A campaign to save Canada’s six prison farms is the topic of my Urban Cowboy column this week in the Guelph Mercury. Part of the campaign includes a letter-writing exercise, which appears to have prompted a letter to the editor in today’s edition, speaking specifically about Guelph. The very idea of prison farms is intriguing, and the misconceptions are high…at least I think they are. The union leading the campaign (and maybe the government that wants to close the prisons) needs an education and information platform. People really don’t understand what goes on inside the farms as far as skill-development is concerned, so it’s tough to rally around either their closure, or preservation.
OWEN ROBERTS
Owen Roberts is an agricultural journalist and communications instructor based in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. He is a trustee on the Global Foundation for Agricultural Journalism and an associate editor (communications) for the Journal of Agromedicine. Previously, Owen was president of the International Forum for Agricultural Journalists, an agricultural communications faculty member at the University of Illinois, and research communications director at the University of Guelph. His programs and research papers have been recognized through awards from the Journal of Applied Communications, the National Agri-Marketing Association, the Association for Communications Excellence and the Canadian Farm Writers' Federation.