REGINA — Much was made of the weather heading into Canadian Western Agribition last week, but in the end, snow and cold did not keep the crowds away.
Early numbers indicated record attendance for the six-day event even as temperatures dipped to -30 C at times. Last year, 142,807 people came through the gates, which was the highest since 2005.
Conditions were more like an Agribition of old compared to recent years of warm weather and little snow. This was the 53rd show.
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President Michael Latimer, presiding over his first show, said spectators packed the stands for the beef cattle shows and visitors from more than 60 countries attended. There were more than 200 international buyers on the grounds.
He said the current beef market drove strong prices at sales, particularly the Angus event where the right to flush a well-known cow sold to an American buyer for $72,500. That was the high-selling lot of the week.
In the commercial cattle sale, bred heifer prices ranged from $4,600 to $7,250, while open replacements sold for $2,900 to $6,000.
Sheep prices were also strong, with a bred Charollais ewe selling for $3,100 and a Katahdin yearling ram going for $4,600.
Latimer said show staff and the breed associations spend time on trade missions recruiting buyers to attend.
“It doesn’t just magically happen. It’s a lot of work that goes into it, but then making sure that we have the best genetics available here at the show, and
the sale managers collecting those to make sure they’re in the sale, also helps,” he said.
Sales were made to various countries, including the United States, Australia, Poland and New Zealand.
Chief executive officer Shaun Kindopp credited the staff and volunteers for another successful show.
One area that has seen a downturn the last few years is the number of registered school students. Organizers used to report about 10,000 in attendance each year, but the number is now about half of that.
The issue is lack of transportation funding. Latimer said those costs had roughly doubled for schools.
Kindopp said the show reports the number it has from its application process, but he’s confident the number is much higher than 5,000.
“What we’ve also heard … is we’ve had some schools that have jumped on the city buses to come in. We have home schools. We’ve had schools come in vans,” he said.
Latimer added that anyone who had been on the grounds could attest there were a lot more children than 5,000. Many came with their families.
“It’s not from lack of interest,” he said of the official number.
Latimer said there has been a lot of discussion about this because one of Agribition’s mandates is to be a place for people to learn about agriculture.
“We have kids now that are, it used to be two, three generations, now we’re four generations sometimes removed from the farm,” Latimer said.
“We also have a lot of new Canadians that maybe were raised on a farm back in the countries that they came from, but also now they need to see how we raise food here in Canada.”
He said the availability of buses and drivers is also a problem.
Agribition celebrated the 25th year of its Beef Supreme, which saw 100 animals from 15 shows in the ring to be judged the best of the best.
Agribition 2025 will run Nov. 24-29.
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