Provincial funding supports launch of Agritourism Ontario

Dec 04, 2024

With the support of the provincial government, Ontario’s leading agritourism association is taking giant steps to grow the sector across Ontario.

Agritourism Ontario (formerly Farm Fresh Ontario) is heading into 2025 with a new name and look that is more reflective of what the association does. It is also taking on some big projects thanks to support from the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Agribusiness.

“Agritourism is such a dynamic and growing part of Ontario’s nearly $51 billion agri-food sector,” said Rob Flack, minister of agriculture, food and agribusiness. “There are so many engaging, energizing, and fun experiences open to people across our province that reconnects them to their land and soil and inspires them to choose world-class, locally grown food products. Thank you, Agritourism Ontario. The work you do plays such a critical role in building up the momentum we’re seeing across our province’s agritourism sector and communicates Ontario’s amazing agri-food story, which employs more than 871,000 men and women.”

The nearly $345,000 in funding over three years will help Agritourism Ontario (AO) develop a first-of-its-kind app that will more easily connect families to farms. The funds will also help develop an economic growth study that will for the first time, give a detailed and accurate analysis of where agritourism is and its potential for growth in the province. Funds will also support a marketing strategy and farm visit awareness campaign as well as supporting agritourism operators through professional development workshops, webinars and events for AO members.

Agritourism Ontario’s board chair Darlene Downey of Downey’s Farm, Caledon, said the funding is crucial to help the association grow the sector.

“We welcome families onto our property and connect them with agriculture,” Downey explained. “Children have fun while learning about local food and products. It’s a special connect and through this extraordinary support we can continue to grow and showcase Ontario agriculture.”

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Video: Western Canadian Agriculture: Hard Times Made the World's Best Farmers

Western Canadian agriculture produced the most advanced farmers in the world not through abundance but through adversity. The crow rate fell. The wheat price went nowhere. The brown envelopes stopped.

When the subsidies disappeared, the bad farmers left and the good ones stayed. And the ones who stayed could not just grow wheat anymore. They started growing lentils and canola and peas and flax and faba beans. They built crop rotation. They got serious about agronomy because there was no government backstop. That process produced the Western Canadian agriculture Dennis Bulani describes in this clip: the most advanced, most educated farming culture in the world.

His contrast with Iowa corn and soybean farmers is sharp. At a DeKalb farmer meeting in Okoboji, Iowa, he asked what crop rotation they ran. Beans on corn stubble, corn on bean stubble. How do you fertilize? The co-op agronomist handles it. Have you considered other crops? No need. We make so much money on corn and soybeans. Western Canadian agriculture was never allowed that comfort. And now those Iowa farmers are watching soybean markets lock up with China and corn prices slide, and they do not have the agronomy knowledge or the research base to pivot. Western Canadian farmers adapted on a dime because they had done it before.

Dennis also makes the case that Western Canadian agriculture keeps adapting in real time. Low commodity prices over the past year have pushed growers to look seriously at precision spot-spray technology. He knows a neighbor who bought a sprayer with the seeing-eye system and sprayed only 80 out of 320 acres. As a chemical retailer Dennis acknowledges that will affect his sales. He supports it anyway, because if it advances Canadian agriculture and makes farmers money, that is a good outcome.

The lesson Dennis draws from the tale of two farms: continuous improvement is the only durable strategy. When canola was $22 a bushel some growers went to Arizona instead of the Crop Production Show. When the price came down those same growers came back to the research and the discipline. Products do not go on Rack Petroleum's shelves unless they pass a replicated trial first. That is what Western Canadian agriculture built through hard times: farmers who do the work whether the times demand it or not.

Dennis Bulani is CEO of Rack Petroleum and Ultimate Yield in Biggar, Saskatchewan. Dan Aberhart hosts GTF Productions, Western Canadian Agriculture's foremost live briefing platform and its foremost AI training platform for ag operators