We asked Alberta farmers to tell us about their favourite and most-used smartphone apps.

Since the 2018 launch of THE Olds College Smart Farm and Smart Ag Innovation Centre, the college has continued to develop new agricultural programming.

Taking advantage of a formal mentorship opportunity, Campbell has enrolled in the AdvancingAg Future Leaders Program, which is offered by the Alberta Wheat Commission (AWC) and Alberta Barley.

Jochen Fahr was born to brew. GrainsWest recently sat down with Fahr over samples of his two bestselling beers, Fahr Pils and Fahr Hefe.

Two recent discoveries suggest humans have been baking bread and brewing beer much longer than previously thought.

Outfitted with picnic table seating, and supplied with coffee, snacks and a catered lunch, the tasting room at Origin Malting & Brewing in Strathmore served as the donated venue for a mental health first aid course held Feb. 25, 2019. The group of 20 was comprised of farmers from several communities, ag industry professionals and others with close ties to farming. Everyone in the room raised their hand when asked if they know someone who has experienced a mental health issue.

Country music stars do sing songs about riding green tractors, walking through fields of wheat and having a hectic harvest, but not many live that life outside the recording studio. Drew Gregory, a country musician from Standard, won the 2016 Alberta Country Music Association Album of the Year as well as Male Artist of the Year in 2015 and 2016, and released his latest album Good Place to Start in 2018. His time away from recording and touring is spent working the fields with his father and living the farm life with his growing family.

Brian Sewell’s first entrepreneurial venture was anything but what you’d expect from a teen who’d decided from day one to take up the family business. But for Army of Darkness Skateboards (AOD for short), Brian’s mobile skate shop and manufacturing company, it rolled straight out of his farming experience.

Darcy Goossen has been farming full-time for more than two decades, but he’s been an inventor his whole life. The Ferintosh farmer can’t even count the number of “handy dandy farm tools” he’s made, but now there is one that certainly stands alone in his mind. Goossen’s Tiregrabber took home the prestigious honour of Best Invention at Canada’s Farm Progress Show (FPS) in Regina, SK, this past year. He edged out Robert Pytlyk, creator of a predator-proof chicken run.

According to five agriculture professionals, pursuing a career in seed may be a rewarding path for recent high school graduates as well as those further along in their studies or now employed in other sectors.