Acme student, Emmett Sawyer is once again making headlines in his post-secondary career.

He recently won first place in the senior category at the Canadian Young Speakers for Agriculture Competition earlier this month in Toronto.

"The competition was at the same time as the Royal Winter Fair. I spoke on educating urban populations about where food comes from, and the industry standards involved," explained Sawyer, who is currently enrolled in the Bachelor of Arts in Agriculture program at the University of Lethbridge.

Each competitor had a number of topics they could choose from to talk about, including "food processing trends and market opportunities", "local opportunities for micro food processing", and "what is the next big thing in agriculture?'

"In my speech, I talked about the urban and rural divide, and how that impacts agriculture. They generally listen to public pressure instead of referring to science when they are making decisions related to agriculture," continued Sawyer. "I have been trying to start a podcast relating to agriculture, to not only connect with our youth but people in the agricultural industry, as well as our urban neighbours."

The competition seen 29 youth aged 11- 24 from all over Canada to speak on various topics about the agriculture industry.

"Three of the seniors were from Alberta, and then there was some from British Columbia, Ontario, Manitoba, so we had a great big spread of speakers. There were also people from the bigger urban centres. They brought a really interesting perspective to agriculture. They thought about it from being in the city, and their types of ideas on what we can do to better agriculture," concluded Sawyer.

He also mentioned that Albertans have won in the senior category for the last four years, and he was happy to keep that tradition going.

 

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