This year’s awards banquet for the Waterloo-Wellington local of the National Farmers Union attracted just under 200 people here March 28 to celebrate local food and local farmers.
Awards were presented in three categories: Sustainable Farming award, Future Farmer of the Year, and Barn Restoration and Preservation award. The event had more nominees than ever, leaving a difficult task for the nine judges: Wim DenHartog, David Parker and Craig Switzer (future farmer), June Switzer, Trevor Haws and Floyd Schiek (barn preservation), Anne Loeffler, Gerald Poechman and John Rowe (sustainable farming).
Nominees, judges, chefs, NFU members, farmers and community members mingled while Fergus musician Steve Royalls performed. At 7pm, Waterloo-Wellington NFU president John Sutherland welcomed everyone and introduced the guests of honour, including Wellington Halton-Hills MP Michael Chong, Ontario coordinator of the NFU Ann Slater, and Gord Flewwelling and Denhartog, the current presidents of the Wellington Federation of Agriculture and the Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario (Wellington district), respectively.
Chris Jess, chef instructor of Centre Wellington District High School’s Food School (www.foodschool.ca) introduced the local menu of hand-rolled buns, butter and goat cheese, fresh salad, homemade chicken noodle soup, roasted winter vegetables and a braised pork dish with potatoes, followed by crepes with ice cream and chocolate sauce for dessert.
He also explained the work of the food school, from the great work of the 300 students who learn in his kitchen every year to its plans to expand to a farm and source such things as vegetables and chickens.
Ron Weber asked for a blessing.
Jess and his students did not disappoint; the dinner was excellent and student chefs acted as servers.
As dessert was being served, there was a video outlining stories and farms of some of the nominees. The video was made by Bob MacArthur from New Growth Family Centre in Mount Forest.
Students from local high schools designed the three awards for the winners: Mandy DeBoer from Wellington Heights in Mount Forest painted a portrait of a child feeding a cow on barn board for the Future Farmer award.
The making of the Barn Preservation award was designed as a competition between Bill Spira’s design technology students at Erin District High School, and the NFU local had a choice of eight plaques made by Kyle Boone, Brandon Flemming, Michael Mifsud-Sweeney, Blake Nicholson, Nicholas Parker, Ryan VanderVleit, Carolyn Doukas and Ben Quarrie.
The local decided on the design by Nicholson.
The Sustainable Farming award was a box, made from local wood, crafted by two recently graduated Norwell District Secondary School students Alec Forbes and Aaron Lyon.
The awards were presented by Chong.
The winner of the Barn Restoration Preservation award was Paul May and family, of Rockwood. He thanked his children for nominating him and his friends and family for helping with the restoration project.
Steven Jackson, living near Guelph, took home the Future Farmer award, and the Sustainable Farming award went to Kaj and Cathy Hansen of Burnway Farms, near Ospringe. Hansen gave a few words and urged farmers and consumers alike to raise the bar higher than mere sustainable farming and instead aim for regenerative agriculture.
Chong thanked organizers of the night’s event, and called attention to Anita Stewart’s recent honour in receiving the Order of Canada, and he also thanked all farmers for their hard work.
Slater brought greeting on behalf of the NFU Ontario before the Waterloo-Wellington local presented its own award to a community member working to connect farmers and eaters.
That award (Local Food Hero) was presented to Jess, who accepted the certificate as he nodded to his students, saying he hopes the Food School will be making 300 new local food heroes every year.
Guest speaker Stewart talked about the importance of eating from the local “food shed” and preserving skill sets so Canada will be able to feed itself through whatever challenges it might have in the future.
She spoke generally about the long history of our foods and the early settling of Wellington County, noting that while foreign food has made a splash, we should not imagine that our culinary traditions here are ones that should be scoffed at. She said consumers are returning to authenticity and simplicity in life and in food because eating local, seasonal, organic and artisanal foods help people to feel not quite so out of control in their society.
Canada, she argued, is teaming with biodiversity, with life and with food.
“Canada is food,” she said.
Stewart praised the NFU for its work in protecting and celebrating local farmers and left the audience with an image of the statue of St. Ignatius, leaning into the wind clutching his Bible, at the Jesuit retreat centre in Guelph.
She encouraged the audience to be like that man: forward thinking, visionary, unafraid and keeping convictions close to heart.
For more information on Stewart, visit www.anitastewart.com
The evening concluded with a skit performed by Lukas Schumacher, a young Alpaca farmer from New Dundee.
The skit was one side of a telephone conversation between a farmer, awoken while on his honeymoon, and a hired hand that he doesn’t know, fresh out of Ridgetown College.
The hired help explained to the farmer all of the changes he had been making to his farm, like bringing visitors to the farm using social media, listing direct farm sales of his milk, converting his manure storage to a swimming pool and many other things that a farmer would hope never to hear.
The monologue was translated and altered by Linda Laepple, of Petersburg, so that it covered a range of issues to which all Ontario farmers could relate; the crowd was in stitches.
John Sutherland was appreciative of all those who came to be a part of the annual evening of celebration.
Following, all NFU members present were invited to stay for a short meeting to determine the board’s leadership for the next year.
The executive positions remain the same: president, John Sutherland; vice president, Kim Delaney; and treasurer, Martin DeGroot.
The directors are: Ron Weber, Jill Sutherland, Pat Brown, Linda Laepple, Jim Profit, Arwa DeGroot and two more nominations are awaiting approval.
Melisa Luymes was reappointed to the role of secretary.
For more information, contact Sutherland at jjsutherland@sympatico.ca / 519 855 4651, or Melisa Luymes at melisa.luymes@gmail.com or 519 638 7762.
