SUDBURY -- Overcoming common misconceptions about northern Ontario in order to attract new talent was a key theme delivered to industry leaders gathered in Sudbury Wednesday.

Farmers, food producers and agricultural businesses came together for the second annual Northern Ontario Agriculture Conference. Day one of the two day conference saw various presenters give their message of all of the opportunities and challenges facing the industry.

“Interestingly in dealing with the north the social barriers were quite high, and perceptions with what the north is perhaps versus what it really is,” says Sara Epp, an assistant professor of Rural Planning and Development at the University of Guelph. “So thoughts that everybody only speaks French and if you go to the north, there’s no recreational opportunities for kids…so overcoming some of those perceptions that are myth based and not based on reality by any means needs to happen if we want to encourage agriculture in the north and bring up new farmers.”

Epp was one of the speakers at the first day of the conference. Her research, done in partnership with the University of Hearst, is specific to northern Ontario. She believes that with the right education and marketing campaign, these ‘myths’ as she calls them can be overcome.

“It’s municipalities working together to help demonstrate how unique the north is, how different every community is, and all the opportunities that exist because there really are a lot of opportunities.”

Epp believes that with so much to offer, northern Ontario is a great place for young farmers to purchase their first piece of land and enter the industry.

“There’s so much opportunity that as land prices in particular in southern Ontario continue to increase, young farmers in particular just can’t afford to get into agriculture,” she says. “Recognizing in southern Ontario, unless you are inheriting farmland, it’s a little bit difficult to get into the sector. So for young people there’s huge opportunity to move to the north and buy their first farm.”

Now in its second year, the conference serves as a networking opportunity to farmers who largely work in a vast, rural landscape and don’t often have such opportunities.

“We designed this to bring farmers together and really bridge northern Ontario agriculture, all sectors throughout the industry and farmers and people from the industry, bring everyone together and offer them an opportunity to network and learn within the north,” says Emily Potter, executive director of the Northern Ontario Farm Innovation Alliance (NOFIA), who spearheaded the conference. “Especially in northern Ontario where we are a lot more spread out, a lot more isolated so having an opportunity to get together like this is really important to help strengthen that connection and that community.”

NOFIA, incorporated in 2014, is a non-profit organization representing 11 districts across the north.

“We work to advance agriculture in northern Ontario through research and innovation. So we do this through working with academia, industry and government partners across the north,” says Potter.

The conference also served as an opportunity to not only focus on strengths, but challenges the industry is facing. Peggy Brekveld is the Vice President of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA). Coming all the way from Thunder Bay for this conference, she says infrastructure barriers and lack of reliable, broadband internet remain the biggest roadblocks.

“Some of our communities across the north would say is there someone that would fix our equipment if we buy the newest technologies? But again there’s some innovative solutions, whether it is if you buy a lely robot in a remote area, some of the farmers are deciding to become technicians themselves. You see new businesses coming in and starting up businesses such as equipment dealerships. So there’s lots of ways that we deal with infrastructure barriers.”

Running her own farm, Brekveld agrees that despite those challenges, agriculture in northern Ontario is unique and has so much to offer.

“We’re going to actually, at my farm, grow lentils for the second year. That is a new crop for Ontario, so lots of innovation and ideas. We are very innovative people in the north.”

Organizers are hoping to continue to grow the conference. While some, like Brekfeld, come from northwestern Ontario, they are hoping to broaden their reach and include more leaders from that section of the province during the third annual conference in 2021.

For more information on the Northern Ontario Farm Innovation Alliance, you can visit their website.