Thank you very much.
Welcome to the panel.
I'm a former educator. For 34 years I taught math, physics and agriculture in Alberta. One of the major concerns that I've had is to try to make sure that we understand how agriculture is perceived throughout the country.
Ms. Ross, I applaud the work that you are doing. Before, the egg in the classroom program was simply that we'd send somebody out that had a bit of agricultural knowledge. They'd go and see a bunch of grade 4 or grade 5 classes—I can't remember the year—and they'd hit maybe one or two schools in the community, and we'd say it was good.
We need a lot more than that. We need to make sure that our educators.... Again, as a teacher I know that if lesson plans are available, those are the things that people are going to look at. The only ones who have taken the time to put those together have been the activist groups and so on, so that's all the kids hear. You illustrated a couple of those as well.
It's very important that we talk to our departments of agriculture and our departments of education, and we have them talk. Otherwise they're only going to present those things that are easy for them to get and go from there. I think that's really one of the critical parts of it.
The truth in agriculture.... I was at a conference in Red Deer a while back where they talked about methane gas and the relationship as far as beef is concerned, and dairy, and how there's actually less methane being produced now than there was 30 or 40 years ago when there were more animals. It's because of efficiency. We can't always talk about efficiency or the big farms and so on being the devil here. We have to look at the fact that you learn from that, and then smaller operations are able to use that technology once other people have presented it.
Those are some of the critical aspects of it.
The lesson plans, the field trips, Canadian Agriculture Literacy Week, and careers in agriculture.... Perhaps, Ms. Ross, you could take a couple of minutes and mention some of the things that you see on how we can coordinate with your Canadian charitable organization so that groups, whether they be industry groups or the Black Creek community groups, can talk to you and be engaged with you.