“People came for the cows, but they’re staying for the political commentary.”
That’s how Lakefield farmer Emma-Lee Harrison describes the community of social media followers her small-scale family farm has collected. Since the end of January, the following of The Harrison Hill Farm’s Threads account @theharrisonhillfarm has rapidly grown from about 200 followers to more than 18,500.
“This was not my goal to be anything like an influencer on the internet, so it was pretty surprising to me,” says Harrison. “People are already thinking these things and just really want to have a common ground and hope someone is going to say it aloud. They feel like they aren’t alone in how they’re feeling right now.”
Created by Meta as an alternative to Twitter, Threads is a microblogging platform that’s integrated with Instagram. Since it was launched in July 2023, Threads has continued to grow and now has over 320 million monthly active users.
Though she’s not completely sure when she gained all her new followers, Harrison believes it may have started after Friday, January 24, when she posted “I feel the need to be very clear that as a farm and people we are very pro science and we deeply believe in human rights” — a post that has received over 1,300 likes.
Since then, she has continued to post political commentary, including outlining what it means for a product to be “made in Canada,” providing voting resources, explaining the differing responsibilities of Canada’s levels of government, and expressing support for Black History Month, among other topics.
Between such content, she shares no shortage of cow and animal photos and anecdotes of life on the farm.
“I’m actually a really political person, but only really when I’m face-to-face with other people,” she says. “I don’t usually share a lot on the internet.”
Harrison is the third-generation owner of the 137-acre farm but, before she took it over with her family in 2021, she spent five years living in Lewiston, New York while attending Niagara University on a lacrosse scholarship. She was there when Barack Obama was elected U.S. President.
“It’s hard to appreciate and understand U.S. politics and how the country works unless you’ve been there for a long period of time,” she explains. “So when things started going poorly after Trump was elected, and in Canada there was a bit more rhetoric and talk of hating on marginalized groups, I felt like I couldn’t not say something.”
Since that January 24th post, The Harrison Hill Farm has received many messages from people as far as South Africa, Finland, Ireland, the U.S., and beyond.
“People have said they appreciate our positive outlook on things while also being political, which I feel is completely possible,” she says. “I think people are just looking for a supportive outlet where someone’s saying you should be proud for the things you’re doing and standing up for what we believe is right.”
One message that stands out in particular came from LGBTQ+ farmers in the U.S.
“They just really appreciate someone saying something because they haven’t felt as welcomed,” Harrison says. “When people started saying ‘Thank you for sharing, your farm is a safe space for us,’ I said to my husband that I never even thought for a second that I should announce that, of course, anyone is welcome here.”
Harrison knows she gained at least a thousand followers within hours over the first weekend in February, which coincided with U.S. president Donald Trump’s threat to impose a 25 per cent tariff on Canadian products. While it’s hard to know if it was in direct response to the threat, there was an immediate response from followers eager to learn more about starting their own gardens.
“There’s a huge group of people who would like to (start their own garden), but I think it’s overwhelming and I think it’s really important to acknowledge the privilege in even having any space to do that,” Harrison says, also noting the time and cost it would require. “I have no problem acknowledging the privilege that I have, because I think that’s a huge step to also being inclusive to others.”
Harrison has also seen many people inquiring and sharing about Canadian and Ontario seeds, as well as resources for getting started.
“Once you’ve learned it, you never unlearn how to grow things, and you can do it in any capacity that you’d like — whether it’s growing some beans for yourself in a tiny, little raised bed or a tomato plant on a patio,” she says. “I think there’s something to be said for feeling that little bit of self-reliance and nurturing something and learning how nature works.”
Even though Canada has at least a temporary reprieve from the threatened tariffs, Harrison notes a continuing shift in people becoming more conscious about identifying and sourcing out food that is made in Canada.
“We love how much support people give us as farmers when they have the resources to do so but, again, we acknowledge the fact that it’s completely out of reach for some people,” Harrison says, referring to both the availability and cost of local products.
“We really hope people will, but we also understand completely why it’s a challenge. There’s so much food and I think part of the problem is that we haven’t established enough resources to really be able to allow people to know where all the things are and that they exist.”
“I think it’s an important conversation that people don’t have the resources, and we need to be respectful and not judging people and knowing you’re doing the best you can,” she adds. “We have to understand that’s not always accessible to everybody.”
Despite the huge increase in followers, Harrison says she’s been surprised to see that “less than one per cent” of messages have been from people who disagree with what she’s been sharing.
“I’m open to a dialogue with people, but it has to be a dialogue,” she says. “I find that we have different opinions on some things (but) some things are just fundamentally wrong, and there’s no swaying me on that. There are some things that are right and wrong, which we’re taught from the earliest days, and I think agreeing to disagree just does not belong in certain conversations, and that’s unfortunately where the political climate is at this point.”
That said — as she pointed out in a recent post in which she mentions she is a white woman proclaiming that it’s Black History Month and “no one can stop you from celebrating” — Harrison recognizes that it’s easy to feel “unsure” and “worried about saying the wrong thing” when speaking up online. However, as she said in that post, insecurity won’t stop her from doing so and she is “ready to be told I’m wrong and learn.”
“Having confrontation can be scary but I have to be better,” she says. “I have to learn more. I need to educate myself more. And that’s my responsibility only. I’m saying it for anyone who might be feeling the same way.”
With the online community that has surrounded her in the last two weeks, Harrison describes her experience on Threads as being “what people thought social media was going to be, which is people supporting each other.”
“People keep saying ‘Thank you for being so positive and for bringing this nice positive light again,'” she says. “I didn’t really know that’s what we were doing but that’s how people are reading it, and I think that’s the greatest compliment.”
Overall, she describes the experience as “unifying.”
“We were saying things people were thinking, and sometimes we just need one person to say something,” she says. “Unfortunately, we’re relating over serious, very dark topics, but it’s been really restoring some serious faith in humanity that we’re going to be okay and that we are on the right side of history.”
The Harrison Hill Farm produces grass-fed and grass-finished beef, pasture-raised chicken, free-range eggs, and small-scale seasonal cut flowers. For more information, visit www.theharrisonhillfarm.com.
