Sheldon Matsalla (right) talks to Canadian ag journalists during their tour of the Motherwell Homestead national heritage site near Abernethy as part of the Canadian Farm Writers' Federation's annual conference. (submitted photo/Becky Zimmer)

By Becky Zimmer

The farming game

Agriculture writers meet in Regina to talk green

Oct 3, 2022 | 4:27 PM

Over 80 agriculture journalists from across the country descended on Regina over the weekend for the annual Canadian Farm Writers’ Federation conference.

For some conference goers this was their first time in Saskatchewan, but many issues discussed under the theme of “Green is the Colour, Farming is the Game” share similarities across the country, including sustainability of the agriculture industry.

Agriculture Minister David Marit was there to welcome the group to Regina and Saskatchewan at the opening reception.

There are great stories to tell of agriculture in Canada, he said, and journalists are the ones to tell it to the world.

“It’s going to be folks like you that are going to help educate the general public on how their food is grown, and the quality of food that we’re growing here as well, but first and foremost, we’re going to tell the story of how environmentally sustainable we’re growing it. That is a key message that the world wants to hear,” he said.

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Tours included many local attractions that showed both the changing methods of agriculture and Saskatchewan heritage sites that built the agriculture industry on the Prairies.

With the conference taking part on Sept. 30, a special Truth and Reconciliation event was planned featuring a showing of Reserve 107, a recent documentary about treaty land rights discussions between the Young Chippewayan Band, Lutherans and Mennonites in Laird, Sask. and how that important relationship was formed.

Karen Briere, chair of the Saskatchewan Farm Writers’ Association’s organizing committee, said this is the type of event that brings companies and journalists together in a beneficial partnership. She noted the event assists companies sharing their message out through their communicators and journalists able to look into important issues in agriculture. They need each other, she said.

“We need to be able to tell the story of agriculture. That’s not always pretty. Journalists have an obligation to reveal the truth as it is at that time… that doesn’t mean we’re buddy buddy friends, and we’re all just gonna write what a particular spokesperson says. We all, I think, have the best interests of the industry at heart,” she said.

With trust in the media at an all-time low, according to the Reuters Institute’s 2022 Digital News Report, corporate sponsorship of the event doesn’t mean that journalists aren’t holding companies and governments to account. Federation President Rachel Telford out of Ontario said that expectations of toeing a company line doesn’t exist in the relationships she’s built over time.

“I’ve learned over the years that the sponsors that we have never have an expectation that journalists will then cater to what they want to say or parent their message. There’s never that expectation and I think that’s why we’ve always had such a good working relationship,” she said.

Agricultural journalists are facing the same problems as other journalists from across the country, said Telford. Changes to digital and the shrinking of media teams are issues across the world but having a small audience in the farming community is also protecting ag media, she said.

“There’s always going to be that forum audience for us to be, you know, writing for and participating in, which I guess maybe is a safeguard that some other journalists don’t have. But I still think that it’s a challenge… that we’re retaining people within the industry,” she said.

The federation is made up of members from six regional associations, including the Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Manitoba guilds.

This is the first time the group has met since its 2019 conference in New Westminster, B.C. While last year’s conference hosted by the Eastern Canada Farm Writers was entirely online due to COVID-19 restrictions, this is the first time the conference was done as a hybrid of both.

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becky.zimmer@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @bex_zim