By Becky Zimmer
Canadian farm writers continue to make a powerful global impact on the agricultural industry, including strong showings at International Federation of Agriculture Journalists (IFAJ) congresses, meetings, and PD sessions, as well as other international opportunities that our members find for themselves.
These experiences help all IFAJ members grow our networks, learn more about our craft, and observe first hand what agricultural issues are impacting the globe, let alone the economies and environments of our own countries and regions.
With the rising costs of living and pay rates continuing to fall, not to mention the cost of
life-changing professional travel opportunities, farm writers both new and experienced are faced with the growing challenge of finding funding for career expanding passion projects and international network building.
Our recent Canadian Farm Writers Federation professional development session brought this issue to the forefront of our organization. Craig Lester and Michelle Chunyua were available to chat about their experiences with making the invaluable statement: “please sir, I want some more (money).”
Lester has had a “crash course” in learning how to ask for funding in the past few years as part of his Nuffield Scholar project, as a co-owner of a media and communication company, and through his volunteer work with the Alberta Farm Writers’ Association, Canadian Farm Writers’ Federation (CFWF), IFAJ, and other local programs.
For him, it starts with mapping out who could benefit from his potential experience. Everyone is looking for content for their social media, magazines, or newsletters, so he advised people to make a list of possible asks and work your way through it, said Lester.
“If you can identify certain topics that you think certain organizations would match up really well with, you can go to those organizations and say, Hey, I’m attending this event in Kenya, and they’re talking about greenhouses gas emissions, and I could write an article for your thing in exchange for either A) paying me to write that article, or B) for a sponsorship.”
Asking for Nuffield sponsors, Lester saw organizations that were more interested in the professional development itself rather than topic-specific content, but he used that as a bargaining tool; whatever he learned along the way, he was more than happy to share his take ways through webinars or in-person conversations with the companies that supported him. This had long-term impacts for Lester as well.
“That opportunity to come and sit in front of people and talk to them actually allowed me to get to know everyone on the sponsor organizations better. That only helped me with further work down the road.”
Chunyua attended her first IFAJ Congress in Denmark in 2022, followed by congresses in Canada, Switzerland, and Kenya. As the communications lead at Alberta Canola, these congresses have been an interesting sell to her executive team.
Asking her employer for funding required her to connect, in this case IFAJ Congresses, to her roles and responsibilities as a communicator. Framing the discussion around returns on investments (ROI) has been an important point to present when asking her boss for funding, said Chunyua.
“It’s at least $5,000. That is a lot of money for them to invest for you to go to a conference, right? So how will your participation bring back value back to the team?”
Using IFAJ to connect with peers, develop new story ideas, commitment to knowledge transfer through newsletters or presentations has been how Chunyua pitches funding asks to her workplace. When IFAJ came to Canada in 2023, Chunyua was able to “raise the organization’s profile,” she said, through social media content and the organization sponsoring a tour.
According to the Canadian government, over 21 million acres of canola are produced annually, primarily in the western provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Being Canada’s second-largest acreage crop, Canadian farmers generated “$12.9 billion in farm cash receipts in 2024, making it the most valuable principal field crop.”
Working in the canola industry, everything is happening right in Chunyua’s backyard, but that doesn’t mean Canadian farmers are the only ones talking about canola. Ninety per cent of Canadian canola is exported, and whether it’s market issues, environmental concerns, or economic challenges, being a part of the agricultural conversation is a strong selling point for Chunyua as she plans her travel budget.
“I get to talk to a lot of people about the issues and find out if other industries or other commodity groups in the industry are facing the same issues, and how they are dealing with such issues.”
Since 2022, CFWF has held six yearly PD sessions to connect our members with vital information about everything from the value of mentorship, the incoming challenges of AI communication and writing tools, and mental health in the agriculture industry. For each session, one of our regional organizations takes the lead in the planning and execution.
Our asking for funding session was organized by the Saskatchewan Farm Writers’ Association.