Plainview Colony Farms Ltd.Farming & Agricultural Services in Elkhorn, Manitoba

Hutterite Colony Hog Producer & Grain Farm near Elkhorn, Manitoba

Plainview Colony, 1974 to today

1974 – a new colony

Plainview Hutterite Colony was founded in 1974 as a daughter colony of Waldheim and belongs to the Schmiedeleut branch of the Hutterian Brethren. It is located about eight miles west of Elkhorn in southwestern Manitoba, in the Municipality of Wallace-Woodworth, and it operates as Plainview Colony Farms Ltd.

1997 – a daughter colony

By 1997 the colony had grown enough to start its own daughter colony, Boundary Lane, a few kilometres south, which is how Hutterite colonies typically expand: when a colony reaches a certain size, it divides and a new one is established.

2007 – hogs become the backbone

Pork production is the colony's main income. Trade reports describe a 1,300-sow barn built in 2007, a 500-sow barn, and thousands of weaned pigs finished in additional barns, alongside roughly 10,000 acres of cropland that supply the feed.

2018–2019 – one of the largest finisher barns in Canada

Construction began in mid-2017 and was finished in the spring of 2018 on a finisher barn of more than 120,000 square feet, built to hold up to 15,000 pigs, which a 2019 trade article described as the largest finisher barn in Canada. At full production, the colony expected roughly 48,000 to 50,000 pigs a year from about 1,800 farrow-to-finish sows. The grand opening was held in January 2019, when the colony reported around 24 families and 110 people.

Award-winning pork

Plainview Colony won best in show in the pork quality competition at the Royal Manitoba Winter Fair in 2018 and again in 2019, and donated half of its winnings to the Southeast Integrated Care Centre in Moosomin, Saskatchewan.

What the colony does

• Hog production, from farrowing to finishing
• Grain and oilseed farming on roughly 10,000 acres
• Agricultural services as a mixed-farm operation
• Other operations listed in the directory profile: cattle, chicken layers, fresh produce and vegetables, a feed mill, and steel and woodworking manufacturing

Contact

Plainview Colony Farms Ltd., Box 100, Elkhorn, Manitoba R0M 0N0. Phone 204-851-2236. Because hog barns are managed for biosecurity, please phone ahead before visiting.