That may play into why Precision Planting’s CornerStone row unit was awarded one of several first prizes at Manitoba Ag Days’s Innovation Showcase awards in January.

WHY IT MATTERS: With today’s expensive seed and inputs, farmers want to maximize the chance the seed they put in the ground will emerge and yield.

The CornerStone is a fully customizable row unit that can be retrofit on any planter of a standard height which uses a seven-by-seven-inch planter bar.

“We’ve taken all the different benefits to each row unit on an OEM (original equipment manufacturer) platform and kind of tweaked it and added it into this one,” said Andrew Kippen, managing director with North Valley Precision Planting, a Manitoba-based provider of the piece of equipment.

Several of Precision Planting’s selling features come standard on the CornerStone row unit. The list the company hopes will entice farmers includes double-banded fertilizer placement, a two-stage closing system, plus a DuraWear gauge wheel arm and parallel arm pivot bushing systems.

Nitrogen placement can be applied in either a single or double band beside the seed row.

When it comes to seed management, the CornerStone uses Precision Planting’s electric vDrive motor and vSet seed metering system, which can be connected to an ISOBUS display.

On depth settings, Kippen said that farmers “can fine-tune the adjustment to the point of adjusting everything exactly the same across the planter.”

The CornerStone is one option on that upgrade path.

“A lot of guys are figuring out, how do I make better use of my capital?” said Crampton.

The CornerStone also markets itself on user friendliness, including the ability to easily remove parts.

The company points to its hopper design as an example. Each hopper is attached by a hinge. This allows the hopper to move out of the way of work or maintenance or to remove remaining seed. It’s available in three sizes: mini, 1.6-bushel and three-bushel.

“At the end of the day, if you had seed left over, it tips over centre,” said Kippen. “so we can actually pour it out and empty it very easily.”

“We want to have a row unit that, when there’s a problem, a customer can diagnose it easily and fix it themselves without relying on a dealership to have to come out,” he added.

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Prairie Grain Analyzers’ Automatic Auger Sampler automatically takes grain samples from a grain auger while it’s running.

WHY IT MATTERS: This system allows farmers to take samples even more representative of their crop’s overall grade and condition (and has Manitoba roots).

The company’s grain auger-mounted device won first place in the Farm Built Solutions category in the Innovation Showcase at Manitoba Ag Days in January.

“It works by a simple mechanism that opens and closes to get you representative sampling of any grain that is taken through auger, grain leg, grain bagger or hopper bin,” said Chris Hendrickson, director of international business development with Prairie Grain Analyzers.

The device doesn’t require any modification to the auger itself, employing instead different sizes of inspection plates to fit a variety of brands of augers.

“That’s one of the really nice features about it,” said Hendrickson.

How it works

A pair of dials on the face of the device allows the operator to set the amount of the grain sample being taken, and the interval.

The auger’s size, its rate of flow and the type of grain collected determine how large a sample an operator will have at the end of the unload.

“We take the human error out of it,” Hendrickson said. “The auger sampler simply gets set to its parameters and it just runs.”

The device runs on a 12-volt DC connection and can be spliced into the auger’s power supply.

Hendrickson feels its Automatic Auger Sampler offers a quality-of-life improvement.

Operators need not stand in a cloud of grain dust to just get a grain sample and removes the possibility that a grower may forget to take a regular grain sample.

Hendrickson said the next step for the sampler is to integrate automatic moisture testing into the device.

“It’s not just going to take representative samples,” said Hendrickson.“It’s going to analyze those samples immediately after.”

The company also offers several portable and stationary devices that analyze grain moisture separately.

Pre-weighing or cleaning of the sample isn’t necessary.

“They’re designed for people to use,” said Hendrickson, “You simply fill up a cup … level it off, dump it into the tester, and it’s as simple as that. From there you get moisture, temperature and test weight of any crop.”

The testers come pre-calibrated with all major crops recognized by the Canadian Grain Commission or the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Results can be printed out via the analyzer itself — or, if a user prefers, results can be shared to a smartphone via an app.

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Last January, the mood was dominated by a single question: What would Donald Trump do next? The then-president elect’s inauguration was imminent. He had promised steep tariffs on Canada, and those tariff threats loomed over every conversation. Walking the aisles, I heard worry in farmers’ voices and saw it in tense expressions.

Some dismissed the anxiety as political bluster. Others quietly hoped Trump’s unpredictability might work in Canada’s favour. The Keystone Centre felt like a place of waiting, of held breath.

This year, it felt like the anxiety had shifted and deepened. The U.S. was no longer the only concern. China now loomed large — not as a distant market, but as an unpredictable and powerful force. Again, there had been big news, with Canada’s agreement-in-principle with China having just been announced days earlier. Conversations moved beyond Trump’s whims to broader questions of resilience, diversification and Canada’s reliance on traditional markets. The mood was no longer one of waiting, but quiet determination.

Outside of the ever-present topic of last year’s harvests, people were talking about ongoing tariffs on Canadian pork and cautious optimism around canola. Canola duties were promised to ease by March. Peas and canola meal had been promised tariff relief through 2026 and Canadian beef was inching back into China after a four-year halt.

Pork, however, remained subject to a 25 per cent tariff — costing Manitoba producers an estimated $100 million annually. Canola oil wasn’t part of the deal.

It’s a reminder that trade wins are often partial and fragile.

One of the most talked-about presentations came from U.S. analyst Jacob Shapiro. He urged farmers to tune out social media, stop worrying about Trump and to focus instead on what markets actually demand. That shift — from political anxiety to strategic thinking — echoed across Ag Days.

Manitoba Agriculture Minister Ron Kostyshyn emphasized domestic and interprovincial collaboration, framing trade uncertainty as a catalyst for innovation rather than defeat. The message was clear: Canadian agriculture can shape its own future.

Covering Ag Days for the second year in a row, the contrast was striking. Last year felt reactive. This year felt proactive. The narrative had shifted from fear to foresight, from uncertainty to agency.

If Ag Days 2026 proved anything, it’s that Manitoba’s farmers aren’t just surviving global trade turbulence, they’re learning how to navigate it on their own terms.

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The news came after disease investigations in the Netherlands, according to a Jan. 23 article published on Science.org. Officials found antibodies — evidence of prior infection — in a dairy cow’s milk. Officials thought to test cattle after a dead cat on a farm in the northern province of Friesland was found to have been killed by the H5N1 bird flu virus.

Veterinarians collected blood and milk samples from cattle. They did not find the virus itself, although the antibody finding suggested a recent flu contraction in that animal.

So far, there’s been no evidence cattle from other farms have been infected, the Netherlands agriculture minister said.

WHY IT MATTERS: Dairy cases of bird flu spread rapidly through the U.S. starting in 2024, infecting animals and leveling an economic hit to American dairy farms. Canada has not found any cases in its dairy herd so far.

Canada continues to be spared from dairy bird flu, despite proximity of the U.S. where, at one point in 2024, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration did a survey in which one in five retail milk samples sampled found killed remnants of the virus.

Containment efforts have since gained considerable ground. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has reported no new cattle cases in the last 30 days.

But the recent Dutch infection is a reminder that bovine bird flu isn’t flapping its way into the history books just yet.

Cases haven’t quite cut off in the U.S. — there was one in Wisconsin as recently as December, although summer 2025 saw a distinct slowdown. In total, the U.S. outbreak has spanned 1,084 cases across 19 states since March 2024.

“It was quiet over the summer, which is expected with influenza viruses. This started to change in the fall, again this is typical for influenza viruses,” says Stacey Schultz-Cherry, of the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., in an email to the Co-operator.

Schultz-Cherry and her fellow investigators are learning more about the virus and how it mutates. The HPAI strains in question — belonging to avian flu clade 2.3.4.4b — appear to differ from other bird flu types in their ability to infect and replicate in respiratory and mammary cells from cows and other species.

“The reasons appear to be a mix of changes in the viruses as well as what happens to the cells during infection,” she says.

“For example, our studies suggest that the bovine strains rapidly kill the respiratory, but not mammary epithelial cells. We are trying to better understand why this is happening.”

The research has split off into several avenues, including how humans are infected and how immune history to other kinds of influenza may protect people if exposed to the new bird flu strains.

Could have been worse

Bovine bird flu’s footprint has been sizable, but it could have been far worse, says University of Guelph veterinary professor Shayan Sharif.

The main reasons it didn’t, Sharif said, is a credit to the U.S. veterinarians and agencies who identified, studied and contained the virus as securely as possible. However, he added, it may have been a miracle it was discovered in the first place. Dairy cattle in the southern U.S. had been getting sick for some time before anyone thought to test for bird flu.

“I don’t know if it was serendipity that they connected clinical science in dairy cows to HPAI, because that would not have been he first thing that would come to anyone’s mind, because what they saw wasn’t anything very specific for a disease,” Sharif noted.

“What they saw was that cows were experiencing lack of appetite, dropping their milk production (and the) milk looked funny.”

Sharif calls the virus “unique” and — strong containment protocols by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) aside — he still wonders why it never slipped across the Canada-U.S. border to Canadian dairy cattle.

Wild birds are a known vector of the disease. Such migratory birds don’t recognize borders and, depending on species, travel back and forth between the U.S. and Canada on a biannual basis.

“It became something that was predominantly present in U.S. flyways and it seems to have been something really specifically in the U.S., because there is no mention of it (infecting dairy cattle) in any other parts of the globe (or) in Canada,” said Sharif — at least until the evidence from the Netherlands was found.

“It wasn’t because we didn’t look for it hard enough. We did actually look for it very carefully, but it was nowhere to be found,” he said.

Key bird flu discoveries

Sharif also commends USDA, APHIS and others involved in the response for quickly identifying risk factors, including possible animal-to-animal transmission vectors such as cow-to-cow, cow-to-calf and cows to other animals, such as barn cats and birds.

To name one example, they learned it could be spread from cow to cow through milking machines and other dairy barn equipment.

“That was, I would say, one of the best sets of studies that were done in the U.S. that led to the discovery that the virus can be spread from cow to cow,” Sharif says.

Transmission from cows to humans was also determined to be a low-level possibility, although it was reported in those exposed to dairy cattle and other livestock.

“It also became clear that humans that are in contact with the virus usually catch the virus through their conjunctiva (pink eye),” explains Sharif.

“Some of them become infected through the respiratory system, but it’s primarily because of the conjunctiva in in their eyes that they become infected.

“So if you have PPE (personal protective equipment) — for example goggles, gloves, coveralls and so on — you could actually protect yourself.”

Another component — one confirmed by the CFIA during the outbreak — was the role of pasteurization in preventing the spread of the virus to human consumers.

”They did a whole series of studies looking at milk and its capacity for harbouring the virus and what can be done in order to reduce the risk of virus transmission through milk such as … through pasteurization,” Sharif notes.

Finally, he commends U.S. and Canadian authorities for taking a risk-based approach to the outbreak.

Canada’s response included tightening the border for U.S. dairy cattle. Livestock fairs and exhibitions were also cancelled in the U.S. and greater scrutiny was placed around animal movement to reduce spread.

“They did it based on risk assessment of what this could pose to both human and also animal populations. So I think overall, it was a job well done, and I think that in Canada, the CFIA has done a really good job to ensure that the virus doesn’t come to Canada,” Sharif says.

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Kristen Phillips, Manitoba Ag Days’ general manager, says the competition has become an annual highlight of the show.

“With seven categories, it is easy to judge similar products against each other — but the judges’ jobs were not easy this year,” she says.

CLICK HERE for more of our coverage from Ag Days.

Leading the machinery category was first place winner North Valley Precision Planting. The Homewood-based firm specializes in marketing the latest precision planting technology. Its entry this year was the CornerStone Planter Ready Row Unit.

The unit is a custom-built planting system with integrated precision planting hardware. It promises “unmatched ease of in-field use, simple adjustments for changing planting conditions, and best-in-class durability and service.”

Second place in the category was another Manitoba company, Farm & Sky Tech, with its Drone Tender.

The Drone Tender is a fully modular, 22-foot mobile flight deck, engineered to support precision aerial spraying and mapping operations. Built with large-scale agricultural efficiency in mind, it is capable of servicing up to four applicator drones simultaneously.

Minding business

ClearCost, from Saskatchewan, took first place in the Ag Business category. Its fertilizer trading software aims to give growers better information in what can be an opaque market.

The system provides farmers with a range of quoted prices, from domestic and international dealers, translated into prices quoted for delivery to their bin yard.

AgPro WorkWear of Ontario took second place for Ag Business. They’re makers of women’s agricultural work wear, and their highest profile product is an agricultural overall designed for women.

Made with a “true women’s fit” it features fully body stretch, waterproof knees, cuffs and hip pockets, knee pad inserts and a number of chest pockets for tools.

Safety first

R-Tec Industries of Homewood won the farm safety category for its fence mower that takes the danger out of the operation.

It cuts grass under fences and around obstacles with ease. The mower’s pivoting head deflects smoothly around posts, then snaps back in line for efficient, low-maintenance mowing.

Second place went to Implement Solutions for the Drawhand. The Drawhand is a farmer-invented handheld tool that easily installs the hitch pin safely from your tractor cab. It works the tractor and implement of choice for farmers.

Agronomics, ag tech, more

Taurus Ag Marketing took first place in the agronomics category for G P2X, a “granular phosphorus fertility solution, that is 2X more efficient than MAP.” The company says it only releases when it encounters organic acids exuded by plant roots, preventing tie-up in the soil, and boosting yield and nutrient efficiency.

ATP Nutrition took second spot. Their shelf-stable biostimulants aim to provide the benefits of this exciting category of plant nutrition products, but without introducing living organisms to fields or the need for specialized application equipment.

Farm Shop Connect took first place in the ag tech category. Their online platform replaces pen and paper for tracking farm equipment service records and managing to-do lists. The company’s goal is to “centralize service information for equipment, and buildings into one platform, with reminders to maintain machinery.

Weed-it-Canada took the second spot. Their Weed-It-Dash turns spraying data into real-time agronomic insight to track savings, weed pressure, and biomass while supporting soil health and sustainability.

Prairie Grain Analyzer won the farm-built solutions competition.

Their auger sampler automates grain sampling directly from the auger flow, providing accurate, representative samples safely and consistently — reducing labour, improving data, and enhancing grain quality control.

Farm Fresh Water came in second. It builds solar aeration systems for dugouts that use no batteries, won’t tip over and are easy to maintain.

All Ag Parts / Kanpar took the top spot in animals and livestock. The Feed Eazy Pro tub grinder is designed to run longer than other designs on the market, with a unique durable design for its hammermill.

Komb Ag Services, Thunderstruck Ag Marketing and Walinga were all recognized at the exhibitor reception with bonus awards.

For more Manitoba Ag Days coverage, check out the Manitoba Co-operator’s Ag Days landing page.

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The changes affect both the province’s crop insurance program and wildlife damage compensation, with updates designed to better reflect current farming realities across the province.

High participation

Risk management tools are more important than ever as producers contend with tighter margins and increasingly unpredictable weather, Kostyshyn said.

“Over 90 per cent of Manitoba’s annual crop acres are enrolled in ag insurance… The risk of loss of crops due to unpredictability is more important than ever.”

WHY IT MATTERS: Changes to agriculture insurance signal broader coverage and fewer blind spots.

Manitoba Agricultural Services Corporation expects to provide $4.3 billion in coverage on 9.8 million crop acres in 2026 as weather extremes continue to affect regions throughout Manitoba in different ways, from flooding to droughts.

New forage pilot

Among the changes announced is a new pilot program aimed at encouraging sustainable forage production. The Forage Advantage Pilot Program, as announced in November, will offer farmers a 15 per cent discount on forage establishment insurance premiums for growing perennial forage crops on designated land types.

The province is also expanding insurance coverage to include meadow fescue grown for seed, following years of discussions with commodity groups, Kostyshyn said.

Wildlife coverage expanded

Manitoba is also making a major update by expanding its wildlife damage compensation program to cover additional species and different kinds of losses.

“For 2026 crop year, farmers will be able to claim for crop damage due to blackbirds, raccoons, damage to livestock caused by vultures, eagles, hawks, ravens and other bird species,” Kostyshyn said.

KAP applauds changes

The updates to this year’s crop insurance and wildlife damage compensation programs reflect the growing risks farmers face, said Keystone Agricultural Producers (KAP) president Jill Verwey.

“Expanding coverage, updating values, and piloting incentives like the forage advantage program are positive steps.”

KAP will continue to work with the province to help inform and shape practical solutions for Manitoba farmers, Verwey added.

Manitoba Ag Days, marking its 49th anniversary, will be held from Jan. 20 to 22 in Brandon. The event is expected to attract producers, exhibitors and agricultural businesses from throughout the Prairie region. For more coverage of the show, visit our landing page.

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Kristen Phillips, general manager of the show, told Glacier FarmMedia the show team is again looking forward to hosting a large contingent of exhibitors and show patrons.

“We are so excited,” she said. “We know that our exhibitors, staff and volunteers have put everything they have into making the show a success.”

The event typically attracts more than 600 exhibitors and 30,000 attendees during its mid-January run of three days.

One long-time exhibitor making a return to the event is Winnipeg-based tractor and farm equipment manufacturer Versatile.

Farrah Wilson, the firm’s head of marketing, said Ag Days is always a highlight for the company.

“It’s a great event, especially for us as a Manitoba-based Canadian manufacturer,” she said. “It’s been a good show for us, and we’re really looking forward to this year.”

Versatile is celebrating the 60th anniversary of its development of the articulated four-wheel-drive tractor in 2026.

One of the groups helping it mark that milestone is the Manitoba Agricultural Museum, which is at Ag Days for just the second time as an exhibitor in 2026.

Volunteer and former Manitoba Agricultural Museum executive director Elliot Sims says Ag Days gives their group the chance to connect with the farm community directly outside its own events, such as the Threshermen’s Reunion and Stampede.

“We love the opportunity to highlight the history of agriculture, while also connecting to today’s farmers and agricultural industry,” Sims said.

For more coverage of Manitoba Ag Days, visit our landing page for the event.

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The Manitoba Young Speakers for Agriculture event is scheduled to help kick off the three-day farm show — Canada’s largest such indoor event — in Brandon.

WHY IT MATTERS: Manitoba’s farm sector is in the final countdown to Manitoba Ag Days, scheduled to take over Brandon’s Keystone Centre Jan. 20-22, 2026.

Manitoba Young Speakers for Agriculture participants will be the first at the podium Jan. 20 in the MNP Theatre, part of the farm show’s packed speaking lineup. For those not at the show Jan. 20, speeches can be livestreamed.

The program is new to the Ag Days schedule, although it has run before in the province.

“It is a competition that has taken place in the past. It just hasn’t been done for several years, and this is the first time these partnership organizations have joined forces to launch it back in Manitoba,” said Hannah Minshull, who sits on the board of directors for Manitoba Ag Days and is chair of the program subcommittee.

The program is part of the Canadian Young Speakers For Agriculture.

“What got us thinking about it is Alberta is doing it, and they have sort of aligned their competition with the Calgary Stampede,” she said.

With Manitoba Ag Days being the province’s largest agriculture event, organizers thought the farm show would make a similarly good local jumping-off point.

Partner organizations helping to put on the event include Ag in the Classroom Manitoba, Manitoba Agriculture, Manitoba 4-H Council, the University of Manitoba and Assiniboine College.

Competition details

Competitors are between 11-24 years old, split into two categories; junior (ages 11-15) and senior (ages 16-24). Participants prepare a five-to-seven-minute speech on one of five approved topics. Those topics included artificial intelligence, Canadian agriculture competitiveness, lessons learned in the past 25 years, myths about Canadian agriculture and how to increase awareness of the diverse opportunities available in the agriculture and agri-food sectors.

Junior preliminary speeches were held Jan. 6, while senior preliminaries took place Jan. 8. Those speeches were done on Zoom, since competitors hail from all over Manitoba. Having a virtual event also allowed people from across the province to tune in. The top four juniors and seniors from the preliminary round were chosen to present at the final event at Ag Days.

“With the age group from 11 to 24, we’ve got students, young adults and work (aged). Both events happened in the evening just to accommodate schedules,” Minshull said.

Some contestants came through the 4-H public speaking program.

“That was an opportunity to partner with 4-H Manitoba and have the competition shared among their clubs, but it was spread more broadly than that, with all our partners,” said Minshull, adding, “We really had a fairly broad representation of participants from across Manitoba.”

Youth voices in agriculture

The judges, who came from partner organizations, as well as other fields such as medical and education, said they were blown away by the calibre of speeches, as well as the preparation, research and overall sense of knowledge and passion demonstrated by the young speakers.

“We’ve got kids to young adults, and they did their research and they’ve come with fresh perspectives and ideas. Lots of people said they were making notes themselves, just listening in,” Minshull said.

Hitting the big leagues

Winners of both the junior and senior category will present at the Canadian Young Speakers for Agriculture national event in Toronto. The national event will feature during the Royal Agriculture Winter Fair, Nov. 5-16, 2026.

Manitoba winners can also look forward to a cash prize. First place in both the senior and junior categories comes with a $1,000 payday. Second place will win $800, third will win $500 and fourth will win $200.

“The two that place first in the two age brackets will also win a $1,500 bursary to help with expenses to get to the Royal Agriculture Winter Fair,” said Minshull.

Fit for Ag Days

Minshull said the Manitoba Young Speakers for Agriculture competition is a perfect fit for Manitoba Ag Days.

“It fits well with our mission,” she said. “We have a strong focus on connecting with the industry; connecting, educating, networking. That is all very important to us. We’ve had a long-standing partnership with Ag in the Classroom Manitoba, because we do understand that education is key, and communication is part of that. It’s a great partnership of groups with like minds and similar goals that came around the table to make this happen.”

Minshull encouraged everyone to tune into the competition.

“They’ve got a lot of interesting things to say. They’re giving themselves a voice in a way that I think our producers could relate to. When you look at the topic selections, these are relevant discussion points in the ag industry right now. Lots of interesting perspectives and ideas will be thrown around that morning,” said Minshull.

“I think it’s a great opportunity for the audience to make the connection with young people,” she added.

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That was the number that Darren Bond, farm management specialist with Manitoba Agriculture, drove home regarding the inflation level farmers have had to manage for their operating costs from 2020-25.

“It’s something that when … you can actually see those numbers … it is a little bit sobering because I think a lot of producers have felt that inflation,” said Bond.

WHY IT MATTERS: Market uncertainty and international instability is squeezing the farm sector with inflation as high as 50 per cent since 2020.

Bond used an example from his own farm to show how severe a price jump for replacement parts cost can be.

In 2020, Bond priced out replacement tracks for his two-track Challenger tractor. At that time, each track cost $10,500.

Five years later, in 2025, the price for those same tracks had doubled to $21,000 per track.

Eye-bulging price jumps such as this aren’t limited to replacement parts.

Manitoba Agriculture publishes a Cost of Production Guide for farm machinery every two years.

Bond said that if you were to look at the past three guides — approximately covering the past six years — the average cost of equipment has gone up by about 50 per cent.

“When we look at the rental cost, which roughly approximates the cost to operate that equipment for a producer … it’s much the same, again, 40 to 50 per cent,” said Bond.

The high degree of inflation in the farm sector isn’t limited to agricultural equipment.

Bond said that the latest farmland value report by Farm Credit Canada showed roughly a 50 per cent increase in appreciation for Manitoba farmland between 2020 and 2025.

Farmers are also feeling the cost squeeze of what it takes to put a crop in the ground.

“When we look at our cost of production document that the province does every year … we look over that five-year time span from 2020 to 2025, depending on the crop … we’re in that 40 to 50 per cent inflation amount,” said Bond.

In a tight profit margin environment, Bond said that he does see promise for some commodities in 2026, but it will require some work.

While Bond says crops such as wheat will be hard to generate a profit from, but soybeans may offer more of a profit potential.

“A large part of that is it doesn’t use near the amount of fertilizer that canola and wheat does,” said Bond.

Producers will also need to keep a close eye on pricing opportunities.

Those who are prepared and know their cost of production will be better positioned to react when better pricing comes along and before markets go back down.

A familiar approach to fertilizer efficiency can also provide some cost of production guidance for producers, said Bond.

“We hear the 4Rs of fertilizer all the time, and that’s often through an environmental lens … but we could also use it through a profitability lens as well,” said Bond.

For example, he said that producers who have the ability to choose between urea and anhydrous as a nitrogen source may save themselves about 15 per cent.

Producers who know where and when to apply their fertilizer are also more likely to come out on top.

“Take nitrogen, for example,” said Bond.

“Are you in a low soil reserve, high soil reserve or in the middle? And really, without soil testing, we really don’t know.”

Bond offered similar cost savings of 15 per cent when it came to fertilizer timing, suggesting that spring fertilizer applications generally offer a better return on investment.

“I firmly believe that we need to protect that yield, and that’s what’s going to pull us through this, but we can’t protect it blindly.”

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More than 550 exhibitors are booked for the 2026 event, taking place Jan. 20–22 at Brandon’s Keystone Centre.

“The best thing about Ag Days is that you know you’re walking into Canada’s largest indoor farm show, which means that you get 550 plus exhibitors and two speaking theatres for three full days of speaking sessions,” said Teresa Hildebrand, Ag Days’ media co-ordinator.

WHY IT MATTERS: Manitoba Ag Days 2026 will again offer Prairie farmers three days of new equipment, technology, expert speakers, and local innovation.

Alongside the trade show floor, a full slate of free educational sessions will again run in two theatres throughout the week, covering markets, agronomy, livestock, emerging technology and more.

“We have had strong interest in sessions about markets and disease in canola, and producers will be happy to see both of those things addressed in our speaking theatres in January,” Hildebrand said.

New and returning

The Produced on the Prairies theme, which debuted last year, will return in 2026 with expanded offerings. The Ag Days board wants to keep highlighting local innovation, said board co-chair Dustin Williams.

“We really want to continue to shine a light on the great things happening right here.”

Along with new exhibitors and Innovation Showcase entries, the Produced on the Prairies market has 10 new exhibitors each day, Hildebrand added.

A major new feature will see Ag In The Classroom-Manitoba take over the Dome building for educational programming.

“They will be conducting educational programming in the morning and, new in the afternoon, they will be highlighting careers in agriculture,” Hildebrand said.

The show will also welcome 36 new exhibitors this year.

“Check out the Innovation Showcase and Produced on the Prairies Market in the FCC Pavilion to see the newest products and services in agriculture,” Hildebrand said.

Innovation Showcase

Farmers attending this year’s event will once again find the Innovation Showcase on the trade show floor, with 27 new-to-market products and services selected to help producers stay adaptable in a fast-moving industry. The showcase is designed to give farmers the chance to ask questions directly and assess product quality up close.

“As usual, we have a very strong ag equipment category. In addition, we are welcoming new technologies to manage farm tasks and keep farmers safe. Since there are seven categories of innovations there is something for every type of operation,” Hildebrand said.

Rather than following a single theme, the showcase reflects the breadth of agricultural needs, including innovations for crops and livestock, office tasks, labour tasks and more.

“The strength of the showcase is that rather than bringing out themes, it highlights the diversity of the agricultural industry and addresses that range of operations and operators,” Hildebrand said.

Equipment innovations are expected to draw particularly strong interest.

“There is something about physical machinery that is really symbolic for the industry. Visitors won’t want to miss this year’s equipment innovations. This is the largest category this year with nine innovations,” Hildebrand said.

Strong speaker lineup

The speaking program will once again be a major draw, with Ag Days general manager Kristen Phillips and the committee recognizing how broad today’s management demands are.

“Farming is a complex business and we know how important it is to keep up with all aspects of a farming operation,” Phillips said. “You will continue to see a strong focus on agronomy as well as sessions focused on emerging technology, livestock and marketing.”

This year’s topics are new and current based on farmer requests, Hildebrand said, including Sylvain Charlebois on Tuesday afternoon, geopolitical analyst Jacob Shapiro on Wednesday, Machinery Pete on Wednesday afternoon, and Dragons’ Den investor Arlene Dickinson on Thursday.

Community investment

Community support remains another cornerstone of the event. Through its Manitoba Ag Days Gives Back program, the board offered $2,000 grants and scholarships, plus an AED cost-share program. Applications closed Nov. 1, and winners will be announced during the show.

Ag Days’ is also continuing with the Manitoba Young Speakers for Agriculture (MYSA) competition. Youth aged 11–24 will compete in junior and senior categories, presenting speeches on topics ranging from AI and technology to global markets and the future of agriculture. Finalists selected from virtual preliminaries will speak live on Jan. 20, with category winners earning $1,000 plus a $1,500 bursary toward competing at Toronto’s Royal Agricultural Winter Fair in November 2026.

Planning your visit

With so much to take in across three days, organizers recommend using the show’s planning tools.

“There is so much to see and do at Ag Days that the biggest take away is to use the interactive map to help plan your visit,” Hildebrand said.

Attendees can find the map at the Ag Days website. It allows them to sort by exhibitor type, name or location. For all the latest news, videos and more, check out the Manitoba Co-operator’s Manitoba Ag Days landing page, available on the publication’s website.

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