Farmers interested in innovation and technology connect at new conference in P.E.I.

More than 40 farmers from across Canada are part of a new conference being held this week on PEI. It's called Connecting Farmers. There are panel discussions in the morning and then farm tours like this one in the afternoon. Oh gosh we have farmers from Manitoba, Saskatchewan, within Atlantic Canada and yeah we just brought in lots of lots of farmers to share their experience. Many of the participants have been part of the Living Labs program across Canada where farmers teamed up with researchers to try out new ideas like this wetland built on a farm. We had great discussions this morning while we were in the conference room talking about what worked talking about what's not working when we try new things on our farm try new practices and I think it's really important and really reassuring when farmers hear from other farmers about their experiences. The farmers say there are some common themes that keep coming up at the conference. The lack of our ability to control the weather you know we're all trying to adapt to either really wet conditions but it seems more often than not we're adapting to drought conditions and all trying to work to make our land more resilient. Another big challenge they say is finding time away from the farm. Yeah it's definitely a challenge especially this time of year we should probably be back home harvesting but luckily we were getting some much-needed rain so that makes us not feel quite as guilty but the reality is like you have to make time for the things that you want to do and this is really important. These farmers say it's also an eye-opener to see farming here on Prince Edward Island. The soil is different than Saskatchewan like we have a layer of topsoil and then something else underneath and everything I see here it's all just red. These farmers say they already have some new ideas that they will be taking home. People have tried things in one part of the country that might be really scalable in another part of the country and having farmers talk to farmers is the fastest way to have that happen. Organizers say sponsors pitched in about $20,000 towards putting on the conference and they're hoping it will become an annual event. Nancy Russell, CBC News, Surrey West.