Guest blogger for the week of Dec. 4th - Russell Gammon, Jersey Canada
Holstein World: What are the current stats of Jersey Canada – approx. # of members, cows, etc.? What are the key responsibilities of the association to its members?
Russell Gammon: The Canadian Jersey population contains about 30,000 registered animals. The bulk of Jersey cattle in Canada are registered or recorded. Jersey Canada has over 850 members, processes around 6,500 registrations per year and about 2,500 transfers of ownership per year. About one dozen young sires are sampled per year through progeny test programs - this number is trending upward, as it must. The real exciting part of these statistics is the story behind them!
Our membership total in ten months plus one day in 2006 was at the highest level it has been at in 37 - yes, 37 years! That’s since 1969, almost four decades ago! And, back in 1969 there were eight to nine times as many dairy farms in Canada as there are today! We see this trend continuing as we have this measure of new arrivals to the breed-registration of herd prefixes for the purpose of registering Jersey cattle! In the first ten months of 2006 we processed registration of 154 new herd prefixes! This is over 50% higher than in all of 2005! It is about 100% higher than all of 2004! Please remember that this is 150 new prefixes in an association with about 850 members! We’ve seen over 330 new herd prefixes registered in the latest three years! In ten months of 2006, our memberships were 10% higher than in all of 2005! The “people side” of our business is surging upward!
Key responsibilities:
- Registration and recordation of cattle and processing transfers of ownership - we maintain about a one to two day turnaround on all normal work and much is processed on the day of receipt.
- Producing six issues of the Canadian Jersey Breeder magazine and two issues of the Jersey Insider newsletter per year.
- Maintain and refresh an active, attractive, simple to use website with an online pedigree/performance database
- Work with volunteer committees and the board of Jersey Canada to promote and improve the Jersey breed.
- Constantly introduce technological advances. We now receive and process 33 to 35% of registration applications from electronic submissions. Our goal is 65 to 75% of applications submitted electronically over the next two years.
- Prepare extended pedigrees for marketing and approval processes.
- Lead on international and domestic marketing of Jerseys, genetic improvement of the breed, youth programs, customer/potential client service, follow up and extension work
- Interact with and support four regional Jersey associations
- Provide classification service via a world class, state of the art appraisal service introduced in August 2005. This service is multi-breed and is administered and delivered by Holstein Canada
- Ensure genetic evaluations provided by Canadian Dairy Network for Jerseys in Canada are valid, accurate and world class. Thankfully CDN does a super job!
In short we provide information in easily usable forms so users can make progress and enhance profit. To quote a former President of Jersey Canada, Gary Bowers from Quebec:
“Jersey Canada’s job is to make the word ‘Jersey’ as highly visible as possible!” That about sums it all up in less than 15 words!
Holstein World: Share with our readers a little bit about your background. What experiences and achievements have brought you to your position as Executive Secretary?
Russell Gammon: I was born on the scenic north shore of Nova Scotia in rural Pictou County sometime in the last century. I was the eldest grandson of two sets of hard-working very small scale (a dozen cows or less) dairy farmers. My paternal grandparents had grade Ayrshires and once, a Holstein! One of my earliest memories is being scared out of my wits by two REALLY BIG Guernsey cows while visiting at my Nana Barnard’s after Poppa B had passed away!
All of my six or seven 4-H calves were Ayrshires and most all of them were from the well-respected Mornglow herd owned by the nearby Clark family. I spent my summers slinging hay bales and learning to love the purebred cow business at Mornglow. A natural progression was commencing a Bachelor of Science degree at Nova Scotia Agricultural College and completing it at the Ontario Agriculture College at the University of Guelph. I did spend one summer as Ontario Guernsey Fieldman and then almost three years back working at NSAC where I also did considerable work with the Nova Scotia Joint Dairy Breeds-Ayrshire, Guernsey and Jersey.
In mid-June 1981 I joined the staff of Jersey Canada as Assistant Editor of the Canadian Jersey Breeder magazine, was named Editor in November 1982, Secretary in November 1985 and executive secretary in March 1991.
I love meeting new people and seeing new farms, bite into new and challenging situations with great relish, love cows and seeing really good ones, am a voluminous writer-my favorite form of communication, have been blessed to do lots of continental and international and really thrive on that and am one of the world’s greatest fans of Jersey Island where I have a small two head herd - Le Patois Jerseys.
Two other experiences which have marked me and made being Executive Secretary easier are seventeen seasons as a very part time classifier of dairy goats for the Canadian Goat Society and since early 1996 multiple trips to the fourth world country of Haiti. From experiences in Haiti with our work there in adult literacy program (www.partnerswithpurpose.com), the more I’ve been impressed that we can do so much with the opportunities we have here in the first world and that we do live in such a state of absolutely constant overflow! I’ve learned not to take for granted any of the innumerable blessings we enjoy every day, have been filled with enthusiasm for the life I live and have taken as one of my personal mottos “Thanksgiving is our dialect” and it should be!
Holstein World: Make sure to tune in all this week as we visit with Russell on subjects regarding marketing, the border, crossbreeding and more! For additional information on Jersey Canada, check out www.jerseycanada.com.