Minister Leal thanks farmers during Local Food Week

Jun 06, 2017

Weeklong celebration of Ontario food runs until June 11

By Diego Flammini
Assistant Editor, North American Content
Farms.com

Until June 11, producers, processors and consumers will be celebrating Ontario's agricultural industry during Local Food Week.

Ontario Minister of Agriculture Jeff Leal issued the following statement to Farms.com on June 5 about Local Food Week:

“This year, Ontario is celebrating its fourth annual Local Food Week. This is a great opportunity to celebrate the good things that are grown, harvested and made in our province. I’d like to thank our farmers, food makers and all the nearly 800,000 Ontarians who wake up each and every day to feed us and the world.

“Expanding access to local food that reflects the diversity of the people who call this province home will create opportunities for Ontario consumers, farmers and for our economy. That’s why this Local Food Week our government is launching Bring Home the World, a campaign to engage Ontarians in creating opportunities to increase the diversity of local food across the province.

“Our government continues to be a strong supporter of local food projects that are helping our agri-food sector innovate and giving consumers access to more local food options. Ontarians can also do their part this Local Food Week, and throughout the year, by making local food their first choice when buying groceries and eating out.”

The Bring Home the World campaign uses Ontario’s diverse population as inspiration to promote the production of food not regularly associated with Ontario.

“The shifts in Ontario’s population are resulting in a more diverse consumer palate, but are also contributing to changes in where Ontarians shop, as well as where they like to eat,” OMAFRA said on its Bring Home the World webpage.

In 2015, producers dedicated 2,900 acres of land to growing specialty vegetables including bok choy, napa cabbage and Chinese broccoli. These specialty crops were worth a total of $15.5 million, according to OMAFRA.

Producers interested in growing some of these crops can visit OMAFRA’s Specialty Crop Opportunities webpage.

Until September 23, Ontarians are encouraged to participate in the World Foods survey to give OMAFRA insight into the foods desired provincially.

Use the hashtag #LoveOntFood to follow Local Food Week on social media.

Video: Seeing the Whole Season: How Continuous Crop Modeling Is Changing Breeding

Plant breeding has long been shaped by snapshots. A walk through a plot. A single set of notes. A yield check at the end of the season. But crops do not grow in moments. They change every day.

In this conversation, Gary Nijak of AerialPLOT explains how continuous crop modeling is changing the way breeders see, measure, and select plants by capturing growth, stress, and recovery across the entire season, not just at isolated points in time.

Nijak breaks down why point-in-time observations can miss critical performance signals, how repeated, season-long data collection removes the human bottleneck in breeding, and what becomes possible when every plot is treated as a living data set. He also explores how continuous modeling allows breeding programs to move beyond vague descriptors and toward measurable, repeatable insights that connect directly to on-farm outcomes.

This conversation explores:

• What continuous crop modeling is and how it works

• Why traditional field observations fall short over a full growing season

• How scale and repeated measurement change breeding decisions

• What “digital twins” of plots mean for selection and performance

• Why data, not hardware, is driving the next shift in breeding innovation As data-driven breeding moves from research into real-world programs, this discussion offers a clear look at how seeing the whole season is reshaping value for breeders, seed companies, and farmers, and why this may be only the beginning.