Manitoba Agriculture Central Region crop meetings a big success

Manitoba Agriculture (MA) recently wrapped up a series of Central Region Crop meetings.

"It went tremendously well!" said Callum Morrison, Crop Production Extension Specialist.

The turnout demonstrated the reach of these gatherings noted Morrison.

"We started in Balder, moved along to Carman and then finished in Gladstone. I was pleasantly surprised by the number of farmers who attended each meeting. Carman was our most popular with producers coming from 17 different rural municipalities. To some of the meetings, producers had come from over an hour away to attend. That was wonderful to see. I think some producers were really excited; some were just curious to see what was going on and to hear from some of our great Manitoba Agriculture speakers."

The morning meetings drew a total of 52 producers from the Rural Municipalities of Dufferin, Grey, Morris, Thompson, Portage, Pembina, Roland, Stanley, and Rhineland.

 

MB Ag Farm management Specialist Wendy Durand addresses the topic, ‘Finding profit in 2024’ to a room full of local farmers at the Carman Legion.

According to evaluation forms handed in by those in attendance, most producers thought the information provided was very useful.

"Producers are always interested in John Gavloski, our provincial entomologist. He brings in his little preserved bugs which have got pins in them. People also found it very important to hear from our provincial weed expert who was coming in to talk to us how to control kochia. Many people as well found it very beneficial to hear from David Kaminski about clubroot."

 

Entomologist John Gavloski shows interested producers some of his field crop insects – both beneficial and pest!

Producers also heard talks by other MA staff, including Roy Arnott, Manager - Farm Management and Wendy Durand, Farm Management Specialist (Finding Profit in 2024), and Kim Brown-Livingston, Weeds Specialist (Weeds to Watch for in Manitoba and Control Options).

Morrison feels it's important for producers to get to know Manitoba Agriculture staff and to connect with fellow farmers.

"A lot of these connections, you might not think about it at the time, but they can come in useful. It's good to benchmark and kind of see what other producers are doing in your area. I think there's a lot of things you're not thinking about necessarily, but long term, you realize it was beneficial."

While there's a lot of work is involved in organizing these meetings, Morrison expects to see a return on his efforts in the future.

"It was great to hear from the farmers: honestly, what worked well, what could be improved and what they'd like to see in future. I'm looking forward to working on what they've told me, so then we can continue to improve these meetings and make them very useful to farmers in the future. But above all, I just really love getting out to all these different communities and meeting the producers. That was all fantastic!"

Producers were keen to suggest new locations for future meetings. 

"I'm really taking that advice on board and I'm going to see where it takes us. Next year I would like to visit other communities. I'm really hoping to do Altona, for example. That's where I live. I think the producers here would really love if we could come out here as well."

Morrison adds that the meetings are a great way for producers to become aware of all the work Manitoba Agriculture does every year to assist the agricultural industry, such as conducting regular pest, weed and disease surveys and producing annual cost of productions as well as online tools and calculators which producers can use.

~With files from Candace Derksen~