This November, we had the honour of receiving the Agricultural Excellence Award from the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture at the 103rd Royal Winter Agricultural Fair in Ontario. 

And yes, I need a haircut. Fortunately, that was not part of the judging criteria.

Last week, we drove into Toronto for the Fair, which is probably one of the last places one would expect to meet horses, cows, sheep, and goats walking through a convention centre. For more than a century, the fair has been a place where the best of Ontario bring their best about food, land, and agriculture. It turns out we fit right in!

Have you ever seen a mecha-cow? We haven't, and this isn't a mecha cow. However, it was the best groomed dairy cow we've ever seen.

At one point, it struck me that the place felt oddly familiar. 

In a healthy beehive, thousands of bees each move between each other, focused on their tasks at hand. Some bring nectar, some defend the hive, some care for brood. Not everyone does the same job, but each bee is part of a system that keeps the colony alive. The Royal Winter Fair felt a bit like that. Thousands of people moving through the same space, each working on a different piece of our agricultural puzzle, but ultimately contributing to the same goal of keeping our food system running. 

Beekon's founder working hard to make a room full of delegates and awardees laugh.

Events like the Royal exist because of the dedication of thousands of people who believe agriculture is worth celebrating. They exist because, approximately 10,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent we were planting wheat and barley to feed the future. And here we are today! Farmers drove across the province with livestock trailers in tow, final year students presented their projects with optimism and fresh ideas, researchers managed to explain soil health using a clothesline, and the Fair's organizers once again managing to coordinate an event of this scale. 

The sweetest awards we could find.

Awards like the one we received are encouraging, but they are very much a reminder that the real work still lies ahead. Flooding events are increasing globally, and pollination infrastructure is no longer keeping pace with the reality of that change. If pollination is as essential to agriculture as we collectively agree it is, then protecting our bees must become a part of climate adaptation planning, too.

Art students from a local Toronto university were touring the convention, which happened to be a great place for sketching.

Beekon has been a lot like a beehive in the time since its inception, too. We've relocated, we've adapted, and we've dealt with winter. The best part is, we've done it as a hive through and through. Our community has been our anchor, and it has also propelled us forward when its time to ride the waves of flooding and environmental change.