Tom Henihan
Express Staff
Farmers Day was first celebrated in 1945 and at that time, the UFA lobbied the provincial government to declare the second Friday in June a provincial holiday.
While the move to declare Farmers Day a holiday was unsuccessful, in 1951 the Social Credit Government did decree the day a farmers’ holiday with kids getting the day off school with farming and agriculture being celebrated in local communities.
Later, the provincial government passed the decision to give the kids the day off school to the respective school boards.
Celebrating Farmers Day faded out for quite some time but in 2010, the UFA revived the event, once again celebrating it annually on the second Friday in June.
Approximately 500 people visited this year’s Farmers Day at UFA in Falher. The event included free beef on a bun, a petting zoo, kid’s games, colouring contest, a number of draws, equipment demos and live music provided by Mel and Marjie Hyland.
Marjie Hyland is also an employee at UFA.
“The basic meaning of Farmers Day is to honour the contribution of Alberta’s agricultural community,” says Mike Curry, “and it is our way to celebrate our customers, especially the farmers.”
It was certainly a great day and although the event was scheduled to go from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m, being consistently busy it ran over schedule with the cleanup not beginning until 3.30pm.
“We thought it was a good day, a very successful day,” says Curry. “We were pretty pleased with the turnout and felt it was probably one of the best ones we have had here.”