The Western Canadian Agribition is holding a week of agriculture activities in Regina this week, celebrating its 50th anniversary.

The show ran into a bit of a rough patch with the pandemic, since last year the gathering wasn't allowed.

Now, they're hoping that their return which coincides with their half-century achievement will be one to remember.

At least, that's the hopes of Agribition's CEO Chris Lane, who says he thinks they did just that.

"We couldn't do the show in 2020 like most other events, so that was disappointing of course, but we took the time to make sure that when we did come back we were gonna do it in a safe manner and put on an Agribition that people were gonna recognize," said Lane, "It's a packed schedule, 96 different events over the next few days here."

While the week has just started for visitors, exhibitors have been at the Agribition for a while, and Lane says he can see the excitement coming from them.

"The exhibitors have been here with their cattle for a couple of days now," said Lane, "They load in and get ready and it's pretty easy to see the excitement in most barns for those folks, not just to be at Agribition, I think for those folks it's been a long time since they've been able to see each other at these events too."

"There've been other shows to start up the fall run here that lead up to Agribition and so I think that sense of community is building back and really on display here all week long."

The week started off very well for Agribition, as the provincial government announced they'd be extending their partnership with a 5 year, $250,000 deal.

Lane says while that's been commonplace for the show, the additional support is both financial help and a sign they're headed in the right direction.

"That partnership with the provincial government has been a mainstay of Agribition since the first date in 1971 and it's grown over the years and I think we really appreciate the vote of confidence that the provincial government has in Agribition and our ability to attract investment to the province and also showcase Saskatchewan's agricultural products to the world."

"In addition, it really helps us showcase the industry of agriculture to the rest of the population here," said Lane, "Putting out a good story of what we do and how it's done."

The Western Canadian Agribition wraps up in Regina on Saturday.