Listen to daily commentary from provincial news director Sarah Mills
Sarah Mills says Liberal Leader Mark Carney needs to provide some better answers after Liberal staffers planted controve...
The President of Canadian Western Agribition is looking back on 2024’s show as a success.
“Everything was terrific,” said CWA President Michael Latimer ahead of Agribition’s Annual General Meeting on Wednesday.
The farming exhibition saw 145,000 people come through the barn doors in 2024. It also had 1,200 international visitors, which is a record amount of guests attending the event from outside of Canada.
Latimer said the international guests came from 75 different countries. About 120 people from 19 countries purchased machinery and livestock genetics.
The 2024 show brought in $75,000 in profits, which will go into funding future Agribition shows, according to Latimer.
“We’re not looking to make millions of dollars a year,” he said. “We want to put on the show. We want it to be terrific. A lot of our profits get reinvested back in the show to make the show better.”
While Agribition does not export to the United States, Latimer said he knows many of the show’s exhibitors do.
On-again off-again tariffs are still “a moving target” situation, but Latimer said it will still be considered while planning next year’s show.
“We do anticipate there will be some disruption,” he said. “But to the extent of (tariffs), we really don’t know at this point. It could be different again in an hour.”
It’s Latimer’s hope that much of the tariff turmoil Canada is facing will be resolved before the November show.
Shaun Kindopp, Agribition’s CEO, said visitors could see different family nights at future events.
“We tried bullfighting the last two years,” he said. “It didn’t get the uptake that we had thought. I think that it is a complicated event, but it was high octane.”
Kindopp said last year’s event brought good problems, like too many volunteers to fill positions.
Throughout the year, Latimer said he wanted to continue to grow his footprint beyond the one-week show in November.
“Making sure that Agribition is positioned in the community, as a partner in the community, is going to be pretty key to making sure that we have ties with agriculture,” he said.
