The Ontario government is pouring a million dollars into support for financial losses due to the cancellation of fall fairs, exhibitions, and activities during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.
"For this year only, nearly $1 million will be made available to all qualifying agricultural and horticultural societies to help ensure operations. In previous years, organizations could only qualify for provincial funding if they operated fall fairs," says a government news release.
The announcement was made today by Ernie Hardeman, Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.
"Our agricultural and horticultural organizations are part of the backbone of rural Ontario. We know that the decision to cancel their fairs and events was a difficult but important one in order to do their part to stop the spread of COVID-19," said Hardeman. "We are providing this funding to help continue operations and relieve some of the burden they are experiencing during this difficult time."
"Our horticultural and agricultural societies have educated and entertained us on the importance of agriculture for more than a century," said Laurie Scott, MPP for Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock.
The Ontario Association of Agricultural Societies (OASS) has reported that over 175 fall fairs and events have been cancelled in 2020 due to COVID-19.
The province provides some funding to individual agricultural societies through grant payments enabled through the Agricultural and Horticultural Organizations Act. Under the Act, Regulation 16 sets out that in the year an agricultural society is paid a grant they must hold an agricultural exhibition, such as a fall fair. The COVID-19 restrictions have prevented the events that would help to meet this criteria in 2020, with some societies at risk of closing their organizations without this support.