Team Alberta Crops adds 4 new partners to advocacy efforts

Strength in numbers is proving to be true for Alberta's agriculture sector. A southern Alberta advocacy group is growing, adding four more avenues of crop production to its team.

Team Alberta Crops is a collaboration of crop commissions working to advocate for farmers and the group is welcoming another four members.

The Alberta Beekeepers Commission, Alberta Seed Growers, Alberta Sugar Beet Growers and Potato Growers of Alberta are now part of the team.

The partnership began with Alberta Barley, Alberta Canola, Alberta Pulse Growers and the Alberta Wheat Commission.

“We really came together to work collectively on shared policy issues and advocacy at all levels of government, so both the national and provincial level,” said Shannon Sereda, senior manager of government relations and policy with the Alberta Wheat & Barley Commissions.

Melody Garner-Skiba is the executive director with Alberta Sugar Beet Growers and said joining forces with other sectors of the ag industry will put farmers in a better position as economic recovery following the pandemic takes center stage.

“Ag has an important role to play and so it is critical at this juncture that farmers’ voices are heard because there are so many requests for them and demands on them, that if we are going to contribute to the post-pandemic recovery we’ve got to make sure that government is listening to us.”

Garner-Skiba said with many farmers producing more than one variety of crop, a partnership like this just makes sense.

“Everything is tied together so tight and interlinked, it’s really important then that we can speak in that unified voice and work together. And this really does that with this modernization.”