Farm women have been the highlight of the week, with the Manitoba Farm Women's Conference wrapping up on Tuesday in Winkler.

Women's success in agriculture, in particular, was one of the highlights of the conference, with a panel of female entrepreneurs, including GORP bar creator Colleen Dyck, Cornell Creme ice cream owner Lisa Dyck, and grade twelve student-turned farmer's market seller Bailey Gitzel.

Both Colleen and Lisa Dyck spoke about some of the challenges of taking an idea from the kitchen to grocery store shelves, but shared the importance of local ingredients you can understand and trust.

"I think as a woman, you just want to really — like you're feeding your kids — you want to make sure they're getting the best quality food," Lisa Dyck says, "and what an opportunity for us as women in agriculture to be able to be behind that, and take something right from start to finish to our retail customers, knowing they're getting something we would make in our own kitchens."

Dyck started out making ice cream at home from the milk her family produced on their dairy farm. Through a lot of hard work, she's been able to put take her ice cream into grocery stores across the province.             

ag panel
(L-R) Bailey Gitzel, Colleen Dyck, and Lisa Dyck all spoke on a panel at the Manitoba Farm Women's Conference this week in Winkler.

"Developing it in a small kitchen is one thing, but to get it up to bigger scale is another," she says. "I actually had to consult with a team at the university in dairy science, and they up-scaled all my recipes. And then I had to look for suppliers I could trust because I wanted to keep my product natural, and that's always — still today — a challenge."

Dyck says when starting out with a new food product, it's important to ask questions and ask for help if you need it.

"I know sometimes when you're a mom and a woman you tend to want to carry everything on your shoulders, but don't be afraid to reach out," she says. "Governments have a lot of opportunities for us, especially women. There are a lot of businesses out there that want to help women grow their companies, too, like the Women's Enterprise Centre. MAFRD is a good start, for me it was Dairy Farmers of Manitoba that helped me along."

Cornell Creme ice cream is available throughout Winnipeg, as well as in grocery stores in Winkler, Steinbach, and Boissevain.