Manitoba's Agriculture Minister Ralph Eichler says trade will be a key focus heading in to 2018.

"As we watch with CETA and TPP in particular, I see this as an opportunity to capitalize on some of those other markets that we haven't developed yet," he commented. "But the ones we have, it's easy to take the low lying fruit, if you will, in particular on our export markets and the animal protein side of things to capitalize on those. Certainly we've been trying to assist those companies in making sure their ready to go and certainly they've been working hard to meet that export demand, so we're happy to partner with them in order to ensure that they have their things in place to make sure they're ready to hit the marketplace."

Eichler will give his 2018 Agricultural Outlook at Manitoba Ag Days at the Keystone Centre in Brandon on January 16.