Three are headed to farming hall of fame
Linda Braun, Robin Morrall and Pat Beaujot will be inducted into the Saskatchewan Agricultural Hall of Fame later this year, SAHF announced at the CropSphere conference in Saskatoon earlier this week. Three other inductees were announced in November at Canadian Western Agribition in Regina.
Braun has worked in the agricultural food industry for almost 40 years. A graduate from the College of Home Economics at the University of Saskatchewan, Braun has worked to promote many Saskatchewan food products, including pork, pulse crops and flax.
As executive director of Sask Flax from 1997 to 2014, she participated in the development and approval from Health Canada of a health claim for flax seed and advocated for the increased use of flax fibre. She also helped to remove the genetically modified variety CDC Triffid from the Canadian flax supply. Braun was also one of the founders of the CropSphere conference.
Morrall is recognized nationally and internationally for his work on plant diseases. His pioneering research has served as a foundation for controlling sclerotinia stem rot in canola and ascochyta blight in lentils, chickpeas and field peas in Western Canada. Morrall was a professor of plant pathology in the Department of Biology at the University of Saskatchewan from 1965 to 1997.
After his official retirement from the U of S, he continued to provide expertise on disease diagnosis and management as an emeritus professor and as an expert on seed borne diseases for Discovery Seed Labs of Saskatoon.
Beaujot is a pioneer of direct seeding movement in Western Canada. He co-developed an independent hydraulic pressure opener and seeded the first crop with it in 1992. With the success of the machine, Beaujot quit his job at Simplot to focus on a new manufacturing business called Seed Hawk.
By the late 1990s, Seed Hawk was employing up to 30 people from the Langbank area. Employment grew to 250 over the next 15 years, as large, high-capacity carts with independent depth control openers became the industry standard. In 2014, Seed Hawk was sold to Vaderstad of Europe. But the manufacturing plant remains at Langbank and Beaujot continues to look for ways to improve farming practices.
Braun, Morrall and Beaujot will join respected veterinarian Byrnne Rothwell (posthumous), hog industry advocate Florian Possberg and Agribition founder Barry Andrew (posthumous) as the inductees for 2016.
The induction ceremony will take place on Aug. 6 at the Western Development Museum in Saskatoon, which houses the Saskatchewan Agricultural Hall of Fame.