Wheatland County Economic Development and Community Futures Wild Rose are working together on a pilot project that will offer a winter edition of Alberta Open Farm Days.

The project is set to take place on December 14 and December 15.

For the last seven years, Alberta Open Farm Days has allowed regular Albertans the chance to venture out and experience how agriculture brings food to their dinner tables.

The Community Futures Wild Rose region includes Wheatland County, parts of Rocky View County, and Kneehill County.

This season guest can experience cultural activities like the Gleichen/Siksika Nation CP Holiday Train visit and Strathmore will also be hosting the Rogers Home Town Hockey festival in mid-December.

“This seems like the perfect opportunity to provide farms the ability to educate and highlight their products and operations in an alternate season from the traditional Open Farm Days weekend,” said Wheatland County Reeve, Amber Link. “Over the years our involved farms and experiences in Wheatland County have been excellent hosts to visitors. The launch of our new brand promoting economic development and tourism this past October also provides us the means to market and engage visitors more effectively than ever.”

Wendy Gerbrandt, Community Futures Wild Rose Community Economic Development Lead, who has been spearheading and providing support to the farms in the Wild Rose region and the Province’s committee team for Open Farm Days states, “It’s nice to see a pilot happen in this region. Through the hard work of our farm hosts, growing commitment by the regions municipalities and the Provincial commitment to keep this program running promoting this critical industry sector to Alberta, education of agriculture and where our food comes from and the people making that happen.”

“Community Futures Wild Rose has been instrumental in the Open Farm Days in the August program for a number of years now. They have been working on building capacity and involvement with farms in their Wild Rose region, which includes most of Kneehill, Wheatland, a bit of Mountain View and Rocky View County,” explained Patrick Earl, Economic Development Officer for Wheatland County.

Working with Community Futures Wild Rose, Earl explained that they approached the Province of Alberta to see if they could host a pilot program during a different season.

There are unique differences as to what occurs on a ranch, or farm over the winter season. The new pilot project will allow Albertans a chance to get a sneak peek into how the agriculture industry operates in winter.

“I think with farms they have different activities through the year, so depending if they grow crops or if they have livestock. Livestock go through their cycle through the year,” he said.

“There are different things that happen on the farm, if we go beyond the summer season we can do further education, on life on the farm and what goes on, on a farm,” said Earl.