Breakfast usually doesn’t get more educational than it did for over 600 visitors at Laprise Farms in Pain Court on Saturday.
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Farm and Food Care Ontario hosted its traveling ‘Breakfast on the Farm’ event, which featured exhibits, demonstrations and tours of the brussels sprout facility on Maple Line.
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Christa Ormiston, communications manager for the Guelph-based organization, was pleased with the response, noting it was the third such event this year, with the others taking place in Huron County and Napanee.
“They’re made to invite non-farming Ontarians onto the farm to engage, have their questions answered by farmers, and to experience life on the farm,” she said.
“This has been a really unique event for us to be able to get onto a horticulture farm. We’re sold out today.”
Visitors had a chance to walk throughout the facility, as well as outside on the farm itself, while learning from staff and watching the equipment in action.
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“They’re able to have a tour of the fields and see the brussels sprouts being harvested, and learn more about that process,” Ormiston said. “And then they come on in to the greenhouse, touring the processing area.”
The breakfast consisted of all Ontario foods and there were various sampling stations.
More than 100 volunteers helped out on Saturday. There was also a presence from producer organizations, local agricultural groups and first responders.
Ormiston said the event has been going on for 13 years, adding it is different at each stop.
Crispin Colvin, chair of the organization, was impressed with Saturday’s visit.
Although he believed people everywhere could benefit if they learned more about their food, he said those in the industry also enjoyed broadening their horizons.
“Seeing this, to me, is educational and fantastic,” he said. “It’s not just people from urban areas that come out and learn. Farmers learn too.
“People are learning, but they don’t know they’re learning. To them, it’s a day out in the country and it’s fun.”
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