Honourable senators, in 1998, Doug and Linda Wray — who ranched and farmed in Irricana, Alberta, about 60 kilometres northeast of Calgary — committed their own quiet act of revolution: They took 1,000 acres of fields that had been used for growing crops and turned the land back to pasture.

In 2024, when buzzwords like “regenerative agriculture” are all the rage, what the Wrays did might not seem radical. But in 1998 — more than a quarter century ago — the Wrays were early adopters of a style of agriculture designed to enrich the soil with carbon and nitrogen and replenish cropland that was losing its fertility.

I’m pretty sure some of their neighbours thought they were crazy. Why take land that grew profitable crops and return it to forage? But the Wrays stuck with it. They planted grasses, clovers and legumes. They adopted new rotational grazing strategies. They fed their soil, and, in turn, the soil fed their cattle. Then the cattle, through what might be politely referred to as “nutrient cycling,” fed the soil in turn.

The Wrays didn’t just enrich their land. They enriched their community. Doug served on the Alberta Forage Council and was one of the founders of the Canadian Forage and Grassland Association and its chair from 2010 to 2015. In 2016, he won the Canadian Forage and Grassland Association Leadership Award. This past summer, Doug and Linda, together with Doug’s nephew Tim and his wife, Joanne, won both the Alberta Beef Producers’ Environmental Stewardship Award and the 2023 National Environmental Stewardship Award from the Canadian Cattle Association.

Shortly after those awards were announced, the Wray Ranch hosted members of the Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry as part of our in-depth study of soil health. We saw first-hand how the Wrays’ forage strategies were allowing them to thrive even in the midst of drought. Their environmental stewardship and mentorship weren’t just serving as an ethical example of how to manage prairie grasslands, reduce the need for irrigation and fertilizer and sequester carbon. Doug and Tim, uncle and nephew, have preserved a ranch that has been in their family since 1909 and turned it into a flourishing fourth-generation operation in the face of climate change.

The Wrays showed the visiting senators tremendous hospitality this past August, and I’m delighted that we in the Senate can return the favour today, as Doug and Linda are in town this week to receive their national award — and in our gallery this afternoon.

Please join me in congratulating them on their achievement and thanking them for their moral and practical leadership and love of the land they tend.