The Town of Essex has introduced a program to recognize family farms in our community.
The Heritage Plaque Farm Program aims to recognize existing farms that have been in the community for 50, 75, 100 or even 150+ years.
Residents can apply for a plaque that will go up on their property. It comes with a scannable QR code to learn more about the farm and the families who run them.
Essex Mayor Sherry Bondy says the plaque will be free for interested farm owners.
"The budget for the plaque is roughly about $60 a plaque and that will be paid through our heritage budget that we have within our heritage committee. The committee has been working on this for about a year. So no cost, minimal cost. And quite a bit of benefit."
She says we need to celebrate our farmers.
"We want to cherish the existing farms that have been there, and we want to hope that these farms continue with this tradition. We do know that there's pressures, town's have pressures to develop their farmland. So this is just a small easy that we can recognize that are farming community is really the backbone of everything in Essex."
She says we're losing farmland very fast in Ontario so it's important recognize and celebrate the history.
"On average we're losing the equivalent of nine family farms per week due to mainly urban sprawl, new housing developments. The county, the towns right now are going through our official plan. I know there'll be recommendations in all of those to further expand our settlement areas."
Bondy says it's important to note that the recognition doesn't designate the farm and owners are free to do things with their land going forward.
Applications for the heritage plaques can be submitted through The Town of Essex website.
-With files from AM800's The Shift with Patty Handysides