Impact of 2018 Manitoba Budget on Producers

Mar 13, 2018

The 2018 Manitoba provincial budget was released with only one major highlight for Manitoba producers. “The good news coming from this budget is a rise in the small business tax deduction from $450,000 to $500,000 - this will put Manitoba in line with the other Prairie provinces,” stated, William Pallister Manitoba Director.

The finance minister touted the provinces' record of attracting value-added processing in the ag sector – highlighting Roquette and Simplot expansions. The greater the amount of processing in the province and across Western Canada, the less reliant producers are on railways for transporting our goods. The Wheat Growers applaud the government's initiatives in this regard.

However, there is still uncertainty regarding the devastating carbon tax. The government is moving forward with implementing this tax by September of this year. While farming relies on energy to feed the world, this tax could be devastating as input prices will rise. “Why punish our industry that sequesters so much carbon with growing crops? The government has pledged to give back the carbon revenues in the form of tax deductions, but the effect this has on producers isn't clear,” closed Gunter Jochum, Manitoba Director.

Source : Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association

Video: Seeing the Whole Season: How Continuous Crop Modeling Is Changing Breeding

Plant breeding has long been shaped by snapshots. A walk through a plot. A single set of notes. A yield check at the end of the season. But crops do not grow in moments. They change every day.

In this conversation, Gary Nijak of AerialPLOT explains how continuous crop modeling is changing the way breeders see, measure, and select plants by capturing growth, stress, and recovery across the entire season, not just at isolated points in time.

Nijak breaks down why point-in-time observations can miss critical performance signals, how repeated, season-long data collection removes the human bottleneck in breeding, and what becomes possible when every plot is treated as a living data set. He also explores how continuous modeling allows breeding programs to move beyond vague descriptors and toward measurable, repeatable insights that connect directly to on-farm outcomes.

This conversation explores:

• What continuous crop modeling is and how it works

• Why traditional field observations fall short over a full growing season

• How scale and repeated measurement change breeding decisions

• What “digital twins” of plots mean for selection and performance

• Why data, not hardware, is driving the next shift in breeding innovation As data-driven breeding moves from research into real-world programs, this discussion offers a clear look at how seeing the whole season is reshaping value for breeders, seed companies, and farmers, and why this may be only the beginning.