Sheldon Wiebe has been farming since he was 12 years old. Growing up on his family farm near MacGregor, Manitoba, Wiebe knew that agriculture was his calling. He received a diploma in agriculture from the University of Manitoba, then returned to the farm to help manage it. Today, Wiebe and his family farm 10,000 acres, with approximately 3,000 acres dedicated to potatoes, where EMILI’s Innovation Farms launched a second location in 2025. Here, Wiebe talks about his early days in agriculture, and how technology plays a role on his farm.
Describe your job or product in one sentence.
My current job is an overseer of the farm business and helping with the future direction of the family farm.
Where did you grow up? Was it an agriculture or urban environment?
I grew up on our farm near MacGregor, Manitoba. It was an agricultural environment for sure. My dad and uncles ran a farm together when I was younger, which included potatoes, grain crops, pigs operation and layer chickens. I had many cousins that grew up on the farm with me, and we played farming until we were old enough to farm and contribute.
What was your dream job when you were a kid?
I always wanted to be a farmer! When my mom took me to the doctor for checkups as a young kid, he would often comment that I had enough dirt in my ears to grow potatoes. Other than that, I always thought it would have been very cool to play some level of professional hockey.
What was your first job in the agriculture or agri-food sector?
When I was 12 I cultivated the headlands on our potato fields. I grew up as a farm kid and was able to run most, if not all, of our equipment by the time I was 18. After receiving my ag diploma from the University of Manitoba I went back to the farm and continued operations and started helping to manage the farm.
What brought you to your current role?
After many years of running the farm business and daily operations, our farm grew to a size where we had to start hiring and trusting our employees to make sure our daily tasks were done, and we looked after the human resources and business side of things. My family is now involved and are making most of the day to day operations.
How does digital agriculture or agtech play a role in your current job?
We use technology every day. From our online accounting to equipment operations and AI irrigation units, to yield monitoring and tracking, and tracking our inventory. Innovation is key to the future success of this industry, so when I heard about what EMILI was doing, testing and validating technology at Innovation Farms, I knew it was something I wanted to contribute to in the potato industry.
What advice would you give someone considering a career in digital agriculture?
There are a lot of opportunities to work in agriculture, and agtech is a great opportunity to make a career. Like most other industries, we are looking for ways to make things more efficient and cost effective. Technology in ag is helping us do that.
What’s your favourite part about working in digital agriculture and agri-food?
I really appreciate the agtech side as it helps to make us better at what we do in the field and in our storage facilities to help ensure we deliver a top quality product to our consumers.
Why do you think digital agriculture is important, now more than ever?
I think agtech is becoming more important as our margins become tighter, our industries continue to change, and costs to grow crops continue to increase. We need to continue to be as efficient as possible, and agtech helps us do that.
What’s the most interesting thing you see happening in digital agriculture right now?
I am really excited about the AI irrigation systems that we have in place on our farm. The water efficiency is amazing, and the water is placed where it needs to be as the crop needs it. We don’t realize a water usage saving but we are seeing less overwatering and under watering in our variable soil to produce a more constant quality and yield of potato crop.
This profile is part of EMILI’s This is Agriculture series, highlighting talented and diverse individuals across the digital agriculture sector. While individuals working in agriculture come from a variety of backgrounds, they share a common interest in growing and strengthening Canadian agriculture to ensure an environmentally and economically sustainable future for generations to come.