BRANDON — It was pretty hard to walk past the Hepson Equipment display at Ag Days without noticing the pink, 30 horsepower Kioti CK30 yard tractor.
The normally orange tractor had been painted pink for the Manitoba Westman’s dragon boat team.
“We hired Mr. (Murray) Turner (and Dean Munshie of Turner’s Autobody) at Carroll , Man., to take it apart and paint it pink,” said Waves of Hope organizer Merle Darling, herself a breast cancer survivor.
Dragon boat teams across North America raise funds for breast cancer survivors. The Westman team also raises money for construction of Murray House in Brandon, where out-of-town cancer patients can stay during treatment.
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“We’ve taken the pink tractor to small town fairs and parades all summer, selling raffle tickets all along the way,” Darling said.
“The tractor came from Hepson Equipment here in Brandon. It’s worth $24,700 but he sold it to us for less. The winner has his choice between taking the tractor or the $15,000 we paid for it.”
The pink tractor had raised $63,000 before the start of Ag Days. Ticket sales at Ag Days hit $13,000, for a total of $76,000.
The draw for the pink machine will be made April 10.
Darling said she isn’t worried that farmers would be concerned about having a pink tractor on their farms.
“This pink tractor would look good on anybody’s yard.”
For more information, contact Darling at 204-727-8521 or visit www.wavesofhope.ca.
Western Canadian fruit growers have been told they have two things going for them: local and taste.
The three prairie provinces’ fruit growers’ associations are capitalizing on this message by funding a new branding initiative.
It promotes what Winnipeg marketing firm Blacksheep Strategy has identified as keys to consumers’ purchasing decisions.
Surveys found 39 percent of consumers said they bought prairie-grown fruit largely for its freshness and flavour, 28 percent said they did so to support local growers and 14 percent felt its quality was better than competitive fruit from other locations.
Forrest Scharf, Saskatchewan’s fruit crop specialist, told the Saskatchewan Fruit Growers’ Association annual meeting in early January that the initiative will help consumers become more aware of choices they have in the marketplace and should add to sales and retail demand.
“Growing an industry requires a lot of things to work together,” he said.
“You can grow the product, but it must sell at a profit to encourage farmers to produce more of it.”
