and we want producers to understand just a little piece of how that works in our world or our video here today. Any last thoughts from any of you that you'd like to bring up and mention before we close out for the day? It's a

Karin Schmid (35:45):

Good thing we like each other. Yeah, we have to work so closely together.

Mark Lyseng (35:50):

Totally.

Debra Murphy (35:52):

We sometimes like each other, right, mark

Mark Lyseng (35:56):

Sometimes I think all in all you get along really, really well. We do. Yeah. And I think that ease of communication, it makes some of this connectedness with files a lot easier working as a team. We're not very siloed as a group. I think everybody knows what's going on in everybody else's camps

Brad Dubeau (36:18):

Or we work really, really hard to make sure that everybody does know. And when we win, we might not or fulfilling that. We've got a team that is strong enough to say, I'm not quite sure what's going on over here. And people step up and ask the questions and it's just like producers asking us questions. We ask those questions of each other as well.

Karin Schmid (36:40):

Well, I think that's an important piece, right? Producers should know that they can always reach out to a BP if they're having some sort of issue that maybe we can help with

Brad Dubeau (36:50):

Either through the staff, through the individuals sitting around this table, delegate body, the board of directors, the executive, everybody is open to hearing from producers. And I think that's one of the things that I know Debra and I have talked a lot about in our communication strategy is trying to develop more strategy, more strategy around community is what I want to say. And building that community again. And so it is something that we're working towards and we hope that beef producers out there are seeing it and hopefully would want to embrace our community. And that community is a part of that, is being involved in the organization because it's how we get our direction. And

Karin Schmid (37:35):

There's a lot going on behind the scenes

Brad Dubeau (37:37):

Big time

Karin Schmid (37:38):

That you don't really know until you become part of an organization like this, whether it's at the staff level or at a delegate level or the board level because some things happen for reasons behind closed doors. Right,

Mark Lyseng (37:51):

Exactly. A hundred percent. Karin, also good getting resolutions in that really helps stir the conversation at minimum. I know resolutions that are passed, we definitely work off them. We have a tracker that Debra is strict about, but it's wonderful. Yeah, it is. But I think that's a good way to make an impact in the organization is just get those resolutions in, have this conversations at the regional and the A GM and it can really stir some conversation and make a big impact. If you look at the next gen loan program that directly stemmed from a resolution brought forward to us, and it wasn't perfectly what that resolution wanted, but it was very, very close. And so those changes came from an A BP resolution.

Kaley Edge (38:47):

I was just going to echo actually that by even participating in the producer meetings, I learned so much as someone that's in the beef industry and it's obvious that it's a community and that being echoed now and working for the SEC organization. So by attending those meetings, you actually get to see what's happening and shape what's happening too.

Brad Dubeau (39:08):

Agreed. And this all plays into the wider conversation of making sure that the producers have a commission that is responsive and that it is set up, I guess you might say, in a fashion that responds well to producers and it is what they want. So we are doing a deep dive in the commission. We want to make sure that the commission is responsive. And so we've developed a commission working group to take a deep dive and we're looking at our structure from the delegate body to everything in between the board and making sure that what we're working on is what producers want us to be working on. And I just want to reiterate that those resolutions are engagement with the organization is how we all know where our direction is. And so we're encouraging producers to take the opportunity to connect with us all. And this has just been a small bit of the files that each of you are working on, but we hope that producers are able to take away a little bit of a better understanding of some of the things that we're doing and also get to know the organization and its people that are making the world go round.

(40:22):

So thanks very much all of you for taking part in this today. It's been a lot of fun. This is the first time we look forward to the producer's comments on how this went, and we'll see if it becomes an annual thing or not. But it's been a lot of fun for me and I hope you all enjoyed it as well.

Kara Mastel (40:50):

I had a great note to end on. Community, no matter the industry really, no matter where we're at in our lives, where would we be without community? It takes community to do so many things in our lives. I could go on and on, but you're not here to listen to all of my emotions and trust me, there are a lot of them. Thanks for tuning into another episode of the Bovine. As mentioned, this podcast was originally recorded at the end of the 2024 year and is available in video format as well. So head on over to YouTube where you can find the full a BP year in review video. In the meantime, if you have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out. Karam@albertabeef.org. Until next time, stay safe and soak up some of that sunshine. Bye for now.