User:Oceanflynn/sandbox/Minister of Agriculture and Forestry of Alberta

Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry of Alberta is the department that is responsible for creating and regulating policies and legislation, and managing the agriculture, food and forestry sectors. The department is also responsible for wildfire and forest management as well monitoring and regulating food quality and safety of food, and collaborating with rural communities to ensure their safety and resilience. The department supports "environmentally sustainable resource management practices" in the Canadian province of Alberta. The current Minister in the 30th Alberta Legislature during the United Conservative Party Premiership of Jason Kenney is Devin Dreeshen (born 1987/1988) who was appointed in 2019.

COVID-19 response
In a December 31, 2020 interview with the Lethbridge Herald, Alberta Federation of Agriculture president Lynn Jacobson, said that there was not much provincial government clarity on public health measures or support for farmers during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to Jacobson, exempting the agricultural sector from masking, sent a mixed message; by the end of December there were many active COVID-19 cases, particularly in the feedlot industry. The High River, Alberta Cargill's facility in Canada, was the site of one of the largest COVID-19 outbreaks in North America with one death and 921 confirmed coronavirus cases among employees—representing about 50 percent of the facility's 2,000 employees. After closing for two weeks, the plant reopened on May 4. By May 6, of the 5,893 confirmed cases in the entire province of Alberta, the province's health services had "linked 1,560 cases to the Cargill facility."

Budget cuts and hundreds of departmental jobs terminated
In both the 2019 and 2020 provincial budgets, there were "massive cuts in the Alberta Agriculture budget.

On November 22, 2020 Alberta Union of Provincial Employees members received notification by mail of the upcoming loss of 190 positions in the agriculture side, including 135 in the Primary Agriculture division at Alberta's Agriculture Ministry. Programs affected include "plant and bee health surveillance, agriculture service boards, and crop assurance extension (including farm safety)."

Under Minister Dreeshen, a new agency—the Results Driven Agriculture Research (RDAR) agency—was formed as the provincial government exited the department's agricultural research programs.

Key provincial research programs, that had previously been undertaken by Alberta Agriculture, were transferred to the University of Alberta, Olds College, the University of Lethbridge, and Lethbridge College, with some government researchers reassigned to these institutions. In October 2020, the nine-person RDAR gave $3.7 million the University of Alberta $3.7 million for taking on four programs and their lead researchers—cereal agronomy, beef genomics and feed efficiency, reproductive management in beef and dairy cattle, and poultry innovation project. By January 2021, has terminated the positions of all soils experts including those who worked on "soil health, quality, fertilizer management, and problem soils", according to a former AG Alberta researcher, Ross McKenzie.

In a January 25, 2021 interview on Real Talk with Real Talk with Ryan Jespersen, McKenzie, by January 23, 2021 another round of terminations took place with an additional 19 more Alberta Agriculture staff "quietly terminated" that week. Minister Dreeshen has terminated over 325 staff and transferred other researchers to "unhappy situations" at four universities and colleges. There have also been layoffs of staff in the agriculture and forestry section of about 600 people. This represents about 50% of the departments. About 90% of the research and extension staff were terminated. By January 2021, regulatory and support staff or managers in Edmonton were the only ones remaining in the department.