Canada's Farm Show is back!

Jun 22, 2022

Canada's Farm Show is ready to welcome everyone back after a two year break.

REAL President and CEO Tim Reid says the biggest highlight for the show this year is actually being back in person, the first time since 2019.

He says they had a smooth load in with exhibitors happy to be back at the show, and the opportunity to showcase their products.

This years show has a whole new footprint with all the exhibits located inside this year.

Canada's Farm Show is hoping to see about 30 thousand visitors over the next few days.

Reid says it's nice to see the world coming back to Regina to celebrate agriculture with over 55 countries in attendance.

"The technology that we have in our manufacturing industry is a solution that is needed globally. We have some of the best and brightest minds in agriculture and ag tech. It's a time in this world where frankly we need to feed the world differently that we do."

He notes Canada's Farm Show is an agriculture based business to business show focusing on dryland farming, equipment and technology.

"We focus on people doing business, its about currency exchange, about manufacturing exchange, about ID exchange, and we hope to do $200 to $300 million dollars of impact once again this year."

Reid says one thing we've learned over the last two years is that business still has to be about looking people in the eyes.

"You can do all the research that you want online, you can do all the data questioning that you want, you can have all the phone calls or Zoom calls that you can possibly achieve. But at the end of the day, having somebody come and see a piece of equipment, having a handshake, it's still the way that this industry gets done."

REAL District has now brought in Kirk Westgard to serve as Vice President of Agriculture.

Westgard says Canada's Farm Show is a fantastic opportunity to get back in person and really do what we like to do, shake hands, make deals, make money and move forward.

He says his goal is to put more of an emphasis on Agriculture throughout the many events on site, like the Queen City Ex.

Tuesday was all about Innovation with new product launches and the 24 hour Ag Start Up Challenge.

A reminder if your coming to the show be sure an download the app which has a full schedule, map and a complete listing of all products and exhibitors.

Canada's Farm Show continues through Thursday at REAL District.

Click here to see more...

Video: The 15-Year Bet Behind Every New Variety!

Canada is trying to decide how much agricultural research capacity it can afford to lose. Brian Rossnagel believes the better question is whether the country can afford to rebuild it.

The longtime barley and oat breeder makes the case with a simple fact about his profession: the consequences of today’s decisions may not become visible for 10 or 15 years.

“Pick the right parents. That’s the biggest thing,” Rossnagel says. “If you pick the wrong parents, you’re not going to get anywhere—and you don’t know that until 10 years, 15 years later.”

That warning carries particular weight as Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada moves to reduce spending and streamline parts of its science operations. The department’s 2026–27 plan anticipates the loss of approximately 665 positions by 2028–29 and says some research will be reduced where capacity exists in academia or industry. AAFC says the changes will make its science operations more cost-effective over the long term.

For Canada’s seed industry, Rossnagel’s career illustrates what is at stake.

This fall, the retired University of Saskatchewan breeder will be inducted into the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame. During his 35-year career at the Crop Development Centre, he helped develop more than 100 barley and oat varieties, including CDC Austenson—one of Western Canada’s most widely grown feed barleys. His induction recognizes not only those varieties, but the collaboration and research system that made them possible.

Rossnagel is quick to emphasize that none of it was the work of one person.

“The first thing I thought about was all the other people who contributed to whatever success I and my program had over the years,” he says. “We know that it’s not an individual who does this. It’s a group—a team.”

That team extends well beyond the breeder whose name appears beside a variety. It includes technicians, pathologists, quality specialists, statisticians, regional testing sites, seed growers and industry partners. It also includes the breeders who came before and those who will carry the germplasm forward.

CDC Fraser barley, for example, moved through three breeding careers. Its parents came from Brian Harvey’s program. Rossnagel advanced the material after Harvey retired, and Aaron Beattie later guided it through registration and release.

That kind of handoff is normal in plant breeding. The person who makes the original cross may never see the resulting variety reach farmers.

It also explains why lost research capacity cannot simply be switched back on when budgets improve.

“If you shut it off, it’s very, very difficult—and particularly costly—to start it up again,” Rossnagel says. “If you have to start from scratch, it’s going to be at least 10 years before anybody notices whether you’re getting anything done or not.”

The concern is not simply how many experimental lines Canada can process. Modern equipment, statistical tools and genetic technologies allow today’s breeding programs to evaluate tens of thousands of lines—far more than Rossnagel could handle when he entered the field in the early 1970s.

But efficiency and automation do not generate every idea.

“If you pare back down, and instead of having six or seven individual scientists concentrating on wheat breeding, you go down and say three people could handle all this, well, that’s half the ideas gone,” he says. “Particularly if you happen to lose the three people who had the really neat and innovative ideas, boy, that’s a problem.”

It is a timely distinction for Canadian agriculture. Consolidating programs may preserve the volume of material moving through a system, at least initially. It may not preserve the diversity of thinking, regional knowledge or willingness to pursue unconventional crosses.

That regional knowledge matters because Canadian agriculture is not one uniform production environment. A variety suited to southern Alberta may face different disease, moisture and maturity pressures than one grown in Manitoba, Ontario or Atlantic Canada.

“Agriculture is applied biology,” Rossnagel says. “Biology, all around the Earth, moves from the poles to the equator. It does not move from Newfoundland to B.C. like politics do.”