Canadians love their beef, and what better way to showcase the best of our beef than at the Manitoba AG EX - hosted by the Provincial Exhibition of Manitoba.
Each year in October the best of the best travel to Manitoba's largest all-breeds cattle show at the Keystone Centre's Westoba Ag Centre of Excellence. The four-day event includes a host of events and activities, including Exhibitors Night, Partners in Agriculture, Moo & Ewe Mania, Party in the Dirt live entertainment, The Little Lady Classic, Jr. Cattle Showmanship as well as both the Jackpot Bull and Supreme Breed Extravaganza.
What's special about this year is that it's the 50th Anniversary for AG EX, and the Provincial Exhibition has pulled out all the stops to host this important showcase and marketing platform for our cattle producers.
"We've been going for half a century, so it's been developed into a fantastic cattle and sheep show that represents the farming community of not only Manitoba but all of Canada," says Provincial Exhibition General Manager, Mark Humphries.
Humphries says perhaps the biggest change over the past 50 years is the escalation of the quality of the herd, and therefore the greater quality of meat on the shelves.
"I think as breeds have been developed, we've seen a great European influence coming across with some of the continental breeds," explains Humphries, "and the detail now that the breeding goes into, into some of the livestock, to obviously gain some of the best meat quality and the reproduction quality of the animals, is second to none."
"We've seen a lot more quality come through probably more than what we would have seen certainly 50 years ago," he adds. "That's within the industry itself."
"We've also seen a lot of youngsters picking up the gauntlet and now having a go. We have a fantastic junior show that happens on the Saturday. So that has increased as well."
He notes there have been a lot of improvements and technology that has gone into breeding good quality beef, and lamb producing units.
Canada is known worldwide for our high quality of beef says Humphries. "We're experts in every part of the world. You can tell; if it's got the Canadian stamp to it, there's quality there!"
AG EX is coming to the Keystone Centre Wednesday to Saturday, October 25-28.
Visit Manitoba AG EX | Provincial Exhibition of Manitoba for more information.
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