Saskatchewan Open Farm Days Set for August 9 and 10

Thirty-five farms, ranches, orchards, and producers will be opening their gates to the public August 9th and 10th as part of the province's second "Saskatchewan Open Farm Days." Saskatchewan Open Farm Days was launched by Farm and Food Care Saskatchewan last year to offer the public an opportunity to connect directly with those who produce their food.

Executive Director Clinton Monchuk says experience has shown that consumers gain a better understanding of farming practices, how food is grown, if they have the ability to talk to farmers and ranchers and Saskatchewan Open farm Days creates that opportunity.

Quote-Clinton Monchuk-Farm and Food Care Saskatchewan:

There is a huge variety of different farms and they vary throughout the province. We have everything from large scale grain farms to smaller horticulture farms.We have cattle ranches, we have opportunities to take a trail tour on horses as well so it's a wide variety.We have different participating venues like the Western Development Museum that's doing a special event.

We have some distilleries that are taking part in this.It really is very widespread, not only in terms of the different agriculture and food products that Saskatchewan provides but also in the locations.There's little clusters of farms around the Saskatoon and the Regina area but we also have different places like Humboldt, Saskatchewan or Val Marie that have different opportunities for people to check out as well so it is very diverse and very exciting to see the different locations people can go to.

Monchuk notes the majority of visitors are from urban centers and last year's inaugural event attracted close to three thousand participants, an average of about 100 per venue.Information on Saskatchewan Open Farm Days as well as links to register for one of the tours can be found at skopenfarmdays.ca.For more visit Farmscape.Ca.