Project Name: 911 Field Entrance Project

Project summary and highlights:

The West Nipissing Sudbury East Federation worked with local farmers and the municipalities of West Nipissing and French River to install 911 numbers at field entrances (44 in West Nipissing & 11 in French River). As part of this project, West Nipissing also formalized their process for field entrance signs, providing an opportunity for farmers in the future to access field entrance 911 signs.

Promotional coverage:

Notices were mailed to all members living within West Nipissing and French River. The local federation also directly reached out to many local farmers to ensure they were aware of the project and to gather the information necessary to build their applications. An ‘unveiling’ of the first 911 sign will be planned in August or September and will include invitations to local municipal leaders, the local federation, the farmer and the West Nipissing Tribune.

Lasting and relevant impact to the OFA membership:

Improving entrance signage will ensure that if there is an emergency in a field, first responders will know where that field is located. This is especially important in some of the more rural areas and in some areas with significant agricultural development, as multiple entrances can exist within the same Lot & Concession. With the formalization of a 911 field entrance sign program at West Nipissing, these benefits will be available to farmers in the future as well.

Bonus – Lessons learned, or surprises:

We had a much higher rate of interest when the local directors reached out directly to farmers. To try to encourage as much participation as possible, we covered the entire cost of the sign and put together the applications/mapping on behalf of the farmer (we just asked for some basic information to identify the location). This was important since the bulk of the project took place during spring planting and wouldn’t have been successful without making it as accessible as possible.

There are more municipalities than just 2 within the WNSE catchment area, but we chose to focus on the two that (1) have the most members and (2) had existing process for 911 entrance signs. This made it easier to work directly with the townships to submit the applications, work with invoicing/payment and answer any questions. This also made it possible to work more closely with WN when it turned out that Council/staff were unaware that they had a program to install 911 field entrance signs. As a result, WN has now formally implemented a process to install 911 field entrance signs in the future.

Several of the signs are intended for entrances on provincial highways – the farmer had to secure an additional permit from the MTO (which WNSE has been helping). Though this permit has no additional cost, it was an additional step that was unexpected and might limit the interest of farmers who have entrances along provincial roads.