Scientists educate public at research centre open house

By Delon Shurtz - Lethbridge Herald on July 19, 2024.

Herald photos by Delon Shurtz Rohan Murli, Kareena Vanhorne and Risha Murli of Calgary, learn about the impacts of pests on agriculture during the Lethbridge Research and Development Centre's open house.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDdshurtz@lethbridgeherald.com

Karen Schwartzkopf-Genswein is not your typical scientist. In fact, she could be considered a rarity.

Oh, sure, stand her next to other research scientists at the Lethbridge Research and Development Centre in Lethbridge and you won’t see any differences. Afterall, how can you tell the difference between one scientist and another? So it’s not how she looks, but what she does that sets her apart from her colleagues.

Schwartzkopf-Genswein is a beef welfare scientist. You read that correctly. She is a senior research scientist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, and specializes in beef cattle physiology and welfare.

It’s a real thing. Her research includes pain/stress assessment and mitigation strategies associated with routine management procedures such as transport, castration, dehorning, and lameness in cattle.

During an open house Thursday at the Lethbridge Research and Development Centre, Schwartzkopf-Genswein shared information about livestock transportation and even gave tours inside a cattle liner – a very clean cattle liner – while she explained the importance of her relatively unknown field of expertise and her research, including the impacts of long-distance transportation.

Schwartzkopf-Genswein was only one of many research scientists participating in the open house, which attracted hundreds of southern Albertans to the research centre and offered guided tours, presentations and demonstrations to help people understand the importance and impact of the work being done at the centre.

“The intention…is to get an opportunity to expose them to some of the agricultural research we are engaged in here at the research centre,” said Shaun Cook, associate director of research development and technology.

“The work that we do here in research is really about influencing innovation in agricultural production,” Cook said, noting that includes food safety and ensuring agriculture producers have the tools they need to be efficient and meet production standards.

“There’s a lot of work, a lot of science, that goes on behind the scenes that can really help to change the way that food is produced in more efficient and productive ways, with some of the environmental concerns at the forefront of that these days.”

Over the past decade, research has evolved from solely applied production-related research and crop development to include areas of crop and livestock biotechnology, food safety, animal health and welfare, and human health impacts of agriculture. The research focuses on issues related to beef production systems, particularly beef cattle production and finishing, crop genetics and sustainable production systems under dryland and irrigated conditions, and environmental issues associated with farming in a semi-arid climate.

Visitors at the open house learned about much of that, and more as they explored the centre and viewed numerous displays, took bus tours of a controlled environmental barn, livestock handling facilities and field plots, and learned about greenhouse gas measurements. They also watched irrigation demonstrations and experienced drone remote-sensing.

The open house also included a speaker series in which scientists discussed various topics ranging from estimating greenhouse gases on Canadian farms and antimicrobial resistance from a health perspective, to bugs’ impact on plants and cultivating climate-resilient crops.

Organizers seemed to think of everything that might interest its visitors, and even had food trucks on hand. But most importantly, Cook hopes the open house educated people about the important work going on at the research centre.

“First and foremost informing people that they walk away a little bit more knowledgeable about what we do,” Cook said. “And honestly there’s an internal benefit to this, too. It’s an opportunity for our staff, who are really proud of their work, to be able to showcase some of that.”