Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives Business Development Specialist-Swine, Dr. Ian Seddon is being honored by family, friends and colleagues.

Dr. Seddon, who passed away last week, was well know for his work in swine nutrition and the education of the province's swine producers.

Manitoba Pork Council general manager Andrew Dickson, a friend and colleague of several years, describes Dr. Seddon as dedicated to helping the pork industry in and, in particular, individual producers and family farms adapt to changes in the industry.

Andrew Dickson-Manitoba Pork Council

One of the key things Ian used to work on was the Manitoba Swine Seminar each year, putting that agenda together and bringing in top speakers from across North American and Europe to make sure our producers here in Manitoba were exposed to the latest in information and technology so that we could maintain the profitability and productivity of our farms.

These seminars are an important meeting place for all the various actors to get together from across the industry to share their knowledge and develop business relationships.

He was also involved in Hog and Poultry Days in terms of organizing speakers and exhibits and so on and spent a lot of time on planning committees on those.

He was very much involved in trade missions in terms of developing other markets for our product.

What people forget sometimes is there's a lot of visitors come to Manitoba from various countries looking to see how we do business and potentially sourcing product from Manitoba.

Ian played all kinds of behind the scenes roles in terms of trying to help develop the industry.

Funeral services for Dr. Seddon have been scheduled for tomorrow in Winnipeg.