Most would agree you can’t accomplish much in three minutes, but PhD candidate Sara Stricker won awards for her ability to present her thesis research in that amount of time.
"Let’s raise a fork to the food we love and the people who produce it! This February, celebrate Canadian agriculture and food both online and with friends, family and co-workers, and let everyone know how you feel about this awesome industry." -Canada's Agriculture Day website
Canada’s Agriculture Day 2021 is on February 23. To celebrate we asked our students about the importance of agriculture. Here is what they had to say:
Dr. Lawrence Goodridge holds the Leung Family Professorship in Food Safety in the Department of Food Science and is the Director of the Canadian Research Institute for Food Safety.
A Department of Animal Biosciences study has discovered that dairy herd health may be linked to the farmer’s mental well-being. The study, published in the journal Animal Welfare, focused on Ontario dairy farms that had adopted robotic milking systems, an automated technology becoming more popular across Canada. “Both the automated milking and feeding systems have already become crucial to providing farmers with more time flexibility,” said lead author Dr. Meagan King, who was a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Animal Biosciences during the study.
Kitty and Jenny Lin, naturalist interns with the Arboretum, were recently featured on a segment of CBC's Fresh Air. Kitty and Jenny provide tips on how to spot a snowy owl, while also giving these special birds the space they need to thrive.
Dr. Sylvanus Kwaku Afesorgbor, professor of agri-food trade and policy in the Department of Food, Agricultural and Resource Economics, recently co-authored a peice for Conversation Canada on the effects of the U.S. presidency on agirfood-trade.
Justine Richardson is the new director of the University of Guelph’s Arboretum. She started on February 3, 2020, and a lot has happened in the last year. She recently took some time to tell us all about the Arboretum’s activities during an unconventional, but very busy year.
Tom Armitage (B.Sc. (Agr.) in Organic Agriculture, 2013) is a lifelong learner and advocate for local food security. He works as the Social Enterprise Development Coordinator at The SEED, a not-for-profit food project at the Guelph Community Health Centre. We recently chatted with him about his role and the importance of providing accessible food to the community.
James MacGregor (Bachelor of Landscape Architecture, 1970) has led a rich career as both a landscape architect and a sustainable tourism planner. He founded North Africa's leading sustainable tourism planning, development and marketing firm, ecoplan:net, and has improved the sustainability of the tourism industry in over 40 countries.
Rosalind Morris and Erika Gaertner graduated from OAC at a time when women rarely pursued agricultural education. But, these talented women went on to lead impactful and prolific careers in botany, all while maintaining a lifelong friendship. Here are just a few brief highlights from their careers.