Cypress agricultural conference to return annually

By ANNA SMITH Local Journalism Initiative on February 7, 2024.

asmith@medicinehatnews.com

Following the success of last year’s Ag Connections Conference, put on by Cypress County, council has approved the event to be hosted every year.

The November conference was initially planned to be a much smaller event, said Beth Cash, economic development officer for Cypress County, but had the “great problem” of expanding exponentially throughout the planning process.

“I think a big part of that was our marketing, but it also just filled a gap and a need for our local producers,” said Cash. “So as you can see, we went from 150 attendees, to maxed out at 350 registered with a waitlist.”

In the end, the event had 337 people attending, alongside speakers, exhibitors and sponsors eager to make the day possible.

“This event had great return on investment and while at this time it’s difficult to quantify that financially, the impacts of this event were extremely positive,” said Cash. “The two most important ones are the support that we were able to provide for our local agriculture community, and also to position Cypress County as a leader in agriculture.”

With 26 municipalities represented and 40 per cent of attendees coming from beyond 100 kilometres, the conference has a broad appeal to a number of producers from the county and beyond.

“My favourite statistic is that 100 per cent of the producers said they left with an idea that they were going to implement on their own operation,” said Cash.

While the first event came to a deficit from labour costs, there is strong interest from potential partners and sponsors already, and Cash has suggested possibly working alongside neighbouring counties to be able to increase the scope of the event, while maintaining a focus on connecting and inspiring primary producers.

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