December 14th, 2009
Filed under: Agricultural and Food Sciences
Construction of an innovative new agricultural education facility that will feature interactive hands-on displays about every aspect of food production, from farming practices to the marketing and retailing of food, is officially underway at the University of Manitoba’s Glenlea Research Station after a special groundbreaking ceremony was held today.The Bruce D. Campbell Farm & Food Discovery Centre was officially announced at today’s event by the Honourable Vic Toews, President of the Treasury Board and Member of Parliament for Provencher, on behalf of the Honourable Lynne Yelich, Minister of State for Western Economic Diversification, the Honourable Stan Struthers, Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives, on behalf of the Province of Manitoba, Michael Trevan, Dean of the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences, and special guest and agribusiness community leader Dr. Bruce D. Campbell. The centre was previously known as the Glenlea Farm Education Centre.
The event comes on the heels of a September announcement of $2.3 million in federal funding for the centre through the Community Adjustment Fund (CAF), which is part of Canada’s Economic Action Plan. The Province of Manitoba has also contributed $900,000 towards the facility.
The funding is integral to the construction of the 8,280 square-foot centre that will be an interactive showplace with dioramas and hands-on displays of grain and feed production, viewing galleries for the hog barn with videos relaying scenes from the demonstration barn, food retailing and food safety displays.
“I am pleased to celebrate the start of such an exciting project for the University of Manitoba. With this new centre, students will be equipped with valuable learning tools to assist them in their agricultural education,” said Minister Toews. “This is a great investment and a further example of our Government is helping to ensure that Manitoba emerges from this global economic recession stronger than ever.”
“This research facility will be a centre of excellence for farm and food production practices that stress environmental stability. There are a number of occupations in the agri-food industry and this will be a great place to learn about them,” said Minister Struthers. “Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives looks forward to working with the talented people at the Glenlea Research Station in moving great ideas from research to implementation.”
“Today’s announcement highlights the strong support that our alumni and our partners have committed to this exciting initiative,” said Dr. David Barnard, President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Manitoba. “The Bruce D. Campbell Farm & Food Discovery Centre will give Manitobans an opportunity to see first-hand how modern agricultural practices are having an impact on food production in our province while exposing them to the important research being done at the University of Manitoba.”
“I am proud and humbled to have my name associated with this spectacular new centre for the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences at the University of Manitoba. This new facility will be a wonderful showcase for agricultural production in Canada,” said Dr. Bruce D. Campbell.
With 30,000 visitors anticipated annually, the Discovery Centre will be a valuable food production experience for students of all ages. Construction is expected to be completed by October 2010.
Posted in: Agricultural and Food Sciences
October 14th, 2009
Filed under: Agricultural and Food Sciences
A Manitoba team of entrepreneurs, which includes three University of Manitoba graduates, entered the Dragon’s Den on CBC-TV.
Arborg farmer Scott Sigvaldason (DipAg/89) and his partners Dave Shott (DipAg/89), Uli Gehrer (DipAg/89) and Harold Gehrer are owners of Wedge Farms Nutrition. Among their wide range of innovative flax and oat products, they are marketing “Cavena nuda” or naked oats. This hulless oat variety, which was developed by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, has been turning up in hotels and restaurants all over Winnipeg.
Scott calls Cavena nuda the “Rice of the Prairies”, and pitches this unique and highly nutritious product to the CBC show’s panel of venture capitalists tonight. According to Wedge Farms website, the product “cooks, looks and tastes like rice, yet offers the health benefits of oats.” Cavena nuda is a high source of fibre and protein, a good source of iron, and is low in saturated fatty acids and sodium.
To learn more about Wedge Farms Nutrition and Cavena nuda, visit their website at http://www.wedgefarms.com/.
Posted in: Agricultural and Food Sciences
February 26th, 2009
Filed under: Agricultural and Food Sciences
What makes people choose the foods they eat?
The future of the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences depends on understanding consumers.
Biochemist. Plant scientist. Partner in a functional food start-up firm. Michael Trevan has a multi-disciplinary background in the sciences, which makes him a perfect fit for his job as dean of the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences.
Michael Trevan has spent his life training to be dean of the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences, even though he hadn’t heard of the University of Manitoba until just a few years ago.
A native of England, agriculture was probably the last thing on Trevan’s mind when he entered the University of London in the late 1960s.
“I started life as a medical student but then got captivated by biochemistry,” Trevan said. “I took off in the middle of my medical courses – in England medicine was an undergraduate course – and took a bachelor of biochemistry instead and then a PhD.”
He moved on to a teaching position at Hatfield Polytechnic and was part of the revolution in biotechnology that started in the 1970s and 1980s.
“By the 1980s there was a great new industry in biotechnology. There was a lot of hype and a great deal of interest,” Trevan said. For someone who maintained an interest in medicine it brought everything full circle. He helped provide the science behind the practical and industrial applications of enzymes, from washing powders to testing kits to detect glucose in urine.
In 1988, Trevan moved to South Bank University where he was head of the department of biotechnology and then dean of the Faculty of Science, Technology, Health and Society. He also got his first taste of plant sciences while at South Bank. It was a field he got to develop further when he moved to the University of Westminster to become university director of research and Provost of Cavendish Campus.
A couple of things happened while Trevan was with the University of Westminister – he became involved with the development of a new tofu-like food product called Quinova. It was derived from quinoa a South American grain that is super nutritious but has kernels not much bigger than a pinhead. The challenge Trevan and his partners answered was finding a way to process the grain into a food product that was attractive to people.
“When I left they were beginning to develop markets in Holland and Germany. It was an interesting lesson in how you set up a company.” The company had already survived its first two years when Trevan left, no mean feat given that most companies go under within two years of launching.
However, the other thing that happened at the University of Westminster is perhaps even more significant for this story: Trevan made contact with the University of Manitoba.
At the time, in 1998, he was researching how the cell walls in tomatoes change their physical structure as a result of attack by a pathogen and then made the leap into studying the impact of disease in grain – specifically fusarium in wheat. And of course, one of the places where fusarium has its most devastating impact is in the Red River valley. So when Trevan went searching for research contacts one of the first people he came across was at the Cereal Research Centre on the University of Manitoba campus. A linkage that brought Trevan to the U of M campus several times for research purposes.
From the University of Westminster, Trevan moved to be higher education policy and liaison manager with the London Development Agency in 2003. It was an opportunity to try something different after 30 years of teaching and researching. But when the Agricultural and Food Sciences dean position came open at the U of M last year, Trevan’s past work and knowledge of the university made him take note.
“I thought it would be an exciting and fun thing to do.”
So after a lifetime spent working and living in the London area, Trevan uprooted himself and traveled some 4,500 miles to Manitoba.
“The cultures are similar but they still have their differences.” Driving might be one of the biggest. Trevan had to take a driver’s test to earn his license again.
“Four-way stops terrify me. The notion that you would trust another person to stop. You just don’t DO that in England.”
“But the great thing I’ve enjoyed since being here is the enthusiasm and support of my colleagues. Everyone has a great enthusiasm about what they do, they just want to get out and do more.”
When Trevan worked in England he was also working at one of several dozen universities and colleges. In Manitoba, only the University of Manitoba has a focus on agriculture –giving it access to government and industry sources that he could only have dreamed about in England.
Plus the agricultural and food industries play a more critical role in Manitoba – accounting for 24 per cent of the province’s manufacturing output compared to the 13 per cent seen in most countries.
“The industry is crying out for graduates. We can’t get students in fast enough,” Trevan said. “So our goal is to increase enrolment.”
Currently the faculty has about 365 degree and diploma students and an additional 200 graduate students. Trevan said the program and the industry could accommodate another couple of hundred students.
But the problem – and it has been an ongoing one – is that people believe that the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences is only for people who intend to go into farming. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth.
“It’s not just about farming. In terms of employment, farming production only accounts for a small percentage of the jobs in the industry,” Trevan said. “What we really are is a faculty of applied sciences with attention to food or agricultural production.
“The challenge for a faculty like this is to make people understand what it does. The rural population understands it. But we need to get the idea across to the urban population.”
In the 1970s the University of Manitoba was involved in ground breaking research, such as the development of canola – an edible oilseed that now brings billions of dollars a year into the agriculture industry.
For the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences today it’s not just a question of researching what will be tomorrow’s ‘canola’ but understanding how people will react to that product. People make their decisions about food based on emotional responses. For example, genetically modified foods have been driven out of the European market because people turned against them.
Trevan said he watched the issue play out in the European media – initiated by, of all things, a rather dry industry advertisement that explained in detail the science behind genetically modified food. Problem was the advertisement ran in what are considered some of the more intellectual newspapers in the United Kingdom. The other newspapers took offence and labeled genetically modified food ‘frankenfood.’ From there the image problem was off and running with stores soon advertising that they were selling GM-free food.
So was it a question of genetically modified food being safe or unsafe? Probably not.
“It’s a very fragile industry and consumer perception is all. If you don’t get the consumer on your side then you have a problem,” Trevan said.
Similarly, simply cranking out more food isn’t the answer.
“In North America we produce 4,000 calories of food per man, woman and child per day. If we want to maintain the industry just producing more will not work. In fact, it’s obscene. We have more than enough to eat. The industry has to be able to add value to the product.”
So as the industry looks at issues such as whether it should add genetically modified crops, Trevan said the debate has to go beyond whether the crop will result in more production because ultimately the ability of a crop to add production will not be an effective means of selling the change to consumers.
“It’s all very interesting to research nutraceuticals but what if nobody eats them?” Trevan said. “In that sense we’re working with not just the sciences but we’re into the social sciences.”
Posted in: Agricultural and Food Sciences
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