Agri-trend visits Strathmore

Times Contributor    

 

This past week Agri-Trend finished their bi-annual training event in Strathmore. Agri-Trend is a professional coaching organization that helps farmers with various aspects of their profession by pairing them with coaches that are in their area.  Agri-Trend trains six different types of coaches, from marketing coaches to geo coaches, helping farmers keep up with the fast-paced changes that occur all the time in all different aspects of farming. 

“The reason that farmers work with an Agri-Trend coach is because their world is changing so fast, and urban people have no clue as to the amount of technology that farmers are integrating in their operation and the rate of change,” said Chief Executive Officer and founder of Agri-Trend, Robert Saik. The world of farming is changing drastically year by year, and Agri-Trend is committed to keeping farmers up to date and helping them with the new issues that, in the past, farmers may have never had to deal with. 

“We just saw some statistics today that 51 per cent of farmers will not be transferring their farm land to their children (and) 70 per cent of farmers don’t have a long-term business plan,” said Saik, “so we’ve got to work with these guys on getting some stuff in place so that they’re ready for the transitions that are going to happen.” 

Agri-Trend trains coaches in their yearly winter and summer training sessions like the one that Strathmore hosted this past week. With their network of over 200 coaches throughout North America, Agri-Trend is confident they can keep farmers in the know. 

“When a farmer works with us, and the reason farmers work with us, is they make more money … because we provide agronomic leadership … we provide independent unbiased advice, because we’re not trying to sell something,” says Saik. “We’re really looking at the gamut of science out there, (we) bring the farmer more confidence his decision making.”

The training was a success, with over 200 people from farming communities across Canada and the United States coming together for the workshops, to hear speeches from experts in various fields as well as having a little fun with a softball tournament. 

“We’re always innovating so if we don’t bring what I call the Tribe, if we don’t bring the Tribe together twice a year then people get left behind, because they’re working in faraway places and in small towns,” said Saik. “We need to bring them together to connect, to bring them up to speed on what we’re doing as an organization, what changes or enhancements we’re making to our processes, train them technically and probably the biggest reason is to give them a sense of camaraderie.” 

As for location, Saik says Strathmore was a good fit for what Agri-Trend is trying to accomplish through this Summer Training course. 

“We’re all small town farm people, so it’s in our roots, everyone is pretty comfortable here,” said Saik. 

Anyone interested in getting more info about Agri-Trend can look at their website at www.agritrend.com or call (403) 343-8288.