The General Manager of Manitoba Pork suggests building and maintaining relationships with farmers in other countries is one of the most important responsibilities of Canadian agricultural representatives.
Cam Dahl, the General Manager of Manitoba Pork, suggests farmers and their associations can’t do enough to foster these relationships.
Traditionally we think of relationships between countries as the responsibility of governments but it’s also the responsibility of farm groups as well and farm leaders like Manitoba Pork Council and other commodity organizations. We have a responsibility to build up those relationships.
Relationships absolutely matter in everything we do and to talk about things like what’s a common approach to activist pressure on those that don’t like modern agriculture or want to see animal agriculture shut down? How do we talk to consumers about some of those messages that are coming out or misinformation coming out about our industry?
We need to be working together on those and the more that we can work together, the more that we can have a common message, the more that we can have a common positive approach to consumers in North American, the more successful we’ll be. That collaboration really starts with getting to know the people on both sides of the border, getting to know our counterparts in other organizations, have our farmers get to understand each other a little bit better.
I’m finding that, when we do that, we realize that the issues that producers are facing are the same whether they’re raising pigs in Minnesota and Iowa or in Manitoba.
~ Cam Dahl, Manitoba Pork
Dahl, who will be meeting with his U.S. counterparts in Des Moines as part of World Pork Expo, says working together to tackle problems common to farmers on both sides of the border is basic common sense.
