It was a special day at the Conservation Learning Centre (CLC) PA Field Day on Tuesday as the Centre held a grand opening for their new Shop to conclude the morning session.
CLC Acting Director Zoe Galbraith said that the new shop and office complex was an incredible addition for the agriculture non-profit.
“It’s something we’ve been working towards as an organization for years,” Galbraith said. “It really opens up a whole new world of possibilities for what we can do in terms of extension events for producers, but then also programming for youth and families locally as well.
“It allows us to actually do things over the winter without renting an expensive hall, so really all of our dollars that we have for public events will go that much further.”
The construction began in September 2024. Galbraith said they were able to move into the building at the end of April in time for seeding.
“It was great timing in terms of all of our family events starting to wrap up so we weren’t dealing with the construction and everything,” she said.
The Shop is 30 feet by 60 feet and the office space is 15 feet by 30 feet, a drastic improvement over the trailer that used to be used as the office.
“The office also has two bathrooms, one of which is a barrier free bathroom. We often get kids touring the farm who do use wheelchairs and so now we have a washroom space that’s wheelchair accessible for them as well,” she said.
“The space really is future proofing us as an organization,” she added. “Regardless of what goes on in the next few years, having this space really improves our ability to do things for the public and for producers.”
The funding for the project also came from producers groups SaskBarley, Sask Pulse Growers and SaskOilseeds. The total cost of the project was $400,000.
“We rely so heavily on the support of the producer groups,” Galbraith said. “It’s so important for us as a nonprofit, unbiased research organization to have public funding support for carrying out our projects and just for our site operations.
“A good chunk of the money that comes into our site in terms of funding our projects and our operation is from public dollars, so that’s really important for just ensuring the continuity of our organization as well as the unbiased nature of our projects.”
Galbraith, Saskatchewan Pulse Growers agronomy manager Mark Zatylny, SaskOilseeds communications manager Amy Bowdith, and SaskBarley extensions manager Mitchell Japp each spoke before cutting the ribbon for the new project.
Zatylny said Saskatchewan Pulse Growers gave funding to each of the eight AgriARM sites (others include Northeast Agriculture Research Farm near Melfort) for infrastructure. The money for the funding comes from producers.
“Then we invest into things like this because the work that they do is really beneficial to growers,” Zatylny said.
He said the projects are brought forward by different parties, and the research goes into farmer’s hands.
“They get a tangible benefit from the work that they (the CLC) are doing,” Zatylny said. “They can use it directly on their farm because this is one step closer to farmers than university research and those longer term ones.”
Zatylny was also impressed by the new infrastructure and benefits for the CLC.
“From what they had it is a really big improvement,” he said. “It’s definitely because this is a huge shop with their chem storage and an office space. It really makes it easier to do year-round work instead of having to shut down once it gets –40.”
Zatylny sees the benefits of both the public engagement and producer events that take place at the CLC.
“CLC does a really awesome job of that. It’s really including the entire community and getting all these younger kids interested in farming. Just because you grow up on a farm doesn’t mean that you want to be a farmer or know what it’s about, but this is really getting them interested in all the research and work that goes into it and how it is kind of bettering Saskatchewan as a whole,” Zatylny said.
Galbraith said that this was the most successful Field Day for the CLC since she came aboard in 2020.
“Obviously during the pandemic, we couldn’t have extension events like this, so to see that our attendance is continuing to grow year after year since that is really exciting,” Galbraith said.
“A big important part of what we do is the producer extension. You know doing the research is important, but making sure those results get into the hands of producers in a way that is meaningful to them is really key. Having events like Field Day and having the engagement that we saw today is really reassuring that we are doing the demonstrations that producers want to see.”
The Field Day had an attendance of around 80 people with more people arriving for the ribbon cutting and barbecue that followed the Field Day. After the lunch there were also public tours.
Galbraith said their youth outreach and youth engagement makes the site extra special.
“It was really important to us to open this day up to youth as well. We were able to work together with the Prince Albert Early Years Family Resource Centre and so they have arranged to be here today at their community High Tunnel plot as well, so the families that are here visiting can also check out the greenhouse plot,” Galbraith explained.
The CLC is located south of Prince Albert. CLC is a producer-driven, non-profit corporation whose research is funded by farmers. It was established in 1993 under the Parkland Agricultural Research Initiative.
michael.oleksyn@paherald.sk.ca
