The summer of 2023 painted a dystopian picture across parts of Ontario. A heavy, smoky haze descended, blotting out the sun and turning daytime skies an eerie, jaundiced yellow. With nearly 200 active forest fires consuming the landscape, most of them raging in the northwestern part of the province, the air quality plummeted. For a time, Toronto found itself with the dubious distinction of having the dirtiest air of any major city on the planet. The crisis, however, did not stay within provincial borders, as the drifting smoke became a volatile political football, sparking sharp criticism from lawmakers in the United States and a defensive response from Ontario’s Premier, Doug Ford.
Yet, while the political squabbling and urban health alerts dominated the headlines, a quieter, more complex struggle was unfolding in the province’s agricultural heartland. Ontario is home to more than 48,000 farms, and for these producers, the smoke was not just a public health inconvenience; it was a direct operational threat. They were confronted with impossible questions that had no clear answers in any manual. Should crews be sent into the fields to harvest vegetables or attend to livestock when the air was thick with particulate matter? Was the hay or water supply for their animals safe from chemical contamination? The information coming from various agencies was fragmented and often conflicting, leaving farmers in a state of stressful uncertainty.
The difficulty of the situation was compounded by a crisis of information. While government advisories focus on human health, they offer little guidance for the specific needs of crops and livestock. In this vacuum, farmers naturally turned to their trusted networks—fellow producers, agricultural representatives, and online forums. They sought advice from agronomists, consulted veterinarians about smoke stress on herds, and reached out to local community leaders, including Indigenous Knowledge Holders. But these digital spaces, meant for support, had become breeding grounds for misinformation. Rumors and false claims about the fires spread faster than reliable facts, drowning out the legitimate, scientifically backed advice that farmers desperately needed.
This disconnect between the information available and the information needed is precisely what a 2025 study aimed to uncover. Researchers engaged with 51 individuals from across the agricultural and food production spectrum, including not just the farmers themselves but also the advisors, policymakers, and industry representatives who serve them. The goal was to understand how this network navigated a crisis. The findings were stark: a staggering 60 percent of those surveyed reported encountering false or misleading information online with alarming frequency. Consequently, over half of the participants expressed deep frustration, rating major social media platforms as largely ineffective at handling the issue of misinformation. The result was a voluntary exodus from these digital town squares, with about 20 individuals stating they had dramatically reduced or completely stopped using at least one social media platform as a direct result of the toxic information environment.
While the sample size of the study is a snapshot rather than a comprehensive census, the findings resonate strongly with anecdotal reports and broader digital trends. The damage caused by misinformation goes beyond frayed nerves; it undermines the very principles of successful farming, which rely on adaptability and sound decision-making. In a sector where being a season behind can be ruinous, making choices based on false information is a dangerous gamble. This is a prime example of how climate change compounds existing vulnerabilities, creating an urgent need for new resilience strategies that go beyond just physical infrastructure and encompass the very way information is shared and trusted.
Out of this crisis, a clear set of practical solutions is emerging. The top recommendation from the study is to prioritize what it calls “relational approaches” over simple information broadcasting. This means investing in and promoting trusted community-based channels. It calls for a return to and support for on-the-ground activities like on-farm demonstrations, where farmers can see practices in action. It advocates for structured farmer-to-farmer mentorship programs, which leverage the powerful credibility of peer experience. And critically, it emphasizes the need to train agricultural advisors and practitioners to be effective communicators, equipping them with the skills to listen to concerns and patiently correct falsehoods within their own communities.
This shift toward trusted networks reflects a deep-seated human need for connection, especially during times of stress. An excellent example of this approach in action occurred in July 2023, when the Ecological Farmers Association of Ontario hosted a field day. Despite the oppressive smoke in the air, farmers showed up, eager for community and practical advice. Organizers made the difficult but correct call to shorten the event for safety, demonstrating that they prioritized the well-being of their community over the schedule. In that brief time, participants discussed more than just soil health; they shared their anxieties about the immediate threat of extreme weather and smoke, forging bonds of solidarity that a pdf bulletin could never replicate.
This wisdom is not new. Many Indigenous cultures have practiced land management through careful, low-intensity cultural burning for millennia, a stark contrast to the century-old policy of total fire suppression. This tradition represents a form of land-based knowledge that is inherently adaptable and responsive to the environment, offering a living model for how to live with fire rather than always fighting it. Research collaboration with the Woodland Cree First Nation highlights how this knowledge, rooted in relationship with the land, shapes community-led adaptation. Unfortunately, government agencies often give lip service to incorporating Indigenous knowledge but fail to provide the genuine authority and financial resources needed to make it a true cornerstone of climate and wildfire policy. True resilience requires moving beyond token acknowledgment to a genuine transfer of power.
For farm advisory and extension services, this model offers a profound lesson. Instead of being a top-down delivery mechanism for official bulletins, they should be facilitators, creating platforms where different forms of knowledge—scientific, practical, and traditional—can meet as equals. The goal should be to help Indigenous Nations and agricultural communities lead their own adaptation efforts, backed by institutional support and recognition. What is needed is not just a “knowledge translation” but a “knowledge exchange,” where the roles of expert and learner are fluid.
Looking at the bigger picture, the United States has already developed a model worth considering: the Extension Disaster Education Network (EDEN). This is a collaborative national effort that leverages the vast reach of the land-grant university system to provide credible, research-based information on how to prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters. It operates on the principle that trusted local educators are the most effective messengers in a crisis. For Canada, adapting this model could be transformative. The call from the Senate agriculture committee’s June report, Canada on Fire, is clear: a more proactive, rather than purely reactive, approach is essential. By connecting farm advisers, producer groups, local organizations, and Indigenous governments, we can build a distributed network of resilience that is far more effective than a central command-and-control structure.
Ultimately, governments do have a role to play, but it is one of empowerment, not just information dissemination. They can fund the creation of practical toolkits specifically designed for agricultural contexts—for example, a clear, science-based chart that helps a farmer determine when air quality is dangerous for livestock specifically, not just for humans. They can invest in training “trusted messengers” to proactively and respectfully counter myths. Most importantly, they must fund the “relational work”—the field days, the peer networks, the community-based coordinators—that build the social fabric necessary to weather any storm.
The consultations for the next federal-provincial-territorial agricultural policy framework are underway, but the policy cycle moves slowly, and the smoke seasons will not wait. The fires are not a one-off anomaly but a harbinger of the new normal. The urgent task is to stop treating communications as a government-to-farmer broadcast and start investing in a human-centered network, one that thrives on trust, local knowledge, and genuine partnership. The health of the soil, the welfare of the animals, and the livelihoods of thousands of Ontario families depend on building a system where the most important piece of information can travel the shortest distance—from a trusted neighbor in a smoky field to another who needs to hear it.