You're going to have a chance to learn more about agriculture this weekend in Portage la Prairie.

The Portage la Prairie & District Chamber of Commerce and Portage Industrial Exhibition Association have partnered for the first-ever Agriculture Awareness Weekend.

"I'm really excited to see how everything turns out," says Chamber executive director Cindy McDonald. "I'm excited to see people come out and learn about all the different aspects of agriculture, and really get the awareness out there about things that are available that we didn't even know were so close to home."

The weekend will start with an Agriculture Appreciation Dinner Friday night at 7 p.m. Dinner will focus on local foods and two awards will be handed out after the dinner: The Farm Family of the Year award and Young Farmers of the Year. The feature guest speaker of the night will be Colleen Dyck, owner and founder of GORP Energy Bars. GORP, or Good Old Raisins and Peanuts, is a clean, all-natural energy bar made on the Canadian Prairies. Dyck and her husband Grant run GORP from their family farm in Niverville, Manitoba.

The Agriculture Expo is Saturday at the MNP building on the Island. "Right now we have about 26 booths set up," explains McDonald. "There's a wide range of booths set up because we're doing an awareness piece with a bunch of the agriculture non-profits, and we're doing a made-in-Manitoba showcase. We'll also have agriculture focused businesses there with their own booths. It's going to be very interesting."

"Agriculture is so important to our economy in Manitoba and especially in our area. We really want the public to come and understand that it's not a field and a farmer -- there's so much more to it. We're excited to have the University of Manitoba there to talk about careers in agriculture. There are jobs that probably people don't even know about out there," McDonald adds. "We also have the Canadian Centre for Agri-Food Research in Health and Medicine. Agriculture contributes to so many areas, not just what we put in our mouth to eat every day. It's going to be a real education and awareness event for the public and we really want them to come and experience that."

Tickets are no longer available for Friday's Dinner. It starts at 7 p.m. Saturday's Awareness Expo is from 10-5 at the MNP Building in Portage la Prairie. It's free to everyone who wishes to attend.

Some of the Exhibitors include:
Prairie Fruit Growers
Manitoba Pulse Soybean Growers
U of M Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences
Direct Farm Manitoba
Community Supported Agriculture Manitoba
Composites Innovation Centre
Manitoba Turkey Producers
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