With the demand for food supplies increasing drastically for both national and international markets, Canada turned to Ontario. Located near the Great Lakes, and with CNR railway access in Guelph, the rich fields of this province were chosen to bear the burden of supplying food rations for the war effort.
A Berlin Daily Telegraph article demonstrated the skepticism that farmers had for the cause. With labour dwindling, the Federal Government was pushing for new scientific methods to be introduced on Canadian farms to increase agricultural production. These alterations to farming methods and techniques were to be introduced in early 1915 to replicate European intensive farming. The Canadian Government wanted to ensure that Canada could supply the war effort as fully as possible.
(Photo courtesy of Canadian War Museum, “Ontario’s Intensive Farming,” Berlin Daily Telegraph, 24 September 1914)
