The Alberta Pulse Growers (APG) selected the organization’s founding president, Lud Prudek, as the recipient of the first Alberta Pulse Industry Innovator Award in celebration of APG’s 25 years as a crop commission.

“As APG marked a quarter of a century in 2014, we wanted to recognize a person whose progressive thinking and tireless efforts helped build Alberta’s pulse industry from the ground up,” said outgoing APG Chair Richard Krikke. “I cannot think of a more deserving recipient for the inaugural award than APG’s first president, Lud Prudek. He is truly an industry innovator.”

Prudek was one of Alberta’s first growers of dry edible beans in the 1960s after moving to Bow Island when irrigation first came to the area. He became a partner in Alberta Bean Growers Ltd. He was involved in the formation of the Alberta Pulse Growers Association in 1979, and served as Zone 1 director while guiding the move to becoming a commission in 1989. Prudek then served as APG’s first president. Prudek was known for his passion for research, particularly plant breeding. He also focused on sustainability and the importance of crop sequencing during his career. He was inducted in the Alberta Agriculture Hall of Fame in 2002.

Prudek travelled from his home in Idaho to attend the award presentation during APG’s Annual General Meeting today at FarmTech 2015 in Edmonton. He said that he was very surprised to hear that he was chosen as the first recipient of the annual Industry Innovator Award sponsored by ATB Financial, and insisted that the great strides made by pulse growers in Alberta were a team effort.

“I’ve had an extraordinarily interesting experience all through my life,” Prudek said. “I’ve been so fortunate to know so many wonderful people and it has been a privilege to be a partner in the Alberta Pulse Growers. In any of these major accomplishments, you can give credit to one individual, but you always have to have an enormous team to make it work. If you don’t have that team and someone to inspire them, you’re not going to get anywhere.”