Opinion: COFS to offer farmers great experiences

Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show (COFS) is returning to Discovery Farm Woodstock Sept. 12-14, and I’m really looking forward to it.

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Last year’s show was the first time since 2019 it was held in person, and as I wrote in this space afterwards it was so good to see so many farmers and exhibitors smiling and socializing at the show. It seemed like an eternity since that had happened.

Attendance exceeded expectations, which is a testament to how eager people were to get back to some normalcy, as well as see new things. The show welcomed just shy of 44,000 attendees, an increase from the 2019 show.

Although visitors would have noticed many similarities in the set-up to previous editions, what I enjoyed was the opportunity for more face-to-face interactions, as well as the focus on innovations and making them more relevant and accessible to farmers.

This year, Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show has a greater emphasis on agricultural technology that it has in previous years.

For a look at the future of agricultural automation, the show is featuring the Evolution of Farming Demonstration: Autonomous Equipment in Action, presented by Haggerty AgRobotics. Each day of the show farmers can witness several robots in action in the field including: 

• FarmDroid, a solar-powered robot that seeds and weeds – the demonstration crop was planted by the FarmDroid and at the demonstration, the robot weeds between the rows and around the plants.   
• Also weeding will be the Naïo Orio electric weeding robot (for vegetables and industrial crops) and the Naïo Oz inter-row robot with its RTK GPS guidance system.   
• Other equipment available includes the AgroIntelli Robotti planting unit, Nexus GOAT with mechanical fingers for weed removal, and Korechi RoamIO weed scanning and autonomous soil sampling prototype. 

I highly recommend seeing one of these demonstrations, if not for the ‘cool’ factor, but for the interesting discussions that take place.

Other ag tech demonstrations at the show include drone field demonstrations, from Ag Business & Crop Inc., LandView Drones and Volatus Aerospace Corp. There will be a greater variety of drone models and equipment to see than before, as this technology space is growing rapidly.

Like last year, a helicopter spraying demonstration from Great Lakes Helicopters to show aerial spraying (completed with water) is available each day.

Farmers can also meet and talk with innovative companies and entrepreneurs at the Ag Tech breakfast on the morning of Sept. 13 or at the OMAFRA Innovations Pavilion each day of the show.

The Ag Tech breakfast, which debuted last year, is a great opportunity for not only farmers to learn about the kinds of technology coming down the pipe, but the innovators learn from farmers as well. They can further develop a technology so it’s more relevant and useful for farmers, but they need feedback from those with boots on the ground.

As I noted last year, having the opportunity for this type of interaction is so important because innovations aren’t just coming from those who work or study agriculture anymore.

More often than not, many innovators are engineers or scientists with no agriculture training at all – but they have an idea that they think could help make agriculture more productive, sustainable, or profitable.

What translates well on paper may not work in the field, so it’s important that farmers be willing to ask questions and participate in these types of discussions.

Also worth noting is the new Sprayer Technology Showcase, which will allow farmers to get up close and personal with the latest in spraying technology from a broad range of companies.

Also available this year is a guided tour of Discovery Farm, which now encompasses more than 100 acres and was purchased by Glacier FarmMedia, our publisher, in March 2022. The purchase gives the show a permanent home and paves the way for future growth, which is already evident.

Farmtario staff had the opportunity to tour the site last month before exhibitors began setting up.

Although I’ve attended the show for years in different capacities, I didn’t realize it was so big!

What many may not realize is that the site is not only home to the farm show, but there are lands available for companies and academic institutions to perform research trials that will benefit Ontario growers.

This will now be enhanced with the recent announcement that Discovery Farm Woodstock has joined the Pan-Canadian Smart Farm Network, an initiative launched in 2021 with funding from the Canadian Agri-Food Automation and Intelligence Network (CAAIN) to accelerate the development and adoption of ag technologies and systems, helping producers manage their risk of production to improve the productivity and sustainability of their farms.

Until recently the network had been comprised of western Canadian locations and facilities, so having an eastern Canadian testing ground will be boon for Ontario farmers.

To plan out your visit to the show, please take a look at the show guide which accompanied our Sept. 4 issue of Farmtario, and download Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show mobile show app, available at Apple and Google Play app stores.

Follow us @Farmtario on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter to see highlights from the show each day.

I hope to see you there!