If you ever plan to attend Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show in Woodstock, Ont., I have a few words of advice. Wear comfortable shoes and bring your water bottle.
This show is massive, covering 85 acres, hosting more than 700 exhibitors and welcoming about 43,000 guests over three days each September. This year, I attended the show for about six hours, and my feet were already killing me.
But you don’t want to miss anything, and there is a vast variety of things to see. For example, one exhibit had two milking systems going head-to-head, to the great interest of a crowd of dairy farmers.
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Because the farm show takes place on the permanent grounds of the University of Guelph’s research station, there’s also the ability to watch new machinery in action on a mature field of (in this case) corn. Farmers were out in big numbers to see which combine managed to get through the slashing leaves of the corn plants the best.
Farmers could also evaluate plots of corn and soybeans, displayed side by side by the seed companies. That was fascinating. Some plants were thriving; others, not so much. As a result, it was easy to compare the varieties.
It is really quite the show, and last week it became part of the family.
The family I refer to is Glacier Media Inc., owner ofThe Western Producerand several other agricultural publishing brands. The acquisition also includes Canada’s Outdoor Equine Expo.
“In agriculture, it is important to have a ‘hands-on’ person-to-person forum to augment the written and digital transfer of knowledge and technologies,” our president and chief executive officer, Jonathon Kennedy, said in a news release while explaining why Glacier Media and COFS are such a good fit.
He views the two arms as “providing an integrated information platform to the agrifood industry.”
It’s an interesting and different acquisition for Glacier. I was certainly intrigued by COFS while hanging aroundThe Western Producer’sbooth in September.
I was amazed at how many eastern farmers were familiar with our paper. One, for instance, told me the WP was by far the best source of information during the days when we were covering BSE from ears to tail.
That made me realize that although Canada is agriculturally diverse, in many respects farmers from all over the country are in this together. We’re glad to be there with them.
