Have you seen the new grocery store advertising promotion called Grown Close To Home? I have, and I like it. It’s clever. In the store, it’s remarkably simple, distinguished by bold signage emphasizing the words Grown and Home,...
Read MoreCongratulations to the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers’ Association and editor Karen Davidson for the new look and functionality of the website for The Grower, its monthly tabloid newspaper. I like its clean appearance...
Read MoreWhen stories about menaces such as giant hogweed and the western bean cutworm show up in Section A of daily newspapers, it’s time to declare the media is becoming more interested and aware of farming. I write about this...
Read MoreReport on Business spent some time talking about the peach breeding process, as well as some of the challenges facing Ontario tender fruit and fruit-tree development, with Vineland’s Dr. Jay Subramanian. Jay’s...
Read MoreA few Saturdays ago (July 24, to be exact), I walked down the aisle and symbolically gave away my eldest daughter, Alicia, in marriage to a bright and ambitious young farmer named Mark. He and his family grow crops and raise...
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Owen Roberts is a faculty member in the Agricultural Leadership, Education and Communications program at the University of Illinois. As an agricultural journalist, he is the past president of the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists and a lifetime achievement award recipient from the Canadian Farm Writers' Federation. His programs and research papers have been recognized nationally and internationally through awards from the Journal of Applied Communications, the National Agri-Marketing Association, the Association for Communications Excellence, and others.