Four members of the Farmerettes Brigade take a break from hoeing celery in Thedford, Ontario, in 1945. (submitted photo/Canada Post)

By Alice McFarlane

Immortalized

Remembrance Day stamps salute farmerettes and Soldiers of the Soil

Nov 8, 2024 | 4:02 PM

Canada Post has released of its annual Remembrance Day stamp issue, honouring the contributions of the farmerettes and Soldiers of the Soil during the First and Second World Wars.

The two-stamp set commemorates the young men and women who stepped up to support Canada’s agricultural efforts when the country and its allies needed them most.

The two world wars were not only won by troops on the battlefield. Civilians on the home front were instrumental in producing food, ammunition and other supplies for the war effort.

Canada played a lead role in producing food for Britain and the Allied troops during both wars. This was achieved with the help of different federal and provincial programs that recruited youth to work the farm fields at home after thousands of Canadian men left to serve in the battlefields of Europe.

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During the First World War, the Ontario government created the Farm Service Corps, which recruited high-school girls to work on farms in 1917 and 1918. These workers were known as farmerettes. More than 20,000 girls participated in a similar initiative called the Ontario Farm Service Force’s Farmerette Brigade during the Second World War.

Farmerettes worked in farms, orchards and canneries for up to 10 hours a day, producing food for Canadians and the war effort. They paid their room and board from their hourly wage and supplied their own personal items including work clothes.

Soldiers of the Soil initiative recruited teenaged boys to work on farms for the remainder of the First World War (supplied photo/Canada Post)

Soldiers of the Soil

Created by the federal government in 1918, 22,000 young Canadians enrolled in the Soldiers of the Soil initiative. The teenaged boys worked on farms and planted, tended and harvested fruits and vegetables, helped with the haying and cared for livestock. At the end of their term, they were “honourably discharged” and awarded a bronze lapel badge of honour, often at a community ceremony acknowledging their wartime contribution.

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alice.mcfarlane@pattisonmedia.com

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