It is the time of fall fairs in Canada.
The highlight shows are of course The Royal Agricultural Winter Fair in Toronto, and the Canadian Western Agribition in Regina. But there are others, including events in Edmonton, Brandon and Yorkton.
While the most obvious thread connecting the events is a focus on agriculture, but there is another which ultimately might be of greater importance.
Youth education has become an element of these events.
Student tours take place on a regular basis at such events, and that as has been stated in this space before, educating young people about the truths of farming is important.
It might be well understood students in a major city such as Toronto are a long way removed from a farm where a cow is milked, or a chicken is laying eggs.
Such connections were of course common place in the days Canada was much more agrarian in nature.
Today farmers make up a very small portion of the population, and connections to those farmers are become less and less direct.
So the importance of education becomes ever more important.
The foremost reason such education is needed is obvious. People need to understand where their food comes from, and what it takes to get the food produced so that it arrives on the kitchen table in a safe, nutritious way.
But there is a secondary reason which should not go unrecognized, as it too is important.
There will always be a need for young people to find an interest in agriculture so that they may end up pursuing careers in the sector. That does not mean a career operating a farm but it could mean working in crop sciences, or genetic research.
The people opting for such careers have often had a farm background.
Kendra Purton is an example. She grew up on a market garden farm near Yorkton. There she became interested in the environment, and followed that interest into university emerging in a science field, and has already been involved in research on the effect climate change might have on soils.
For Purton the roots of her career path were planted on the farm.
But with less farmers, come less children. That means the agriculture sector jobs will need to increasingly be filled by people not coming from the farm.
So it becomes important to plant the seeds of knowledge about farming in our youth, in the hope some will take that knowledge and foster a deeper interest in the sector.
That will be essential as the sector is only as strong as the network of related professionals working on better ways to farm for tomorrow.
Calvin Daniels is Assistant Editor with Yorkton This Week.
