A two day conference of the National Farmers Union opens in Belleville on Thursday.
Members of the Farmers Union have some good news as the conference gets underway.
The federal government’s budget this week included $4.3 million to re-open the prison farmlands closed at Joyceville and Collins Bay about nine years ago.
A member of Save Our Prison Farms, Dianne Dowling, says inmates had worked the farms on about 1,500 acres of land, providing food for the prisons.
The Union had endorsed the call to have the farms remain open.
The government undertook a study on the issue in 2016 and estabished an advisory panel last year.
The federal budget reports that the farms are being re-established to provide federal inmates with training opportunities and rehabilitation into the community.
The National Farmers Union conference is being held at the Gerry Masterson Centre.
