Agriculture

The Northern Ontario Heritage Fund has earmarked almost $2 million for agricultural infrastructure project in northeastern Ontario.

For the denizens of Manitoulin Island, who flock to the popular vacation spot when the warm weather hits, summer is filled with sun, lakes, barbecues — and now, a homegrown beer.

In time for the long weekend, The Beer Store in Little Current, on Manitoulin Island, is making available Swingbridge Ale, the first beer produced by the Manitoulin Brewing Company (MBC).

Surveying her burgeoning acreage, where newly planted bean shoots are poking their heads out of freshly turned furrows, Brianna Humphrey chuckles about her luck. “I have the worst soil known to man,” she laughs.

There’s a will, but is there a way? First Nations and northwestern Ontario municipal leaders are diving into the details this summer on how to tackle the exorbitant costs of delivering food and consumer goods to remote fly-in reserves.

Rheault Distillery ’s Loon Vodka, made in Hearst, was recognized by the LCBO as the best product made in Ontario at the 2015 Elsie Awards. The Elsie Awards, a play on LCBO, is an annual industry awards program.

Algoma’s annual sustainability event will emerge for its seventh year with a new name and a new focus. The Sustain Algoma Expo — formerly the Green Expo — will be held Saturday, July 25, form 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., in Desbarats.

Graham Acres in Timmins is expanding from a hobby farm into a full-time vegetable farm, an expansion being made possible with provincial funding.

A farmers’ co-op, greenhouses to accommodate large-scale sustainable crops, an online farmers market: the range of ideas proposed by stakeholders to grow Timmins’ agri-food sector is vast and creative.

Justin Frape has developed a fascination with a strange potion that’s sold in tiny apothecary bottles.