As August comes to an end, the team at Farmtario has been focused on Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show, which takes place Sept. 9-11 at Discovery Farm Woodstock.
It’s the highlight of our calendar year, where we get to spend three days with tens of thousands of farmers and industry professionals and see and talk about what’s new and exciting in Ontario agriculture.
It’s also a rare opportunity for all of us to meet in person. Working in different areas of the province in home offices, we see each other often on screens, but rarely do we have opportunity to be in the same place at the same time.
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That’s one of the greatest benefits of farm shows – meeting up with colleagues, old friends (and new!), and discovering what agricultural companies and organizations have in the offing.
Some highlights at this year’s Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show include demonstrations on high-speed tillage, rotational grazing, and livestock handling. I highly recommend the ‘Off the Beaten Path’ tour, which takes place each day. It’s a guided tour of the Innovation Acres, land used by companies and academic institutions to perform research trials that benefit Ontario growers.
It’s expected that there will be an increased international presence at the show this year. I’ve already heard from a large Australian farmer travel group who are wrapping up their Canadian farm tour with a visit to the show. Make sure you say g’day if you see them.
It’s been a tumultuous year for trade and weather. The show offers opportunities to speak with equipment manufacturers, seed companies, livestock and agronomy experts.
It’s a chance to discuss how your crops and animals performed, what new hybrids or products are available and how you can best navigate production in these uncertain times.
Agriculture technology and innovations continue to be highlighted at the show, and one of my favourite events is the Ag Tech breakfast, held on the morning of Sept. 10.
It’s a great opportunity for not only farmers to learn about the kinds of technology coming down the pipe, but the innovators learn from farmers as well. They can further develop a technology so it’s more relevant and useful for farmers, but they need feedback from those with boots on the ground.
As I’ve noted in this column in previous years, having the opportunity for this type of interaction is so important because innovations aren’t just coming from those who work or study agriculture anymore.
More often than not, many innovators are engineers or scientists with no agriculture training at all – but they have an idea that they think could help make agriculture more productive, sustainable, or profitable.
What translates well on paper may not work in the field, so it’s important that farmers be willing to ask questions and participate in these types of discussions.
To plan out your visit to the show, please take a look at the show guide which accompanied this edition of Farmtario and visit outdoorfarmshow.com. You can download Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show mobile show app, available at Apple and Google Play app stores.
Our team will be providing daily coverage of the show. Check out all of our coverage of Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show here.
I hope to see you there!
