Again… It’s hard to believe that summer is over ☹ At least, the weather is telling us that.

Lori and I had a very busy summer. Our daughter, Ellie, was married on the farm and we’re so grateful to welcome Hugo into our family. They are both back in South Korea now teaching English as a second language.

More OSCIA-related, we hosted the Summer Meeting 2025. It was a big project but very much worth it, and I could not have done it without the help of our team: Stacey, Nicole, Kathleen, Lorie, Emily and Matt. I also want to thank all our local and Georgian Central members for attending. It means a lot to me.

Our staff complement is near complete at our provincial office with the recent hiring of our new Executive Director, Kerry Wright. Kerry’s background and experience in both not-for-profits as well as private consulting firms lends itself very well to serving our members and administering the programs already in progress.

Congratulations to Bruce County on their successful Mystery Bus Tour. I also particularly enjoyed Grey County’s tour of a dairy farm and canola field, co-hosted with the Ontario Canola Growers Association. Well done.

We are still accepting applications for the RALP program. Please visit https://programguides.ontariosoilcrop.org/ for more information.

As always, my hats off to Emily McKague and Lorie Smith for their dedication as our RCC. We also want to welcome Elora Tarlo to the RCC team at Grey Ag Services. Elora brings a wealth of knowledge and experience.

Hopefully, you will have visited our OSCIA tent at COFS the week of Sept 9-11 and have taken advantage of the free breakfast each day!

Please stay safe to finish off this crop season.

Very best to all,
Andy

Andy van Niekerk, P.Ag.

Provincial Director, Georgian Central