Ontario Apple Academy brings farm business management training to farmers
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Ontario’s apple sector is a small segment of the global apple industry, making it critical for farmers to have access to specialized farm business management training to be competitive. Most farmer information programs are organized for general horticultural production, leaving apple growers without training opportunities specific to their industry.
Ontario’s apple sector is a small segment of the global apple industry, making it critical for farmers to have access to specialized farm business management training to be competitive. Most farmer information programs are organized for general horticultural production, leaving apple growers without training opportunities specific to their industry.
To fill this need, the Ontario Apple Growers (OAG) hosted the Ontario Apple Academy earlier this year, an apple-focused education program supported by the Agricultural Management Institute (AMI) that attracted 121 participants, including 81 growers.
The main goal, according to OAG General Manager Kelly Ciceran, was to encourage producers to incorporate farm business management practices into their operations by evaluating their growing practices in terms of economic thresholds and cost benefit in areas such as finance, environment and labour.
“For the apple industry, the biggest benefit came from the quality of information presented and the networking opportunities,” says Ciceran. “We specifically designed the session so that apple farmers could hear speakers and information they may not have heard before.”
“As well, having only apple growers in attendance and providing specific time for socializing and networking allowed for exchanges of ideas farmer to farmer,” she added. “Apple production in Ontario is spread out across the entire province and while there are pockets of apple farmers in the major growing regions, this event gave them an opportunity to come together as an entire Ontario apple ‘community’.”
Twenty-one industry experts from Canada, the United States and Switzerland participated in the event, including some of the most sought-after speakers in the apple industry. Most presentations were video-recorded and are now available from OAG as a three-disk DVD version of the Academy. A full proceedings book is available for downloading from the OAG website, www.onapples.com.
A survey of Academy participants showed that 100 per cent of attendees learned something at the event they plan to implement in their business. As well, 71 per cent gave the Academy high marks for helping to advance their farm business management skills. A majority indicated they would like to see a similar event hosted in the future, which speaks well to the Academy’s success, says Ciceran.
“The impact on our industry was significant and I base this on some of the comments we received from growers. OAG would like to hold another session like this and our survey showed that every other year would be valuable to apple farmers,” she says. “We really appreciate AMI’s support for the Academy. Without their funding, I don’t think the event would have been as successful or able to attract the calibre of speakers that we were able to provide.”
The Agricultural Management Institute promotes new ways of thinking about farm business management and aims to increase awareness, understanding and adoption of beneficial business management practices by Ontario farmers. AMI is part of the Best Practices Suite of programs for Growing Forward, a federal, provincial and territorial government initiative.
More information is available at www.takeanewapproach.ca.