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Well, I must admit, as I tap this out fresh off our MFGA Conference Committee meeting this am that our 2025 MFGA Regenerative Agriculture Conference is taking great shape.
Trade show booths, conference delegates and MFGA corporate sponsors are already knocking at the door wanting to be huge parts of our annual show again. For our part, we have locked down a raft of outstanding keynotes that all fit our 2025 conference theme of Enriching Lands, Lives and Livelihoods.
Additionally, in typical MFGA fashion, we are close to announcing a high-profile speaker to bring that extra shine to our annual event.
All this great news will go public soon as we prep to open early bird registration May 1, 2025. We can also happily advise that there will be no rate increases as we maintain 2024 pricing on our 2025 event.
In a moment of reflection, though, when you look back on our roster of speakers over the years, indeed, it is hard not to be super impressed by the suggestions and insights of past committees and conference attendees on the quality of speakers suggested, and in turn, be completely humbled by the grace and knowledge of the conference keynotes speakers while here.
Our seven-year roll out of conference keynote excellence includes a who’s who of regen ag from Fred Provenza to Jon Lundgren to Jenni Harris to Nicole Masters to David Montgomery to Brendon Rockey to Jaime Elizondo and on and on. Each one has brought a great presentation to our delegates. A tip of the cap to former MFGA chair and Wall of Fame member Larry Wegner for setting the keynote bar really high right off the bat with our first conference, thereby ensuring we stay there.
Each conference always includes a mostly Western Canada presence and profile via regen ag farm leaders like Ryan Boyd, John and Deanne Chuiko, Derek and Tannis Axten and so many others as well as producer panels featuring primarily MFGA board members and MFGA network farmers.
Last year, we added breakout sessions for interactions directly with four keynotes – Paul Overby, Stuart Chutter, the Chuikos and Jaime Elizondo - that were great. In adaptive style, we learned as we went along so that we can bring that valuable interactive session back even stronger based on feedback and observations.
Led by MFGA and conference chair Mike Duguid and our ten-person committee of keen board members and staff, our MFGA 8th Annual Regen Ag Conference is right on track to bolster that impressive resume once again!
It is a farmer-led conference designed and delivered for farmers interested in learning more about regenerative agriculture at whatever level they seek. One hundred per cent, fully and completely.
And finally, speaking of local farm experts, a shout out to David Rourke, Manitoba’s newly-minted Minto-based Farmer Scholar, who successfully defended his PhD recently at the University of Manitoba.
If you know David, you know how hard he works to better understand agriculture and how hard he challenges all of us to think a lot more about agriculture now and what agriculture might look like in the future.
Congrats from all of us at MFGA, Dr. Rourke!
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