There were 22 exhibitors at the Crysler Community Centre on Mar. 5 and 6. Morin photo
Among the vendors at the farm show were Taylor Brophy (left) and Julie Lortie of the Embrun Co-op. Morin photo
The show on March 5 and 6 had 30 vendors and a full house of interested visitors and enthusiastic competitors.
The farm show was started by Alphonse Lafrance and his late brother Marcel in 1970.
“In the first year we had five vendors,” said Lafrance.
Farmers from the area had to travel to Ottawa for the Ottawa Valley Farm Show as there was nowhere else for them to go back then.
Now, villages across the region have their own farm shows with the top award-winners going to Ottawa to compete in the larger show.
There have been a great many changes to farming equipment and techniques over the past half century. “Back then we only had a 30 hp tractor but now we have 200 hp,” said Lafrance.
He pointed out that there are fewer farmers working on farms these days. He also noted a decline in dairy farms in the area; now there is only around ten.
Sylvain Lafrance, his son, has been working for Harvex Agromart for the past 30 years. He took over his father’s farm when his father retired.
Sylvain commented: “Two hundred acres used to be considered a big farm but not today.”
Joseph Morin is the Editor of the Eastern Ontario AgriNews, and the Record. He is, despite years of practice, determined to eventually play the guitar properly. He has served the Eastern Ontario community as a news editor, and journalist for the past 25 years with the Iroquois Chieftain, Kemptville Advance, West Carleton Review, and Ottawa Carleton Review in Manotick. He has never met a book he did not like.
