The Citizen - Salute to Agriculture 2023

Klaver wears one of agriculture’s greatest crowns

By Shawn Loughlin The Citizen

Late last year, it was a Huron County woman who earned the right to hold one of the most important positions in Ontario agriculture when Maranda Klaver was crowned the Ontario Queen of the Furrow at the 2022 International Plowing Match (IPM), held in the Kemptville area for the first time in-person for several years.

Klaver was crowned the Huron County Queen of the Furrow in 2019 and then endured both a lengthy term in the position over 2020, 2021 and half of 2022 before Luanne McGregor was crowned her successor at the 2022 Huron County Plowing Match, as well as a lengthy wait for the next International Plowing Match, which wouldn’t go ahead until 2022, and her shot at the provincial crown.

With her win, Klaver became the fourth Huron County woman to win the title after Amy (Stewart) Beccario in 1966, Lynne (Dodds) Godkin in 1984 and Melissa (Sparling) Veldman in 2010.

She competed against 18 fellow Queens, each of whom was scored on their appearance, deportment, an interview, a speech and, of course, plowing.

Fourth in a line

Maranda Klaver of the Seaforth area became just the fourth Huron County woman to be crowned Ontario Queen of the Furrow late last year. The position has put her in place to represent the Ontario Plowmen’s Association at many farm shows and agricultural seminars. (Courtesy photo)

Klaver told The Citizen that, when the announcement was made, it didn’t immediately register.

“It was pretty surreal, and that was what I said in my acceptance speech,” she said. “At one point, during my reign, I didn’t even know if I’d get to go to the IPM because

of the COVID-19 pandemic, so to be standing there and crowned, I needed someone to come pinch me to make sure it was real.”

Klaver said she stayed on message from when she was crowned the Huron County Queen of the Furrow in 2019, talking about mental health in the agricultural field. In her speech, she called it the “elephant in the room” and she had an elephant balloon to help people connect with her speech and message.

She also practised plowing with Brian McGavin, who has experience at all levels of plowing competitions, which obviously helped as Klaver finished fifth out of 13 in that portion of the competition.

“I was really happy about that,” she said. “I went and looked at the other contestants’ plowing and I thought it was going to be very close. I was super happy to land in the top five.”

The competition across all fronts was very close, she said, including the plowing, so Klaver was extremely elated to come away with the win.

It’s been a whirlwind of activity since she was crowned, she said. First, she picked up the car that is leased for her for the year and she has been handed the social media credentials for the Queen of the Furrow. She also fielded several invitations for plowing matches, including those in Haldimand and Halton.

Klaver is excited to help promote the 2023 IPM, which is set to be held in Bowling Green between

Arthur and Orangeville. After travelling nearly 600 kilometres to Kemptville for this year’s competition, she says she is excited to have the opportunity to represent a match that’s just over 100 kilometres away.

Klaver has also connected with a number of previous Queens who reached out to congratulate her, both from Huron and other counties.

“They said they had incredible, exciting and fun years,” she said. “They all enjoyed their time, so I’m hoping it will be the same for me. It’s a whole new experience, so I’m excited for it.”

Klaver said the reality of the win is still sinking in, even several days after being crowned, and she looks forward to seeing exactly how she can best fill the role.

Klaver said she was immediately treated like royalty on her first day of the match after winning the crown, even being treated to a helicopter ride above the grounds.

Klaver said her family was unable to make the trip to support her at the match in person, but she was overjoyed to see the reception she received when she returned home from Kemptville. Her family had made a large wooden sign celebrating her win and were all there to greet her, wearing crowns of their own.

Klaver said she has been involved in the Queen of the Furrow competition since she was 12 years old and, by winning the provincial crown, she had become the person she looked up to when she was

Continued on page A5

Godkin reflects on ’84 Queen win

By Shawn Loughlin

Just under 40 years ago, Lynne Godkin (who was then Lynne Dodds) made history as the secondever Huron County woman to be crowned Ontario Queen of the Furrow.

She followed in the footsteps of Amy (Stewart) Beccario and would be followed by Melissa (Sparling) Veldman and the current Ontario Queen of the Furrow, Huron  County’s own Maranda Klaver. Being so young at the time, Godkin, in an interview with The Citizen, says it was such a whirlwind and it was a lot of commitment at that age, but that she wouldn’t change a thing.

Godkin is also one of the few young women who have ever won the local crown two years in a row.

First encouraged to get involved by Marie McGavin, Ruth Townsend and Helen Craig - a formidable trio of women who are likely responsible for recruiting dozens of Queen of the Furrow and Princess contestants over the years - Godkin thought she would give it a try in 1983 when she was just a teenager.

She said that, at that time, she wasn’t overly concerned with the public speaking aspect of the local Queen of the Furrow competition, though she wasn’t exactly in love with it either, but what really concerned her was the plowing portion of it. Despite having a longtime competitive plowing coach and judge for a father in Don Dodds and a future multiple champion for a younger brother in Paul Dodds, those pieces of the puzzle had not yet fallen into place, as Paul was just 14 at the time.

So, she was a little concerned about how she would perform out in the field. She would go on to impress the judges, both on the stage and in the field, and win the crown. At that point, for her first win, she remembers being one in a large group of about 10 or 11 competitors all vying for the crown. She said there were a lot of contestants in those days, which was always intimidating.

She said she loved it and was able to really settle into the role. In fact, she credits getting involved with the Queen of the Furrow competition with helping forge her career path as a teacher. If she never put her name forward, Godkin said, it’s unlikely she would have pursued a career path that had her in front of students talking for most days.

Because she was so enjoying her time as the Queen of the Furrow, she decided to try to win a second chance to wear the crown. Because of the county’s staggered representation system, she was already due to head to the International Plowing Match that following September to represent

the county on the provincial stage (the county send its previous winner to the International Plowing Match every year - for example, 2019 Queen Maranda Klaver was set to represent the county the September after her win, September of 2020), but decided to put her name forward once again. She won, which earned her a second shot at International  Plowing Match glory.

After failing to win the provincial crown in 1983, Godkin knew she would be heading back the following year with a second chance at becoming the Ontario Queen of the Furrow. As a result, Godkin said she had a level of experience and comfort with the competition that very few of her competitors had.

She said there were about 35 other competitors and it was intimidating, but that she also knew some of them from her time at the University of Guelph (she was still a student there while going through the competition process).

Godkin said she felt that, once she moved onto the final five, it was her answer to the impromptu question that won her the crown. Her question asked about getting into farming at the time, which was

a hard time for farmers in the country due to high interest rates and more.

When she was crowned the winner, she said she was surprised and happy, especially since she had won her own car, a Ford Escort, that she was given, for Ontario Plowmen’s Association business, for a year, but that she was then able to keep afterwards (that rule has been changed in subsequent years). For a 20-year-old woman, being handed the keys to a brand new car was a pretty sizeable development. With the car came the need to drive it, Godkin said. Of course, she was well versed in driving, but over the coming year, she said she would learn a lot about navigation, reading maps and getting around in the days before GPS systems and Google Maps on cell phones (which didn’t exist back then).

She said that juggling appearances and other Queen of the Furrow duties with her studies was difficult at times, but that it was an experience she’ll never forget.

And, for those who are considering getting involved, Godkin said you should jump in with both feet because you never know where it might take you.

Second time’s a charm

Huron’s Lynne Godkin represented the county twice at the International Plowing Match, winning the Queen of the Furrow crown in 1984. (Courtesy photo)

CHRISTIAN FARMERS Federation Of Ontario CFFO

The

Klaver looks to inspire with provincial win

Continued from page A3 younger and that she aspired to be that person who could now inspire that newest younger generation.

The Dufferin Farm Tour was Klaver’s first official event as the Ontario Queen of the Furrow, which she attended in an attempt to introduce herself and promote the 2023 International Plowing Match, which will be held in Peel-Dufferin, hosted by the Townships of Grand Valley, Amaranth and East Luther, from Sept. 19-23, 2023.

She has since attended her first plowing match, making her way to the Haldimand-Oneida Plowing Match in Hagersville. Klaver then attended the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair in Toronto.

Once she was back and settled in Huron County, the Huron Plowmen’s Association hosted a special meet-and-greet with Klaver to celebrate her win in Seaforth.

Inspiring women

Huron County’s Maranda Klaver, second from left, recently sat on a panel of prominent women in agriculture, which she said was a true thrill for her. To be among so many inspiring women, discussing their place in the traditionally male-dominated world of agriculture, she said, was very important to her. (Courtesy

Do your part to avoid theft: Soldan

By Shawn Loughlin

With a perceived rise in property crime on the lips and minds of many throughout rural Ontario in recent years, Craig Soldan of the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP)  has some advice for those living on farms or rural residences to keep their homes, barns, sheds and property safe.

Speaking with The Citizen , Soldan said there have been some trends towards an increase in property crime in Huron County, specifically in rural areas, but that it would be rather difficult to back up with hard data. The difference between a proper farm, he said, and a rural residence, coupled with the type of crime being reported and other minor offences not being reported would make it very difficult to get specific, local statistics, but he did say that property crime in Huron County continues to be a concern.

Soldan says he’s worked with the OPP for 24 years, serving at a wide range of posts all over the county, but always in Huron. He started in Wingham at a detachment that served a lot of rural properties outside of Wingham and in MorrisTurnberry, Howick, AshfieldColborne-Wawanosh and the rest of northern Huron before moving on to positions in southern Huron, Goderich and now in Clinton. So, over the course of nearly a quartercentury, Soldan has policed in nearly every corner of the county.

Over the years, Soldan said he’s

In 2023, Klaver said she has found herself consistently busy with guest speaking engagements and appearances all over the province. She was the guest speaker here at home for the Brussels Agricultural Society’s annual general meeting in January, and has since attended a number of farm shows to mingle, network and help promote this year’s International Plowing Match.

Klaver says that, while she is still in the midst of her win and all she gets to do as a result, she can already feel how the experience is changing her life in real time.

“I feel like I’ve been rediscovering myself,” Klaver said in an interview with The Citizen, saying that every week she is learning something new about herself and trying or accomplishing something she never would have tried several years earlier.

photo)

The Citizen

‘The Funny Farm’ growing over time in Belgrave

convincing. The girls’ approach was simple, but effective: create a PowerPoint presentation outlining how the two of them would divide up the workload and defray the costs. The girls’ mother, Patricia Smith, relented quickly, but Robert’s will to resist had to be slowly eroded over two weeks of nightly PowerPoint presentations. Looking back now, Amelia admits that she underestimated the costs in these initial presentations, but that’s true of a lot of scrappy start-ups. In the end Robert gave up and each of them received a goat.

For Smith, acquiescence quickly turned to enthusiasm, and she was deputized to help out with the everexpanding herd. Make no mistake, Amelia runs the show. There is a set way everything needs to be done, if it is to meet her satisfaction. There is a neatly printed list of detailed instructions on the wall of the barn for anyone in need of edification as to proper procedure.

When one arrives on the farm, they are usually greeted by Luna, the hyperactive, heterochromic

All work, some play

By Scott Stephenson The Citizen

Belgrave-based farmer Robert Foreman is the owner and operator of 100 Mile Produce, a farm business focused on growing seasonal vegetables, cultivating partnerships with an expansive network of local Mennonite and Amish farmers, and selling fresh produce directly to consumers at farmers’ markets and restaurants in the local area. He’s devoted his life to making the business a success, and when a farmer devotes his life to creating a profitable farm worthy of a legacy, he dreams of the day that his progeny will make him proud by taking on the mantle of the family business.

But, during the early days of the

COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, when Foreman’s teenage daughters Chloe and Amelia approached him with their plans to expand the produce farm into livestock, he felt those dreams become a nightmare.

You see, the girls’ idea was to acquire animals that would work only at one job - receiving loveand that they would produce only joy in return. These animals would be, simply, to be. The goal, at the beginning, was for each of the Foreman girls to get a goat to call their very own. The project became known colloquially around the house as “The Funny Farm”.

Anybody who has ever been in charge of a beast of burden knows that it is not a simple, or cheap, affair. For the practical-minded Foreman family, it took a bit of

(two different-coloured eyes) cattle dog. When the door to this reporter’s 2009 Chevrolet Equinox opened, Luna dropped a takeout coffee cup covered in red tinsel as a welcoming gift, before running far afield. Smith explained. “That tinsel’s just leftover from the goat’s Christmas decorations,” she laughed, shrugging. “Luna’s calmed down considerably, maybe, right?” she asked. Amelia’s pragmatic response? “Luna was at her most calm at eight weeks old, now she just gets more Luna.”

Luna is the younger of two farm dogs and she splits her time between confronting birds and trying to herd Hank, the elder dog of the Foreman farm. Hank, a mountainous gentleman of a dog, could easily fit Luna’s whole head in his mouth, but doesn’t let her high energy hi-jinks get him down.

Before school, Amelia gets up at 6 a.m. to bring the goats out. “I say, ‘goats, goats, goats’ and they follow me.” She leads them out to their paddock, and heads back to the barn to muck out the stalls. Cleanliness

is important. Amelia warns, “There can’t be hay in the water, not even one piece, or the animals won’t drink it.” Once the living quarters are clean, she pitchforks hay into big mesh bags that hang on hooks in the goat stalls. While she endeavours to feed them a balanced diet, true to goat stereotypes, they’ll eat anything, including the special box built to keep their water from freezing. Much of their care isn’t about necessity, it’s about enrichment. Their paddock has a yellow plastic slide in case they feel like taking a little ride. Neighbours drop off old Christmas trees for them to destroy. Amelia says, “They love to eat Christmas trees.” The tree they are currently working on is stripped bare and battered smooth. The goat’s paddock is hand-made, but still strong enough to deter Luna’s persistent attempts to dig her way in.

Neither of the original two animals are still around. Chloe, the older sister, has switched her focus to the pursuit of post-secondary

Continued on page A7

Amelia Foreman of Belgrave, above, has slowly, steadily grown what is known in the family as “The Funny Farm” with the help of her mother Patricia Smith. The farm’s inputs are love, which, in turn, produce a harvest of joy.

(Scott Stephenson photo)

A unique business plan, but one that works

say no to a donkey, pot-bellied pigs or alpacas.

When asked if she’d ever tried milking the goats, Amelia explained that she’d considered it, but didn’t want to interrupt the natural relationship between the goats and their mother. Most goats never have it so good!

eggs. Don’t expect any eggs from these two because they’re both roosters! With expansion on her mind, though, soon, that will change. Smith has come around on the idea of further additions to the crew. “[Amelia] has finally convinced me to get chickens.”.

Funny Farm

Amelia Foreman, left, and her mother Patricia Smith look upon what is now known as “The Funny Farm” in Belgrave, a unique collection of animals that may not boost productivity in the traditional, agricultural sense, but sure have been a source of entertainment and love for Amelia and the rest of the family. (Scott Stephenson photo)

Continued from page A6 education. Amelia’s original goat, Blue, quickly became a local legend, and sired two of the mischievous characters that make up Amelia’s current menagerie, and it has become an extensive fraternity.

Besides the original goats, there are two myotonic goats, also known as Tennessee Fainting Goats. This unusual breed was first brought to North America in the 1880s. A mutation in their genes causes the goats to stiffen and fall over when they are surprised or startled.

Amelia’s two goats are myotonic, but they don’t faint. Willy, the male, was taken in when his extreme odour drove his previous owners to seek out a more suitable home. His female companion, Bailey, is much smaller, with long hair and a serene face. Even for a very silly type of animal, this little one is supremely silly. These two little characters get

fed on opposite sides of their stall to prevent fighting, but still love to jockey for position at each bowl one at a time.

The goats are also impractically naughty. Smith remembers them escaping on at least 10 separate occasions. Reinforced doors have been installed in the barn in an attempt to keep these caprine escape artists hemmed in. They’ve also been known to liberate other animals from their pens.

Another addition to the 100-yearold barn is a tiny hatch cut into the massive entrance door to allow the diminutive young farmer to check on her animals during extremely cold weather without allowing excess heat to escape the barn.

There are also new stalls built to house livestock. One of the stalls stands empty, awaiting whatever animal catches Amelia’s attention next. Number one on her wish list: a full-sized horse, but she wouldn’t

After school, she mucks out more stalls. It’s not just goats anymore, now there are miniature horses. More accurately, there is a miniature horse, and an even smaller miniature horse. One of them used to work as a therapy horse, but both are now well past retirement age. Now it’s their full time job to relax in the sunshine.

The farm also has two Easter Egger chickens, a breed prized for laying different-coloured

There is also a flock of quail. These tiny dynamos are the only animals on the farm that produce something edible in the form of small, speckled eggs that Smith and the Foremans eat hard-boiled. They only take a minute to cook, as quail eggs are considerably smaller than chicken eggs. The shells, however, have a higher protein content than chicken egg shells, and are therefore much stronger.

When asked how she felt about spending time with this eclectic coterie of barnyard animals, Amelia responded with pure enthusiasm: “They’re just like dogs, only bigger!” Her advice to anybody thinking of getting into funny farming? “Do it!”

Any plans this daughter-mother team has for the future? Expanding the goat herd is a possibility. “Eight or 10 would be good,” mused Amelia, and Smith agreed saying, “You become friends with them,” while gesturing across the field.

Leaving the farm, one is left feeling that what they harvest here may be ephemeral, but it’s also undeniable.

Gateway’s S.H.E.D. Talks aim to connect farmers

lean on each other for support and conversation, which is exactly what we are trying to do with S.H.E.D. Talks,” said Becky Higgs, Gateway research assistant and an active Master’s of Counselling Psychology student, in a press release issued late last year.

Higgs spoke to The Citizen about the project, which is near and dear to her heart, and the early success the centre has found with local farmers, politicians and farm organizations. She said the November event is only the beginning of what the centre hopes will be a continued and sustained effort to keep farmers meeting on a regular basis going forward, hosting S.H.E.D. Talks among themselves.

Connecting

The Gateway Centre of Excellence in Rural Health is working to improve the mental health of farmers through S.H.E.D. Talks, which launched in Huron County late last year, above. The organization, which has been focused on the health of rural Canadians for well over a decade, plans to host more launch events in Grey, Bruce and Perth Counties in the hopes that participants, other farmers or farm organizations will then take the baton and begin hosting their own on a monthly, go-forward basis. (Courtesy photo)

By Shawn Loughlin The Citizen

For over a decade, the Gateway Centre of Excellence in Rural Health has been working towards researching and addressing health concerns in rural Ontario; its new S.H.E.D. Talks project is directly focusing on farmers.

S.H.E.D. stands for “Sustaining Healthy Farms Through

Empowerment and Dedication” and the roots of the project come from work done by the Men’s Shed Association of Manitoba, a peer-run group that provides a safe and welcoming place for men to work on meaningful projects.

Gateway launched S.H.E.D. Talks in Huron on Nov. 4, 2022 with its first event. Now, the centre hopes to host subsequent S.H.E.D. Talk events in Grey, Bruce and

Perth Counties later this spring, in addition to hosting another event in Huron.

“No one knows the farm better than the farmer themselves, which makes it difficult for them to try to explain to others what it’s like being on the farm 24/7. This is why it’s so important that we try to create this farmer-to-farmer connection, so that they are able to

The concept, Higgs said, is that Gateway would host initial S.H.E.D. Talks and connect local farmers and farm organizations with one another in the hopes that some of the participants themselves would then take the baton and run with it, working to host the next monthly S.H.E.D. Talk, subsequently passing it along to another participant and so on.

Higgs says she became a part of the project in the summer of 2022 when she took on an active role in the research and planning for what would eventually become the S.H.E.D. Talks project. She conducted some of the foundational research and then reached out to local farmers and farm

Continued on page A9

AGENT: TODD WHEELER Box 394, 75 Sports Dr., Brussels, ON N0G 1H0

AGENT: TODD WHEELER Box 394, 75 Sports Dr., Brussels, ON N0G 1H0

BELGRAVE & AUBURN CO-OPERATIVE #1 QUEEN STREET, BELGRAVE, ON 519-357-2711

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* Extended hours during growing season Laird Currie, Agronomy Manager: 519-357-0894

scaldwell@midwestcoop.ca

Huron launch event was inspiring says Higgs

hope for the future of S.H.E.D. Talks.

The event concluded with an address by Josh Groot, who spoke about succession planning, which is another great stressor in the lives of many area farmers, and Margaret Vincent from the OFA, who spoke about the Farmers’ Wellness Initiative, the Guardian Network and the In The Know program, among other initiatives being undertaken by the federation to improve farmers’ mental health.

As someone who has been involved with the project since its inception, really, Higgs said she was so pleased to see it come to fruition and has been impressed with how well received it has been by farmers. She said that Melady’s address really gave farmers permission to share their stories and discuss their own struggles.

Getting the ball rolling

The Gateway Centre of Excellence in Rural Health recently launched S.H.E.D. Talks in an effort to connect local farmers with one another to share experiences and discuss any struggles they may be having. The organization then hosted a subsequent event at the home farm of Huron County Warden Glen McNeil. Gateway research assistant Becky Higgs, above, has been instrumental in the creation of the project. (Courtesy photo)

Continued from page A8 organizations to set the groundwork for the project.

A cornerstone of that research, she said, was to establish the main stressors facing farmers in Huron County. The top concern, of course, was financial, with farmers always being concerned about the viability of their operation. Also on the list was interpersonal relationships with family members and the isolation of farming, followed by the stress and anxiety of being so dependent on the weather and the sheer workload of the job and the labour shortages being experienced not just in the farm industry, but across the country right now.

Once the path forward was clear, Higgs and the centre worked on pulling the event together. Higgs said there were about 25 farmers in attendance for the launch, which was held at the centre’s headquarters in Goderich and included a breakfast for those who attended. Gateway President Gwen Devereaux, Huron-Bruce MP Ben Lobb, Huron County Warden Glen McNeil, Central Huron Mayor Jim Ginn, Huron County Director of Economic Development Vicki Lass and Margaret Vincent from the Ontario Federation of Agriculture were all in attendance for the launch event.

After the dignitaries brought greetings, it was Higgs who provided an introduction to the project, stressing the importance of building connections and empowering the agricultural community, while reducing social isolation and lessening the daily stressors experienced by farmers.

The guest speaker, Tom Melady, really opened up the event for those in attendance. Melady, who is a retired Huron County dairy farmer, spoke about his own experiences on the farm and dealing with the challenges associated with a life in agriculture Higgs said it brings tears to her eyes to think back to Melady’s presentation and how it was received by those in attendance. For him to have the courage to detail the challenges he has faced and endured and for farmers in attendance to hear him and realize that they are not alone was a real pivotal moment in the whole process that gave Higgs a lot of

Small

In the months that have followed, a number of farmers and representatives from farm organizations have reached out to Gateway, asking about the next event or perhaps hosting one of their own.

The next steps, Higgs said, is to roll out the program in Grey, Bruce

and Perth Counties in the coming months, hosting launch events there in the hopes that others will then step up and want to host their own S.H.E.D. Talks, on a regular basis, in the months that follow. She says she has discussed options with those who have expressed an interest in hosting events themselves, with the size of the group ranging from between 10 and 20 people to an event for up to 50 people.

“Our farmers are the most important business people driving the local, rural economy here and feeding our community,” said Devereaux in a press release issued after the November, 2022 launch event. “Keeping farmers healthy should be the number-one priority for our community.”

As the project moves ahead, Higgs said it has been gratifying to see its success and to see farmers opening up and connecting with one another. She grew up on a farm and saw firsthand how isolating some of the work can be, so she’s happy to be helping break down those walls through the Gateway Centre and the S.H.E.D. Talks project.

It’s a w

is an and a life

OFA taking three-pronged approach to mental health

resources to all Ontario farmers and their families, regardless of farm organization membership. With funding from the Canadian Agricultural Partnership program, a five-year federal-provincialterritorial initiative, OFA partnered with the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) – Ontario Division and Telus Health (formerly LifeWorks) to develop and launch this initiative. It is the first step of a multi-year, provincewide program,” Brekveld said in an e-mail to The Citizen “Counselling is available for any issue, not just farm-related matters, including financial pressures;

health concerns; depression; troubles with family, friends, partners or spouses; feelings of stress or burn-out; bullying, trauma, abuse and other issues requiring support. The confidential service, which is accessible 24 hours a day, 365 days a year in English and French, as well as up to 30 other languages, is provided by professional counsellors with specialized agricultural backgrounds and training.”

Brekveld, a Northern Ontario dairy farmer and president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA), says the organization, and much of the world at large,

is viewing mental health in a new way and that change is for the better.

In an interview with The Citizen, Brekveld said she’s personally had mental health struggles, as have members of her family, so she knows how important it is to recognize and make it a priority, especially during such a challenging time.

“I have experienced times that I’ve struggled and I’ve watched family members struggle,” Brekveld said. With her experiences, Brekveld said the key was to talk about it, but

By Shawn Loughlin The Citizen

In recent years, the conversation around mental health in agriculture has continued to grow and grow, with individual farmers, farm organizations and others all looking to do their part to improve the mental health of farmers in Ontario.

Late last year, Ontario Federation of Agriculture President Peggy Brekveld spoke to CTV about a study conducted by Dr. Andria Jones-Bitton at the University of Guelph. The study concluded that 76 per cent of farmers are still selfidentifying as having a moderate to high stress level, much higher than the general population. Furthermore, the study also concluded that, in the previous 12 months, one in four farmers contemplated suicide.

That work helped lead to the creation of Agriculture Wellness Ontario, which includes a number of programs to help the mental health of farmers, including workshops, a suicide prevention program and an around-the-clock counselling phone line.

In 2021, The Citizen spoke with Brekveld about the mental health of farmers and the work being done to address it. Earlier this month, we connected again to see if things

have improved and what further resources are now in place to help Ontario’s farmers maintain a healthy state of mind.

“Farmer mental health continues to be a concern and, in some cases, it has gotten worse,” Brekveld said in an e-mail to The Citizen “Studies in 2021 compared to 2016 show that stress, anxiety and burnout levels are still much higher in farmers, with 76 per cent of farmers self-reporting moderate or high perceived stress. The statistics on suicide are most alarming. Farmers experience suicide ideation two times more than the general population and one in four Canadian farmers felt their life was not worth living, wished they were dead or thought of taking their own life in the last 12 months. The postpandemic statistics show how much farmer mental health has been affected over the past few years.”

This alarming data has led, in part, to the development of the Farmer Wellness Initiative, which has been created thanks to an unprecedented partnership between the Ontario Federation of Agriculture and the Canadian Federation of Agriculture.

“The Farmer Wellness Initiative was developed to provide access to free counselling services and tailored mental health support and

Peggy Brekveld President Ontario Federation of Agriculture

Brekveld encourages farmers to discuss their health

Continued from page 10 she knows that can be hard for many people. “It takes a lot of courage to acknowledge that something’s not right,” she said.

For some families, she said, the COVID-19 pandemic may not have changed day-to-day operations on the farm, with one family unit working together day in and day out. For others, however, it may have changed operations greatly. But one way the pandemic has affected the farm community across the board, she said, is that social gatherings had to cease, many of which are circled on a farm family’s calendar.

Farm shows, plowing matches, spring and fall fairs, church services or even community meals have always served as an opportunity for farmers to see other farmers and community members and those opportunities have been lost to the pandemic over the course of the past few years.

From a personal perspective, Brekveld said she has missed seeing her colleagues. Whether it’s members of her community or the OFA’s board of directors, not meeting face-to-face has been challenging and she misses it, but knows it’s the safe, right thing to do.

She, like many others, has seen the conversation change around mental health in recent years.

For too long, she said, people, especially those on the farm, would be told to “buck up” or “be strong” if they were feeling down. Now, however, more people know that there is far more to situations involving mental health and both the issues and the solutions are very complicated.

She says that farmers and the

greater farming community need to think about mental health as it does physical health, realizing there is no difference between the two.

“In the same way that farming can take a toll on our bodies, it can also take a toll on our mental health. We want to ensure that farmers are equipped to take care of both. Providing farm families across Ontario with free counselling services and helping connect farmers with tailored support and resources is a greatly welcomed service in rural Ontario. It is important we keep talking about mental health. If we keep talking about it and increasing our understanding of mental and wellness, we hopefully can reduce stigmas. It is okay to not be okay,” she said in an e-mail to The Citizen

As for the work that went into developing the initiative, Brekveld feels it was worth it, as it’s already starting to work its way into the culture and its place among farmers is growing.

“Use of the initiative is on the rise, as people become more aware of the resources and support available,” Brekveld said. “There is a significant number of calls coming in between midnight at 6 a.m., and we’re glad that the program is available, any time, day or night.”

At agriculturewellnessontario.ca there are a number of resources available. First, there is the Farmer Wellness Initiative, which is the hotline for farmers to call at 1-866267-6255, followed by The Guardian Network, a project to help prevent suicide, and the In the Know program, which is all about raising awareness.

The In the Know program is being rolled out by the OFA and the

Scott inducted to Hall

Ontario Premiers and Prime Minister Mackenzie King.

At the time of his premature death, he was a director for the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, Canadian Federation of Agriculture, Dairy Farmers of Canada, Ontario Stockyards Board and the Ontario Beef Cattle Producers’ Association.

At the HCFA’s Annual General Meeting, Scott will also be inducted to the Huron County Agricultural Hall of Fame.

Canadian Mental Health Association’s Ontario division by way of a memorandum of understanding signed by representatives of the two organizations.

The half-day sessions, developed at the University of Guelph, are designed to increase mental health awareness and create a support network specifically designed for farmers and their mental health. “In The Know” addresses specific mental health issues that affect farmers, agricultural employees and farm families.

Not only has the OFA provided funding for the development of the program, but the association also has representatives on the University of Guelph’s stakeholder working group for mental health in

agriculture.

This is one of the cornerstone programs that is available on the OFA’s website, which now includes an entire page on mental health. It directs farmers to a number of resources, including the Do More Ag. Foundation, the Farmers’ Toolbox, created by the Listowel Agricultural Society, and others.

So much of mental health and wellness has to do with communication and speaking up when you’re struggling. Brekveld said that while it isn’t something that will come up at a public meeting - though she has seen it happen - she has been approached by friends when they’ve been facing mental health challenges.

It takes courage, she said, to step forward like that, but it’s a crucial

part of the process.

“There is no shame in saying ‘I  need help,’” Brekveld said.

When asked this year what she would say to a farmer who might be experiencing mental health challenges, but is afraid to speak up or reach out for help, she said the best way to connect is to assure the farmer in question that they are far from alone.

“I would say the following: You are not alone. There is a way forward, even if it isn’t obvious at this moment, and there are people and resources to help you find the best way possible for you,” she said. “And again, you are not alone,” she said.

For more information, resources or to reach out, visit agriculturewellnessontario.ca.

Fertilizers

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• Spreaders readily available

In 2023, the Ontario Agricultural Hall of Fame (OAHF) will induct 11 individuals who have made significant impacts on Ontario agriculture and beyond. One of these inductees was posthumously nominated by the Huron County Federation of Agriculture (HCFA).

Robert J. Scott was from the Belgrave area. Robert James Scott (1900 - 1946) was one of Ontario’s greatest and most influential farm activists and was one of the most prominent men in Canadian agriculture during the 1930s and 1940s. He passionately worked to organize co-operatives in which farmers would pool their resources. By organizing farmers, they were then able to be more competitive, were no longer taken advantage of and had a strong, united voice to influence change. He led the United Farmers’ Co-operative of Ontario and advocated for many farmrelated matters, such as fixed prices of commodities during the Second World War to guarantee an adequate food supply. He spoke up for fair railway freight rates for crops and was called upon for advice by

Robert J. Scott

Stephenson aims to create a Huron County sandwich

cheese layered with olive tapenade. The plan: to go to different stops, collecting meats and cheeses for the various layers. Since olives don’t come from Huron County, the tapenade will be eschewed in favour of local vegetables prepared in some way, which would be determined as we went along. The construction is inspired by the classic picnic sandwich, a giant, crusty, hollow loaf of bread stuffed with ingredients. The day of a farmer is long and tiring, and meals are often communal, so it had to be a big sandwich. Preferably, the holy trinity of the barnyard (chicken, pork, beef) would all be represented, but we were willing to be flexible. Nothing was off the table. The working-title name of the sandwich: The Citizen.

In search of...

By

Whenever my wife and I make travel plans, we divide up the planning. I book the accommodations and organize transit, while my wife researches whether the place we’re going is home to a regional sandwich, and if the answer to that question is yes, where is the best place to get one.

In Chicago, we had hot dogs dragged through the garden from Portillo’s. In Pittsburgh, we enjoyed french fry laden hoagies from Primanti Brothers. In Montreal, it had to be smoked meat from Schwartz’s Deli.

So you can imagine my wife’s disappointment when we moved to the Huron County area and there was no regional sandwich to be had. Luckily, as a journalist, there is a platform that can be used to make real change in the world; sandwichshaped change.

This month, for The Citizen, I visited different parts of the county to gather fun facts about farming and learn about agricultural styles, techniques and other such wizardry, so it seemed like the perfect time to stop by some of the area’s unique farms and local shops in a relentless, county-wide pursuit of the finest ingredients to make a sandwich worthy of a true citizen of Huron County. These days, more and more people are looking for alternatives to the grocery store and to artificially inflated prices. Creating a whole new regional sandwich is a big job, so it required the deputization of the aforementioned wife, Chelsea, to

help achieve success in this important quest.

The initial concept for the sandwich was simple. It had to be practical, yet whimsical, like an Ontario beach town. It had to be playful, yet functional, like a young farm dog. Portable, yet substantial, like a Bluetooth speaker at a rented cottage. It had to be Huron County.

Inspiration for the contents are drawn from the New Orleans-born muffuletta sandwich; meat and

The quest began with a fuel-up at Blyth favourite, BRØD bread & pastry. We grabbed coffee and were lucky enough to snag breakfast biscuits, which are never guaranteed to be available, but always a harbinger of a good day when you arrive early enough to get one. We also got a loaf of BRØD’s orange-veined cheese bread, which, while also great for sandwiches, was purchased specifically to eat by tearing into its pillowy flesh, sans adornments, with our bare handsthe perfect fuel for driving around collecting the ingredients for The Citizen Sandwich.

From BRØD, it was just a fourminute drive to our first farm stop, Blyth Farm Cheese. Cheese being glue that will hold The Citizen Sandwich together, so it is an

important ingredient to get right.

Blyth Farm Cheese is owned by Paul Van Dorp and the Van Dorp family, and they make Gouda-style cheese on their farm in accordance with Dutch traditions. The one big difference - they make their Gouda with sheep’s milk, instead of cow’s milk, and so they call it “ewe-da”. We navigated the long driveway, greeted by racks of colourful waxed wheels of cheese. Employee Effie, clad in a lab coat, quickly came out of the controlled environment of the cheese-making space to serve us. Effie, a Greek immigrant, came to the farm one day to check out the cheese-making process, saw a “help wanted” sign, and never left. There are a number of variations on the original ewe-da, and Effie offers

Reporter Scott Stephenson set out to define a region by way of a sandwich for Huron County. The journey took him to Blyth Farm Cheese, above, and The Sprouted Mill and Bakery near Seaforth, below. (Scott Stephenson photos)

Scott Stephenson The Citizen

The Citizen takes inspiration from New Orleans

added bonus is they sell great merchandise! We left the farm with chicken, bacon and hats!

Since pigs and chickens were already invited to the sandwich party, it seemed only fitting that cattle also be represented. Thoughts turned immediately to a Huron County mainstay: summer sausage. Summer sausage, typically made from beef mixed with pork, is named for its stability during warm weather, and is persevered through fermentation, giving it a distinctive funky flavour. Luckily, we were already on our way to Meeting Place Organic Farm, just outside of Lucknow. They have a lot of great products, one of which is thick slices of summer sausage made from a blend of their organic beef and pork. The summer sausage became the anchor meat of the sandwich, creating a strong foundation for all the other ingredients.

Grab the dictionary

In search of the perfect sandwich to tell the Huron County story, reporter Scott Stephenson and his wife Chelsea scoured the county, did plenty of preparation work and even dusted off some old dictionaries for a very specific task before they could enjoy what they have dubbed: The Citizen. (Scott Stephenson photo)

Continued from page A12 samples and information on all of them. Unable to choose when presented with choices, we went with a little bit of all of them: the classic, the spiced cumin, the aged, and the slightly sweet Queen Bee. If you don’t have time to head out to Blyth Farm Cheese, several of their varieties are available at the grocery store in downtown Blyth.

Having acquired some sandwich innards, it was time to start considering the vessel of The Citizen Sandwich. This bread needed to be a hearty loaf, and since already on the way to Seaforth to interview a local pottery legend, it seemed only logical to check out The Sprouted Mill and Bakery, a tiny shop nestled in the Everspring Farms building in downtown Seaforth.

Everspring Farms was founded in 1985, when married farmers Dale and Marianne Donaldson began sprouting barley to feed their livestock. Over the years, they’ve taken this passion for whole foods and expanded into a full-out sprouted empire.

The bakery, specializing in bread made with locally-sourced, sprouted grain bread and baked goods, was a natural next step. The bakery’s front-of-house space is a tiny corner of the little bakery in a big mill. Stepping inside, we are instantly enveloped in the funky olfactory invitation of fresh sourdough. An enticing tray of double chocolate rye brownies, full when we arrived, was empty by the time we left.

We showed up late in the game, on Friday, and many varieties had already sold out. The charming front-of-house staff put their own bread back on the shelves for photos. Baker Michelle Riley (née Donaldson) was kind enough to show us around the space. The small, efficient bakery was full of clean equipment. A rack of pristine ovate bannetons, lined with unbleached cotton, wait for the next batch of dough, ready to help it rise.

“If you see those in a bakery, you know they’re making sourdough,”

she laughed. Their starter is young, and so is their crew, but they are all enthusiastic about their place in this tradition. Michelle admits that the good people of Seaforth have made their country white bread a bestseller, but she’s also encouraged by locals who are slowly starting to become more adventurous about their bread.

For The Citizen Sandwich, we selected a hefty loaf of sprouted multigrain sourdough, one hearty enough to house our all-day, shareable picnic loaf. Michelle handed over a warm and springy sourdough loaf, fresh from the oven, perfect for The Citizen Sandwich. Our job there was done.

(The Sprouted Mill and Bakery is only open on Fridays, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.. If you have your heart set on a particular loaf, it is recommended to use their website to pre-order, or show up early.)

Checking the map, we realized how close we were to 5 Chicks and a Farmer, a charming upstart farm run by the Moylan family, using ethical farming techniques. This farm, located on Beechwood Line on the outskirts of Seaforth, has been on our radar from the very beginning of this sandwich story, when we checked out the photos of mouthwatering meats on their website, specifically a photo of back bacon, elegantly fanned out like pork sashimi.

Pulling into the driveway, we were observed by a field of grazing Red Angus cattle, unperturbed by a developing winter storm. 5 Chicks’ set-up is a simple one - customers order online, the farm packs up your order for you and you pick up the order (or have it delivered).

We came for the back bacon from their heritage hogs, but, after chatting with John Moylan about their pasture-raised White Rock chickens, decided to get a plump chicken breast as well. The chickens graze on grass, alfalfa, and forage for insects. This succulent slab of meat, graduate of the Artisanal Chicken Program, immediately became the crown jewel of The Citizen Sandwich. An

Next, we went to an alternative grocery store, Homegrown Food Basket, in Wingham, hoping to find some wild magic. The store, located on Josephine Street in downtown Wingham, is a bit of a depot for local products. We arrived in search of farm-fresh eggs and yellow mustard (both of which we found), but ended up with all kinds of information from store manager, Shelley. Shelley runs Homegrown’s front-of-house, and vets farms and

producers with whom they are thinking about working. She is an absolute font of knowledge, as is owner David Scherpenzeel. While we were there, David was busy packing and moving monthly subscription boxes, available on their website. We opted for yellow mustard from Backwoods Preserves, eggs from the Homegrown Farm, and winter produce for our sandwich (onions, carrots, and garlic). We also stocked up on locally-sourced cereal and other pantry essentials, and because our total exceeded $50, we received a free pound of ground beef. Bonus!

The end of the road for the sandwich search is the end of the road for a lot of area animalsGreen’s Meat Market in Wingham. Green’s is the Studio 54 of Huron County’s abattoir scene, in that any animal that’s any animal makes an appearance here before becoming your dinner. Except poultry, of course, which legally must be processed in a separate, licensed facility. (Gorrie-based Schefter is king of the local poultry-slaughter scene.) We had a quick chat with heir apparent Shae Green about their operation and its benefits - a location central to farms that cuts down on animal transport time, increasing animal welfare in a way you can taste in the meat. We picked up some pork side bacon

Continued on page A17

Mark your property: OPP

Continued from page A5 investigated hundreds of thefts from rural properties. He says that, in his experience, much of rural property theft boils down to crimes of opportunity, with vehicles and other items of value being used for the commission of crime or sold into crime. There is a tourist element to property crime in Huron County as well. He says it’s not unheard of for thieves from larger city centres to make their way out to Huron County, which Soldan called a more trusting part of the province, in hopes of scoring stolen property with less effort, due to lax security measures and more opportunity for theft.

And while there have been rumours of drones being used to scout farms or rural properties, only for thieves to return after dark, Soldan said he couldn’t personally speak to a situation like that, having not seen it in his time.

One of the drums local police have been beating for a long time, Soldan said, is “lock it or lose it”, imploring county residents to lock their cars, ATVs, etc., or risk losing them to crime. He said on-farm ATVs, side-by-sides or farm-use pick-up trucks are especially subceptible to thieves who are looking for a vehicle, as they are often left unsecured and with the keys in them.

The attitude of some, he said, has historically been that theft is why people pay for insurance and, if something is stolen, it will be easily replaced by insurance. However, Soldan says that’s the wrong attitude to have. Even if the item is replaced, excessive insurance claims can have an effect on rising insurance premiums, which affect us all.

As far as property crime on farms and rural properties is concerned, Soldan said the OPP is seeing some trends as far as what’s being stolen. The first and most popular item, and it has been for years, is pick-up trucks. Farm vehicles are almost always pick-up trucks and whether the keys are left in the vehicle or not, they have long been a target for thieves in this area, Soldan said.

He said that, when farmers are working in one of their fields on a 100-acre farm, it’s easy to leave their truck on the side of the road with the keys in it. However, if a would-be thief happens upon that truck, he could easily take it, giving the farmer no recourse, as he’s likely too far away to do anything about it or provide a decent identification of the perpetrator.

After pick-up trucks come ATVs and side-by-sides. Soldan says almost every farm has one of these vehicles to get around the property and it’s not unheard of for farmers to just leave the keys in them for ease of use, which can make them a regular target for thieves.

He says there have been cases where thieves have stolen larger farm equipment and machinery, skid steers and more, but those are less common. In the case of large machinery, Soldan said that it’s been his experience that these machines will go missing and end up on urban-area construction sites headed up by less-than-reputable companies that are looking to save some money, steal machinery (or commission their theft) and then abandon them once they’ve stopped working.

After that, the items get smaller, Soldan says, and it becomes more about tools taken from sheds and garages that could be easily sold on

the black market. These items, he said, can be very hard to trace.

As for tips and ways to keep your property safe, Soldan offers this advice, saying that really it’s all about reducing opportunity.

First, he returns to the tried-andtrue method of locking everything. Whether it’s a truck, an ATV, a barn or a shed, lock everything you can to make it harder on would-be thieves without a lot of time looking for an easy score or two.

With that comes all other simple methods of deterrence, like improved lighting and security cameras, which are now much more affordable and comprehensive than they were decades earlier.

For vehicles and larger tools, Soldan suggests recording serial numbers and keeping a written inventory of your items somewhere. This way, if something is stolen, there is a far better chance that it might be recovered and returned to you. With tools, he said, consider carving something into them, whether it be a name, a 911 number or something else that might identify it as being yours for the same reasons.

He gave an example of a mid-

night traffic stop in Huron County. He said that, if he and another officer were to stop a vehicle containing two people who are known to police for previous instances of property crime that was full of tools and other items of interest, it could go two ways.

If police suspect the items are stolen, but the people in the car insist that they own them, there’s no way for the police to prove their suspicion but to run serial numbers through their database. If a stolen item is flagged via its serial number, the police are able to take action and arrest the suspected thieves. However, with no probable cause, aside from suspicion, Soldan said the police would eventually have to release the people in the vehicle with no real reason to investigate them further.

In short, Soldan said the area will never be able to completely eliminate property crime, but there are easy, cost-effective steps that residents can take to keep their property safe, reduce opportunity for would-be thieves and deter thieves from even coming onto their property in search of easilyprocured items.

An engrossing hobby

The Rural Voice Editor Lisa Boonstoppel-Pot now has some experience beekeeping and making her own honey, a hobby she has found all-encompassing. Reporter Scott Stephenson has her story on page 15.

(Courtesy photo)

Boonstoppel-Pot reaping bee-nifits of hobby

tolerated. However, BoonstoppelPot realized that massive lawns are lifeless and not beneficial to our role as caretakers of this planet. She’s not completely against lawns, though, as long as balance is achieved. “I do believe that lawns should be planned out… deciding what you need for barbecues, space for the children to play and so on. Some cutting is necessary for rodent control around the house as well. But I have discovered that many parts were just being cut for aesthetics and dare I say, status?”

While lawns have long been a sign of status, Boonstoppel-Pot has observed that times are beginning to change. On this changing of the guard, she had this to say: “I am not the only one who now sees a massive lawn as unattractive. When I see people in town transforming their front lawns into gardens, or creating meadows or planting native shrubs, I love it. I think it’s beautiful.” Great gardens lead to great habitats for bees, and Boonstoppel-Pot is here for it. “The reason I get so excited about creating gardens and natural spaces is that I’ve seen how it benefits the bees. After all, feeding on flowers is exactly what bees do to collect nectar and pollen to turn into honey.”

Bee watching has become part of her daily routine. In the spring and summer, Boonstoppel-Pot walks to her garden to see where the bees are feeding that day. Bees practise what is known as “flower fidelity”,

in that they only visit one type of flower in any one foraging trip. Gardeners and beekeepers can assist bees in conserving energy by planting large clumps or drifts of a single species in a single area so the bees have less distance to travel.

She also offered this helpful bee watching tip: “When you watch bees, you will see that the pollen on their legs is a different colour on different days, depending on where they have harvested that day.”

Getting started with beekeeping can come with a steep learning curve, and Boonstoppel-Pot feels lucky to have had a diverse selection of resources, like courses on bee diseases, and listening to other beekeepers via the Ausable Beekeeping Club; specifically, beekeepers Henry Damsma, Jonathan Cucksey and Adi Treasurywala. She also read many, many books on the subject, but knows she always has more to learn, and is always making adjustments to her set-up.

Last fall she made sure to feed the bees sugar water so the combs would be full of energy to tide them over for the winter. She started a bee notebook, based on advice from the brilliant Colette Mesher - the Ontario Beekeepers Association Tech Transfer Lead Specialist. Mesher highly recommends writing down notes from each beehive inspection to learn and know how your bees are doing. BoonstoppelPot learned how to treat her hives more effectively by watching

Cucksey care for his hives. Like all the modern subcultures of farming, this is a growing community. Boonstoppel-Pot recognizes her place in this community as a small but vital one, and her goals are simple. “We need to change our ways and contribute, in however little way we can, to the health of the planet. I am a gardener who became a backyard beekeeper and now, the two are so intertwined, I do not want one without the other.”

Creating a natural environment is essential for happy bees, and different bees like different things. “As a gardener, I grow specific plants for both the honey and native bees.” She grows sunflowers for the sunflower bees (sunflower bees are non-aggressive and non-colonizing solitary bees that pollinate everything in the sunflower family), whereas bumblebees thrive on larkspur, St. John’s wort, and spirea.

Her latest project: planting a mini-forest last fall, which she plans to expand for years to come by adding native perennials and shrubs to create even more habitat for pollinators, and she can’t recommend the hobby enough, calling it transformative. Not only are bees fascinating to watch and learn about, but she feels it has made her a more conscientious gardener. Another bonus: “I eat my own honey on my own sourdough bread every morning and the feeling of thankfulness and provision is a great start to the day.”

Not easy, but worth it

The Rural Voice Editor Lisa Boonstoppel-Pot now has a few years of beekeeping and honey-making under her belt and she says that a simple hobby has transformed how she looks at the world (beginning with her backyard).

By Scott Stephenson The Citizen

They say that every beekeeper has an origin story of Newtonian revelation, and The Rural Voice Editor Lisa Boonstoppel-Pot is no different. The former dairy farmer, current sharecropper and avid gardener has a hobby farm populated with horses, chickens and, of course, bees.

Boonstoppel-Pot had her big realization a few years ago, when she was lying on an unkempt patch of her own lawn. This entomological epiphany led to an increased focus on native plants and backyard beekeeping.

It all started when her partner Jason surprised her with a beehive for her birthday. As they say, when life gives you a beehive, you buy bees. That first colony was from Martin’s Family Tree Farm and Bee Supplies near Wroxeter. One day, as she lay in a patch of uncut grass,

watching the bees, she noticed how many other insects were enjoying the lushness of the environment as well. It was full of life. Then she looked at the patch of mowed lawn beside it and saw that no insects were buzzing around in it.

Boonstoppel-Pot realized her lawn and all the lawns we create around our homes are deserts for our pollinators.

This was her great revelation. Having grown up in a Dutch community where “neatness” is a way of life, messy lawns were not

(Courtesy photo)

Microgreens pack a healthy punch: Leonard

nutrients than a pound of any full grown fruit or vegetable, across the board. Everything is concentrated in this small stem.” Since you eat the entire plant, you absorb all of its nutrients.

Pat got his start in the small community of Temiskaming Shores in Northern Ontario. Coincidentally Temiskaming Shores is also home to the Ontario Crops Research Centre, a facility owned by the Agricultural Research Institute of Ontario (ARIO) and operated and managed by the University of Guelph through the Ontario AgriFood Innovation Alliance, a partnership between the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA), ARIO and the university. The research conducted at the Ontario Crops Research Centre focuses on agricultural interests ranging from adapted crop species to perennial forage species.

Pat got started in the farm-to-fork movement early, saying “I’ve been cooking since forever… 26 years of cooking, and we’ve always had gardens at my place, so I started very young with the green thumb.”

Pat and Heather met in North Bay while managing a pub together, before moving to Clinton, where they started their business, Veggies on Parr.

Think micro

Pat Leonard, above, and his wife Heather have taken the career experience of being chefs and gardeners to new levels with their own vegetable business, which focuses heavily on the growing of microgreens, which pack a punch both in terms of flavour and in regards to nutrition. (Courtesy photo)

By Scott Stephenson The Citizen

When Pat Leonard and his wife Heather Chechak-Leonard wanted to expand their heirloom vegetable business, they moved from their large farm property on Parr Line in Clinton to a townhouse in Seaforth. The downsizing isn’t an issue for their crops - these two passionate cooks grow microgreens, which don’t take up much space at all.

Microgreens are baby plants,

harvested as soon as the sprouts have developed their first leaves. These tiny plants are nutrient dense, flavourful and downright adorable. There are a lot of health benefits to eating microgreens. Pat was kind enough to explain how such minute foliage can pack such a wallop.

“For a whole grown fruit, a lot of those nutrients are in the vine, or the leaf, the inedible things… you still get a lot of nutrients, it’s just a lot leaner. In a pound of microgreens, you’ll find more

Dumpster Rental and Service

What prompted their move to Huron County six years ago? “We heard it was a bountiful county, more opportunities in the kitchen for me, more opportunity for our daughter, so we made the move up here.” Both passionate chefs and dedicated gardeners, when they first arrived, they chose a sprawling farm spot on Parr Line in Clinton.

Having a long history of gardening and cooking experience, Pat and Heather made microgreens the most recent addition to their business. “That all started when I saw the opportunity when I started working at Cowbell.” At first, Veggies on Parr grew heirloom

vegetables, focusing on tomatoes, zucchini, and romanesco.

Occasionally Pat would share excess produce with his lucky coworkers, arriving at the restaurant with a rainbow of heirloom tomatoes from which they could have their pick.

Soon enough, it became obvious that expanding on a micro level just made sense. “We saw the opportunity for microgreens, so I converted my basement into a nursery.” He felt Cowbell, Blyth’s local brewery, could use microgreens in their kitchen. “I was already in the kitchen, and I brought it up to them, and they were all for it.” One of the environmentally innovative uses for the sprouts was in lieu of disposable napkins under scalding bowls of soup to keep them from slipping into the laps of hungry customers.

After that, Pat and Heather expanded further, selling their greens at small markets like Maitland Market and Supply in Goderich. “Erica at the Maitland Market was a big help… she was actually one of our first buyers outside the restaurant.”

How do two chefs start a microgreen farm in their basement?

First, there’s the initial investment cost, which included seeds, trays, grow lights and exhaust fans, which added up to around $3,500. “Fans are your best friend,” Pat explained. The greens are delicate and densely packed in a damp environment, and can be prone to mould, so airflow is of the utmost importance. The tender shoots need a very specific situation to thrive in - if it’s too warm, they wilt. If it’s too cold, they won’t grow. Seeds are sown in trays, which are stacked on racks and misted on a schedule. After three or four days, the seeds sprout, and the light schedule begins, and the greens are harvested a short time later.

A more energy-rich diet isn’t the only great thing about growing

greens - they’re also quick! “If you look at a plot of radishes, it takes a few weeks to grow that; as for a flat of radish microgreens, you harvest in 10 days. You have a turn-over every week and a half.” A flat produces about a pound of microgreens. This tiny subterranean farm is a four-season operation that grows a veritable Eden of varieties. There are pea shoots, sunflowers, radishes, beets, broccoli, and wheat, just to name a few. The speedy grow-time has an added bonus for their customers - restaurants only need to give Veggies on Parr their order a few weeks in advance, and they can sow, grow and deliver the greens posthaste! It can be labour intensive, however. “Sowing is the biggest day, once a week, you can go from two to five hours.” Larger seeds like peas need to be soaked, and sensitive seeds like sunflowers need to be treated with food-safe peroxide.

There have been a few timesaving additions to their operation since the recent move to Seaforth. The first is an automatic misting system, which has the dual benefit of saving time and regulating the environment. Without it, they’d still be watering manually three times a day. Another smart upgrade has been switching away from planting in dirt to using coconut mats, which are less messy and have less risk of harbouring mould.

Pat and Heather’s upcoming plans for Veggies on Parr include a possible rebrand (as they are no longer located on Parr Line), getting back into larger scale heirloom vegetable production on the surplus land of local farmers and maybe even becoming seed suppliers themselves.

Right now, Veggies on Parr operates largely by word of mouth, but Pat and Heather plan to post updates on their Facebook and Instagram accounts with fresh news about what’s fresh this spring and summer.

R.R. #1 41403 Londesboro Road

Londesboro, ON N0M 2H0

Jim Anderson: Cell 519-440-6007

Jason Fleet: Cell 519-525-9473

Get shopping and try The Citizen for yourself

looks like a flattened, hefty football. Next came the moment of truthcutting into the sandwich. If all went according to plan, the interior would be cool-looking layers of journalistic integrity, changing the regional sandwich world forever. Decide for yourself if it deserves the Pulitzer Prize for Sandwiches, but the answer is yes, yes it does. Flavour-wise, The Citizen

Sandwich is a complete success. The chicken, moist. The back bacon, delightfully smoky. The sweetness of the bacon onion jam played well with the pickles and relish. The mix of cheese was decadent, and the mustard keeps you on your toes. The pickled eggs, originally meant as a nod to the classic ploughman’s lunch, ended up offering an acidic brightness that brought everything together, and

the summer sausage brought the funk. Welcome to the pantheon of regional sandwiches, The Citizen. To make your own, personalsized The Citizen Sandwich, you need: Sliced sourdough bread, Gouda, summer sausage, bacon, chicken, seasonal pickles, mustard, pickled or hard-boiled eggs, caramelized onion jam, and mayo. Layer it up, press it flat, and get your Citizen Sandwich on!

Finishing touches

Green’s Meat Market in Wingham was one of the many stops that Citizen reporter Scott Stephenson and his wife Chelsea made in an effort to create, for the very first time, the perfect Huron County sandwich. A stop at Green’s for such a project seems to make perfect sense.

(Scott Stephenson photo)

Continued from page A13 from their meat counter that looked too good to pass up.

Once we got home, all we had to do was make The Citizen Sandwich. First we prepared the onions - caramelizing some, making spicy pickles with others. We fried the side bacon, adding it to the caramelized onions and to make a sweet and savoury jam. We also pickled the carrots. Beets from Belgrave were roasted and turned into relish. The eggs from Homegrown had two jobs - half were hard-boiled and pickled in the beet liquid, the other half were emulsified into mayonnaise. We cooked the back bacon from 5 Chicks and a Farmer, and roasted the chicken breast with garlic, onion, and rosemary from our garden. After cooking, we shredded the chicken and chopped the bacon. We also shredded all four cheeses and mixed into flavour confetti. Next, assembly. First, we took the sourdough loaf from Seaforth’s Sprouted Mill and Bakery, cut the top off and hollowed it out (don’t worry, the insides became delicious gourmet croutons). We coated the entire interior cavity with caramelized onion and bacon jam and mayo. On the bottom, a layer of Meeting Place’s funky summer sausage. Then a thin layer of Backwoods Preserves mustard. Then the cheese mix, pickled onions and carrots, and back bacon, that glorious chicken, pickled eggs, more cheese, beet relish, and

another layer of summer sausage. Then we put the bread lid back on top and wrapped the whole thing up in cheesecloth and foil. The next step is essential to making this a portable sandwich - we compressed the sandwich overnight by weighing it down with several dictionaries. The final product

Eat Local Huron finds success with Farm Crawls

markets, by nature, are seasonal, meaning there wouldn’t be any access in the colder months, which, in Huron County, could mean as much as half of the year. He said some local stores have done a good job of collecting Huron-produced food and putting it all under one roof, but, with Eat Local Huron, Spaleta and his team sought to create a “shop local” hub online, connecting the residents of Huron County with the producers doing excellent work right in their backyard. Furthermore, when the COVID-19 pandemic struck in March of 2020, an emphasis on remote purchasing and contactless

delivery made the idea even more prudent and Spaleta and his team applied for a grant to make his dream a reality.

He gathered some like-minded producers from throughout the county and formed a board of directors to oversee the new project. That early team included Katrina McQuail of Meeting Place Organic Farm near St. Helens and Tamara McMullen of Firmly Rooted Farm near Belgrave and the team continued to grow from there, as did the Eat Local Huron offerings.

The business was soon up and

Take a look around

Eat Local Huron has connected county residents with the people who produced their food in more ways than one. Yes, the company is selling some of the best food the county has to offer, but it was its Farm Crawl series that really connected producers with customers, like the one above from last summer, which visited the Belgrave-area Firmly Rooted Farm and Tamara McMullen, left. (File photo)

By Shawn Loughlin The

After an up-and-down first year, which included a devastating fire to the company’s initial Westfield headquarters, Eat Local Huron has now settled into a rhythm, connecting Huron County residents with local food producers.

This is built into the endeavour’s business model, serving as an online hub for local producers and Huron County customers, but it was Eat Local Huron’s well-attended Farm Crawls last summer, fall and winter that really served the purpose of connecting people with

the farmers who grow and produce their food here in Huron County.

Chris Spaleta, the founder and executive director of Eat Local Huron, in an interview with The Citizen, said it all began when he and some of his friends were discussing local food in Huron County. They said that the county is blessed with some of the best producers in the province right here in our own backyard, but that the food could be difficult to get and sold all across the community, making it very time-consuming to go from producer to producer. A centralized hub for local food, he said, made sense when they stopped

to think about the challenges associated with procuring local food in Huron County.

He said that while farmers’ markets had done a good job of bringing local producers together, their roster was often not comprehensive and farmers’

Farm Crawls prove immensely popular: Spaleta

refrigerators throughout the county for producers to drop off items that could be taken by those in need at no cost.

Rather than food going to waste, which Spaleta said has been a concern with farmers’ markets and other farmgate sales over the years, the items could be included in these refrigerators in order to help someone in need as food costs continue to rise. Reducing food waste has been another goal of Eat

Local Huron, so this is another step towards achieving that goal.

Thus far, The Den in Goderich has already signed on to be a location for one of the refrigerators with more to come. Spaleta said that Libro Credit Union has also come on as a sponsor for the project, which he hopes will roll out later this year.

For more information on Eat Local Huron, to shop or to sign up, visit online at eatlocalhuron.ca.

Open for business

Tony McQuail, above, and his family are no strangers to opening their farm operation to curious members of the public who want to learn more. So, it’s no surprise that Katrina McQuail, his and Fran’s daughter who now runs Meeting Place Organic Farm, was the first to suggest a Farm Crawl series for Eat Local Huron to connect Huron County residents with the producers doing great things right in their own backyards. Tony is seen above leading a wagon tour on a Farm Crawl at Meeting Place last summer. (File photo)

Continued from page A18 running in Westfield, when an electrical fire devastated the Eat Local Huron home base and warehouse, forcing the business to press pause and rebuild from the ground up in a new location, settling temporarily in Bayfield before finding a more permanent home in the Seaforth area.

Since then, things have been going smoothly and Eat Local Huron has been steadily adding to its roster of producers, offering not just the staples, but other interesting creations as well, from now over 60 producers from throughout the county. There are offerings of lavender and coffee, as well as fermented foods and maple syrup, in addition to standard offerings like meat, cheese, milk, bread and other baked goods. In fact, that is one of the things Spaleta said makes him most proud - the selection of items and the breadth of products being offered. It’s amazing, he said, what is being produced in little, tucked-away corners of the county.

Once the company found its footing again after the fire of last year, Eat Local Huron procured a tourism-related grant and moved ahead with a side project that would eventually become its very popular roster of Farm Crawl tours.

The idea, Spaleta said, originated with McQuail, who sought to further connect producers and customers. This is nothing new for McQuail and her parents Fran and Tony who, for years, have opened their farm up to visitors, hosting tours and open houses on a regular basis to break down the walls between producers and consumers.

As travel restrictions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic were loosening and things were opening back up in Ontario, Spaleta said that McQuail and the rest of the Eat

Local Huron team saw the Farm Crawls as a great opportunity to encourage people to travel, meet new people and learn more about how their food is produced and the people who are producing it. Not only were people able to tour local farms and learn more about the operations, but other producers would often get involved and set up pop-up markets on Farm Crawl stops, which made for a really comprehensive experience.

Spaleta said the Farm Crawls were overwhelmingly successful in regards to attendees, but the producers also got more into the concept as the months went on, all culminating in the winter market

that was held at two locations just before Christmas.

As far as the future is concerned, Spaleta hopes to continue the Farm Crawls, though they will likely be largely scaled back and dependent on producers opening their properties to people, rather than the elaborate, organized tours that so captured people’s imaginations last year. However, no exact plans have been finalized just yet.

As for the future plans for Eat Local Huron, Spaleta said he hopes to continue working to connect consumers with local food, but there are some other interesting projects in the works, such as a pilot project to locate a handful of

Over

‘Century Farm Show’ does its job

The farm has been in the Love family for over 125 years. Over that time, it has been home to dairy, beef, hogs and cash crop operations, facing a number of challenges along the way.

While each generation of the family has taken the farm in a new direction, a devotion to Clydesdale horses has provided a through-line that has persisted over the years.

Horses from the farm have been sent to national and international destinations, earning recognition at many competitions and shows. The family’s horses and their success even resulted in a relationship with Anheuser-Busch.

The third episode focused on

So much to learn

Last year, the Huron Perth Junior Farmers embarked on a journey to tell the stories of 12 century farms scattered throughout the two counties. Now, just one episode has yet to air, but it’s expected in the coming weeks. Above, hosts Jolande Oudshoorn, left, and Nick Vinnicombe, right, interviewed Neil and Jeff McGavin of the Walton area. (Courtesy photo)

By Shawn Loughlin The Citizen

Last year, the Huron Perth Junior Farmers embarked on an ambitious project: to highlight 12 Century Farms over the course of the year (and the families that own them) to bring attention to the program and to tell the story of agriculture in Huron and Perth Counties.

The project began in January of 2022 and now the 12th and final episode is due to be released soon after unexpected delays. The final episode will be an expanded story featuring Huron-Bruce MPP and Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Lisa Thompson and the story of her Century Farm, which began in the family of her husband, Dennis Schiestel.

However, the idea for the project began nearly a year before the episodes started to air.

Nick Vinnicombe of Walton, in an interview with The Citizen, said the project stretched back to when he first joined the Huron Perth Junior Farmers in the fall of 2020.

In his first few months with the organization, members were looking for ways to further promote the organization and the work it does. Focusing on the century farm program and its local supporters, he said, only made sense.

Vinnicombe is now the president of the organization, but also owns his own videography business, Lake Affect Media, and works with FauxPop Media of Goderich as well. He has put those skills to use in producing the videos, which are now being broadcast online, as well as on social media and television, with the help of fellow Junior Farmer members Lauren Bos and Jolande Oudshoorn, both of Auburn, who work together, serving as the hosts of the show (though Vinnicombe would go on to co-host a handful of episodes as well, though that effort came with added challenges, being in front of the camera, rather than behind it).

The first 15-minute episode focused on the farm of Tom and Bev Prout, who live in the Exeter area. The hosts are Bos and

Oudshoorn, who were, at the time of the episode’s creation, the president and vice-president, respectively, of the local chapter of the Junior Farmers.

The first episode tells the story of the Prouts’ small-scale farm, which, over five generations, has produced aggregates, cash crops, beef and even bees and honey.

The Prouts are Junior Farmer alumni and say their farm is a place for new ideas where community members are welcomed to learn about the traditions of both agriculture and horticulture.

The second episode, made available at the end of February, featured Hugh and Rhonda Love’s century farm in Perth County.

Thompson episode to close out

the episodes over another, but because of her lengthy and continuing history and involvement with 4-H clubs in Huron County, interviewing Don Dodds was special for her. He is so full of knowledge and stories, she said, that it certainly made for an interesting installment in the series.

Only the best

Continued from page A20

Walton’s McGavin family, specifically Neil and one of his sons, Jeff.

In the episode, the two men recounted the history of their thirdgeneration, 200-acre cash crop farm.

The location was ahead of the green energy curve, generating electricity from a dam and water wheel installed by Neil’s father Gordon decades before the green energy movement began to take hold.

While the farm was the original location of the historic McGavin  Farm Equipment, which has since merged with Robert’s Farm Equipment and is now run by Jeff and his brother Brian, it is now home to the Freedom Syrup sugar shack, which donates its proceeds to the families of fallen veterans.

The episodes would continue over the course of the year, with Vinnicombe hosting his first episode, number four, alongside Oudshoorn. That episode focused on Doug Johnston and Maplevue Farms Inc., a dairy farm in Perth County.

The fifth episode, hosted by Oudshoorn and Bos, focused on the farm of Don Dodds, a well-known, well-respected 4-H leader and plowing judge in Huron County.

The sixth episode focused on North Perth’s Johnstondale Farms, followed by Huron County’s Coleman Family Farm for episode seven, the Murray family and Avonhill Farms of Perth County for the eighth episode, Steve and Frank Hallahan of East Wawanosh and their farm that was established in 1856 for the ninth episode, Jamie Rose in the 10th episode and Huron County Warden Glen McNeil and his Heather Holme Holsteins in the 11th episode.

The century farm program was established by the Junior Farmers of Ontario as part of Canada’s centennial celebration in 1967. It remains the only centennial project that has persisted to the current day. (The Junior Farmers of Ontario now even offer add-on signs that signify 125, 150, 200 and now 225 years - the sign which Oudshoorn designed herself - for farms that have remained in the same family for that period of time.)

Supported by the Huron County Museum’s Heritage Fund and the Huron County Federation of Agriculture, the show can be viewed on the Huron Perth Junior Farmers’ Facebook page, as well as on Vinnicombe’s Lake Affect Media site and FauxPop Media’s The Staysh. It can also be viewed on LocalOne via Hay Communications.

Now that all but one of the episodes have aired (though they have all been filmed), both Vinnicombe and Oudshoorn have

On the Dodds farm, specifically, he told stories about his family having to clear all of the land and carve out the roads and pathways themselves, a level of work that is almost unfathomable today.

that many of them still had. It might not have had the shine that new equipment does, but it was often still up for doing the job, he said.

From a technical standpoint, since Vinnicombe was the one who did all of the videography and the post-production, he said it was a neat challenge and he was happy to

be a part of it. When he would host episodes, it was a little tougher, running the behind-the-camera operation while being in front of the camera at the same time, but he said it was a fun challenge for him.

To view the episodes, find the Huron Perth Junior Farmers on Facebook.

had time to reflect back on the project and the impact it has had across the two counties... and whether there is still more work that can be done.

Earlier this month, Oudshoorn said she was very happy with how the whole thing went. The push behind it was to, in a way, reintroduce the century farm project to the two counties after it had gradually faded from active conversation, and she thinks they helped do that.

Locally, she said, there has been an uptick in family farms requesting signs and, even as they were interviewing some families throughout the process, they were met by some who had never even heard about the program.

Personally, she said it would be difficult for her to highlight one of

She says that, while nothing has been made official, there have been discussions among the members about continuing to highlight the importance of and the stories behind century farms, but expanding it to bring in farms from all over the province.

Vinnicombe agreed with Oudshoorn, saying he felt it all went really well. He said he loved, on a personal level, learning more about the farms and hearing the families’ stories when they would film a new episode.

He said that families dated back to purchasing the property from the the Crown and to hear all of that history and the work that had been completed on the land over time was really interesting to him.

Perhaps due to his history of growing up on a family farm himself, but he said he liked the history that came with some of the smaller family farms and the historic equipment and machinery

Huron County Warden Glen McNeil and his family, above, were featured in episode 11 of The Century Farm Show by the Huron Perth Junior Farmers. (Courtesy photo)

Meeting Place about sustainability, family

celebrity, having performed in the role of The Pig in the Blyth Festival’s production of Wing Night at the Boot. It’s understandable why he got the role - Pickle has the charisma of a young Marlon Brando.

In the pens next to Pickle are ducks and baby piglets. Once the piglets are five or six months old, they will be close to 240 pounds, and ready for slaughter. When asked about what breed the piglets are, Ben explained that, while he is more than willing to answer questions about farm life, “You’re talking to the least qualified member of the family,” he laughs.

Katrina is the one born into farm life, and has, as an adult, worked to further community education on

organic farming techniques. The piglets are a Berkshire-cross, she explains. She was about to go over her recent talk about regenerative livestock in Guelph, when an uproar spread between the two children, who were both shouting that it was time for music class, with great enthusiasm.

Music class turns out to be a virtual, interactive gathering beamed out of Zurich, Ontario, with the goal of familiarizing young children with music, and it meant that the interview was moving inside. Katrina and Ben’s house is at the centre of the active farm, right near the barns, orchard and freezer, encircled by a deck of no small degree of excellence.

Once inside, Katrina answers

questions, sets up snacks for the kids, and manages the farm from her phone, while Ben makes coffee, serves up cinnamon buns and guides the children through music class. Adding their own song to the well-appointed farmhouse is a box on the kitchen counter, teeming with baby quail. The box is near the wood stove, and there are extra heat lamps mounted on top.

This part of the interview was punctuated with the tiny chirps of indignant chicks. Katrina explained how she came to take over her parents’ legacy organic farm. Neither Katrina nor older sister Rachel envisioned themselves as being the one to take over, but their parents started broaching the

Generational

Tony McQuail, above, and his wife Fran were on the forefront of the organic farming movement decades ago. Now, their daughter Katrina has taken over Meeting Place Organic Farm, where she and husband Ben are raising two children: Imogen, above, and Stella.

By Scott Stephenson The Citizen

If you live in Huron County and have an interest in organic farming, you’ve probably already heard about Meeting Place Organic Farm near Lucknow. Founded by Tony and Fran McQuail in 1973, Meeting Place is one of the oldest organic farms in Ontario, and is in the midst of a new generation’s plans to expand in exciting and different directions. The Citizen stopped in to learn about their plans and get a bit of background on what it takes to run an organic farm.

It was a chilly winter day, but upon arrival, there was a flurry of activity. Horses, hogs and chickens were all choosing to soak up sunshine in the pasture. Cattle made their way slowly up a hill where bales of hay waited to be snacked on, and the whole McQuail clan was on hand and obliged The Citizen by posing for a multigenerational family portrait. That family includes Fran and Tony, their daughter Katrina, her husband Ben and their two young children, Imogen and Stella, as well as a frenetic farm dog named Whiskey.

In the meantime, Stephen, a friendly farmhand, feeds the chickens. When the birds see him coming, they squawk with excitement, spilling out of the chicken coop and annoying a few of the farm’s Suffolk Punch horses, who move begrudgingly out of the way. There are almost 60 birds, and during the colder months they still produce about 50 eggs a day.

A trip inside the barn reveals a bevy of quail, hiding amongst

strategically-placed cedar branches. The branches give them safe places to lay their eggs and feel protected, a helpful tip Katrina learned on social media. Nearby, four of the farm’s young barn cats were minding their own business.

Further inside the barn, there is an enormous pig named Pickle. Once the runt of the litter, he spent the first few years of his life as a house pig. Now, Pickle is not only the unofficial farm mascot, he’s a local

(Scott Stephenson photo)

Old methods meet new selling styles at Meeting Place

about an outdoor community movie night, about getting geese, growing berries, and countless other great ideas about the future of the farm.

But what makes Meeting Place an official organic farm? To keep its organic status, the McQuails submit paperwork annually, and are always ready for an inspection, which means everything on the farm needs to have a traceable origin.

To learn more about organic certification processes, and the origin of the farm, meant leaving Katrina and Ben’s house to travel up the hill, past the old apple orchard to a second farmhouse where organic farming icons Fran and Tony McQuail are spending their quasi-retirement. On the way there is a quick introduction to Harley, the matriarchal calico cat of the farm. She had some choice meows about farming, but would only speak off the record.

Three generations

Work at Meeting Place Organic Farm near St. Helens has been ongoing for decades.

First with Tony and Fran McQuail, right, and now with their daughter Katrina and her husband Ben Hustis, left, seen here with their children Stella, being held by Katrina, and Imogen, being held by Tony. The farm has been on the forefront of selling directly to customers with more still to come, thanks to plans for a full store and more. (Scott Stephenson

Continued from page A22 subject in the early 2000s. The decision was a slow one, and Katrina made good use of the time, travelling through South and Central America, working as a pastry chef in Seattle, then at a nonprofit in Guelph, and was considering going for a Master’s degree in oceanography. Eventually, Katrina agreed to take over Meeting Place, and has been learning her parents’ techniques since then, and has been coming up with her own innovations. The

Meeting Place mailing list, started in the 1970s, was expanded into an online store. Customers can order (or pre-order) meat, plants and produce online and pick up their order at the farm, or have their order delivered. Hogs were added to the list of barnyard animals for the first time.

When the McQuails started the farm, they had to grow all their own animal feed, as organic feed was not yet commercially available. Times have changed, and since 2014 they’ve been able

to outsource organic grain. Another big time-saver was hiring a third-party delivery service to expand the delivery zone, and take the pressure off the young couple so they could focus on plans for community-oriented expansion and child-rearing. Ground will be broken any day now on their new farm store, followed by an event space. Plans are underway for the Mother’s Day Weekend open house, which will feature wagon rides, plant sales and farm-made sausage on a bun. There is talk

The elder McQuails both came to farming in the 1970s, approaching it from an ecological point of view. They started raising apples at a time when organic farming was treated as an impossibility, taking over a neglected cash crop farm that had been using all the popular pesticides of the day, something that concerned the McQuails. They worried about the effects pesticides were having on the environment and themselves. Fran recalled the mentality of the day. “They said, you have to use this stuff.” The type of apples they were growing, Macintosh, is prone to diseases like scab, and they were told to use fungicide to prevent it.”

Thoroughly unimpressed with the results, they decided to go cold turkey on the orchard. It took time for the trees to detox, and afterwards they required lots of

125 Ontario Street, Stratford

Phone: (519) 271-7581 Fax: (519) 271-2737

E-Mail: office@fammeandco.on.ca

25 Water

photo)

Sidders assembles his maple team every year

clear and thin as water. The pump’s

Team - assemble

Every year, Roy Sidders returns to Belgrave to make maple syrup, very often with a team of friends who help him accomplish his lofty (and sweet) goals. From left: Robert Foreman, Roy Sidders, Lee Gerrish, Karen Cook and Paul Cook. (Scott Stephenson photo)

By Scott Stephenson The Citizen

Every year, when the time comes, Roy Sidders leaves his northern Ontario home and heads south to a bush in Belgrave, intent on extracting sweet tree secrets and distilling them down into one of our nation’s tastiest treats. That’s rightit’s maple syrup season again, and Sidders took time out of his busy

schedule to give The Citizen a tour of his unique syrup-making operation.

The day was warm and sunny, and the snow crunchy underfoot as Sidders guided me down the hill to a low point of the operation to check out the vacuum pump, one of the tour’s many highlights. On the way down, we passed a noisy generator, churning away. “We’re finally electrifying,” Sidders

explained. “Within days, this noise will stop, and there’ll be an electric motor running that thing.” One of Sidders’ syrup-producing partners, Paul Cook, is an electrician and he’s been making a few much needed updates to their set-up. “That vacuum pump is 34 years old. We’ve been doing this thing here for 34 years.”

While we spoke, the vacuum made sounds reminiscent of a

McQuails integral to standards

Continued from page A23 of healing compost and benign neglect. The earthworm population returned. Encouraged by seeing health return to their farm, they began to expand.

In those early days, they worked in exchange for equipment use, and relied on horses to do the rest. Tony still does most of the horse-driven work on the farm, such as clearing the driveway. They started breeding the horses and selling their colts, using the revenue to expand into other livestock. They also studied the organic farming techniques of Europe, where the practice was already popular. They acquired sheep and pasture grazed them. They also started a Community Share Garden, working with local families to collectively grow the organic vegetables they most wanted. “It’s a good entrance for a new farmer,” said Fran. Everybody learns organic gardening techniques, and ends up with delicious vegetables to eat with their families. Soon they started raising lambs, and started their mailing list.

Once they really had a handle on the balance and hard work needed to make an organic farm, they realized that the rapidly growing industry had no set standards to define what made a farm organic, so they set about creating those standards, with other, like-minded farmers and agronomists. Those early rules have evolved into the certification system that exists today.

From the beginning, one question kept coming back to Tony. “How do we design a farm that is energyefficient?” So often, the mentality in agriculture is “get bigger or get out”, but he believes in doing more with less. He believes in holistic

management like harvesting sunlight, letting hay roll down hill, and restoring water systems, like the farm’s four ponds. He considers conservation to be a critical part of being a farmer, with endless positive effects on the planet.

“Regenerative ecological farming is one of the most cost-effective ways to sequester carbon, and there’s a whole whack of collateral benefits.”

After the interview, it was lunch

time, and all the kids, older and younger, Stephen in tow, piled into the house, filling it with the cacophonous symphony of family. Before departure, Katrina accommodated a quick stop by the meat freezer. Inside, it is quiet. The walls are lined with boxes full of different cuts of pork, beef and chicken, as well as sausages of all kinds. The Citizen selected some pork and cheese sausage, and let the McQuails get back to lunch.

Protecting farms for more than years

We’ve been insuring farms for generations, providing excellent service and local know-how. We know the special demands of the area, and we’ll be there if you have a claim. We live here and we work here - local starts with mutual insurance.

stage, looking

washing machine as it pumped in frothy sap, at this

Sidders’ operation spans two sugars bushes

careers and families of their own, but they still love to help out as much as they can, and hope to keep things going.

When asked if anybody was planning to take over the business when he finally retires, Sidders laughed. “I try not to lay any pressure on anyone….”

The next stop on the tour involves climbing a ladder onto a platform to check sap levels in large, elevated stainless steel tanks, which in another life were surplus from the dairy industry.

From here on out, this syrup gets made the old-fashioned way, using the old-time science duo of gravity and fire. The tanks are feeding into the evaporator, located inside the sugar shack.

These days, the operation is also aided by friends from all over. When he can’t get down from Northern Ontario, Sidders’ friends who reside closer to the operation run things for him. Anybody who wants to help is welcome to help.

“It’s a rite of passage in Canada,” said Sidders. “We’re making a real, traditional, incredible-tasting syrup.”

A labour of love

Continued from page A24 job is not to suck sap out of the trees, but to help pull it out of 10 kilometres of lines, which weave through the trees far into the bush. “It’s a big network, like the veins of a leaf.” The bush is on a hill, so gravity works in their favour. Sidders said there are two guys out there in the bush somewhere, checking all the lines for cracks and holes. Maple syrup production is a team effort, and this team is putting in a lot of effort.

Sidders hails from Southern Ontario originally, but found his way to Thunder Bay for university in 1978. He ended up staying in the north, and worked with the Ministry of Natural Resources for 31 years, starting out in the Forestry Department. Before retiring, he was the Far North Planning Manager, where he worked with over 30 Indigenous communities to make land-use plans from the Hudson Bay Coast to Timmins.

Even as a child, Sidders dreamed of making maple syrup. His thesis in university was a study on what tree characteristics might indicate whether it will provide good sap and sugar. Even after school, he was syrup-oriented. “My whole objective when I got a permanent job was, I want to try and run a maple syrup business.”

Once he finally started tapping trees, his background in forestry came in handy, guiding Sidders towards responsible stewardship of the bush. The tapped trees live on two farms: the first is George and Elizabeth Proctor’s farm, which is where the sugar shack is located. The other is the neighbouring Hopper bush. ”We try to be very careful with the trees.” That means never over-tapping trees, or tapping trees that are too young.

When Sidders’ kids Matthew, Neil, Scott and Troy were young, they were a big part of the operation. In the beginning, it could be a lot. “We used to commute with

four children, my wife, Dianne, and I. Every year at March Break, we’d come down.” Dianne, originally from Brussels, had lots of family in the area, and syrup season was always a good excuse to come visit.

“It’s worked out phenomenally. The boys definitely got to know their grandparents incredibly well, and the grandparents back then were a big part of the operation… the memories are unbelievable.” The boys are older now, and have

Today, most of those friends are manning the giant evaporator, which is the final stop of the tour. The air in the shack is warm and rich with a melange of aromas - not just the sweet smell of maple, but of slow-roasting meat and onions. The source of the savoury smell turns out to be wafting from a Crock-pot simmering nearby. Sidders is not just the syrup master, he’s also the chef of this operation. One of Sidders’ sap-happy friends is local farmer Robert Foreman, who supplied the rutabaga, carrots, potatoes and onions to the pot. All present agreed that rutabaga is a winter storage vegetable deserving of more love.

Sidders believes that their oldschool evaporation method is why his syrup tastes so good. Most maple operations these days use reverse osmosis technology. Originally, reverse osmosis was

developed as a desalination technology, which was then adapted for the syrup industry. He explained how it works. “You’ve got a membrane, and, under high pressure, it pushes sap at the membrane.” The water is pushed through, leaving the sugar behind, which means less water has to be evaporated during the cooking process. Raw sap is about two per cent sugar, and finished maple syrup is 66 per cent sugar. Less evaporating means faster

production, fewer man hours, and, if you ask Sidders, less depth of flavour.

In this sugar shack, they evaporate the old fashioned way by chucking wood into the fiery maw of a multi-chambered monster of a machine. The interior of the door is red hot and looks spiked like an iron maiden. The evaporator dominates the shack, boiling about 160 gallons an hour. Plumes of steam rise over the building, and

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Roy Sidders has been working at making maple syrup in the Belgrave area for decades and he often does so with a little help from his friends. (Scott Stephenson photo)

By Scott Stephenson The Citizen

These days, more than ever, there is uncertainty surrounding the future of our communal environment and the ability to house and feed Ontario’s growing population. During such unpredictable times, amidst the confusion and noise created and amplified by modern media and political landscapes, there are few voices that speak with the same clarity, understanding and urgency about the intersection of municipal and agricultural issues facing the province as Dr. Wayne Caldwell, professor at the University of Guelph’s School of Environmental Design and Rural Development. Huron County, a career-spanning area of Dr. Caldwell’s interest and research, is known for unique and vibrant communities that share a rich agricultural heritage. But did those communities just evolve naturally, or is there some greater force at work? If you ask Dr. Caldwell, the answer to that question is that there is a higher power, and its name is “Rural Planning and Development”.

Dr. Caldwell, a registered professional planner and member of the Canadian Institute of Planners since 1986, has spent the last couple of years gathering data with a crack team of graduate students

with the goal of providing information to municipalities that they can then use to make educated plans for their agricultural futures. After gathering data, his research team helps identify problems, and consider strategies for tackling these complex and varied issues.

One of the biggest issues the team is currently investigating is that of balance. According to Dr. Caldwell, “Increasingly, municipalities are provided with more and more responsibilities, and for some municipalities across the province, I think, that diminishes, at times, the importance of agriculture.” Quite simply, there is often just too much going on, and old standards like food production can fall by the wayside as new issues dominate attention.

Dr. Caldwell’s study on “Municipal Capacity Related to Rural and Agri-food Issues” examines key factors confronting municipalities, including staffing capacity, financial capacity, and, most importantly, the capacity of our elected officials to be familiar with relevant issues.

One of the first questions Dr. Caldwell asks is, “What capacity

exists on the part of municipalities to deal with these important issues?” The answer to that question differs widely from one area to the next. “There are counties and regions and local municipalities in this capacity where they do really supportive and positive things in support of agriculture, and other jurisdictions where they’ve got

virtually no planning staff, which is really problematic in those areas from a certain perspective in terms of being able to be more innovative and thoughtful in how we approach land-use planning,” explained Dr. Caldwell with the level, measured tone of somebody accustomed to looking at the big picture.

“In an area such as Huron, there’s

a good voice for agriculture around the table,” but reminded again that it all comes down to capacity. “Capacity on the part of our elected officials, and, to that, the ability to make decisions and create programs.” Dr. Caldwell provided a local example of rural planning in action. “In Huron we have the

Continued from page A25 steam is also reserved to preheat the sap coming in from the vats outside. The fuel: cast offs from local lumber mills that make beams and floorboards. There are even piles of elongated, splintery scraps acquired from a nearby Amish baseball bat-making operation. All the excess water is evaporated this way, until the sap is close to the necessary 66 per cent sugar.

The evaporator gets so hot, there must be liquid running through the system at all times. If you run out of liquid, the heat of the fire will melt the steel of the machine. “If sap stops coming in, you’ve got less than five minutes to figure it out before you’ve got a big problem.”

Sidders’ operation is more labour-intensive than others that use the reverse osmosis method, but it’s a labour of love. “I used to always shut it down at midnight. Sometimes, I still have to… and I love all that too, but now, we generally shut down at about 7:30 and are home by 8.”

One of his favourite things about being in the bush at this time of year is the different perspective it offers. “People drive by a bush, especially in the winter, and they go ‘wow, there’s nothing going on. But in all these trees, there’s physiological processes going on… bushes are alive with activity, we just don’t think of it that way. Every year I get to see spring emerge.”

Winter may have come to an end this year, but for Sidders, syrup season is just getting started.

Predictability in question due to decisions: Caldwell

Continued from page A26

Clean Water Project… it’s an example of something that we created to deal with the issues that were connected to concerns people had about water quality.” The project covers a wide number of local concerns, ranging from planting trees to proper well closure. The plan strikes to seek a balance that serves the whole community and addresses all of their issues. Problems in maintaining balance range from global, like climate change, to local.

An example of a local issue that affects a number of municipalities across the province is cannabis production. Odour and lighting are just a couple of concerns that could affect those living near farms. This must be considered during the planning process. Another important issue affecting the Huron County area is the preservation of communal natural heritage, like wetlands and woodlots. Preservation is important, but can be at odds with the development plans of some communities.

To make those kinds of bigpicture decisions and create nuanced programs, municipalities need a tremendous amount of data, and that’s where Dr. Caldwell’s team is focusing its efforts. His second question is not just, “What can be done?” but “How do we be innovative in creating response?”

In recent years, Dr. Caldwell has focused scholarly attention on the invaluable swath of protected land known as Ontario’s Greenbelt,

which has increasingly been in the news recently.

An over-8,000-square-kilometre swath of protected land stretching from Rice Lake to the Niagara River, Dr. Caldwell underlined its importance. “The Greenbelt, in my view, is attempting to establish a boundary, a border, a line, that tries to keep urban development on one side, and creates a lot of caution about expanding urban use into that space... it creates predictability for farmers in that area.”

Recent moves made by the Ontario government led by Premier Doug Ford have called that predictability into question. “Prior to recent activity, you had a pretty high level of confidence that this

area would stay agricultural for generations to come.” Many questions have risen surrounding the sale of protected Greenbelt land prior to the provincial government’s announcement of changes to the area’s protected status. Dr. Caldwell questions why this is happening in the name of a housing shortage, considering that there is much room for housing to be built within existing urban areas. He also feels it is a negative example for other protected areas. Ostensibly, the purpose of suddenly selling off pieces of the Greenbelt is to expedite the response to the housing crisis. “We talk about things like creating more housing, but if we don’t have the capacity on

the municipal level to actually handle applications and process them, and not only that, to then make the decision to make sure we don’t throw the proverbial baby of agriculture out with the bath water.”

Dr. Caldwell’s advice to those who want to learn more about the

specific municipal capacity related to agri-food issues in their local community is this: “Become aware, that’s important. Follow your local newspaper.”

More information about Dr. Caldwell’s research is available at www.waynecaldwell.ca/projects/.