Stepping up their urban outreach
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Lilian Schaer, Ontario Farmer
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Published on: May 9, 2019 | Last Updated: May 9, 2019 4:26 PM EDT
Beef and cash crop producer Crispin Colvin (centre) answers food and farming questions from attendees at a Farm & Food Care-sponsored movie screening and reception in Toronto on April 17. Handout/Postmedia Network
The second time was the charm for Farm & Food Care Ontario and its screening of the Before the Plate documentary.
The organization had planned a showing of the film on Canada's Agriculture Day in February at a theatre in downtown Toronto but a winter storm put the event on ice.
It was rescheduled for April 17 and despite a Leafs playoff game in town and a traffic-stopping accident on Highway 401 west of the city, a good number of the more than 200 people who had originally reserved tickets showed up for the screening, a Taste of Ontario reception and a chance to meet Ontario farmers.
Before the Plate is a documentary starring renowned Canadian chef John Horne of Toronto restaurant Canoe as he follows the ingredients of dish he created back to their Ontario farms of origin.
The film, which premiered last summer and has been shown at locations across Canada this past winter, is the brainchild of two young urbanites, University of Guelph graduate Dylan Sher and his lifelong friend, independent filmmaker Sagi Kahane-Rapport.
"This illustrates what we want to do – bring people like me closer to farming," said Kahane-Rapport. "I had never been on a farm before; it was a huge learning experience."
"Sagi and I grew up together and we never dreamed when we were messing around in his backyard as kids making movies on a cell phone that we'd be making a real one," added Sher.
The audience of mostly urban consumers with an interest in food was treated to a reception of Ontario food and drink after the film, along with the chance to mix and mingle with the farmers present.
Crispin Colvin was one of those farmers. A cash crop and beef farmer from Thorndale, he came to the event armed with an iPad of photographs of his Highland cattle and used that as a conversation starter at the reception.
"I just walked up to people and asked them if they wanted to see pictures of my cows and that spurred a lot of conversations – I enjoy talking to people who have at best a distant connection to the farm, and people were really interested in learning more," he said.
Most of the questions he fielded were general in nature, such as about housing and what animals eat, but also about different cattle breeds and what they should look for when buying beef – and overall, he said, the common thread was that people were genuinely interested in learning more about how food is produced and what farmers do.
This is Farm & Food Care's second foray into Toronto following a pop-up event at Union Station last fall where farmers and ag industry volunteers handed out breakfast sandwiches and afternoon snacks to commuters.
"I think it's important that we do things in Toronto because people have to know how their food gets to the grocery store shelf," Colvin added. "We have to get that connection and the only way to do that is to do functions in urban centres."
Another way Farm & Food Care is hoping to forge that connection is with a new social media initiative, Faces Behind Food. Launched the same day as the film screening, it's an Instagram-based campaign that profiles the stories and personalities of behind food and builds on the long-running Faces of Farming calendar Farm & Food Care produced for a decade until 2016.
It's inspired by the internationally acclaimed Humans of New York initiative and takes a succinct approach to telling the real stories about real people who work in Canada's food system.
"We're using Instagram to tell the stories of everybody who puts food on the table from bloggers to chefs, researchers and truck drivers," said Farm & Food Care executive director Kelly Daynard. "It was during my first job as a newspaper reporter that I discovered that everybody had a story to tell and we are hoping to use our Instagram page to tell those stories."
Discovering Ontario's lost prairies	 Stepping up their urban outreach
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