Cherilyn Jolly-Nagel is the recipient of this year's Farm and Food Care Saskatchewan Champion Award.
"Each year, the Farm & Food Care Saskatchewan Champion Award recognizes a recipient who has engaged consumers about agriculture and worked to build public trust in farming and food in our province and beyond." says a news release from Farm & Food Care Saskatchewan (FFC SK).
The award was presented in Saskatoon Tuesday during an event celebrating Agriculture Week.
“We’re incredibly proud to recognize Cherilyn for all the work she does to translate agriculture to people not familiar with farming,” said Clinton Monchuk, Executive Director of FFC SK. “She helps bring the story of Canadian agriculture closer to the consumers who depend on it every day.”
Cherilyn and her husband David farm in the Mossbank area. Jolly-Nagel has spent much of her career helping people better understand modern agriculture and the role farmers play in the food system.
Her first high-profile role was back in 2004, when she became the first woman president of the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association. At the time, the focus was on issues such as rail transportation and trade agreements. That gradually shifted as the years progressed to public engagement.
"Why would I have a conversation with somebody about the crop protection products we use or the genetically modified canola? It's so obvious to me, what a waste of time, and I quickly realized that I had grossly underestimated the importance of building relationships and sharing the stories around how much we care for the land, the environmental impact that farmers have, and the safety of our food system, all of these really important pieces of that puzzle." said Jolly-Nagel.
"And Farm and Food Care can be credited to changing that."
Jolly-Nagel worked with Farm and Food Care Saskatchewan for several years to help farmers communicate more effectively with consumers.
"Building public trust was all about telling your story and how to doing that better. One of the training programs that Farm and Food Care had developed was called 'The Real Dirt on Farming.' They had come to me and said, 'You know, I think you could operate some of these training programs. Why don't you help other farmers tell their story?' So I first had to learn how to tell mine so that I could be better at sharing that message with everybody else. But I'm eternally grateful for the organization for helping me, finding my way to tell the story."
Jolly-Nagel is a keynote speaker, moderator, emcee and media contributor, regularly speaking to both agricultural and non-agricultural audiences. Only a very small piece of her public engagement is on social media.
"There's people doing incredible content. My hats are off to them but it doesn't interest me. I love a live audience. I love visiting with somebody over coffee and talking to them about their concerns around agriculture. I want a stage. I want people that are just genuinely curious. And I want farmer-to-farmer contact. That's going to be my area. I'm just not interested in social media."
Her latest project involves being a Nuffield Canada Scholar. Her topic is wind energy.
"I've spent the last two years researching the impacts of wind energy and hosting turbines on farmland. What is the impact of renewable energy infrastructure on farmland? I've put together my paper, and that's in peer review right now. I hope to go out on the speaking circuit and share the message of what I learned, all the really cool adventures and stories that I have from traveling. I think I was in 16 countries in about 18 months, meeting with farmers who are hosting wind turbines and hearing from them what the impacts are of turbines on their farmland. So I want to share all of that."
Jolly-Nagel is being recognized with the Farm and Food Care Saskatchewan Champion Award during the International Year of the Woman Farmer.
(With files from Neil Billinger, CJWW)
