It's Canada's largest trade show, attracts thousands of visitors every year and it's celebrating a major milestone this year.
Canada's Farm Progress Show is celebrating 40 years of bringing the latest in farming technology to farmers from around the world.
Wilf Degelman created Degelman Industries 55 years ago at his farm in Raymore, Sask. Since its inception, it has been a part of the farm progress show.
His son Jack is the current vice-president of the company and has attended every show.
“I was going to high school and the show went from Wednesday to Saturday so I was only attending the Saturday shows,” Jack recalled. “I was just a young guy, I knew a little bit about farm machinery and I was just getting my feet wet with the first show.”
He said before the show came into existence, machinery was being shown on machinery row at exhibition. He said the farmers wanted their own show, and the founders wanted to get the machinery off of machinery row so the creation just made sense.
“This show's been very, very successful and here we are 40 years later.”
He said Degelman Industries was given the second choice when it came to deciding where they would be located at that first show. The first choice went to Morris Industries and Degelman went right beside them.
Both companies have remained in those spots.
“There's a lot of families when they come to the show, they always say, 'Well we'll meet you at the Morris booth at four o'clock then we'll decide where to get a meal tonight,’” said Don Kirkwood, international sales with Morris Industries.
Kirkwood is another farm progress veteran, also taking part in all 40 years. His first year was spent setting up and towing the equipment to show it off.
Over the 40 years he's been coming to the show, he said the same families will often stop in to say hello and he's starting to notice a changing of the guard.
“The kid that was only five or six years old, he's running the show now,” Kirkwood said.
Both agreed the show has always been popular but the equipment has seen the biggest changes.
With fewer farmers taking care of larger pieces of land, the equipment has needed to increase in size.
“Lots of times we'd say 60 feet is as big as we're going to go and now we're up to 90 (feet),” said Kirkwood.
↧