“I don’t think we can overstate how important neighbours were,” says Wilson. It isn’t just rose-tinted glasses. Wilson’s findings are backed up with her analysis of 200 farm diaries written between 1800 and 1960 that are housed in her university’s Rural Diary Archive. (Many of these diaries are now available in searchable format online.)

We may think mainly of barn-raising, but it was many hands and strong backs that made every kind of progress possible: clearing the land, building houses and accomplishing other feats only possible with co-operative labour.

We tend to think early settlers were very isolated, but Wilson says the reality is that hardly a day passed when a member of the farm family wasn’t helping a neighbour or being helped by a neighbour. This might involve hauling out a dead cow or chopping wood. Older women in the neighbourhood delivered babies and it was often neighbour women who helped prepare the bodies of the dead for burial.

Many of the services that are provided by the government or businesses today were once provided by neighbours, adds Wilson. Neighbours even got together to string the lines for the first telephones.

Wilson emphasizes that although work bees are often romanticized, reciprocal labour was not completely altruistic. It was a way to accomplish tasks that couldn’t be done on one’s own, she says. 

It was also a surprisingly complex arrangement. People needed to be able to work through conflicts and there had to be flexibility around the repayment of labour as different people brought different tools and skill sets to a job, says Wilson. “People got to know who was best at sawing wood or who had the pot for boiling pigs.”

In general, co-operative labour worked because farms in a neighbourhood were producing similar crops and livestock using the same sort of equipment and methods, says Wilson. As Canadian farms became increasingly specialized, capitalized and monetized beginning in the 1960s, reciprocal labour dwindled, she says, although neighbourliness did not disappear altogether.

That was then

According to Statistics Canada, the farm population shrunk by almost two-thirds between 1971 and 2016. In 1931, the high-water mark for the Canadian farm population, one in three Canadians was a member of the farm population but by 2016 that number had tapered off to one in 58.

University of Guelph professor in rural planning Wayne Caldwell describes some of the impacts of the declining farm population on rural communities. As cars got better, it got easier and more convenient to travel farther to shop so many of the small local businesses closed. Likewise, many rural and small-town churches have closed. And with fewer children in rural areas, farm kids are bused many miles to school.

Caldwell says the loss of churches, schools and businesses can leave behind a diminished sense of community. And with farmers representing an ever-smaller proportion of the population, fewer farm voices are heard around the council table. “In earlier times, municipal councils were dominated by farmers,” he says “Today there may only be one or two farmers.”

However, while the word “community’” used to only mean those in close physical proximity, Caldwell points out that there are also other kinds of communities such as those created through social media or other communication technologies such as Zoom.

A typical family story

Today, a generation of farmers like Ken and Marie McNabb, both in their 60s, have fond memories of close-knit neighbourhoods with regular get-togethers. Neighbourliness defined their lives.

When he was young, Ken knew all the neighbours in his piece of Ontario. Most of them went to the same church so he saw them every Sunday, and they visited on a more or less constant basis.

With three boys in hockey and 4-H, Marie says the McNabbs naturally got to know a wider circle of other parents who had kids the same age as their sons rather than the immediate neighbours.

However, the McNabbs did connect with a small group of dairy farmers in their area with whom they share labour and equipment for spreading manure, haying and harvest.

Today, two of the McNabb’s sons, who are in their 20s, are beginning the process of farm transition with their parents. Marie says the younger generation “works with more technology which allows them more personal time than we had.” 

The younger McNabbs are in touch with other young farmers in the neighbourhood via What’s App on a regular basis. This has led to a shared labour arrangement helping each other cover their bunk silos which has made the job much easier and faster. You also get to have a social visit afterwards, says Ken.

Both Ken and Marie, who attended the University of Guelph, have contacts across Ontario but one of their sons attended Olds College in Alberta and stays in touch with his contacts across Western Canada. “It has evolved. It’s gotten bigger,” says Ken.

And while being able to solve problems on your own is still important in farming, Marie says the next generation isn’t afraid to use their networks to call in help.

Jackie Dudgeon operates a beef farm near MacGregor, Man., with her husband Devon MacDonald. Both are in their early 30s. Dudgeon says there is a strong sense of community in their neighbourhood which is MacDonald’s home turf. If they need help, she says there are a number of neighbours they could count on and vice versa.

They are on the move, relocating to Dudgeon’s home area near Morden, where her dad has had a grain farm for many years. She sees a strong sense of community in this neighbourhood too. One of the things that still brings the neighbours together is a Harvest for Kids fundraiser. At the end of the season there’s a big meal in the field.

However, in her travels as the eastern Manitoba manager for a seed company, Dudgeon gets the impression that this strong sense of connection doesn’t exist everywhere. Climbing land prices and the competition for land is creating a sense of competition rather than co-operation, she says.

Dudgeon thinks it’s possible her generation is also less neighbourly. She has a few theories about this and thinks social media may play a role. With people posting only their favourable photos to social media, farmers can feel the pressure of keeping up with the Joneses to buy that shiny new tractor or combine. It can give people the impression they aren’t doing as well as the neighbours, she says.

And while seeing your neighbour’s posts on social media can give the impression that you know what’s going on in their lives, Dudgeon says this is a superficial level of connection and not a replacement for in-person visits.

Another explanation could be that young farmers have less time available to help others than in past generations. Dudgeon and MacDonald are both involved in the farm and both have off-farm jobs which they juggle with raising their family.

“We’re exhausted,” says Dudgeon, adding that perhaps younger farmers are more aware of the importance of mental health and if they get a little bit of time to themselves, they spend it on self-care.

While years ago, it was a custom for farm women to prepare meals for a sick neighbour, Dudgeon says she’d be more inclined to give the family a gift card or order a meal for them. Dudgeon also remembers her mom sending elaborate meals like lasagna, salad and garlic toast to the field but all she has time for is a rotisserie chicken.

But there are bright spots too. Although younger generations may not be as close with farmers in their neighbourhood, Dudgeon has connected with an informal group of like-minded farmers from across Canada that she met while attending a Canadian Young Farmers Forum conference in P.E.I.

More than two years after the conference, the group is still communicating on a regular basis, says Dudgeon. “We’ve learned so much from each other.”

Reconnecting in rural Canada

Dr. Jody Carrington, psychologist, author and public speaker, from Olds, Alta., is concerned about the impact of the stress of the global pandemic on mental health, disconnection and divisiveness in rural Canada.

When we get overwhelmed, we get irritable and less tolerant and we lose our capacity for empathy, kindness and compassion, Carrington says.

Speaking via a Farm Credit Canada webinar recently, Carrington had some simple suggestions to help restore the sense of connection in rural communities.

Imagine the next time you’re driving down your road, you pull up to a stop sign and see a neighbour, Carrington wants you to give them a really big wave which will get noticed. Other small actions that let others know they matter include buying a coffee for the person in line behind you and making eye contact at the hockey rink.

“Relationship and connection. We know how to do this in agriculture,” says Carrington. “It’s up to you and me, to do the next best right kind thing.

Proportion of medium-sized farms shrinks

Guelph ag economist Al Mussell has raised a red flag about the impacts of ongoing economic-demographic trends in Canadian agriculture on municipal governance, rural organizations and supports for farmers.

Mussell’s analysis, using Farm Cash Receipts (FCR) to sort farms by size, shows there has been a steep decline in the middle-sized farms and their share of FCR. Demographic trends also show “a declining (but still large) number of small farms, for whom agriculture is not the primary source of household income” and “a much smaller number of large and very large farms that are growing in number, for whom agriculture is the overwhelming source of household income, that are the dominant source of FCR.”

In his report, Mussell writes, “These observations are consistent with a collapsing middle of the economic distribution of farms, and threaten the community constituted by agriculture, with its commonality of interests, views and institutions developed to support them.”

He calls on governments and industry to engage in “a renewal of institution building that can help to address the trend of stratification of farms, preserve a diverse community in agriculture, and in so doing, address the related issues requiring collective action.”

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So it’s not so surprising, at least to rural Canadians, that when researcher Stacey Haugen spoke to Syrian refugees who had settled in Canada’s rural areas, they reported overwhelmingly positive experiences.

The refugees, fleeing violence, hunger and homelessness in their homeland were sponsored by church and community groups who agreed to provide them with care, lodging, settlement assistance and support for a full year.

Haugen, who hails from rural Alberta, set out in 2017 to document the experiences of refugees in smaller towns and rural Canada. She was the recipient of a research award from the International Development Research Centre, an Ottawa-based agency of the federal government which funds global research in developing nations.

After reaching out to sponsorship committees in four rural communities, Haugen spent about a week in each community interviewing refugees, members of the sponsorship committees, community members and service providers. The communities were located in small towns in southwestern Ontario, southern Alberta, rural Nova Scotia and central Saskatchewan.

The refugees told Haugen that they liked that Canada’s rural communities are quiet and feel safe, that people are friendly, and that their children can play outside. Some of the refugees commented that they liked being able to live in a house with a garden instead of an apartment. And many were able to find jobs locally, some even in their areas of expertise, such as a mechanic and a baker.

These are the same qualities that make Canada’s small towns and rural areas attractive to many people.

All of the refugees spoke to Haugen of the warm welcome they received when they first arrived and while attending community events. But it wasn’t all smooth going. There were challenges, some common to all those living in rural areas such as lack of access to medical services and higher education. And with no public transportation and not having a driver’s license or car, getting around could also be difficult.

But as is often the case with rural citizens, when people are struggling others step up to help. “The rural communities leaned on their social connections and community networks to find solutions,” says Haugen.

This is what sociologists call social capital and it is often more plentiful in smaller communities where social ties may be stronger than in big cities. In the absence of some of the specialized services found in urban areas, residents in rural communities regularly pitch in, further strengthening community bonds.

Some of the ways the community members helped fill the gaps for the refugee families included driving family members to out-of-town medical appointments and stores as well as providing opportunities for them to practise their English.

While some of the refugees wanted to move to a city after their one-year sponsorship was finished so they could access higher education or other services not available in the rural area, many of the refugees Haugen spoke to chose to stay in the small communities.

Haugen says her work supports the argument that many rural communities provide good integration opportunities for refugees who are learning English, finding work, buying homes and feeling welcomed in rural Canada. And, despite the challenges that refugees face in rural communities, including lack of public transportation and access to specialized services, her research showed an overwhelmingly positive story for both community members and refugees.

While the refugees benefited from their time in rural communities, the communities also gained, says Haugen who is continuing this work through a PhD at the University of Alberta. Increased diversity is an asset in smaller communities, as newcomers bring new resources, skills and innovative ideas into the community.

Haugen wanted to highlight positive stories because sometimes rural Canada is perceived as being unwelcoming and intolerant towards immigrant and refugee newcomers.

Each of the sponsorship groups in her study was aware that their communities were largely white and Christian and that people may not have had much experience with other ethnicities and religions. With this in mind, they took steps to inform and involve the wider community in the private sponsorship process through activities such as community meetings, community fundraising, presentations to the town council, and community-wide requests for volunteers and donations.

Sponsorship committee members did witness some negative Facebook rhetoric about immigration or refugees in general and some objections to the sponsorship process. However, they observed that once people got to know the new arrivals, refugee families were readily accepted into the community.

The research is clear that for many rural communities, attracting and integrating immigrants into the social fabric of the community will be essential for long-term economic sustainability, says Clark Banack, acting director of the Alberta Centre for Sustainable Rural Communities in Camrose, Alta. The centre has a mission to support resilient rural communities across Canada through research, education and outreach. That resiliency hinges on having informed citizens who actively participate in community governance and development.

Cultural awareness is a valuable asset for rural communities. Community leaders can build empathy by engaging residents in reflecting on their own family stories, says, Banack. “By answering questions such as, when did your family come to Canada? where did they come from? and why did they come? we realize that today’s newcomers are generally coming to Canada for the same reasons as our ancestors, for access to land or to flee war or famine,” says Banack.

“There are many similarities between our own family stories and those of the newcomers today,” he says. “These things are obvious but easy to forget.”

Most rural communities are actually a lot more diverse than we realize, continues Banack. “Unless they are Indigenous, everyone’s families were immigrants at one time.”

Our unconscious biases can get in the way of accepting people different from ourselves. We are hard-wired to react positively to those who look, sound and act like us yet brain scans show that when we are given pictures of faces different from our own, the primitive part of our brain that responds to fear is activated. This process happens in just milliseconds, and it operates at an unconscious level and may be a survival tool left over from when danger often came from those outside our own tribe.

Similarly, our unconscious biases can also cause us to make snap judgements about people being good or bad based on what we’ve previously seen in the news or on television or have heard from others. These prejudices can lead us to tell inappropriate jokes or avoid shopping in certain stores or hiring certain people, explains Banack.

These stereotypes can have an impact on our beliefs and behaviour. To better understand the damage that can be caused by holding inaccurate generalized beliefs about a group of people, Banack suggests the following exercise. Think about what stereotypes city people hold about rural people. How does it feel to be the target of negative stereotypes? Is it possible that some of the views we hold about newcomers or Indigenous people could also be undeserved stereotypes? 

Inviting those with lived experience to speak at community forums can help shine a light on these unwarranted stereotypes. While it won’t solve all the problems overnight, says Banack, small changes can spark a momentum.

Resources

• Alberta Centre for Sustainable Rural Communities, University of Alberta Talking about Cultural Diversity in Rural Alberta (YouTube)
• ‘An Introduction to Unconscious Bias,’ a short illustrated video that explains our unconscious affinity bias for those who are like us. (YouTube)

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Sanders, an independent U.S. senator and fierce corporate critic, said on a campaign trip to Iowa that rural areas were being devastated by agribusiness consolidations that hoarded profits, drove family farmers off their land and contributed to growing environmental and social problems.

“We cannot create an economy that works for all Americans if we continue to neglect the needs of rural America,” Sanders said in Osage, Iowa, during a visit to the farm state that kicks off the 2020 Democratic presidential nominating race next February.

“In rural America, we are seeing giant agribusiness conglomerates extract as much wealth out of small communities as they can, while family farmers are going bankrupt and, in many cases, treated like modern-day indentured servants,” he said.

Sanders is one of more than 20 candidates vying for the Democratic nomination to challenge Republican President Donald Trump in the November 2020 election. He places second in the Democratic field in most opinion polls, behind former Vice-President Joe Biden.

Sanders told the Iowa crowd that he would strengthen anti-trust laws to block new corporate agriculture mergers and break up existing monopolies. He suggested changes to farm subsidy programs to shift the benefits away from bigger farms to smaller and mid-sized operations.

Sanders also proposed new restrictions on foreign ownership of U.S. farmland, and an end to factory farm exemptions from anti-pollution laws.

“Factory farms are a threat to the air we breathe, the water we drink and the communities we live in,” he said.

Trump won Iowa by nearly 10 percentage points in the 2016 election, when rural areas were a bedrock of his support. But Democrats hope to make inroads in farm country in 2020 after Trump launched a trade war with China that has hurt some farmers and slashed soybean and other agricultural exports.

Sanders said farmers, workers and environmentalists should have a seat at the table during trade negotiations, and that foreign control of farmland was a national security issue.

Sanders, who repeatedly linked to his broader goals to reduce corporate influence and level the economic playing field for working Americans, said he would boost spending on social and economic programs in rural areas including increasing teacher pay in rural areas.

— Reporting for Reuters by John Whitesides in Washington.

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It’s not all doom and gloom though. Doug Griffiths, a former Alberta minister of municipal affairs and author of a book on community building says these problems are not inevitable.

Griffiths knows a thing or two about small towns. He grew up on a ranch and visited hundreds of communities in Alberta while doing the research for a comprehensive report called Rural Alberta: Land of Opportunity. The report lists 70 recommendations concerning education, health care, transportation, community infrastructure, arts and culture, and more.

After writing the report, Griffiths went on the speaking circuit to share what he’d discovered, when one day it dawned on him that people weren’t really getting the message. So he used a trick he had learned when he was teaching school. He turned his message around and developed a presentation which he called 13 Ways to Kill your Community.

Griffiths explains his rationale. When he talked to his students about what success looked like, they would tell him, “Yeah, yeah we know.” But when he turned it around to, “What would you have to do to fail?” they were able to recognize their destructive behaviour.

Griffiths used the same principle for his presentation on rural communities, which he then turned into a book (published by Frontenac House). That book then went on to become a national bestseller and is now in its fourth printing.

Questions to ask

What’s the most important factor when it comes to whether or not your small town will succeed?

No. 1 is your attitude, says Griffiths. “As the old saying goes: If you believe you can or you can’t, you’re right,” he explains. “Attitude creates the culture and that’s what’s most critical to success or failure.”

Then Griffiths makes his point: “The community itself has to decide it wants to be successful. And it has to believe that it can achieve its goal with or without government participation.”

Griffiths lists the factors that must come together for healthy communities, ranging from a good water source to creating a welcoming atmosphere, supporting local businesses and the arts, and more.

Griffiths knows that the one you thought would be on the top of the list is the one that’s missing.

The fallacy that Griffiths repeatedly heard from well-intentioned people when he was on the speaking circuit was that communities must keep their young people at home.

It’s a misconception, Griffiths says. Instead, young people should be allowed to go off and explore and learn new things. The point is not about finding ways to keep the youth from leaving, says Griffiths. “It is dependent on you finding a reason for them to want to come back.”

Rural communities can have a lot to offer, agrees Dee Ann Benard, executive director of the Alberta Rural Development Network, a not-for-profit partnership of Alberta’s 21 post-secondary institutions whose goal is to enhance communities.

Healthy communities that are welcoming can be good places to raise kids in a more relaxed environment where people know each other, Benard says. “It’s amazing what people can do in rural communities.”

Benard points to the success of Olds, Alta., a town of 8,500 people an hour north of Calgary. When companies began leaving town due to slow Internet connection, a non-profit corporation was created to install a high-speed fibre optic network. Now residents and businesses have access to Internet speeds 10 times faster than what’s available in cities across Canada, and at competitive pricing. This is a boon for business, residents and the agricultural college located there.

Like the other provinces, rural Prince Edward Island is also experiencing an aging and shrinking population. Tired of governments that didn’t seem to be doing enough, in October 2013 Prince Edward Island community newspaper publisher Paul MacNeill organized a conference that brought together key people from the four Atlantic provinces. The grassroots event was funded by the province’s community newspaper industry association, which put up $25,000 for the event.

MacNeill says they were very selective about who was allowed to participate. People had to apply and there were no government bureaucrats allowed. With the funding, they were able to pay travel expenses for those who otherwise wouldn’t have been able to attend.

Some 250 people participated in the conference in Georgetown. “It was fascinating to see how energized people were when they came together,” says MacNeill. The conference was a great success and several positive initiatives have resulted from the conference, he says.

Dr. Judith Kulig, a professor of health studies at the University of Lethbridge found some common elements that helped small towns cope with natural disasters. Communities that were better able to weather a natural disaster had a positive attitude and a willingness to work together across different ethnicities and religions. They also had a sense of belonging, good communication, and strong volunteerism and leadership. However, the trick is that these things need to be in place before the disaster hits.

Clergy can be an important resource for a town dealing with a natural disaster or other problem, says Dr. Cam Harder who established the Centre for Rural Community Leadership and Ministry (CiRCLe M) at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon. The centre hosts an annual conference and provides training, mentoring and resources to help rural clergy of all denominations better serve their rural congregations and contribute to the development of healthy communities.

“Clergy can help people by forging strong social bonds, by improving communication, and by offering free counselling and rituals that help people look forward with hope,” Harder says.

There’s also a need for leadership development and capacity building in rural organizations, says Rob Black, chief executive officer of the Rural Ontario Institute (ROI) in Guelph. “There are a lot of organizations doing good things, but the members are getting older. We need to find ways to engage younger members and rebuild and reinvigorate the leadership,” Black says. Black works to strengthen rural organizations by helping them with succession planning, leadership development and board governance.

Some rural organizations may need to consider amalgamating, says Black. “You need to be open to change, to doing things differently,” he says. “It’s a mindset, and the words you use can make a difference.” Black prefers the term amalgamation over merger. “Merger sounds like a takeover, but amalgamation sounds more co-operative.”

Black knows about the pains of amalgamating two organizations. The ROI was formed five years ago from an amalgamation of two organizations: the Centre for Rural Leadership and the Ontario Rural Council. “It can be tricky when you have two boards, two staffs, etc. but if we don’t change, maybe none will survive,” he points out.

Community building can also happen on a more informal scale. Coming together around a humanitarian project can be a good way to build community, says Glen Whetter, a minister at the Fellowship Community Church in Goodlands, tucked away in the southwest corner of Manitoba.

Whetter was involved in an auction fundraiser organized jointly by several churches of different denominations which raised $16,000 for the Canadian Foodgrains Bank.

Individuals can make a difference too. In addition to being a minister, Whetter is also a cattle farmer and together with his wife, Erma, they host a post-harvest potluck. “People are very appreciative of the opportunity to meet their neighbours,” Whetter says. “Farms are bigger, people are more spread out and they travel more. People are so busy they don’t have much chance to get together.”

This article was originally published as ‘Bring them back home’ in the May/June 2015 issue of Country Guide

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Now, as executive director of the Ontario Association of Food Banks (OAFB), he spends a lot of his time lobbying the government, companies and organizations to help keep his charity running, providing food to nearly 400,000 hungry people, many of them women, children and seniors.

Laidlaw has been encouraged recently with commodity groups that have revitalized old donation programs or started new ones. They’re catching on all across the country, and the Ontario example shows how and why.

“Farm organizations recognize it’s the right thing to do,” Laidlaw says. “It’s good public relations, it shows they are good community citizens, and I think they realize that many people who use food banks come from rural areas.”

Having enjoyed a good relationship with the Dairy Farmers of Ontario for years, the OAFB recently reached new agreements with Ontario Pork, the Egg Farmers of Ontario, and the Beef Farmers of Ontario. Each organization approaches its contributions differently, but the results are clear. A lot of hungry people who need it are getting good wholesome protein in their diets.

Other commodity groups are engaged in other partnerships to achieve similar ends. The Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers’ Association, for instance, is working directly with the province to send wholesome snacks to school kids in the north.

• From the Manitoba Co-operator: Breakfast for Learning programs help kids het ahead in school

Meanwhile, Ontario Pork wanted to revitalize the Donate-a-Hog program started in 1998 by longtime agricultural advocate and producer Paul Mistele. Former board director Mary Ann Hendrikx and her husband Lyle, along with staff from the organization and the animal health company Elanco redesigned the program so it would reach more people. With the board’s approval, the program was piloted in the summer of 2013.

Under the new program, Ontario Pork, representing 1,600 producers, encourages processors to match, dollar for dollar, its $10,000 annual contribution. It provides funding to processors who then ship one-pound packages of ground pork to food bank distribution centres. Zoetis, Shur Gain, Elanco and Bob and Wendy Fraser added their contributions for last year’s successful pilot, which saw 10,000 pounds of ground pork distributed out of centres in Windsor, Sarnia, Chatham, London, Stratford, Guelph, Hamilton and Owen Sound.

The main reason Ontario Pork revived the program was to give back to the community. “As farmers, we all live in rural communities, and are supportive of them,” says board chair Amy Cronin, who farms at Bluevale, Ont. “We want to help people faced with difficult situations, because we can also relate.”

Another reason is to get more people eating pork. The distributed packages come with tips on how to safely cook the meat, plus recipes that are both easy and tasty.

“With this program we are able to expose people to a product that they may not have previously tried, so we want them to have a good experience with it,” Cronin says.

This year, the campaign got underway at the end of July, and was expected to put 10,000 pounds of ground pork into dozens of central Ontario food banks.

In March, the Egg Farmers of Ontario (EFO), representing 460 producers, committed to donating at least $250,000 worth of product this year to the province’s food banks.

“We got involved because it’s a way of showing our social responsibility,” says Scott Graham, chair of the Egg Farmers of Ontario. “It’s the right thing to do.”

Individual egg farmers had been donating to food banks for a long time, but the board decided to take a province-wide approach as part of its 50th anniversary celebrations. A presentation by Bill Laidlaw to the board a couple of years ago in which he described the need started the ball rolling.

Under this program, egg farmers and others are encouraged to donate at least $50 to the EFO. The sum is the cash equivalent of one hen’s production for one year, or 25 dozen eggs. The organization then provides $20,000 a month to the food bank association and arranges for extra birds to be placed in either the donor’s barns or those of another producer who is willing and has extra space.

The OAFB then buys the eggs from suppliers Gray Ridge and Burnbrae, who donate the grading and processing costs.

Graham has taken the commitment to heart by personally contributing $5,000 — the equivalent of 100 hens’ production. While total donations so far are about $30,000 with 30 producers having contributed, he is confident that more will get on board as they replace their birds, which they do once a year.

Meanwhile, in June the Beef Farmers of Ontario (BFO) announced a $40,000 commitment to a new partnership with the food banks association.

“The reason we got involved is that I think it’s hard to believe that more than 375,000 Ontario people including 131,000 children access food banks every month,” says chair Bob Gordanier. “We learned that from a presentation by the food banks people last year, and also learned that protein is by far the most needed item.”

“They asked if we could help,” Gordanier says. “We said we could.”

The BFO provides the funding to the OAFB, which then buys the ground beef and distributes it where it is needed the most. This year’s contribution will buy 28,000 servings for hungry people.

Gordanier says that many individual beef farmers and county associations have been donating for years, but this is the first time the provincial organization has contributed on behalf of its 19,000 membership.

“Our producers are proud of having the name Beef Farmers of Ontario attached to something as important as this,” Gordanier says.

Earlier this year, the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers’ Association (OFVGA), with 28 member organizations representing more than 7,500 fruit and vegetable farmers, expanded an eight-year program that provides fresh snacks to schoolchildren in northern Ontario.

The Ministry of Health is providing the OFVGA with about $1.1 million each year for the next three to give 38,000 kids in 191 schools fruit and vegetable snacks twice a week. The program runs for 20 weeks starting in January.

All the logistical and procurement work is done centrally through OFVGA program co-ordinator Alison Robertson. She says that the program started nine years ago when her organization was approached by the ministry to help deal with obesity and other health problems that were showing up in school-aged kids in the north.

“At the time, some people thought it wouldn’t work — that the kids would just throw the snacks in the garbage,” Robertson says. “There was some waste in the first month, but after that it went to zero, and eventually teachers started to report that they were seeing fresh fruits and veggies showing up in the kids’ lunch boxes.”

In the fall, Robertson starts lining up suppliers and transportation and is ready to roll in January. Each of 11 to 14 growers provides product two or three times through the next five months, and each receives fair market prices for their efforts.

“We realized that it wouldn’t last very long if we kept asking people to just give their products away,” Robertson says.

As a result of the volumes, Robertson pays wholesale prices, and has refined her distribution system over the years so that it now works very smoothly and she can keep a close eye on both the budget and food safety, including product handling and traceability.

With the program’s expansion this year, a deal with the North West Company retailer sees the snacks hitch a ride on the company’s supply planes to communities like Peawanuk and Attiwapiskat.

The goal of the program is not only to bolster the children’s health, but to also encourage youngsters to develop a lifelong habit of eating fresh produce. The association knows too that it also provides the OFVGA with leverage when the organization lobbies the government on behalf of its grower members.

This article was originally published as, “When good deeds are good business” in the September 2014 issue of Country Guide

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