Second Edition of Saskatchewan Open Farm Days Attracts About Four Thousand Visitors

Farm and Food Care Saskatchewan estimates four thousand visitors took part in this year's Saskatchewan Open Farm Days.The second edition of Saskatchewan Open Farm Days was observed last month across the province with approximately 35 different agriculture related venues opening their doors to the public. Farm and Food Care Saskatchewan Executive Director Clinton Monchuk says the event provides an opportunity for farmers to engage directly with consumers.

Quote-Clinton Monchuk-Farm and Food Care Saskatchewan:

You learn a lot more when you have an engaging conversations. If somebody is just going to be lecturing and speaking from a pulpit, if there's no opportunity for you to ask questions, you don't necessarily feel engaged in the process and the information.When we have things like this, when we have open farm days, there's two-way conversations.

There's questions being asked, there's farmers and ranchers there answering questions, there's information being provided, there's comments being thrown out and being able to engage with these individuals grows that overall public trust for agriculture and really truly, that is what we want.
We want that engagement.

I do believe, as there's more information out there, that people are more interested to know different aspects about their food, whether the ingredients  that happen to be in certain products, how those ingredients are being grown, what the process is through all the different steps of the supply chain.What our goal is with Farm and Food Care is to make sure that we're trying to be open and transparent and create that opportunity to discuss more about what we're doing in Saskatchewan in terms of producing food and opening up that book a little bit more to the general public.Again, when consumers have questions and we don't provide the answers, they will find answers in different locations and then it's kind of like a toss of a coin whether it's true or not. That's why we want to make sure we are that avenue for people to actually get truthful information about how their food is grown.

Monchuk says the 35 venues include grain farms, ranches, dairy farms and others attracting about four thousand visitors, mostly from the large urban centers.