The company hosting Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show and its western counterpart, Ag in Motion, plans to use the online platforms it set up in 2020 to instead host multiple smaller online events this year.
Both outdoor ag shows hosted by Winnipeg-based Glacier FarmMedia — the owner of this website — went online in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with video presentations and demos, webinars and chats in lieu of in-person events and displays.
“There is still so much uncertainty in 2021, and while we are all missing in-person farm shows, we wanted to give producers something certain they could count on: timely information throughout the year,” GFM executive vice-president Lynda Tityk said Wednesday in a release.
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Show attendees “told us that more frequent information provided in smaller chunks throughout the year would be most helpful for planning in 2021,” she said.
COFS and AiM each now offer online registrants a free “Digital Pass,” granting admission to six themed one-day digital events throughout the year with presentations on planting, growing, equipment, harvest, dairy and innovation topics.
Industry expert sessions and demonstrations and research and technology updates are also planned, the company said, while on-demand content will be available in between digital event days.
COFS’ first such event is scheduled for March 10, while the first online AiM event is set for March 24, the company said.
On digital event days, the two ag shows will also each host a virtual “Coffee Shop” for farmers, speakers and industry reps to gather at small “virtual tables” to ask questions and video chat in an “informal setting,” GFM said.
In non-pandemic years, Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show runs in September near Woodstock, Ont., while Ag in Motion runs in July at Glacier FarmMedia Discovery Farm near Langham, Sask., west of Saskatoon. — Glacier FarmMedia Network
