Highlighting our connection to food and the role agriculture plays in the lives of Saskatchewan people. The province is celebrating Agriculture Month.

How the celebration looks depends on the individual community.

"One of the things that we really try and encourage is for municipalities to really try to adopt October as their ag awareness month, whether they have a day of it or have a farmer appreciation night, or whether they have a barbecue or a fall supper or things like that in recognition of agriculture here in the province of Saskatchewan and the importance of it," said Agriculture Minister David Marit.

Marit will be in attendance for the Weyburn Chamber of Commerce's Farmer Appreciation Night on November 5th.

The theme for Ag Month is, 'Our Food Has a Story'.

"What this is all about is just ag awareness and really celebrating what farmers and ranchers do in here in the province of Saskatchewan," said Marit. "And that's why our theme is 'Our Food Has a Story' and what we really want to do is tell the general public, not only here in the province, but across Canada and even around the world, of the safe reliable food that we grow here and telling our story on how we do it."

He said everyone is encouraged to celebrate by exploring their connection to food and food production.

"One thing we really want to do is maintaining public trust with all of this, that the food we grow is safe, reliable, environmentally friendly, the way it's grown and the way the livestock industry is also here, and we just want to tell our story and we're encouraging farmers and ranchers to tell the general public just the great job we do here," he noted.

He added agriculture is certainly vital to our economy.

Marit said the Ministry and Farm and Food Care Saskatchewan are collaborating with Agriculture in the Classroom Saskatchewan and Ag More Than Ever, to engage industry throughout Ag Month to share food stories and encourage the public to learn about modern agriculture.

"We see the opportunity and potential for growth here in all aspects of agriculture, whether it's bringing youth in as primary producers," said Marit. "You look at innovation ideas and technology and how that's changing and how it's becoming very important on the technology aspect and even on the value-added and how that's increasing here in the province of Saskatchewan, and making that awareness and the opportunity that the public have to engage in that."

An official kick-off event was held today in Saskatoon today at the Agri-Food Innovation Centre.

For more information, visit ourfoodhasastory.ca .