These are interesting and exciting times to be in agriculture – and seemingly, even better times to be communicating about food and farming.
I’m basing this on the growing popularity of the Eastern Canada Farm Writers Association (ECFWA), which reported record membership numbers at its annual meeting in the Niagara Region today.
Of course, as a past president of the organization, I could just be a teensy bit biased on this, but we also held our first contested election in recent memory today, so I do think we’re onto something here.
A lot of interest in the organization comes from the networking opportunities and the timely and topical professional development seminars that are held. (You can learn more at www.ecfwa.ca. )
But even bigger than that is the fact that Canada will be welcoming the world’s agricultural journalists as we host the International Agriculture Journalists Federation annual congress in 2011.
Not only will this event be in Canada for the first time since 1967, but it will actually take place right here in southern Ontario – with base hotels in Guelph and Niagara Falls and three fabulous rural Ontario tours. You can learn more at www.ifaj2011.com and soon to be tweeting updates at @ifaj2011 as well.
ECFWA president Kelly Daynard (@kellydaynard) was re-elected to her second one year term today. Joining re-elected First Vice President Sarah Andrewes(@SarahAndrewes) and Newsletter Editor Kim Waalderbos (@06Aggie) on the Executive are Second Vice President Clare Illingworth and Secretary Treasurer Andrew Campbell (@AgriNewsHound), who both previously held director positions on the Board. ECFWA’s four directors are Jane Robinson, Scott Allison (@scotty_eh), Karen Dallimore and Claire Cowan (@ClaireSC).
This was the first annual meeting in three years where I haven’t had to take a lead role in the event as president of the organization. So I had more time to take notes on some of our panelists and other discussions – stayed tuned for more here and at @lilianschaer!
