The Agri-Food Tent Is Hands On And Interactive!
Get your hands dirty planting your own bean seed; or keep them clean cooking a recipe; use them to milk a cow, spin a wheel, grind some wheat into flour or make some canola oil! Just use your hands and you can do it all in the Agri-Food Tent at the Markham Fair.
The tent is focusing on hands on and interactive displays to explore the close relationship between agriculture, food and the environment. It will highlight the benefits that farmers can provide to the environment and why local food is so important.
Hands On Real Food: Each morning children and their families can participate in the Hands On Real Food station where they can learn about fresh local food and then get busy preparing a recipe and eating it.
The Local Food Stage will feature local food cooking and gardening demonstrations throughout the four days of the Fair to help you learn how to grow and cook with local food.
Try out some of the jobs farmers and food processors do to prepare our food for us. You can plant a seed, milk a cow, grind wheat into flour or crush canola seeds into oil.
Talk to the local farmers about the food they produce. Meet the York Cattleman’s Association, York Dairy Producer’s, York Grain Farmer’s, Honey Producer’s and the York Region Food Charter. Learn about the importance of local food. Find out where the farms and farmers markets are in the area that sell local food. Locate them on the Local Food Map.
Enter the So You Think You Can Cook At The Fair competition! Create an original local food recipe for the competition and submit it on the Markham Fair website by September 25th. The recipes should have at least 3 local food ingredients, at least 3 food groups from Canada’s Food Guide and be mixed, cooked and served on stage in 20 minutes. From the submitted recipes, finalists will be chosen to cook their recipe on the Local Food Stage either September 27th 28th, 29th . Check out So You Think You Can Cook for the contest details.
Eco-Farm Display Miniature Model: Spin the wheel to learn about the mini-modern farm.
The Eco-Farm shows 21 different things farmers are doing around the farm to care for the land and protect the environment.
Markham Fair’s Eco-Farm is a table top scale model of a farming operation using best environmental management practices. Visitors can see solar panels, windmills, buffer strips along the stream, and cropping techniques used to prevent soil, water and wind erosion and water contamination.
Grow A Bean Activity: The Grow a Bean station will let kids get their hands dirty. Kids will be given some soil, a biodegradable cup and lid made from corn and a seed. They will be able to plant their bean and then take it home and watch it grow! Kids will understand how food is grown and that farmers take care of and grow seeds just like theirs.
So be sure to join us at one of the hands on or interactive stations that will be in the Agri-Food Tent at the Markham Fair this year.