Alberta Farmers – Elna & Doug Edgar – featured in Slow Food Times

Slow Food Times is a Slow Food International newsletter highlighting inspiring developments throughout the global Slow Food community.

It was great to see Alberta’s farming community represented in a recent issue.

Here is the piece as it appeared:

Open Gate: Canadians Elna and Doug welcome students to their farm

Edgar Farms sixth-generation family property in central Alberta, Canada, is today managed by Elna and Doug Edgar who have launched an on-farm educational program, opening their fields to school groups during the harvest window in late May and June.

The tours, for students aged 10 and 11, offer hands-on experience in the various produce of the farm: dairy, beef and asparagus, bean and garden pea crops. Elna encourages the children to ‘touch, taste and feel’ and to pick the produce as she leads them around the property and teaches them about natural life cycles and seasonal consumption.The couple developed the program to fill the food education ‘gap’ found in conventional curriculums. They teach a basic principle which is often a novelty for children: food does not simply come from grocery stores; it comes from farms.”Children have the extraordinary power to influence their family buying behaviours and to become preachy supporters of fresh farm produce. It is common to see them come back with their parents on weekends,” comments Elna.

“When the school bus leaves the farm, taking away the children and their shouts of joy, a feeling of emptiness comes by, but it is quickly replaced by the thoughts of our next visit,” says Doug. “We go back to our duties with the promising memory of their genuine joy at being on the farm: rewarding for us, for the land and for the future.”

Doug & Elna Edgar are part of the Innisfail Fresh Vegetable Producers food community.

To read  more about this food community click here.