Antique tractors at Farm Progress Show now things of the past

There won’t be an antique tractor parade at this year’s Canada Farm Progress Show and that has a longtime collector from Balgonie disappointed.

Lloyd Wolfe started collecting and restoring the machines 18 years ago specifically to showcase them at the annual event at Evraz Place in Regina.

He’s now wondering what to do with them.

“The prime reason was for taking them to the progress show and parading them and putting them in the tractor pull. Now, here I am a few years later with 12 tractors and no place to go,” Wolfe said.

“I spent the money and hard work restoring one this winter for that show. Son of gun, now I’ve got a tractor that can just sit here and collect dust.”

Paula Kohl, director of marketing and communications of the Regina Exhibition Association Limited (REAL), said the organization has been working with its industry advisory committee to reshape how they envision the show.

“One of the recommendations from that advisory committee was that we reposition the show as one of the premier business-to-business shows,” Kohl said.

“(That’s) where we bring in the C-suite (executives) of industry leaders and deliver a high-end industry conference that deals with current trends, innovations in the industry and really move away from the business-to-consumer aspects of the show.”

Kohl said the business clientele they’re tailoring the show for are attending to learn, collaborate and buy products. They are not going for entertainment, which is how she describes the antique tractor show.

But Wolfe said the tractors add to the Farm Progress Show by connecting people to the history of agriculture and showing how the industry has evolved.

“It’s quite a learning experience for them to see the old tractors. It gives them an idea what things were like back then and people sat on an open tractor for 12, 14 hours a day in the dust and the hot and the cold and now they’ve got these fancy tractors,” he said.

Instead of the Farm Progress Show, Kohl said the tractor collectors will be offered a chance to join the parade at the Queen City Ex and display the machines on the grounds.

“We’re taking that event and really bringing back the agricultural roots,” Kohl said. “That really helps some of the urban people who come to the show see the history of agriculture and how it’s changed since.”

— With files from 980 CJME’s Jessie Anton