Understanding Ag's Regenerative Soil & Grazing Workshop in Ste. Rose is underway, showcasing and teaching new ideas to local farmers today and tomorrow.
Michael Thiele, Consultant with Understanding Ag, went over a few details about the conference's schedule.
"We'll focus the first day on soil and soil health principles, and then we'll talk about Clayton [Breault] is implementing some of those ideas, like using cover crops, more diversity, getting away from simple monocultures...then we'll focus more on the cow and pasture side, we'll talk about pasture management, and we'll also talk about animal health," said Thiele.
The conference and workshop is hosted at Breault Ranch in Ste. Rose, where the Breault family has been using regenerative agriculture practices for years. Thiele said a very important focus of the talks will be cover crops, and the importance of diversifying what cover crops are used for grazing operations.
These kinds of regenerative agriculture practices aren't new, but certainly haven't been looked at with such a large scope. The Breault family's operation is made up of 25,000 acres, of those 4,000 are cropped, noting 2,500 female cows bred annually. Their operation also won the Manitoba Beef Producer's Environmental Stewardship Award in 2025 for their regenerative practices on a ranch so big.
"They're growing barley and peas, and harvesting both the barley and peas, and then separating and selling them, or using some of that barley, pea in a ration to feed the cows in the winter, so it all becomes integrated...this is new information perhaps for agriculture on the prairies here, but a lot of this information is being used by farmers around the world, farmers and ranchers around the world, and we're just trying to bring good information to farmers here," said Thiele.
Understanding Ag doesn't currently have plans for additional regenerative ag workshops, mostly because finding host farms is a small struggle. But if they see a need, and are able to secure a host farm, Thiele said hosting additional workshops in the future is definitely something they'd consider.
