Airport Project receives local support

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Published on Thursday, June 2, 2016

Photo by Ken Waddell. Darryl Gerrard of Enns Bros., the John Deere dealership in Neepawa, operating a JD 8310R tractor and land roller to smooth out a field seeded to soybeans at the Neepawa Airport Farming project.

By Ken Waddell

Neepawa Banner/Neepawa Press

Enns Bros., the John Deere dealership in Neepawa, has stepped up again this year to spearhead the Neepawa Airport Farming project. The Town of Neepawa rents the farmland around the airport to the project, which is jointly administered by the Neepawa Curling Club (Yellowhead Development Society-YDSI) and the Yellowhead Centre (arena and hall). The two facilities invest some cash each year for crop inputs and crop insurance and then share the profits on a 50/50 basis.

This year, the land is sown to soybeans. Justin Pollock, local Enns Bros. manager said, “We look after all the field operations. We use our equipment to seed and harvest the project. It givesour sales people, technicians and customers a chance to try out the equipment and become familiar with it. We supply the fuel out of our marketing budget.” 

On May 22, the crop had been sown and Enns Bros. sales rep Darryl Gerrard was utilizing a nearly new JD tractor and a land roller lent to the project from Sumpointe Acres Ltd. of Neepawa. A considerable amount of seed was donated by Kulbacki Seeds Ltd. and some from Syngenta Seeds. Newton Farms loaned the project the use of a truck. The agronomy work was done by Field Smart, a divsion of Enns Bros. and the agronomist was Jeff Cook.

The airport project has been a major fund raiser for YDSI and YHC for a number of years.