Overview

Through the Agriculture Economic Development program, you can create the right conditions to allow agri-business to prosper. This program can help:

  • identify opportunities and challenges in your local agricultural sector
  • support a community-driven strategic planning process

Who can participate

This program is for communities looking for ways to boost the economic strength of their agricultural system.

You can lead the program for your community if you’re:

  • an economic developer
  • a land use planner
  • a municipal councillor
  • a community leader
  • an agriculture advisor
  • a farmer

How to get started

Email us or call 1-877-424-1300. We’ll connect you with your local regional economic development advisor who will:

  • help you tailor the program to your community – based on the people, time and money you have available
  • train your team to successfully run the project
  • give you the tools you need – a step-by-step guide and information sessions

How it works

Using the Agriculture Economic Development: A Resource Guide for Communities and your advisor’s guidance, you’ll run the program in three stages:

Stage 1: Plant

This stage prepares your community for the agriculture economic development program. You will:

  • answer questions to determine your community’s readiness for the program
  • use census data to create a snapshot of local agriculture to benchmark and inform your plan
  • form a leadership team that will champion the program with partners and influencers in your community

Stage 2: Grow

At this stage, you’ll get to know your local agricultural system so you can create an action plan for agriculture economic development. You will:

  • review County and conservation profiles: agriculture, food and business
  • identify the assets in your local agricultural system (farms, processing facilities, storage facilities, transportation, etc.)
  • consult with local partners (farmers and farm employees, agricultural organizations, suppliers, distributors, processors, etc.)
  • analyse trends, challenges and strengths based on what you’ve learned

Stage 3: Harvest

In the final stage of the program, you’ll develop goals, objectives and an action plan. You will use the resources in our guide to:

  • identify economic development activities your community might deliver
  • assess your community’s ability to deliver these activities
  • set benchmarks to track results

Resources

The Agriculture Economic Development: A Resource Guide for Communities is the step-by-step guide you can use to work through this program. Fill out this form to get a copy of the guide.

In-person training is available for your community. We will walk through the resource guide, share case studies of agriculture economic development initiatives and outline how to use the included activities. The training will help you better understand how to develop a plan for agriculture economic development in your community.

Contact us

For more information, please contact 1-877-424-1300, or email ag.info.omafra@ontario.ca.