Sudbury Soil and Crop Tour a Success!

The happy participants!

On Friday August 6, over 50 people participated in the Sudbury Soil and Crop Improvement Association's Summer FarmTour. A city bus was graciously donated for the purpose of carrying most of us (a few cars had to be added to accomodate the numbers interested) to our agricultural destinations in the Valley.

The tour left from the Sudbury Downs parking lot in the morning and travelled to a Green Mines Green Energy test site on Vale Inco property in the Levack area.  Safety glasses, hardhats and closed toed shoes were a must at this site, and we looked great!

This is one of many test sites around Northern Ontario that is testing the feasibility of growing biomass energy crops on mine tailings sites.  Here, on donated compost material, there was corn, canola and a few types of switch grass being grown.

The next stop was Beaulieu Farms in Blezard Valley for a wonderful lunch courtesy of Soil and Crop with all local ingredients from the farm, then a tour of the crops including potatoes and raspberries.

Valley Growers, a potato growing and processing plant just down the road was our next stop.  We saw the fields, the storage facilities and the washing and bagging operations here. 

The last farm on the tour was Greenzone Farm where elk and deer are raised for meat.  Here the participants saw a control site for the Green Mines Green Energy project, where the same crops are being grown in order to compare the growth of the plants at the mine site vs. a normal plot of agricultural land.

The tour ended at Market Square in downtown Sudbury, where a BBQ was hosted by FarmON and Eat Local Sudbury, using all local ingredients from the cooperative store.  The food was cooked masterfully by the folks from Rollin' Doggies and the Foodshed project showcased its Farm Yard Gardens internship program.

All in all, a great day. 

These tours are so important for the farmers to see what others are doing and how they are doing it, but also of great value to the public (who made up a large percentage of the participants) who do not always get a chance to experience the agri-culture of the area.  These kinds of experiences help to link the urban with the rural and help put a face to those who produce our food.