Andrea Markey
Northern News Services

Hay River (Sep 05/05) - A one-day seminar in late October presented by the Territorial Farmer's Association will focus on marketing for producers in the Northwest Territories.

A seminar in October will provide information to farmers on how to best market their products. Here, Evellyn Coleman, executive director of the Territorial Farmer's Association, and Pat Coleman tend to their cattle in Paradise Valley last spring. - Paul Bickford/NNSL photo

The goal is to give producers ideas on how to best sell their products, said Evellyn Coleman, executive director of the Farmer's Association.

With a lot of new entries into farming in the North in the last couple of years, people are looking for ideas on the types of products to grow and sell.

"Most people have small acreages and are looking for the best way to make that land pay for itself," she said.

"People have to be more inventive with small properties."

There is not a lot of infrastructure set up in the NWT to support "home-grown" products. Many provinces have specific labels and information campaigns to identify a product immediately as coming from that area.

"The idea is to take a tomato out of the garden and let people know this is an NWT-grown tomato," she said.

Due to the cost of transportation in the North and the small acreage, many producers in the NWT sell "gate to plate" meaning consumers buy directly from the farmers.

Value-added products

Producers are also interested in value-added products.

"People are interested in learning if it is more profitable and productive to have a processing plant on their property," she said.

"In addition to the apples they grow, maybe they could also have frozen apple pies or apple cider."

The topic for the annual seminar was decided from producer surveys.

There was a demand for information on marketing, food safety and value added products, she said.

Speakers were chosen accordingly. Albert Chambers has years of experience in food safety. Brent Warner has more than 30 years of experience in agriculture. Warner speaks all over North America on the survival of family farms.

"He has lived in B.C. a long time and watched farm land turned into towns and cities," she said. "He knows what to do with a small piece of land."

As a new entrant into farming, April Glaicar will be at the marketing seminar. Glaicar has 12 acres of freshly cleared land just 16 kilometres outside of Hay River.

"We have a lot to learn and need more information before final decisions are made on what to grow," she said.

What she does know is that it will be a mixed operation, some of which will likely be marketed outside of the NWT.