EDMONTON -- Two Edmontonians have been named as 2020 Nuffield Canada Scholars for their work and leadership in agriculture.
The $15,000-scholarship includes travel, study and access to a worldwide network of farmers and growers.
Nuffield Canada awarded four scholarships for 2020.
Dawn Trautman, who works with Alberta Innovates, was awarded the Alberta Wheat Commission Scholarship. She specializes in smart agriculture and food innovation and plans to focus her study on applying smart technologies to the industry.
"This might mean what's best for a particular producer, this might be looking at addressing what's preventing people from adopting these technologies," Trautman explained. "Trying to smooth that communication of what is available and what might be useful."
She said there are financial challenges to adopting smart technologies, plus the added challenge of deciding what is best suited to a particular producer or program with so many new options available all the time.
"I think we have a really big opportunity to optimize our production systems and be able to provide some of those resources for our citizens here in Canada and Alberta but also around the world," Trautman said.
Andrew Rosychuk, a first generation farmer, was awarded the Nuffield Canada Alumni Fund Scholarship.
His study will focus on helping producers add value to their products.
"I'm going to go travel the world to learn about farmers that have been successful as well as failed or haven't been as successful," Rosychuk told CTV News Edmonton. "[My study will] help other farmers be able to take their product and be more than just an ingredient, be more than a commodity."
He hopes to help other new farmers make their farms more sustainable.
Nuffield Canada was established in 1986. Scholarship recipients become part of a global alumni network of more than 1,700 members.
