Newton inducted into Manitoba Agricultural Hall of Fame

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Published on Thursday, July 28, 2016

By Tony Eu

Neepawa Banner/Neepawa Press

On July 14, local farmer Weldon Newton was inducted into the Manitoba Agricultural Hall of Fame. Newton is more than just a farmer though. His leadership in the Manitoba Hog Producers Marketing Board and Keystone Agriculture Producers and his contributions to the community earned him his place in the Hall of Fame.

Newton was born in 1947 and lived in Kelwood for the first 10 years of his life, until his father bought the farm near Neepawa that his family has owned and worked on ever since. Since the move to the farm, Newton has lived there his entire life, with the exception of the seven years he spent in Winnipeg going to the University of Manitoba at the faculty of Agriculture and the three years he spent after that working with the government in Alberta.

He and his brother, Murray, purchased their parents farm in 1984, taking over operations. At that time, it was a farrow to finish hog operation with between 40 and 60 sows. Over the years, things changed. Technology improved, they expanded the farm, but they stayed a farrow to finish operation. The last barn they built was in 1996 and at their peak, the operation included 80 to 90 sows.  For the almost 20 years that Weldon and Murray ran the hog operation there was a high demand, but in 2010, when that demand started to disappear and much tighter government regulations loomed on the horizon, they shut down the hog operation, shifting over to grain.

Newton’s start with the Manitoba Hog Producers Marketing Board (MHPMB) happened in 1973, when he was elected as a delegate on the board at a meeting in Gladstone. A year later, the area director stepped down, and Newton ended up with the position. “I had absolutely no intention of taking on the job. I had in my own mind, and a lot of us did, who we wanted, but the fellow we did said ‘nope, absolutely no way’,” Newton said about the meeting that led to him becoming the director. He continued, saying, “They talked around for a while and after twisting my arm for about ¾ of an hour I said, ‘well I guess I’ll try it.’

That decision to “try it” led to 20 years with the MHPMB, starting back in 1973 with the election to the board and continuing all the way until 1993. Newton also got involved with the Keystone Agriculture Producers (KAP) in 1997 and served on the board until the end of January 2013. In that time, he served five years as vice president, from 1998 to 2001 and then one more year in 2012, as well as two years as president, from 2002 to 2003, during the BSE (mad cow disease) crisis in Canada. His leadership during this time, as well as throughout his various positions on the different boards, was a big part of his induction into the Manitoba Agricultural Hall of Fame.

“Certainly, there was a number of people out there who said, ‘Huh, that’s a cattle issue, let them deal with it’, and I said ‘No, we can’t. We’ve all got to support them’, because the financial devastation in the cattle industry was unbelievable,” Newton said about his efforts during the BSE crisis. Continuing, he said, “We can try and get some help for them, so I took that and we ended up working with them. I said they’re going to lead it, but we’ve got to be there to support them, as a grains industry and as a hogs industry. And I was able to get everyone to go along with me, which I think certainly helps.” He finished by saying that the more people and the bigger a voice you have, the more likely it is that the government will listen.

For Newton though, he has two other accomplishments that that he’s most proud of. First off was his work as part of the committee that established the first code of practice for the care and handling of pigs in 1984. This original code was revised in 1992, with Newton as the co-chair of the committee.

His other accomplishment is being part of the committee that designed the first rounds of phosphorus regulations. These regulations set the groundwork for the regulations still in place today. The original regulations took two years to set up. The first year the committee spent looking at the science. They brought in the top researchers in the field from all over North America. The question they were asking was, “What’s the science now, today. Where are we?” as Newton phrased it. “The big thing with that was the research that was being done here on how phosphorus actually moves in the environment, because up till the early 2000’s there wasn’t really a very good understanding of how phosphorus moved in the environment,” Newton said about the work that occurred. He continued, saying, “It’s completely different here than it is in the mid-US. As the science was, most of it moves in the spring run-off and the snowmelt, whereas down in the Corn Belt most of it moves in rainfall events.”

Once they had the science, they started looking at what kind of regulations they would need. They specified different levels, starting at a very high concentration of phosphorus, since they didn’t know what the actual thresholds were, and they came down to what would be a normal level in most soils for grain production. Then they laid out a process: If you were at a certain level, this is what you had to do, and this is what you weren’t allowed to do. At a certain level, a farmer could no longer use phosphorus fertilizer, at a lower level ,they could only use what the crop used, and so on and so forth until they got down to 50 ppm (parts per million), which was accepted as the standard. Manitoba was the first province and first area in the region to have a standard like that. In Minnesota at the time, the levels were being regulated at around 250 ppm.

Once the research was complete and they had solid regulations planned out, it was time for them to get it approved. “I took the science and I met with the various livestock groups in the province and said, ‘Ok guys, here’s the science that’s been given to me, I think it’s valid. This is where we need to go,’ and I was able to get a buy in from all the livestock groups,” Newton said. “If the government will accept this, with a phase-in timeframe for anyone who currently has a problem, I think we can live with this,” he continued.

As a final thought on the matter, Newton commented, “I think we came up with something there that was actually workable. As I said, we had the best researchers, I think we came up with something pretty reasonable.”

As for Newton’s thoughts on the industry, he said, “I still think there’s good opportunities out there. It’s not easy to get into because you have to have access to a lot of assets to get into any part of agriculture, whether it’s livestock or grains, but I think there’s good potential out there if you’re able to come up with a financial package that you can survive on.” He continued, saying,  “That’s the big issue now; you have to have the financial wherewithal to survive and that’s not easy, so it certainly limits the number of people that can get into it.” As Newton paraphrased, “It’s not cheap.”

Newton retired from farm ownership at the end of 2012, and when asked about what he’s been up to since then, he said, “I’m living on the farm, that’s not going to change. I help out when they need somebody, in the busy time, but I obviously don’t have the commitment that I had before.” He continued saying, “I do some other things that I look forward to, I did a bit of travelling a year ago, and I would like to do some more, but we’ll see how that comes about and where I end up going. I don’t know what opportunities will come down the road, but I’m certainly not looking for anything that will commit me to a huge amount of time… I’ve spent my 40 years.” He has also been doing more with baseball since retiring from the farm. An umpire since 1978, now that he has more time, he’s been able to umpire more often.

Correction: The original version stated that the property was inherited. It has since been fixed to state that the property was purchased. The Neepawa Banner apologizes for the error.