Alberta Open Farm Days is a great source of information—and food
One of the best ways to find out about your food is to make friends with your farmer.
Alberta Open Farm Days (August 16-17) is your annual opportunity to visit local producers, learn about their operations, ask questions, and even try some of their products. Fifteen farms, agri-food businesses, and displays in the Lakeland will welcome visitors.
“Think of it as an open house or a backstage pass to learn about agriculture, experience agritourism in Alberta, and try some products directly from the producer,” said Lise Danyluk, Open Farm Days regional coordinator.
“A lot of these things you’ll drive past every day and wonder about it, but you’ve never actually been on the operating farm or understand how it works. So this is an opportunity to get on the inside of a lot of those places,” Danyluk said.
And it’s more than just farms. There’s a coffee roastery, a historic homestead, live demonstrations of old-time farm techniques, a bison-wool operation, a farm equipment and drone demonstration, and more.
All of the visits to the host locations are free, and some have free samples to offer. Most will have items for sale, and some will have other on-site vendors.
For the host farms, it’s a chance to talk to consumers and find out more about what the marketplace is looking for. It may also be a first step for some of them into possible agri-tourism opportunities.
But the focus is on meeting producers and clearing up some of the misconceptions about food production at the farm level.
Often people in the agriculture sector are “just kind of quietly working in
the background,” Danyluk says. “This is a good opportunity for them to help with information.”
Please see the ad in this week’s Respect paper for more information.
