Representatives from the Manitoba government and agriculture sector will head to Japan this month to promote pork as part of a trade mission.

Agriculture Minister Ron Kostyshyn and officials from Manitoba Pork will join the Team Canada mission to Japan from June 23 to 26 to promote and grow agri-food exports to the Indo-Pacific region, said a government news release Friday.

In 2025, Manitoba shipped more than $1 billion in sector exports to Japan, an increase of 18 per cent over 2024.

“Manitoba is recognized around the world for producing safe, sustainable and high-quality agricultural products,” said Kostyshyn in the release.

It’s been about 20 years since canola, dubbed Canada’s “Cinderella crop,” unseated wheat as the biggest earner of farm cash receipts in the Prairie kingdom.

For a time, it appeared wheat — which made Canada famous as a global agricultural exporter — would become the “other” crop farmers grew because they couldn’t grow canola all the time.

Prairie folklore is full of tales of farmers who have followed the canola-snow-canola crop rotation, but it’s well demonstrated that practice is a shortcut to reduced yields due to disease, reduced soil health and pests. Rotating among as diverse a range of crops as the farmer can manage is considered key to good agronomic management.

Although wheat still trails canola as the biggest earner, it has regained some of its stature as an attractive crop for farmers to grow. Newer varieties have combined yield gains with the famous Canadian premium-fetching quality and robust built-in disease resistance, which along with more intensive management on the farm, have helped make the difference.