The Manitoba Agricultural Hall of Fame honoured four new inductees in Portage la Prairie in July for their significant and lasting contributions to the province’s Ag industry.

The induction ceremony highlighted four individuals, including Weldon Newton of Neepawa, Gordon McPhee of Dauphin, the late Selma Maendal of Portage la Prairie, and the late Jack Parker of Winnipeg. Maendal, who passed away in 2014, is the first Hutterite to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. Her family, represented by sister, Dora Maendal, was honoured to accept the award on her behalf.

While all those inducted, played key roles in furthering agriculture and farming in some way, George Matheson, chair of Manitoba Pork focuses on the two who contributed specifically to the pig industry in Manitoba.

“On behalf of Manitoba Pork, I’d like to celebrate the induction of two valued friends of the pork industry – Selma Maendel and Weldon Newton – into the Manitoba Agricultural Hall of Fame,” said Matheson.

“Selma Maendel of Fairholme Hutterite Colony passed away several years ago, but her contributions to Hutterite colonies and to the provincial agricultural industry will not be forgotten. Over the years, Selma collaborated with medical professionals to better the health of colony residents. Using her exceptional computer and organization skills, she developed a software program for recording and maintaining crop records.”

Weldon Newton farmed with his brother near Neepawa for over 30 years, and is a tireless farm leader. Newton spent 19 years as a director at Manitoba Pork, including two years as chair from 1990 to 1992. He also worked with Keystone Agricultural Producers for many years and served as KAP’s chair from 2002 to 2004. He spent 12 years as a director on the Canadian Pork Council and a director at the Prairie Swine Research Centre in Saskatoon for six years, serving as chair for three. Weldon was also a director on the Canadian Farm Business Management Council and chaired the Farm Stewardship Association of Manitoba. His focus hasn’t been solely agriculture, however: Weldon umpired baseball for 40 years and in 2007 received the Umpire of Merit award by the Manitoba Baseball Association.

“Thank you, Selma and Weldon, for your outstanding contributions to agriculture in Manitoba!”

Congratulations as well to this week’s other inductees; zero tillage pioneer, Gordon McPhee and Manitoba’s first provincial soil specialist, Jack Parker.

Newton says one of the biggest challenges facing agriculture today is keeping the public informed about what farmers are doing to ensure they continue to produce food ethically and in a way that protects the environment.

He says one of the biggest changes he’s seen since becoming involved in farming more than 40 years ago the rapid evolution of the technology involved in agriculture and one of the biggest challenges is keeping the public informed about what’s happening in agriculture.

“I think there’s more awareness. People seem to want to know where their food comes from.

“We don’t need to be ashamed of what we’re doing and now we have to be able to tell people and show them what we’re doing, not only from the crops end but from the livestock end as well and that becomes a big challenge because it takes a lot of money to do that,” he said. “We all know that there are very few farm organizations that are really well funded and the opponents out there that are picking holes, or trying to pick holes in what we’re doing, they tend to be able to raise millions of dollars of money with no problem and they create an adverse situation for us.”

Newton thinks that’s one of the biggest challenges is to continue to show the consumer farmers are raising everything properly and ethically and looking after the environment.

“In fact we’re doing a better job with the environment now than we’ve ever done,” he said. “Agriculture is a very challenging industry and suggests people have to realize how much of the rest of society actually earns a living off of agriculture with the ancillary jobs that agriculture creates.” •

— By Harry Siemens