We asked, “What is one thing you can do to make your rural community an even better place to live, work and play”, and you responded with many great ideas and examples of how you can make a difference.

 

We are pleased to announce the winners of the Do Something Great contest – Harold and Shelley McPhail of Almonte Ontario.

 

The McPhails, owners and operators of Harshell Family Farm Enterprises, have been proudly producing food for Canadian families since 1985. The McPhails are passionate about agriculture, take great pride in the quality of what they produce and want to share their love of farming with those in their community who would not otherwise have the opportunity to have such an experience. “As today’s ‘face of agriculture’ we need to take social responsibility for educating those who are interested enough to learn.”

 

Read their winning entry to find out how they are making a difference through agricultural education, awareness and promotion:

 

My husband and I cash crop on the outskirts of a small Ottawa Valley town (Almonte). We have about 3 kilometers of road exposure but it has become a very "high impact" stretch of rural road.

 

The road we live/farm on is very popular for walkers, joggers, cyclists, motorcyclists, old car enthusiasts, and every day "Sunday drivers". It is a quiet and serene roadway that follows the route of the Mississippi River (our farm is located on the river) and although one can't see the river from the roadway, there is access to one of the most beautiful, tiny, community parks in the Ottawa Valley (hence some of the traffic).

 

Two years ago, when we grew canola for the first time in our crop rotation, we wondered whether passersby would be able to distinguish canola from the weed mustard. We decided that we needed to "educate Joe Public" so that the canola was recognized as such.

 

This decision lead us to the conclusion that perhaps many of the people passing by our crops each year, would have difficulty identifying what the plants actually were that grew in each field and further more, what became of those "plants" when we harvested them.

 

The idea to educate passersby grew as we realized that perhaps for every person who would ask us what a crop was, there were likely 10's of thousands who wouldn't bother to ask, or wouldn't know who to ask. So, why not make it easy for all? We decided to have 4' X 4' professionally made signs made to label each crop we were growing in fields with road exposure.

 

Our signs clearly label the CROP, THE END USES, and across the bottom the signs say "HARSHELL FAMILY FARM ENTERPRISES". We have signs for Hard Red Spring Wheat, Hard Red Winter Wheat, Malting Barley, Round up Ready Soybeans, Identity Preserved Soybeans, Clover, Hay, and Canola.

 

The feedback has been completely overwhelming as we have witnessed all manner of passersby stop to read the signs (walkers to automobile drivers). Many go so far as to bring others by to see the "ag education" and the word has spread like a virus. In the spring we got all of our crops into the ground and then went out to begin putting the signs up for 2010 (since the crops had obviously rotated from 2009). As we were installing the signs people we didn't know were driving by and honking their approval - others stopped to wait for the sign to go up so they could read it and proceed ahead down the road.

 

Last year, as an added bonus, we were contacted by on of those "passersby" who is a beekeeper. He was delighted to see canola growing in this area as it was not a common crop (it has only recently been deemed appropriate for our growing area). This fellow lives locally but teaches in the City of Ottawa and so, the "ag education" theme was appealing to him. His interest, however, was in exposing some of his beehives to the canola crop. Previously he produced honey flavoured by various other crops including buckwheat, apples, etc but, had not had an opportunity to produce "CANOLA honey". When he ask if he could place two hives in one of our canola fields we were 100% in favour of the idea. At the end of the season, prior to our harvesting the canola, he removed the hives and has since returned to offer us two large jars of "CANOLA honey" as a thank you for allowing his bees to "hang out" in our field.

 

The plan is set for him to return next year, with more hives, since the honey is absolutely the best we have ever tasted and he has had great feedback from his customer base.

 

Next year, we have decided that we are going to have a new sign prepared, as an addition to the information about the canola crop. This new sign will announce that the bee hives in the field, are a "COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIP" between Harshell Family Farm Enterprises and Bill Jackson Honey. As well, Bill is going to provide a sign explaining that the bees are pollinating the canola and producing honey flavoured by the canola flowers. He plans to paint up some old beekeeping equipment over the winter and place it along the road as part of the "Ag Education" pit stop so that people can get a bigger picture of what is happening with this "COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIP". There will not be any bees in this display in order to prevent possible bee/human incidents. The live bee hives will be placed further back in the field where the public cannot access them.

 

We do have plans to enhance the "ag education" experience a little further by preparing signs for the various stages of the crop season. For example, many people wondered this year if we had lost our canola crop when it was swathed and lay in the rain for 2-3 weeks in the field in August. We explained, to those who ask, that the swathing and lying of the crop in the field is very much a part of the harvesting and that the rain would not harm the canola since it is an "oilseed". We would also like to develop some sort of display box in which we could place a sample of the harvested crop to promote a "sensory experience" with each crop. Wouldn't it be great if "Joe Public" could stop, walk to the edge of the field while the crop was growing and check out the live plants and then return to check out the "Sensory box" with harvested seed contained within. They could see it, smell it, feel it, and even taste it if they wanted to.

 

We consider our "Ag Awareness/Education/Promotion" project to be very much a part of our social responsibility. As farmers we are proud of our work and want to share our love of farming with those who would not otherwise have the opportunity to have such an experience.

 

Each societal generation is further and further removed from any connection to agriculture. We feel, in our hearts, that we can re-introduce a little of that connection to friends and strangers by doing our small part, in our small rural community.