Political Party Leaders Invited to Debate Food, Farm Issues

May 16, 2014

By Amanda Brodhagen, Farms.com

Ontario’s political party leaders have been asked to participate in a debate on food and farm issues.

Invitations were sent to Kathleen Wynne (Liberal), Tim Hudak (Conservative), Andrea Horwath (NDP) and Mike Schreiner (Green) party leaders. Notices were sent out May 14.

The request comes from the province’s largest farm lobby group – Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA) and the Alliance of Ontario Food Processors. If all the leaders agree to participate, this will mark the first debate (at least in recent memory) that will be dedicated solely to discussing agriculture, food and rural issues.

“The agriculture and food industry is Ontario’s number one employer and a major driver of the economy, generating more than $40 billion annually,” the release said.

An offer has been made to broadcast the debate live on TVO’s The Agenda. Steve Paikin has agreed to moderate the event. Candidates were asked to RSVP in a timely manner so that a date could be set.

Ontario voters head to the polls June 12, 2014.

Video: Cleaning Sheep Barns & Setting Up Chutes

Indoor sheep farming in winter at pre-lambing time requires that, at Ewetopia Farms, we need to clean out the barns and manure in order to keep the sheep pens clean, dry and fresh for the pregnant ewes to stay healthy while indoors in confinement. In today’s vlog, we put fresh bedding into all of the barns and we remove manure from the first groups of ewes due to lamb so that they are all ready for lambs being born in the next few days. Also, in preparation for lambing, we moved one of the sorting chutes to the Coveralls with the replacement ewe lambs. This allows us to do sorting and vaccines more easily with them while the barnyard is snow covered and hard to move sheep safely around in. Additionally, it frees up space for the second groups of pregnant ewes where the chute was initially.