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Ontario Farm Animal Council
Ontario Farm Animal Council
The Voice of Animal Agriculture

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  OFAC at Work  
   
We are firmly convinced that if OFAC doesn’t speak up on current farming and food production practices, someone else will. OFAC has increased its involvement in a number of areas, including media relations and news media outreach, school education, public speaking and training. In 2008, OFAC displays and staff attended 37 events over more than 118 days. In total, we reached three million people – and 45,000 school children - with agriculture's message. Agriculture’s messages are definitely getting out to the public.

How does OFAC help its membership?

  • OFAC answers hundreds of requests for information every year on agriculture.
  • OFAC provides training programs to your directors and members on topics like media training, dealing with sensitive issues and being an effective agricultural ambassador, among others
  • Resources include information videos and brochures on numerous topics for both public and agriculture.
  • OFAC assists with media issues like writing press releases and letters to the editor, providing accurate animal-agriculture photographs for media to use when writing a story in a local publication and tips on how to respond to media interviews.
  • OFAC”s media centre on the increasingly popular www.farmissues.com website provides a one-stop shopping centre for reporters looking for facts and figures.
  • OFAC’s confidential Animal Care Helpline is an effective peer-helping-peer service which helps ensure farm animal care calls are dealt with quickly and professionally.
  • OFAC’s monitoring service and quarterly newsletter keeps its members informed on animal issues including government legislation, and public questions and concerns.
  • A variety of displays and resources are available for OFAC members to use at local events.

CNE Agricultural Coordinator Paula Ellis and CNE Agricultural Assistant Paul Betts receive their Friend of OFAC Award from Bruce Christie, Past Chairman of the Ontario Farm Animal Council at the 2010 OFAC Annual Meeting.

Brian Ellsworth (centre) was presented with a 2010 Friend of OFAC award by Robert Scott (left), Egg Farmers of Ontario Director to OFAC and by Bruce Christie, Past Chairman of the Ontario Farm Animal Council. Ellsworth received the award for his support of research and innovation benefiting farmers over the last two decades.
   
 

 
  Presiding over the official ribbon cutting of the new FarmzOnWheelz exhibit at the Canadian National Exhibition in August were OFAC board members and representatives from the many organizations and companies that sponsored the travelling exhibition. OFAC was named a recipient of one of the Premier's Agri-Food Innovation Excellence Awards in May of 2009. The awards are part of a $2.5 million, five-year program established to recognize innovators who contribute to the success of Ontario's agri-food sector. OFAC team members at the awards ceremony included (from left) Treasurer Wendy Omvlee, Executive Director Crystal Mackay, Vice Chairman David Murray, FarmzonWheelz Project Manager Sue McLarty and OFAC Chairman John Maaskant.  
 

 
  The 2010 Faces of Farming calendar was unveiled by this year's calendar models at the Ontario Harvest Gala held in October in Guelph. OFAC and AGCare's 2009 farm tour program hosted six farm tours for media and culinary students from across Ontario. On each tour, participants were taken to modern livestock and horticultural farms where they had the chance to see, first hand, how local food is produced.  
 

 

 

  
       
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