One of the newest members of the Manitoba Agricultural Hall of Fame says times have changed in the province's farming sector since he took over the family farm over three decades ago.
Weldon Newton, a retired hog farmer from Neepawa, Man., was one of four people inducted into the hall of fame at a ceremony Thursday in Portage la Prairie, Man.
"It feels pretty good. I'm not sure it's all sunk in yet," he said on CBC's Radio Noon on Friday.
"It feels really great that obviously a lot of people out there thought that the efforts that I put in over the last several decades on behalf of Manitoba producers was quite worthwhile."
Newton said much has changed in the world of farming since he and his brother took over the family's hog operation when their parents retired in 1984.
For one thing, he said there are fewer hog operations in Manitoba, in large part because of environmental laws such as the Save Lake Winnipeg Act, which restricts hog farm expansion in order to protect water quality.
"We had raised hogs for, I guess, 50 years on this particular location, and it [had] become very difficult for us. In fact, we had closed our barns down before I had retired for, well, one big reason, and that was we were going to be facing environmental regulations put in place by the Manitoba government that were simply impossible to meet," he said.
"There [were] a lot of small producers, or smaller producers, that closed them down at the same time. We were going through some very difficult financial situations, and that was other part ... we looked at, well, what's the point of getting through this situation financially?"
In addition to farming, Newton gave back to his community and to his fellow farmers as a longtime board member with both the Manitoba Hog Producers Marketing Board and Keystone Agricultural Producers.
The hall of fame noted Newton's leadership during times of crisis. For example, he helped cattle producers gain public and political support when the BSE crisis hit Manitoba.
"I've always felt that, you know, all of agriculture has to work together. We're not always going to agree on everything because we got 10,000 commercial producers in Manitoba producing I don't know how many dozen different commodities, but there's a lot of things we can agree on," he said.
"When some of us get in trouble, you know, politically or financially, everybody needs to do what they can to help them out because it could be your turn next week."
Source : CBC