THE ADVENTURE BEGINS In late 2021, Class 19 gathered in Brantford for our initial session. I was so impressed by the diversity of the 17 people who made up our group. There were men and women, people who were young and older and from different ethnic backgrounds. While they all were connected to agriculture, they did not all come from farms, but also from agriculture business, the financial sector, and conservation authorities. For our issues analysis project, I had the good fortune to work with two awesome classmates — Olivia Noorenberghe, a Master’s graduate from the University of Guelph and Chris Sopuch, a vegetable farmer from the Holland Marsh. We delved into a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis of the Ag Women’s Network (AWN), with an eye to scaling the provincial organization to the national level. We all learned a lot from the work. One of the main takeaways I had was that, not only should we be removing the barriers we know about to getting greater diversity into our organizations, we have to continually look for the ones we may not recognize. We presented our findings to Jen Christie, who was our group mentor and the founder of AWN, and I think we provided some useful advice and tools to move forward. We also broadened our own perspectives and gained a lot more knowledge during the process. STUDY TOURS While I was unable to attend the North American study tour that went to Washington, D.C. and New Orleans because of the wheat harvest at home, I was able, through my contacts in the ASA, to facilitate meetings with some U.S. industry leaders. Over about 10 days in Greece in February, 2023, we learned about Canada’s relationship with that country, toured several dairy processing facilities, and a huge market with fresh meat and produce. We also found out about Greece’s marble and rice industries, as well as ancient ruins like the Acropolis and Delphi, the Mediterranean diet and culture, and all about the country’s incredible olive oil industry. We also learned that you should “only drink the white wine when you run out of the red!” as a Greek professor so eloquently stated. It was interesting to see first-hand the difference between here in Ontario, where we export a substantial percentage of our grains, and Greece, which often relies on imports. They have an entirely different infrastructure. We toured the Loulis flour mill in Athens, where for hundreds of years, grain has been shipped into the port. Having the mill on site means that the finished product is sent on to its final destination in bakeries, restaurants and other end users. It is quite a different model from here, where most grain is taken to inland elevators and transported to mills in the cities or to ports where it is shipped to export markets. Another revelation was how the olive industry has sustained itself over literally thousands of years. Some of the individual trees were 2,500 years old and still producing olives. If you want to learn about sustainability,getting lessons from one of the world’s oldest civilizations is a good place to start! During our study tour, class participants also had a lot of time to interact with one another, practice our public speaking and reflect on our learnings. AALP’S VALUE Which brings me back to my initial observation about the value of AALP. The invited speakers were interesting and knowledgeable and the seminars were educational, as was exploring agriculture in other countries. But the most valuable learnings for me during my time with AALP Class 19 came from my classmates. I got an opportunity to learn from people with a wide variety of backgrounds, whether they represented another commodity group, themselves, industry or a general farm organization. I got to know the humans behind the faces, and any differences we had seemed very small because we all shared a common responsibility to help each other become better leaders. The future of agriculture is in good hands with class AALP Class 19. l ONTARIO GRAIN FARMER 21 JUNE/JULY 2023 Some of the individual [olive] trees were 2,500 years old and still producing olives. If you want to learn about sustainability, getting lessons from one of the world’s oldest civilizations is a good place to start! JEFF HARRISON, VICE CHAIR OF GRAIN FARMERS OF ONTARIO, AND TRACEY ARTS, DIRECTOR OF ONTARIO FEDERATION OF AGRICULTURE, ON THE AALP CLASS 19 TRIP TO GREECE. PHOTO COURTESY OF JEFF HARRISON.
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