NAPANEE, Ont. – On the road that runs past his cash crop and egg operation that often is downwind of neighbours, Max Kaiser has hung a sign proclaiming that Kaiser Lake Farms has an Ontario environmental farm plan in place.
“Most of our neighbours are non-farmers and it’s one of the reasons we want to be seen as environmentally friendly,” he said. “We have to be. This tells them we take it seriously and are spending money on it.”
The farm was one of the first to go through the fledgling Ontario environmental farm plan program in the mid 1990s when Kaiser’s father ran the operation.
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Kaiser recently repeated the process, now that a federal-provincial agreement sanctions and funds it.
Every few years, Kaiser produces a letter for neighbours explaining why and when he is spreading manure. And he keeps his farm looking tidy.
“Eyes and nose are close together so if it smells but it looks nice, it won’t smell as bad,” he said.
Psychology aside, consider it a form of local branding. The EFP sign, although not used in all provinces, sends a signal to customers, neighbours and passersby that farmers are environmentally responsible.
“I’ve always thought we should be good stewards of the land and this gets that message out to others,” said Jim Latrace, a Lumsden, Sask., seed grower whose farm north of Regina was honoured in September as the symbolic 9,000th Saskatchewan farm to go through the program.
The Manitoba EFP workbook for farmers makes the same point about the importance of touting farm environmentalism to the public.
“Take pride in the positive environmental choices you and your family have already made,” it says. “Your prosperity as a farmer depends on productive healthy soils, a clean, plentiful supply of water for your livestock and family. The appeal of the rural lifestyle hinges on clean air and easy access to our province’s diverse natural resources and wildlife. The non-farming public has these same interests in water, air, soil and biodiversity.”
Thousands of farmers across Canada use evidence of an environmental plan as a marketing tool.
“It is important that farmers make connections with the non-farm population and environmental plans is one great way,” said Lisa McLean, a promoter of the Farmers Feed Cities publicity campaign in Ontario this year.
Concern for the environment plays internationally as well, say officials involved in selling the brand of Canadian food products abroad.
“We are seen as stewards of our resources and it is one of the core attributes of our brand for sure,” said Janice Vansickle, executive director for branding management at Agriculture Canada. “The idea that so many farmers have embraced environmental plans does strengthen our brand.”
However, because the program is voluntary and more than half of Canadian farmers have not yet taken part, government must be cautious in how it promotes it.
“Our message about our stewardship must be very high level because we cannot guarantee that the products we are promoting come from a farm with an environmental plan,” said Vansickle.
Locally, the branding is more specific and more blunt.
The website for Ego’s Farm Market and Greenhouses in Coldwater, Ont., north of Toronto makes it clear: “This farm has an Ontario Environmental Farm Plan.”
Co-owner Kristen McPhail said that claim often prompts customers to ask what it means. “It is a great conversation opener with the public.”
In Edmonton, the executive director of the Alberta Environmental Farm Plan Co. says experience in that province is the same.
“I hear increasingly that farmers have to be closer to the consumer and farmers see this as a vehicle,” Mike Slomp said. “The fact that more than 11,000 Alberta farmers have come forward of their own volition to at least attend a workshop tells you that they see its value.”
