Gift to Support Field Crops Research, Teaching at U of G’s Ridgetown Campus


[Video opens with Dr. Malcolm Campbell sitting in a wood-panelled room speaking to an interviewer off camera
Text on screen reads: Dr. Malcolm Campbell, vice-president research, University of Guelph]

Campbell: The emergence of diseases is a major threat to crops worldwide. 

[Crosby Devitt, sitting in same room, speaking to interviewer off camera. Text on screen reads: Crosby Devitt, chief executive officer Grain Farmers of Ontario]

Devitt: We're always under threat of diseases and that's just part of producing grains. We've seen an emergence of tar spot in corn and so that's a relatively new disease to this province.
 
[closeup images of corn infected with tarspot]

It's going to take some new thinking.

[Rene van Acker sitting in same room, speaking to interviewer off camera. Text on screen reads Rene Van Acker, dean, Ontario Agricultural College, University of Guelph]

So we need a pathologist a field crop pathologist that does work on ways of protecting those crops from those damaging diseases.

[Images of hands working in a lab, pouring samples of powders and weighing them on a scale, then back to Van Acker]

And we're so grateful that the Grain Farmers of Ontario have been such strong partners for us. And with their resources and their support, we're able to launch a search for an excellent new person to come into the Ridgetown campus. 

[Slow-motion images of two people standing in a sunflower field, inspecting the flowers. Images of a lab worker pouring liquids into a beaker]

This person will teach primarily in our diploma programs but also at the graduate level, graduate courses. They will do research, both basic and applied research and then we'll do outreach for farmers and the agriculture industry around issues related to field crop pathology.

[Music increases. Black screen appears with text reading: Grain Farmers of Ontario has generously donated a $2 million gift to establish the Grain Farmers of Ontario Professorship in Field Crop Pathology at University of Guelph's Ridgetown Campus]

Devitt: If we look at a professorship role like this, the things that they're discovering and then the work they're doing in the first few years will have a lasting legacy on the farm.

[Brendan Byrne, sitting in the same room, speaks to an interviewer off camera. Text on screen reads: Brendan Byrne, Chair, Grain Farmers of Ontario]

As a farmer myself, I kind of get into the day-to-day operations of what's going on, but you need people that are looking out there seeing the big picture, what can make Ontario Farmers as successful as possible. 

Campbell: Ridgetown campus has had a long tradition and a proud tradition of taking knowledge and moving it into action.

[Images of the Ridgetown Campus sign, two people sitting in a vegetable field and examining a plant]

Byrne: Ridgetown always seems to have that commonality of it's got an agricultural background, there's a lot of hands-on work that's done there.

[Aerial images of the Ridgetown campus and farm machinery on a grain crop]

Van Acker: The campus is a perfect place for this investment because it really has all the elements: the right colleagues, the right facilities.

[More aerial images of the Ridgetown campus and fields] 

This gift is also a symbol of the importance of partnerships in achieving the University's mission of Improving Life. 

Devitt: The University of Guelph is an absolutely critical partner with the Grain Farmers of Ontario and the Ridgetown campus is a real gem in Ontario. It really is a place where an enormous amount of field crop research has happened through the past number of decades and continues today. 

And we see that as a critical place where we have really good infrastructure. 

Campbell: At University of Guelph, we're so grateful to Grain Farmers of Ontario for this incredibly generous gift.

Van Acker: When somebody will take, you know, their own money and put it towards helping a university to launch a new position, it means so much to us because it's very humbling.

[Still images of a smiling person in front of a corn field and students wearing U of G jackets posing for camera]

That organization is saying, 'We we not only want to be partners with you, but we trust you to take these precious resources and do something great with them.'

And it means that we we are inspired and we want to do so much more because they're willing to place that trust in us. 

Campbell: There are a few real-world problems greater than food security. Food security that is directly undermined by plant disease. By addressing plant disease through a professorship in field crop pathology, we're dealing with a major challenge around food insecurity and ensure that we have productivity that lasts well into the future.

What a perfect position to be resident at Canada's food university, University of Guelph.

[Music builds. Text on screen reads: Thank you Grain Farmers of Ontario for your investment into Field Crop Pathology research, education and outready at Ridgetown Campus. The U of G slides onto the screen to close the video]