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By Curtis Galbraith

Crops

Sexsmith farmer filling new role at Alberta Wheat Commission

Feb 16, 2021 | 6:00 AM

A Sexsmith farmer is filling a newly created post with the board of the Alberta Wheat Commission.

Greg Sears is the organization’s new second vice-chair.

He says the Commission had a couple of different reasons for creating this new role. One of those was workload.

“The Wheat Commission functions with an executive committee that handles a lot of the day-to-day interactions with staff, so it was felt that one more person in that executive committee was a good thing from both the workload perspective and also (to) have more minds in the room.”

Sears is the first person to fill this post on a permanent basis. Thorhild farmer Janine Paly had served as interim second vice-chair. She now serves as director-at-large.

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He says the Commission is busy in many areas, including in research.

“With the way the provincial government is restructuring locally-funded research with the creation of RDAR (Results Driver Agriculture Research), (there are) quite a few ongoing discussions on how that system is getting set up and resources around research in Alberta.”

Sears adds the commission is also working on several federal files, including the carbon tax, changes to the Grain Act, and a voluntary code of practice for grain farming.

He adds he wants to make sure the needs of producers are met and that the money they provide to the commission is used wisely.

He thinks grain markets look positive right now and the price jumps have been unexpected.

“There has certainly been a lot of feed grain purchases by China and various, larger economies around the world. There has been a lot of concern about the quality and the quantity of the South American crop due to dryness, which has certainly helped the oilseed markets.”

Sears adds one more factor is that a lot of customers need to restock.

He is hoping the markets stay strong so farmers can take advantage of those good prices this year and, possibly, next year.

Sears has also served as board chair with the Alberta Canola Producers Commission.