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2023

Enlighten. Engage. Energize.

This event has passed (June 8, 2023).

relive the round-up

EVENT SPEAKERS

Jay Ingram is a Canadian author, broadcaster, science communicator and was co-host for 16 years of Discovery Channel’s science show, Daily Planet.

Born in Winnipeg, Jay completed his undergrad at the University of Alberta, and completed additional schooling in Toronto and Hamilton. He worked in media in Toronto before returning to Alberta in 2011. 

Jay is an engaging, provocative speaker who addresses complex, scientific issues in non-technical terms, making them interesting, relevant and accessible to a wide range of audiences. He’s also spoken on the importance of collaboration for creativity. To learn more about Jay, visit his website here. 

Niki Wilson is a science storyteller. Born and raised in Jasper, Alberta she is a fifth-generation resident of Jasper National Park.

As a kid she grew up bush-whacking into ancient fossil beds and studying swamp water under her family’s second hand microscope. She has studied everything from mammoths to mountain pine beetle, helped develop environmental policy, and worked for the First Nations of Yukon Territory.

She traded the field for the screen and now writes about nature and the environment for publications like BBC Earth, PBSNature and Canadian Geographic. She was associate producer for the Audible top five podcast Wild Sounds of Canada and had a blast co-hosting the chart-topping podcast Anthropomania with Jay Ingram.

Matt Hamill was raised on his family’s grain farm, Hamill Farms. He worked in ag finance before returning to the grains as a maltster for our family-owned business – Red Shed Malting.

Hailing from Red Deer, Matt says the region is home of some of the greatest soil and climate conditions for growing malt barley.

Matt is passionate about making more beer styles created from Canadian ingredients available for consumers. He is driven to ensure Red Shed Malting products are supporting all members of the barley value chain. Red Shed Malting is passionate about Alberta ag and using sustainable farming practices for their crops – malting barley, red wheat, canola, oats and peas.

Greg Zeschuk was born and raised in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. He attended the University of Alberta where he earned a medical degree.

Greg, with another medical student, Ray Muzyka, went on to found BioWare, which produced some of the most popular role-playing games, like Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Jade Empire, Dragon Age, and others. Eventually, BioWare was purchased by Electronic Arts, and Greg pursued a new passion through the Beer Diaries.

After running the Beer Diaries for a few years, Greg moved on to actually making beer and started two breweries and a restaurant in his home town of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada as Blind Enthusiasm Brewing. Like Jay, he has also been distinguished with an Order of Canada award.

Jeremy is Director of Agriculture for Western Canada, responsible for Agriculture operations across the Alberta and Manitoba growing regions.  He lives in Barnwell Alberta, just a short drive from the McCain facility in Coaldale and in the heart of the processing potato region in Southern Alberta.

Jeremy grew up on a dried flower farm on Vancouver Island where he found his passion for agriculture.  His potato career has taken him across most of North America, Australia and New Zealand over the past 16 years with McCain Foods.  His passion continues today as part of the Senior Leadership in the McCain North America Agriculture team working with customers,  growers, and industry organizations to deliver McCain’s mission of “Celebrating real connections, through delicious, planet-friendly food.”

Sean MCGrath is a 5th generation rancher who together with wife Tanya and their family manage a 117 year old operation breeding roughly 250 females each year and custom grazes.

Sean is the owner of Ranching Systems, which provides consulting services to the beef industry, primarily focusing on livestock genetics and ranch/range management. 

The ranch is high tech, traditional and always experimenting. Our mindset is one of continual challenging and learning, trying to achieve our vision of “the Best Beef in a Better World”. 

In 2014, the ranch was awarded the provincial and national TESA award. The ranch is certified on VBP+ and is an early adopter of technologies such as drones, artificial insemination, DNA testing and advanced grazing techniques. As a self-described “bleeding edge adopter”, what makes Sean tick? Let’s find out.

Dr. Nancy Tout joined the Global Institute for Food Security (GIFS) in 2022 as its first Chief Scientific Officer. She leads a team in the discovery, development, and delivery of innovative solutions for the production of globally sustainable food.

Her passion for accelerated, impact-driven and collaborative innovation has been central to her career journey in the agri-food sector over the past 25 years, both in the private and public innovation ecosystems.

Originally from Southwestern Ontario, Nancy delivers cool science to keep agriculture alive and well on the world stage. She travels across farmers’ fields and research labs around the world to discover similarities and solutions for ag’s future.

Dalin Bullock was raised on a mixed farm in Southern Alberta and has always been passionate about agriculture. He attended Lethbridge College where he earned his diploma in Agriculture.

After, he continued his educated at Utah State University, earning his Bachelor’s in Agricultural Business and a Master’s in Agricultural Systems, Technology, and Education with a specialization in agricultural extensions education. He worked with Alberta Agriculture as a Marketing Specialist before joining Fairview College teaching farm management and later serving as the Dean of Agriculture.

Dalin currently works as the Dean of the School of Life Science and Business at Olds College, where he has also taught and served in several leadership capacities. He is passionate about the greatest industry in the world — the one that feeds the world.

LISTEN TO THE CONVERSATIONS

Listen to Canadian Author, Broadcaster, and Science Communicator Jay Ingram and Science Storyteller Niki Wilson facilitate a communications workshop on ways to communicate complex topics and science to a variety of audiences in an impactful and digestible way. 

Playtime: 42 minutes

Listen along as Matt Hamill of Red Shed Malting, Greg Zeschuk of Blind Enthusiasm Brewing, and Jeremy Carter of McCain Foods have a conversation on regenerative ag, sustainability and how ‘Partnerships in Practice’ really work at the 2023 Round-Up.

Playtime: 70 minutes

Listen along as Sean McGrath, Owner of Ranching Systems; Nancy Tout, Chief Scientific Officer; and Dalin Bullock, Dean at Olds College, have a conversation on Going the Final Mile at the 2023 Round-Up. 

Playtime: 80 minutes

Communications workshop
Conversation on Partnerships in Practice
Conversation on Going the Final Mile

AG TECH CREATIONS

Jay Ingram invited attendees to work together with their tables to design an innovative tech solution to a current ag problem. Here’s what people came up with! 

"We designed a drone that could detect infectious diseases in livestock and treat as needed. We thought of the idea after discussing the issues with avian flu/swine flu/BSE."
"We made a dragon rain machine, addressing the drought. It identified dry areas with a camera, generates its own H and O from the CO2 emitted by plants, and it's solar powered with nozzles."

"We made a drone that could detect diseases in livestock (chicken, pigs, cows). The drone could detect specific individuals who were infected in the early stages. Only infected individuals would either be treated or euthanized. This could help producers avoid having to cull their entire flock or herd. It would greatly reduce producer anxiety and hopefully improve mental health."
"We created a sensor based on visual, chemical, and olfactory attributes for detecting plant health."

"We had several designs – vertical farming, drone operations, and solar implementations."
"We made a controllable cloud system that provides moisture to fields when needed."

"We designed a setup to pull water from deep underground to combat drought issues."
"We created an all-in-one soil probe, moisture sensor, and data collection device on robotic legs to avoid any field disturbance."
"Our invention will detect, diagnose, and treat sick animals on pasture. This technology will address animal welfare and antimicrobial concerns."

"We made a remote diagnosis and treatment tool for cattle. It provides presumptive diagnosis for sick cattle, identifies an appropriate treatment protocol (if bacterial, identifies any AMR issues) and provides correct dosage and administration of medication without the current food and human safety issues associated with dart guns."
"We created a yard roomba to maintain the yard. It will cut grass, deal with pests, etc."
"Our creation was a robotic predator control device for sheep. It was solar powered and it used AI to recognize predators and neutralize them." 

"We created a sustainable prevision biodiversification research farm project. It included sensors that allowed for automatic crop rotation that functioned through wind power. There was hybrid plant species, a robotic chicken for the genetically improved on-farm poultry, etc."
"We came up with a field monitoring device that analyses soils, fertility, an environmental conditions to provide the producers instant data to apply to their farm. It is essentially the Mars Rover, but portable."
"We built a condensation-collecting device out of a tower of plastic cups joined together by silly putty. It was kind of tongue-in-cheek but meant to highlight the importance of collecting and using water in a sustainable way."

"Agriculture provides global solutions and so did our creation. It was a climate machine that could control the weather/climate in a customized fashion allowing the ecosystem to flourish, production to be optimized. As a result, mental health, work-life balance improved."
"We designed the Yard 3000. It was a robotic machine that dealt with many issues — weeds, rodents, insects and was run by solar with sonic sound. The yard version was to scale up to farm a bigger farm scale eventually and could have features added like soil sampling."
"The problem we wanted to address is the lack of water during summer. We modelled a regulated pump that can extract water from ground water sources. Also, we had come up with "harvesting" snow in winter. We can keep them in vast and deep ponds, like tailing ponds, that are strategically scattered in the fields. The water conditions must be kept at its optimum before it can be used for irrigation during summer."
"We used robotics to scout fields for pests via land and air. Addressed human labour related to crop scouting but still required human interaction to get the information and then implement a plan."

"We created walipini for fruits and vegetable production with many state-of-the-art water collections systems that include massive winds that stretch out over the food crops during moisture events. Some moisture penetrates but excess (and frozen particles it it's hail — that potentially would have destroyed it — are gathered for future watering needs."
"We designed the Komono Aqueous Pullum — a water-breathing genetically engineered "animal" that is solar powered. With its ability to produce hydrogen, this girl captures oxygen from the growing plants below to producer H2O. Being mobile and able to detect dry areas, it then move to those areas to "rain".

"Our device would aid produvers in pen-side animal health checks, reducing the need to call the vet and send samples to labs. It's a bio-sensor attached to the livestock."