Manitoba’s premier livestock show is about more than what goes on in the ring and the barns it’s also about educating area youth.
Moon and Ewe mania are part of this year’s show.
On Wednesday close to 200 Grad 3-6 students from about a dozen Westman schools took part in the interactive information program at the Keystone Centree.
Kristen Laing Breemersch is Program and Volunteer Manager with the Provincial Exhibition of Manitoba. She says it’s nice to have the program back as part of Ag-Ex. “Schools came from across Brandon and some from outside Brandon as far away as Oak Lake and they came to the Keystone Centre to find out what the beef industry is all about.”
Moomania included informational sessions that saw students rotating through various sites finding about the benefits of the beef industry.
“The education component of this show is huge. We need to get out and bring that rural message into the urban schools and they learn where their food comes from. Students find out where footballs and baseballs come from. For instance, 20 footballs can come from one cow hide or 144 baseballs.”
Organizers are thrilled with response from areas schools this year. The education program also includes a program focused on sheep.
Simon Atkinson of Brandon is with the Manitoba Sheep Association. “We were asked by Ag-Ex to participate this year, so we have Ewemania and the fair board wants to include other aspects of the ag industry, so they approached us, and the association thought this was a great opportunity for our industry as well.”
The sheep association has a jackpot market lamb competition taking place this week.
“We have a number of smaller producers involved with the breeding market, we’ve also got the fibre industry and of course the meat market is always a big part of the industry,” said Atkinson.
Simon Atkinson says the market has been in a bit of a slump but overall producers have had a pretty good past couple of years.