In all aspects of life, many of us often question “What could I have done differently, and what if I would’ve taken a different path?”

These are questions Dori-Gingera Beauchemin, Deputy Minister of Manitoba Agriculture, posed to the participants of the Advancing Women in Agriculture conference she spoke at earlier this month in Calgary.

In a speech, entitled ‘Had I been more curious – what might have been different?’,  she pointed to the importance of small experiences and the significance of actively asking questions to everyone you meet.

Gingera-Beauchemin says that sometimes stopping and asking a question about something that may seem small and insignificant at the time, could sometimes change our lives without even knowing it.

“It’s the smallest of experiences that sometimes tend to be most important in your life,” says Gingera-Beauchemin.

Drawing on her more than 40 years of work in agriculture and a family life that was intertwined with farming, Gingera-Beauchemin spoke in length about how curiosity influenced her choices, focusing on the small things.

“We sometimes fly past those so quickly. They are standing, they are average, they are everyday, but it’s stopping and asking a question, particularly in this time where agriculture is asked so many questions and for us to be able to have the capacity to listen and to be in a real serious dialogue, I think at the end of it, that’s the kind of environment we need to build in agriculture in order to gain that public trust.”

She adds that it is never too late to try.

Dori Gingera-Beauchemin was a speaker at this year’s Advancing Women in Agriculture West Conference earlier this month in Calgary.