Market access was big concern for farmers in 2019.

During his year-end interview, Manitoba's Minister of Agriculture and Resource Development Blaine Pedersen gave us an update on what's happening with China.

"The technical review committee is meeting with Chinese officials in China. They did get an invitation and we have a representative from Manitoba on that committee. They're meeting with China about the canola. Canola is still moving into China, albeit a slower pace. That's still a real concern to us. We're very much for free and open trade."

Those meetings were scheduled to take place earlier this week.

Another concern addressed during the interview was the difficult year faced by livestock producers, and the shortage of feed heading into the winter.

"This is why we're looking at the whole Business Risk Management (BRM) suite of programs," explained Pedersen. "Traditionally cattle producers, we have very low uptake on both the forage insurance and on AgriStability within the cow-calf sector. I know that Manitoba Agricultural Services Corporation (MASC) has been meeting with Manitoba Beef Producers and certainly want to understand, why there's such a low uptake of the forage insurance from the cattle producers' side."

He also talked about key priorities heading into 2020.

"We'll continue on our Protein Strategy. The summit was held this past September," said Pedersen. "We're looking at expanded processing facilities opening across the province in 2020 and we understand there could be more in the works. Our food processing industry continues to grow, the dairy industry is continuing to grow."

Pedersen was named Minister of Agriculture and Resource Development back in October, replacing Lakeside MLA Ralph Eichler.