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Manitoba Minister of Agriculture Derek Johnson took a few moments to speak with NACTV’s John Drinkwater at the recent Ag Days in Brandon. Johnson’s family farm has been in the family for seven generations. With his own children working the land, he has a longstanding connection to the agricultural community in the province.

Johnson notes that a few years of drought have been tough on the province, and then this year’s excess moisture in the spring meant lots of acres couldn’t be seeded. Despite this, most producers he talks to, he says, have a positive outlook on their operations. Says Johnson, Manitoba producers are “resilient, progressive, innovative, and resourceful.”

It’s the big agricultural industries choosing to locate to Manitoba that have made him the most optimistic about the future. One of those is the HyLife pork processing plant in Neepawa, which has been a large factor in the growth of the community as a whole. Elsewhere in the province, Roquette has opened the world’s largest pea processing plant in Portage la Prairie this past year. Having the processing industries within the province saves Manitoba farmers a lot of money on the cost of transportation as well as increasing our agricultural output.

Some initiatives the current provincial government has taken to help reduce pressures on farmers include a program to help rebuild herds for those who had to liquidate to remain operational, and incremental rent reductions for leased agricultural crown lands. As well, for livestock producers, the province has increased the number of seats available for veterinary training.

New technologies are always a part of what visitors to Ag Days come to see, and this year one of those was facial recognition technology for sheep, allowing livestock producers to be able to move away from practices like branding or tagging. Johnson says that the government should be doing more to embrace technology such as providing incentives for producers to enable such measures as variable rate fertilizer application.

Overall, despite challenges and setbacks, Johnson sees good prices in place for a lot of Manitoba producers, and promising agricultural growth to come.