Yvonne Rideout is leaving Paradise for Manitoba.
Paradise, Nfld., that is.
Rideout, who comes from the small town outside St. John’s, will become the new general manager of Keystone Agricultural Producers at the end of May.
Coming from a province better known for its fishers than its farmers, Rideout said she’s excited to start learning about the diversity of prairie agriculture.
For the past decade, Rideout has been executive director of the Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of Agriculture.
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But a couple of years ago, she said she realized the industry wasn’t growing on The Rock, so she went looking for bigger pastures.
Newfoundland is home to 725 farmers with $80 million in farmgate receipts, most coming from dairy and poultry operations, and a smaller proportion from vegetable, sheep, beef, hog and blueberry farms.
Farm sizes are “drastically smaller” than in Manitoba, Rideout said. In fact, Newfoundland farmers have been lobbying for help to clear more land of rock to increase arable acres.
But farmers in Manitoba and Newfoundland do have some things in common, she said, such as the inadequacy of federal government programs.
“All the farmers across Canada are facing tough times right now.”
Rideout has already started to bone up on prairie issues, particularly grain transportation matters.
“I don’t look at it so much as a challenge as an opportunity.”
