Nova Scotia’s incumbent agriculture minister and lead ag critic have both hung onto their seats in an election which saw the governing Liberals return to power with a slightly slimmer majority.

Preliminary results from Tuesday’s election show Premier Stephen McNeil’s Liberals elected in 27 ridings — down from 34 at the government’s dissolution — followed by Jamie Baillie’s Progressive Conservatives with 17 and Gary Burrill’s New Democrats with seven.

Keith Colwell, the Liberals’ minister of agriculture, fisheries and aquaculture heading into the election, held his riding of Preston-Dartmouth with 2,571 votes against the NDP’s Shelley Fashan and the Tories’ Irvine Carvery with 1,106 and 1,102 votes respectively.

John Lohr, the agriculture critic for the opposition Tories, also easily held his riding of Kings North with 3,822 votes against Liberal challenger Geof Turner with 2,785.

Among other notable candidates, Chris d’Entremont, the provincial Tories’ former agriculture minister, held his riding of Argyle-Barrington by a spread of almost 2,200 votes against Liberal challenger Louis d’Entremont.

The Liberals’ incumbent for the Cape Breton riding of Victoria-The Lakes, Pam Eyking, a well known area vegetable producer and wife of former federal Liberal ag critic Mark Eyking, was unseated by Tory challenger Keith Bain by a margin of over 2,400 votes. — AGCanada.com Network