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.

If you’re driving north from Calgary on Highway 2, as you approach the Highway 42 intersection just north of Innisfail, you’ll spot a big, red shed out to the west. This blushing building is well-known among Alberta craft brewers as the namesake of the highly regarded Red Shed Malting.

Whether he’s in the lab testing malting barley for brewing quality or touring a brewery in China, Yueshu Li is a firm believer in telling the world about Canada’s high-quality barley.

Known for his direct, sometimes controversial political style, as one of Canada’s longest-serving agriculture ministers, Gerry Ritz was also respected for his giant work ethic and dogged determination to better the industry.

Internationally known for his work, Curtis Pozniak is a wheat breeder and professor at the University of Saskatchewan Crop Development Centre. His busy schedule incorporates field work, tours, multiple global research projects as well as speaking engagements. Pozniak recently took time out fro his work to talk with GrainsWest about the latest scientific advancements in variety creation.