REGINA - The much-awaited 53rd annual Canadian Western Agribition in Regina celebrated agriculture, innovation and community, and it once again promoted one of Saskatchewan’s leading contributors to our economy.
This show does well to educate the general public and school-age students so they can see first hand what is required and what it takes to place food on tables.
Local farm families that repeatedly transport livestock and compete in the show include the Perrot family with purebred and commercial Angus; Jason and Melissa Frey of Freyburn Angus Farms; the Blair-Athol polled Herefords brought by Duncan, Val, Jeff and Grace Lees family; the Glenlees Farm by George and Corey Lees family with their prized Herefords; the Head for the Hills Family, Clark and Christine Ewart Hill with their prized shorthorns; and Karl and Karen Lischka family with their polled Herefords; the Brooks family with their prized Herefords from Alameda.
The Kyle family including Sheldon Kyle and Ella Wright from Kenray Ranch in Redvers secured Reserve Champion Senior Yearling Female and Reserve Champion Senior Yearling Bull with their prized purebred red Angus cattle.
At the Performance Realty booth, an artistic display named Make It Happen depicted the determination, grit and ingenuity that is required for farmers to survive and excel. One only needs to look around the trade show booths to see examples of individuals who are implementing improvements, redesigning and continually reinventing to improve productivity towards continued viability.
This booth promotes both their agriculture-related real estate services and takes the opportunity to showcase the local area with the Town of Carlyle in attendance, represented by Dawn Faber.
Additionally the Village of Kenosee Lake and Moose Mountain Provincial Park area are promoted by way of a clawhammer banjo set by camp alumni Janelle Boutin, a longtime student and now promoter of the Kenosee Lake Kitchen Party music camp.
The set was well received as jigging in the hallways broke out by a couple new fans and possibly future camp students.
Keln Solar, a Saskatchewan-based manufacturer, demonstrated a solar-powered livestock watering system that can operate year-round without a hookup to the grid, allow clean water to be delivered to livestock on demand and automatically drain back to eliminate the issue of a frozen watering bowls and the need to auger through ice to water the herd.
A farm couple from Radville, Rob and Corinne Galarneau in their Top Horizon Ag Inputs booth, educated producers on ecological soil amendment products that enable seeds to germinate better in cool soil, and improve germination and crop emergence by up to 10 per cent, and a further bonus is that field tests prove that applied fertilizer can be reduced without sacrificing yield, hence improving the very important bottom line.
An Alberta rancher/livestock producer demonstrated his lightweight, easy-to-operate livestock chute called the Cowgo Loading System that can be retrofitted on almost any cattle liner to ease the process of loading and off-loading livestock without the need of towing a portable chute from pasture to pasture.
The University of Regina recruited and demonstrated a process that helps individuals hone in to the area that they have aptitudes for. The university and other institutions did well to pivot in pandemic times by delivering distance education.
Ranchers and farm families tend to their stock and groom them with care and attention as they get ready for showing and competitions. For those who come to set up a trade show booth and man it for a week quickly realize that’s a cakewalk compared to the energy and time required to transport livestock and tend to their needs all week long.
Garth Newell, Dr. Christine Ewert Hill and Cynthia Beck are local people on the Agribition board who were all in attendance in the background and foreground with events.
