Located at the University of Manitoba's Glenlea Research Station and part of the National Centre for Livestock and the Environment, the sod was officially turned 14 December to begin construction of the Bruce D. Campbell Farm and Food Discovery Centre.

Project Manager Wendy Molnar says the facility was conceived by the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences as a centre that would help Manitobans learn more about the agricultural industry and about where our food comes from.

Wendy Molnar-Bruce D. Campbell Farm and Food Discovery Centre

Although the building has just started construction in December we've actually been working for many years on developing the story line or the topics that we wanted to introduce to our visitors within the facility and so we engaged the services of Michael Plamondon at Origin Studios which is an exhibit design firm to help us realise the exhibits that we wanted to develop.

Working with him and the faculty and key members of the agricultural community, we've developed topics that ranged from development of crop production in Manitoba to animal production, food safety and certainly food for health in the long term, so encouraging people to take a healthy lifestyle as well.

The designs of those exhibits are just being completed now and we hope to send them out to tender within the next month or so so that we can start building them and they'll be installed in the new facility hopefully by next fall, in the fall of 2010.

Ms Molnar notes the farm already receives visits from school groups and others and, with the new centre, the hope is that visitations will start off modestly and gradually increase.