POWASSAN-Local farms are teaming up together to help promote their products through a community tour.
Mattimus Larivee of Foxfire Heritage Farms created a Facebook group and map with several other farmers to share with consumers local farms that are selling products through roadstands.
He says the group originally started as almost a joke between farmers to create a tour and now it’s a reality through The Great Powassan & Area Farmstand Tour.
“We started putting it together going like ‘Well, there's actually a quite a few’ and then it just snowballed from there where we started making more connections.”
The Facebook group now has almost 1,000 members it just over a week.
Fourteen farms are participating in the tour across Powassan, Trout Creek, Nipissing, Astorville and Chisholm. Larivee says the group is limited to farms in the area for logistical purposes; he still encourages farmers and customers from other areas to participate in the group.
He says the tour aspect is to encourage people to do stops at multiple farms while they are in the area.
“The idea is that we encourage people to come out maybe from the North Bay or surrounding area and make the tour so they’re not just come out my business to buy something from me, but check the map and now they're going to go on the tour.”
Farmers were already putting up stands to sell their products, says Larivee, making it easy to organize a tour. Larivee says it’s safer to call ahead to see what products are available, but people are welcome to drive up to browse. He also recommends bringing cash and change in case farms don’t have e-transfer or a card reader on hand.
While there are other maps that promote local farms, Larivee says the Facebook group is another way to help connect people with the products they need while building a sense of community.
“I think that those are, more in my experience at least, they're less known by like farmers and by the general public. Something like this on Facebook, where we can share it and our friends can share it and people can post, it's almost like an alive and organic map and people can see what’s available now.”
He says even he has been learning about other farms in the area through the Facebook group.
“I've learned like people who have been here for a while that I've never even heard about and now we're networking.”
He says it was only a matter of time before this group was created.
“We've all been kind of communicating us local farmers, here and there and I think now just with everybody at home and more time to spend thinking about marketing and less farms attending farmers' markets…I think more discussion around local food as well as farms trying to market themselves.”
The group is an opportunity for smaller farms to start focusing on marketing with social media, says Larivee.
“We're hoping as well to promote our friends and our neighbours to give them opportunities to promote themselves and kind of get out.”
Mackenzie Casalino, Local Journalism Initiative reporter works out of The North Bay Nugget.
Local Journalism Initiative reporters are paid by the Government of Canada.