Canada Agriculture & Food Museum Tour ~ Behind the Scenes Tour

Ontario Visited ~ Judi "Scoop" McWilliams with
Kelly Ray ~ Marketing & Communications Officer
Canada Agriculture & Food Museum

We welcome you to come along as we Tour the Canada Agriculture and Food Museum …

The sun shone as we circled the final round-about toward the entrance of the Canada Agriculture and Food Museum. We had driven many times through the massive fields around the complex, but for some reason never took the time to stop in. Today we were meeting with Kelly Ray, Marketing & Communications Officer who had graciously welcomed us for a personal guided tour. It seemed a little "surreal" as we neared the facility as many large barns and buildings glistened in the sun. We drove by several hay fields before we parked and walked up to the entrance.

The Canada Agriculture and Food Museum is located on a beautiful picturesque heritage site of the Central Experimental Farm, near the National Capital’s downtown core. It offers its visitors the unique experience of a fully functioning farm in an urban setting. As part of the Canada Science and Technology Museums Corporation, the CAFM is mandated to preserve Canada’s agriculture and food heritage, and to share and promote scientifically accurate knowledge about the way agriculture is best practiced and food produced and consumed in Canada.

Kelly met us with enthusiasm and our tour was about to begin. Kelly tells us the Museum, in part, welcomes new comers to Canada and provides tours for children. Their greatest audience is young children and families. With that in mind, you can imagine how youth and family “visitor friendly” this facility is. This was apparent by the “stroller parking areas” set up outside many of the buildings. There is even a "quiet station" where mothers can take a time out to breast feed if they want with some privacy and quiet. They welcome over 160,000 visitors a year.

Research is a large component of the Canada Agriculture and Food Museum. For example, Kelly tells us the facility has been researching "winter proofing" wheat and crops where new techniques have been developed. Some examples include; soils and Canadian land inventory; food and dairy products processing technology; horticulture and ornamental plant breeding; agriculture engineering and farm mechanical systems; animal and poultry breeding and production; agricultural and forest insect identification and control methods; agricultural chemistry analysis methodology; plant and animal pathology, bacteriology and plant health; cereal and forage crop production utilization; tobacco; bee research.

Stay tuned for more “Behind the Scenes” Tour with the Canada Agriculture and Food Museum ... A Place to Learn & Have Fun! ... (in the meantime, check out their great website for lots of fun and information at http://cafmuseum.techno-science.ca/en/index.php.)