Campaign Features Local Farm Family

A local farm family is featured on the web site of a new marketing campaign by the Nova Scotia Federation of Agriculture aimed at introducing consumers to the men and women who produce the food on your local grocery store shelf.

The website, www.meetyourfarmer.ca, was officially launched in Halifax recently with the release of a report, in conjunction with the Ecology Action Centre, which shows Nova Scotians are buying less local foods than they did in 1997. The Federation says the website is meant to “create and improve the relationship” between farmers and the consumer.

Darlene den Haan’s farm in Lawrencetown has been in the family for almost fifty years. The business began as a commercial vegetable greenhouse operation, growing hothouse vegetables and a wide range of flowers, and has now developed a garden center as well - a year-round destination for gardening and home décor.

In 1999, the den Haan’s invested in a modern state of the art greenhouse. The three-acre glass range produces tomatoes to be sold in Loblaw stores as well as local farm markets throughout the Maritimes, and of course, their own garden centre.

Den Haan signed on to the Environmental Farm Plan Program in 1998. She also turned her business into the first closed greenhouse system in Canada, which means she recycles the nutrients fed to her plants, rather than allowing the extra nutrients and chemicals seep into and contaminate the ground.

Beth Densmore, vice-president of the Nova Scotia Federation of Agriculture, says the website has an educational component because many people have no clue where their food comes from. She denies it’s an opportunity to improve the opinion of farmers among people who think the industry is too heavily subsidized by government.

“It’s not to draw on sympathy from the public. It’s the awareness side of it,” Densmore says. “They’re hoping to change (the website) over the coming months, so that (people) understand that farming is not just having sheep, it’s not just having lettuce. It could be all different aspects of it and hopefully put a face to these products.”

So far the website has seven farmer profiles from the Annapolis Valley and Hants County, as well as videos and stories about the farms. It also includes pictures of farm animals that children can print out and colour.

Co-ordinator of the project Wanda Hamilton says more content will be added in the coming months, along with stories from farmers in other parts of the province.