My farm-writing colleague Janet Kanters, communications manager at the Beef Information Centre in Alberta, is one of the featured speakers at the second annual Alberta Women in Agriculture dinner and silent auction. Janet is the heart and soul of the Alberta Farm Writers Association — which is sponsoring this year's annual meeting of the Canadian Farm Writers Federation in Edmonton — and recently accepted a new role in the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists, as chair of the communications committee. I found out about Janet's speaking engagement by reading Ropin' The Web, a superb weekly electronic newsletter from Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development, run by two other top-notch women in agricultural communications, Tracey Feist and Lisa Guenther.
OWEN ROBERTS
Owen Roberts is an agricultural journalist and communications instructor based in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. He is a trustee on the Global Foundation for Agricultural Journalism and an associate editor (communications) for the Journal of Agromedicine. Previously, Owen was president of the International Forum for Agricultural Journalists, an agricultural communications faculty member at the University of Illinois, and research communications director at the University of Guelph. His programs and research papers have been recognized through awards from the Journal of Applied Communications, the National Agri-Marketing Association, the Association for Communications Excellence and the Canadian Farm Writers' Federation.