DO YOU SOCIAL MEDIA? (cont’d from Part III) Don’t get me wrong. I loved what I was doing as an academic researcher, but I found myself feeling a bit disconnected from the real world. I felt isolated in that ivory tower and I didn’t always ‘fit in’. I was hungry to connect with public, with...

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AN UNEXPECTED LIFE (cont’d from Part II): But guess what? I had two kids to raise. And to say that they saved my life is an understatement. They breathed life back into me. They alone are what drove me to seek out a brighter path. Our little family eventually healed. Therapy helped. By 1994, I...

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THE DARK YEARS (cont’d from Part I): At the time, I was 8 months pregnant. And while the farm boy and I came out of that hit and run accident relatively unscathed, our son Abraham didn’t survive. We were both heartbroken and emotionally bankrupt. I’m sure that there are a few of you out there...

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How does a girl from small town Saskatchewan, Canada, find her way through life and end up working at the headquarters of a multinational crop science company in St Louis, Missouri? I’d like to tell you that it was a straight path; you know – ‘as the crow flies’. I’d like to tell you that...

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I was invited to the American Farm Bureau (AFBF) Convention in January to give a keynote at the Communicate, Connect, and Influence program hosted by the AFBF Promotion & Education Committee. I also led a couple of breakout sessions on this very topic: having those tough conversations. Here’s what we learned… Our conversations about agriculture and food production frequently escalate into arguments at key moments — moments where we feel we have been aggrieved, mistreated…

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Sustainable thinking for sustainable agricultural systems.  This week, I was part of an organized symposium at the 10th International IPM Conference in Denver, Colorado. The session was organized by my friend and colleague, Amy LeMay, from Brock University in Canada. Our session brought together scientists and social scientists from public and private settings to explore...

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The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is popping up on the media radar again. Because of this, I thought it timely to re-post some of old news to provide a bit more context to the new news. FOIA. For me, it’s personal. May, 2016. Several weeks ago, I was notified by my alma mater (the University of Saskatchewan) that the US Right to Know (USRTK) had submitted an Access To Information Act (ATIP) request seeking…

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We have an information banquet at our finger tips.  It’s a feast for the eyes and the ears; a smorgasbord of colour, content and a constant (sometimes annoying) presence in our lives.  Information has become the new flavourful, colourful commodity that dominates our lives and it’s shared on a fast-moving and highly-connected supply chain. Here are some statistical ‘appetizers’ for you: 3.5 Billion people use social media every dayFacebook is the most widely used platform…

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Hello Build Up Dietitians community! Thank you for inviting me into your virtual living room this Friday, July 24th at noon EST to chat about DISINFORMATION! To prepare for our lively discussion, feel free to check out the sources below… 1) blog post, 2) academic paper, 3) SciPod podcast, 4) twitter threads. 1) This blog post from LinkedIn The bad stuff is always easier to believe: disinformation, modern ag, and societies is a good introduction…

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