Registration for the conference, which is to be held in Winkler from Nov. 21-23 this year, closes Nov. 8.

The event’s mission statement seeks to connect “multiple generations and agricultural backgrounds through education, encouragement, and empowerment,” according to its website.

Two keynote speakers, networking periods and informational sessions are all on the agenda this year.

“Cherilyn Jolly-Nagel, who was recently recognized as one of the Top 50 Most Influential People in Canadian Agriculture, will be talking about promoting agriculture rather than defending,” conference organizers said in a release earlier this fall.

The second keynote speech will come from Kim Ulmer of RBC who “will be celebrating and challenging us to value the beautiful country we live in,” the same release read.

The 2023 conference will tackle topics ranging from finances and farm transition to technical equipment knowledge, farm safety, mental health and stress and personal organization. Options on the schedule include a combine college at Greenvalley Equipment and sessions on building credit score. The event’s tour of Vanderveen Greenhouse, however, is full, according to the event’s website.

“Farm women, business partners who work in agriculture, rural women who want to celebrate the rural life we enjoy, all are welcome,” organizers have said.

Registration is available on the conference’s website at mfwc.ca.

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A last-minute addition to the agenda, the prime minister’s participation had been quietly rumoured for several days, but only confirmed on the opening morning of the event.

A long-time member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery noted that it was the first time since at least 1980 a prime minister had attended the annual gathering.

Keith Currie, the newly elected president of the CFA, told Glacier FarmMedia that Trudeau’s visit, along with other party leaders, demonstrates Ottawa’s growing interest in agriculture issues.

“We had five political leaders attend our convention…That’s a real feather in our cap as an organization,” he said.

All major political parties took time to lend farmers their ear in Ottawa in early March.

The prime minister’s address waded straight into the hotly debated issue of emissions targets.

The federal government has aimed for 30 per cent fewer emissions from nitrogen fertilizer in 2030, compared to levels a decade before. It’s an issue that has caused consternation from all corners of agriculture, who have expressed concern over the policy’s potential impact at the farm gate, as well as division in the sector.

Trudeau argued the targets were voluntary and that there were numerous misconceptions circulating about them.

“We are seeking a 30 per cent reduction in emissions — and let me stress that — this is emissions, not fertilizer use,” he said from the podium.

Trudeau spent approximately 40 minutes at the event, speaking for 10 minutes and answering questions from the floor for the remainder.

One such question was from an Ottawa-area farmer and certified crop advisor. Farmers need to access affordable fertilizer, working capital and technology to farm successfully, she said, and asked if his government considered “…economic sustainability in its decision making?”

Trudeau responded that was always a consideration, adding that though “things are changing,” and farmers did not necessarily have to bear the brunt of those decisions.

“We need to work together to protect land and the environment for future generations,” he said. “We also need to protect your success.”

“We can’t have yields going down. We have to be increasing them. We need to feed not just Canadians, but the world. We need to support you doing this.”

Pierre Poilievre, federal Conservative leader, later offered a counterpoint to Trudeau’s claims. He advised farmers not to take the government at its word.

“They claim now it’s not going to be coercion,” he said. “But they also said the carbon tax would never go over $50 [a tonne] and it’s now set to go to $170.”

He added a government he led would “… repeal the carbon tax, and the tariffs the government is proposing on fertilizer.”

Poilievre also took a number of questions from the floor.

Brent Preston, an Ontario vegetable producer and member of Farmers for Climate Solutions, told Poilievre he’s seeing farmers beginning to get excited about the idea that they can be a positive force in the fight against climate change, and sharing practices among themselves. He asked how a Conservative government would foster those efforts.

“Our farmers have led the charge in zero till and other methods that protect the environment and continue to sequester carbon in the soil,” Poilievre responded. “We believe there should be incentives to benefit farmers.”

NDP leader Jagmeet Singh told attendees the federal government needs to become a better partner to farmers in the push to reduce farm emissions.

“I’d like to see us stop spending billions in subsidies to the already profitable oil industry,” he said. “Let’s stop that, and start investing massively in farming. That’s a better placement of our money.”

Elizabeth May said the Green Party would like to be seen as the party of Canadian agriculture.

“We know it’s unlikely you think that now,” she said to a round of chuckles from the meeting.

May said farmers should be compensated for environmental goods and services like sequestering carbon or maintaining shelterbelts for biodiversity.

“You should be paid for every ounce of carbon you sequester in the soil,” she said.

Labour worries

Poilievre also noted the impact of labour shortages in agriculture. He said there needed to be less red tape around bringing in workers.

“We need the temporary foreign workers, but the work to bring them in slows down everything,” he said.

He said the administration should be streamlined both for reliable employers bringing in workers with a proven track record, and for prospective immigrants if they had work lined up.

“Let’s get the government out of the way and speed up the process for those that have a job offer, are law-abiding and have a history of following the rules,” he said.

Singh said improving the quality of life in rural Canada would help attract both citizens and newcomers to work there. He specifically noted internet connectivity and health care.

“These are essential services,” he said. “I can’t imagine anything more scary than calling an ambulance and the closest one is 90 minutes away.”

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“It’s very exciting for us to be able to have that ability to interact in person,” says conference co-chair Tammy Jones, an agronomist with Corteva Agriscience who is co-chairing with Marla Riekman, a soil specialist with Manitoba Agriculture.

The conference takes place Dec. 14-15 with the theme “Dialing Down the Heat: Agronomic Solutions to Climate Change.”

The plenary session traditionally deals with a theme that addresses a new or emerging issue for agronomists. Though federal initiatives have shifted some of the climate change burden to farmers, Jones says those initiatives aren’t necessarily new or emerging. In fact, they’re best management practices that most producers already use.

“Growers have been talking about carbon sequestration, nitrogen reductions and optimizing their use of crop inputs for many years,” she says. “This is hopefully an opportunity to bring some speakers to the forefront, to provide agronomists with a realistic outlook on how we can achieve reductions in nitrogen emissions.”

The plenary session on the first day of the conference has a packed slate of speakers. Between 8:45 a.m. and noon, six people will talk on various topics surrounding climate change policy.

They include Tom Bruuslema, from Plant Nutrition Canada, who will discuss furthering 4R to verify sustainable emissions reduction. The University of Manitoba’s Mario Tenuta will talk about research-validated strategies to achieve the federal government’s 30 per cent emissions reduction target.

USDA soil scientist Mark Liebig will discuss recent findings of the USDA-ARS Northern Great Plains Research Laboratory in terms of carbon sequestration. There will also be sessions on funding associated with meeting emission targets.

“It will be a robust conversation about the realities – both the upsides and the downsides – of that whole theory of trying to slow down climate change with carbon and nitrogen as a focus,” says Jones.

“It’s all about validation, verification and effectiveness, rather than just saying, ‘Here’s a bunch of tools, and we hope something works for you.’”

The idea is to look at what can be implemented, what tools are effective and what may be limited by geography. The conference seeks to answer the question of how farmers can utilize these tools in an economically feasible way.

Not all topics will be viewed through the lens of climate change. On Wednesday afternoon, the focus shifts to crop management and on Thursday, the morning session is dedicated to soil management, followed by pest management for the final session.

“We bring in a wide spectrum of speakers to ensure that there are topics that are relevant to a broad range of people,” says Jones. “There’s something for everyone.”

She singled out a few anticipated highlights, including the “one-two punch” of AAFC’s Benjamin Ellert and USDA’s Liebig on carbon sequestration.

Jones says she also learns from the panel where agronomists are invited to talk about what’s relevant to them.

“It gives you from-the-gut conversations about what it’s like to be an agronomist. And [Manitoba Agriculture entomologist] John Gavloski with his insects is always a home run. It’s a packed agenda and there are no bad speakers.”

More information is available at the conference website.

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Disposable respiratory masks are omnipresent on most farms, one of the most basic pieces of personal protective equipment and, along with earplugs, likely make up at least some of the clutter in the average machinery shed or mudroom. But the Manitoba Farm Safety Program says it has noted poor-fitting equipment among those basic protections, and not just the elaborate harnesses meant to stop a fall from the grain bins.

“If they have some (personal protective equipment), that’s lucky, but often if they do have it, it’s not fitted correctly,” the program’s communications manager, Renée Simcoe, said.

The farm safety program hopes two day-long conferences in Brandon and Winnipeg may help cut back on the problem. Both are centred on personal protective equipment, how to use it and how to fit it for greatest effect.

The conference, “Fitting Safety into Farming,” will take place Nov. 26 in Brandon and again at the Victoria Inn in Winnipeg Nov. 28. Both events are free to producers.

“It was a topic that it took us about five seconds to come to decide on,” Simcoe said.

Morag Marjerison, the program’s farm safety consultant will be among the main speakers both days.

Respiratory mask safety will make an appearance, bracketed by noise protection, advice for working with chemicals and pesticides, squeezing into confined spaces safely and tips for working at heights.

“Safety harnesses are one of the things that (Morag) sees so often that are just thrown on and not actually fitted correctly or tightened where they should be,” Simcoe said.

Neither conference is at capacity and the farm safety program is still taking entries. Winnipeg’s event was about half-full, Simcoe said, while the attendance list in Brandon also has room to grow.

Interested farmers can register on the Manitoba Farm Safety Program website.

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The 31st incarnation of the event landed in Brandon Nov. 19-21, taking on the theme, “Advancing Farm Women for the Next 150 years.”

Conference chair Donna Lee Brown said the theme is a play on Canada 150, marking changes in agriculture and women’s role on the farm since Confederation, as well as speculating on the future.

“It’s not that there’s going to be less hard work; it’s just going to be different hard work,” she said.

In particular, she noted the rise of “unsung heroes” in the farming industry, those women who take multiple roles both on and off the farm in comparison to pioneer women and their focus on the home.

“We have a lot of young women who are working off the farm as well as choosing to be a partnership on the farm as well,” Lee Brown said, adding that many of those working off farm have professional careers such as teachers, lawyers or nurses before returning home for a second shift as farmers.

More women

Female farmers are on the rise in Canada, if 2016’s Census of Agriculture is to be believed.

Statistics Canada now reports that, while women are still in the minority, 28.7 per cent of Canada’s 271,900 farmers were female last year, up from 27.4 per cent in 2011.

Moreover, that jump was not only because women were joining men on existing farms, although those numbers rose as well. The majority (60.4 per cent) of farms are still run only by men, but the number of female-only operations is increasing, jumping from 5.6 per cent of farms in 2011 to 7.2 per cent in 2016.

It’s a particular trend for the young. Farmers under 35 years old in general increased (although they remain one of the lowest age brackets), but the number of farm women under 35 years old rose 113.3 per cent, compared to a 24.4 per cent rise in men.

Statistics Canada has taken those numbers to mean both male and female children are taking over farms from retiring parents.

The conference drew about 125 participants this year, counting day passes. The one-day rate has historically meant attracting attendees who would otherwise be unable to spare time off work.

“Part of what we try to strive for is a process of learning knowledge (and) sharing, how to take back that information to your communities, to your families, how to utilize some of it,” Lee Brown said.

While the conference is not closed to men, the overwhelming majority of both attendees and presenters are female.

Recurring topics such as work-life balance returned to the schedule this year. North Dakota farmer Katie Dilse opened the speaking schedule with a look at business management and family life.

She was followed Nov. 21 by Angela Fox, an Eddystone producer who lost her husband in a workplace accident in 2011, becoming the sole proprietor of their farm. The resulting emotional, legal and financial fallout “struck home” for many in the audience, participants later said, securing Fox’s presentation as one of the most cited talks of the conference.

Recurring theme

Panel discussions on legal, financial, health and insurance considerations on the farm later bolstered Fox’s message.

“This year, I feel that there was more of a focus on the whole succession planning and the financial aspect of preparing for the future,” said Mallory Penner, a conference attendee and agricultural account manager with Access Credit Union in Altona.

Dilse’s presentation was also a highlight, she said.

“She just brought a great enthusiasm to it and just reminded us to have a little fun and enjoy life,” she said. “It is a very hard lifestyle for a lot of people and I think it was a really good reminder to just make sure you enjoy it and take time for the people around you, because that’s the important part.”

It was the second year the Altona resident has attended.

The conference was a novel experience for first-time attendee Debra Moffat.

The Strathclair resident has become more active on the farm since the 2003 BSE crisis required her husband to take a job off their cattle operation.

“You run into all sorts of obstacles because I’m the farmer’s wife; I’m not the farmer,” she said. “You had to educate people on how they treated you.”

Like Penner and Lee Brown, Moffat also cited Fox’s emotional talk.

“I’m sure most of us were in tears over the thing, but it’s just a reality of what could happen to any of us at any time,” she said, adding that she and her husband are in the middle of succession planning.

Food myths and public trust, farm safety, time-sensitive meal prep, community service, teaching financial literacy to the next generation and employee recruitment helped round out the speaking schedule.

The annual conference will return to Winkler next year, the same community that hosted it in 2015.

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The sizable turnout at this year’s Take the Leap conference in Dauphin Oct. 17 is just the latest sign of this, according to event organizers.

Take the Leap, hosted by the Dauphin and District Chamber of Commerce, aims to provide insight into the resources available to these budding business people.

“A lot of people in rural areas are looking for this information,” said Charlene Gulak, regional co-ordinator with Workplace Education Manitoba for the Parkland region, at the event.

“We were purposeful in coming up with this conference idea, as well as hosting the event in Dauphin, because we felt strongly that there should be accessible information for rural folks who are considering business development.”

Attendees included both active entrepreneurs hoping to build on an existing business, and those with a business concept they were interested in exploring.

The theme of the eighth annual conference was finding passion, purpose and prosperity.

Throughout the day three panels of rural entrepreneurs took the spotlight to discuss what their pathway to success has looked like.

“So often we hear from attendees that they benefited most from this storytelling aspect of the day, where these active entrepreneurs share their stories. I think it is motivating to them to hear about others in the province who have found success,” Gulak said.

Manitoba advantage

While some would ask why you’d start a business in rural Manitoba, keynote speaker Les Kletke suggested the more apt question was why you wouldn’t.

In his view, rural Manitobans actually have a number of distinct advantages that they can put to work for themselves and their businesses.

“We have tremendous resources here,” Kletke said. “We are not lowest cost in terms of labour but we are low cost in terms of a place to live. We have a great network of extension people and community development people who can help with information and provide guidance. There are other places in this country and across the world that just don’t offer that.”

Kletke took over his family farm in 1980 and shortly after became involved with the local marketing group. The group of 20 local farmers became involved in a value-added endeavour, where it bought an existing pasta plant.

After years of trying to get a product on the grocery shelves, the group later sold the operation to a major food manufacturer.

Kletke says this experience gave him a lot of insight into the value-added process and the grocery market.

“If you’re looking to get into a value-added endeavour, you really need to stay focused and have a champion for the program because there are going to be difficult times. Especially if you want to build something large, it is a long process and you are going to run out of time and energy so you need to have the champion who will stay with it,” Kletke said.

At the event, Kletke spoke on the importance of having a business plan and foresight for the future.

“You have to have a plan so that you can change it. If you don’t know where you are going you don’t need a map but if you want to know where you are going, you better have a map,” Kletke said. “Too many of us also get caught up in building a business but never think about the end result. Is this something that we are building and going to sell to a larger business? Is this something we are going to build and keep going with future generations? Or, is this something that is our retirement package and at the end we are going to wrap it up? Those are very important things to know before you start.”

Kletke has spent nearly 30 years in the business of agriculture information as a journalist, author and extension agent.

He is also a Nuffield Scholar, former Canadian representative to the Global Farmers Roundtable and holds a degree in economics and a diploma in agriculture from the University of Manitoba. He urged attendees to make connections they can build on.

“Events like this are so beneficial for entrepreneurs,” Kletke said. “Networking is really the biggest benefit. If you are looking to start any kind of business I cannot understate the importance of pulling in as much information as you can from people who have been down this road before. And, even those in completely different sectors, because they are going to give you different business experience that can be valuable to you.”

The Take the Leap committee was happy with this year’s turnout and says, along with material handouts, attendees also benefited from valuable conversations.

“We have filled the room with attendees again this year and it is great to see because the entrepreneurs really run the day here, we are simply host to these conversations,” Gulak said.

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Graysville farm girl Bailey Gitzel jokes she’s already starting to look back to when she was “a kid with too many chickens.”

“I’ve had some life-changing experiences between then and now,” says the 17-year-old Grade 12 student in Carman Collegiate.

Her foray into poultry just after she turned 13 became the catalyst for two other farm ventures, honey production and selling her baking as ‘The Farmer’s Daughter’ vendor at the Carman Dufferin Farmers’ Market.

Those experiences taught her a lot about the world of business, including supply and demand.

“I miscalculated how many chickens a family of five needed. We were overrun with eggs and giving them to anyone who wanted some,” she told the 29th annual Manitoba Farm Women’s Conference in Winkler last week.

This ‘farmer’s daughter’ has had some more recent opportunities to take in prestigious national and international events that are helping to shape her future.

Last month, Gitzel took part in an international student delegation attending the World Food Prize’s Global Youth Institute in Des Moines, Iowa.

The October event was held during the Borlaug Dialogue International Symposium, attracting 1,300 people from more than 60 countries to discuss global hunger and food security issues.

It opened her eyes to so many issues related to food security, says Gitzel, who was able to hear speakers and presentations from some of the world leaders in industry, science, and policy. She also presented a paper herself on the theme “Sustainably Feeding Nine Billion by 2050.”

“It was an amazing experience to meet leaders from around the world who are having an impact on global food security and to hear some of the stories how one person has had an impact on others’ lives,” said the young agricultural leader, who serves as president of her school’s student council and president of her 4-H Beef Club at La Riviere.

But the main highlight from Des Moines was a simple, symbolic meal that brought to life the reality of hunger and poverty, she said.

“That experience came during the Oxfam Hunger Banquet. During the banquet participants were asked to step into someone else’s shoes for one meal. I was a part of the poorest of the poor.”

It meant sitting on the floor eating a single handful of rice from a shared bowl while others milled around eating a meal that was much more filling.

“Others had rice and chicken,” she said. “The wealthiest people of the exercise got a three-course meal.”

That, more than anything else, made the hunger statistics come to life, she told her pin-drop quiet audience in Winkler.

“I’ve read statistics about hunger and they’ve had little meaning to me,” she said. “But as I sat there I had a new perspective. The hunger statistics weren’t just words to me anymore. I was able to see how, in other parts of the world, people struggle to even have food every day. I realized how privileged I was to be able to say I haven’t gone hungry.

“I’m just a farm girl from rural Manitoba but it’s my generation that will be feeding the people of the future,” she added. “I want to help.”

Gitzel is headed to university after high school next year, and has applied at both the universities of Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

“I plan to study plant biotechnology,” she said.

That decision was reached after another event that left a strong impression on her. In 2014, she was chosen by the Canadian Seed Trade Association to attend the Grow Canada Conference in Ottawa where industry leaders from across Canada meet to discuss topics such as trade, technology and agricultural innovation.

She departed for that conference thinking she’d made up her mind to study medicine after high school. But the Grow Canada Conference opened her eyes to how diverse and wide the careers are in agriculture.

“I feel that nowadays not all young people are looking to agriculture for their future, and especially a lot of kids who see their families struggle and so they want to get away from the farm,” she said.

“I definitely didn’t realize that I could study science at such a high level and still be in agriculture.

“Agriculture today is so much more than just farming and there’s so many different areas in agriculture it’s easy for young people to find something they find interesting.”

She’s grateful to have those experiences, combined with a homegrown education as a young farm entrepreneur, Gitzel said at the conclusion of her speech.

“Growing up on the farm has allowed me to have some incredible opportunities,” she said. “I’m very proud that I come from a farm.”

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“I’ve run four,” Duvenaud, who owns and publishes the Wild Oats grain-marketing newsletter, said in an interview Oct. 21. “They’ve all made money. It’s fun to put them together. It’s fun to run them. I’ve met lots of interesting people, but it’s old technology and I don’t want to do it anymore.”

The Canadian Wheat Board used to put on GrainWorld until it lost its marketing monopoly. Duvenaud, who regularly attended those meetings, felt it should continue.

“To tell you the truth, I was still smarting from the Winnipeg Commodity Exchange closing its trading floor down (in favour of electronic trading),” Duvenaud said. “And I thought I can at least keep this (GrainWorld) thing going, which I did. With the old open-outcry trading floor I can see now it was old technology. It was fine when it was working, but now when I look at a picture of the trading floor it’s like looking at a picture of a guy with a binder. It’s quaint, but it’s not the reality anymore.”

And it’s the same with an outlook conference. Now people can get grain production and demand forecasts online for a fee or free, he said. There is something to be said for farmers and grain trade people meeting informally and networking, Duvenaud added.

“There were a lot of good things about it, but I just didn’t want to do it anymore,” he said. “I was thinking during the summer 90 per cent of the stress in my world has to do with GrainWorld. Everything else works pretty good — Wild Oats works pretty good, the farm (I run) works pretty good.”

And while GrainWorld was profitable, there’s still a financial risk in organizing the event, which costs around $100,000 a year to put on, Duvenaud said.

“I offered it to anybody who might like to run it, including the wheat board (G3 Canada) and as far as I know nobody wants to take it over,” he said.

“We have a lot of assets. We have a lot of real good speakers and a lot of regular sponsors. We’ve got the names of attendees and would be more than happy to share that with anyone who wants to take it over and run it.”

The United States Department of Agriculture started running annual outlook conferences 151 years ago, Duvenaud said. The idea was to help farmers decide which crops were the most economic to grow.

“That was at a time when it took weeks for news to get across the country,” he said.

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