We are offering three tours at the IFAJ 2011 congress. All tours leave from Guelph on Thursday, September 15, 2011, include one night at a hotel enroute and end in Niagara Falls on Friday, September 16, 2011 to meet up with the rest of the group.

Each tour focuses on agriculture near one of the Great Lakes. This information will be updated as tour stops are confirmed.

Lake Ontario Tour - agenda and tour stop information

This is the iconic Canadian tour. Visit a bison farm, and have lunch at a maple syrup shack on your way to Prince Edward County, which has become a food destination. Visit an award-winning, environmentally conscious goat cheese factory, and a winery and cidery with spectacular views. The over night stay will be in Belleville, on Lake Ontario. Visit a research station for the unique Niagara Peninsula the next day on the way to Niagara Falls.

• www.centurygamepark.com
• www.fifthtown.ca
• www.prince-edward-county.com
• www.vinelandresearch.com

Lake Erie Tour - agenda and tour stop information

This tour is full of unique farm stories. It heads to Chatham-Kent and Leamington, two of Canada's southern-most communities. They are also home to the largest group of greenhouses in North America. Visit a family greenhouse business which grows diverse crops, including a recent diversification into miscanthus, an energy crop. Learn how immigration, cooperation, climate and proximity to markets drove this development. We'll also learn why Ontario is undergoing a boom in alternative energy and why within a couple of years 25,000 10 kilowatt solar installations will be found on Ontario farms.

This area also supplies one of the largest ketchup plants in the world. Find out how farmers worked together to create a unique drip irrigation project pumping water from the Great Lakes to ensure Ontario processing tomatoes keep pace with those growing in California. It will be processing tomato harvest season so we'll visit farmers working in the fields with modern tomato harvesters.

The overnight destination will be Chatham, where we'll learn how a program is bringing together Ontario's two largest industries, automotive manufacturing and agriculture, to use bioproducts in cars. A visit will be made to a winery on the way back to Niagara Falls the next day.

• http://portal.chatham-kent.ca/tourism/Pages/Home.aspx
• www.agrissolar.coop
• www.ontariogreenhouse.com
• www.fruitandveggie.com/content/view/2724/60
• www.chathamdailynews.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2984316

Lake Huron Tour - agenda and tour stop information

See Ontario’s agriculture heartland. Visit a top family farm apple producer and a local market. Then see leading Ontario dairy farms to understand Canada’s unique marketing system for milk. Visit an Ontario hog farm and find out about a leading Ontario program to manage disease outbreaks. Ontario grows a lot of corn, soybeans and wheat and we’ll visit a large grain elevator and processor to understand how those crops fit into the Ontario context. The overnight stay will be at a small resort town on Lake Huron called Grand Bend. Experience the unique microclimate of the Niagara Peninsula during a stop at a winery on the way to Niagara Falls the next day.

• www.grandbend.com/
• www.martinsapples.com
• www.milk.org
• www.opic.on.ca
• www.ontariopork.on.ca
• www.hdc.on.ca

Attachments:

File	File size
Lake Erie Tour - agenda and tour stop info	212 Kb
Lake Huron Tour - agenda and tour stop info	224 Kb
Lake Ontario Tour - agend and tour stop info	224 Kb