It will be quite a party in Stratford next week when Junior Farmers from right across Ontario meet for their annual Conference.
It won’t be just any conference as the organization will be celebrating its 65th year in existence.
Brad Found is the President of the Junior Farmers Association of Ontario and says while the group still is focused on developing community leadership for its members, it also is looking to expand into urban areas.
He says the rural population is declining and one way of increasing the membership of Junior Farmers was to go into the cities and towns of Ontario to encourage young people who are not involved in agriculture to join the organization.
Found says there was a number of years where membership in the organization was decreasing, but now it is on the upswing.
He says they are hoping to use this increased membership to bring back some programs that were eliminated after they lost their Provincial Government funding.
The Junior Farmers Annual Conference takes place March 27th to the 29th in Stratford.