You can add the Middlesex County Federation of Agriculture to the list of farmer based groups offering fresh, locally grown food products for people to purchase this summer. This farm group has produced a very professional colour map that is free and available across the county in libraries, community centres and farmer’s markets. You can also go directly to the London-Middlesex “Healthy Living” website for more information on this new local initiative and print yourself off a copy of the map. 

 The map is very informative listing locations of farm markets and more than 50 area producers where you can purchase fruits and vegetables, meats and even honey, syrups and jams. This slick looking map is educational with lots of farm facts and providing people with the many reasons they should “buy locally.” Farm producers paid $25 each to appear on the map which was also sponsored by many organizations such as the Middlesex-London Health Unit, Tourism London and Middlesex’s Community Futures Development Corporation. 

This is a win-win situation for both local producers and consumers. Buying locally provides support for area farmers and the consumer can take advantage of a broad range of fresh, exceptional high quality food, grown in their own backyard. Supporting local farmers makes not only good business sense; it has the added benefit of promoting a healthy lifestyle in food and nutrition.

For more than ten years AGRIS Co-operative and Wanstead Farmers Co-operative have been sponsoring young people to attend the “Co-operative Young Leaders” camp. This annual camp is held every summer and has very specific goals for those fortunate enough to attend.

• To provide young people with a fantastic summer camp experience
• To develop leadership and communication skills and foster self-confidence 
• To create a stronger awareness of co-ops and co-operative principles

This program which began in 1967 has had more than 2500 young people complete the leadership camp. The program is open to students between the ages of 14 and 18+ years old and is divided into three levels, junior, intermediate and senior.

In the late fall and early winter when AGRIS and Wanstead Farmers hold their respective annual meetings, leadership camp participants are invited to attend and give a short presentation to co-op members. I can attest from first hand knowledge that past students have done an excellent job capturing their camp activities through pictures and descriptive text, usually in a PowerPoint presentation. 

All students have reported that their time at the camp was fun and informative. In fact it is not unusual for students to have applied and returned to the summer camp for a second year.  Both AGRIS and Wanstead Farmers are proud to be part of sponsoring this very worthwhile project and helping to develop our future agricultural leaders.