FARM2026: Allison Pepper prepares for Bruce County IPM as OPA President
BY SCOTT STEPHENSON
Excitement is already building across the province as Bruce County prepares to welcome back the International Plowing Match this September. The upcoming event will mark the fourth time Bruce County has hosted the International Plowing Match, and it arrives exactly 50 years after the first local match in 1976.
In search of a scoop about how preparations for the big return are coming together, The Citizen sat down with Allison Pepper at the Tim Hortons in Walkerton. Pepper is one of the many volunteers helping organize the 2026 match. She is also the current President of the Ontario Plowmen’s Association (OPA), as well as its Zone 3 Director.
For Pepper, helping bring the event back to Bruce County is extra meaningful. “This is home for me, so it’s obviously a big deal, and we’ve got a really great group of volunteers that are taking this head on and putting their best into it,” she told The Citizen. “We have a really good core group of local committees for 2026,” she said.
At its heart, she says, the success of the match always comes back to the same thing: community. “I think it’s the community,” Pepper said. “It’s the involvement of everyone coming together for the same thing.”
Pepper’s own connection to the IPM stretches back to childhood. Her earliest IPM memory took place in Meaford. “It was a long, long time ago,” she recalled. “It was a class trip, and my mom was a chaperone - that was the first one I remember.”
Since then, Pepper has made memories at more than a few plowing matches. “Giant Tiger used to be a really big sponsor back then, and you could get your face painted like the tiger, and I remember doing that,” she said. “And there was always a Hydro One boom truck going all the way up in the air and coming back down - that was a big part of it.”
As for bringing the IPM back to Walkerton to mark the match’s 50-year anniversary in Bruce County? “It might kind of be a little bit my fault, if I’m being completely fair,” Pepper confessed with a smile. “About two-and-a-half years ago, it was brought up in conversation that 2026 would mark the 50th anniversary of the first IPM in Bruce County.”
The thought lingered. “I kind of tucked it away for a bit, and then I thought, well, I should kind of do something about it.”
Pepper reached out to the potential host farm to test the idea. “I made a phone call to Lang Farms and said, ‘hey - this is just a thought. There is nothing more than me asking a question.’ He said, ‘Leave it with me.’” Lang Farms, of course, is the same location where Bruce County’s first IPM took place. Back in 1976, it was known as the Johnson farm. A few days after her inquiry, she received the go-ahead from the current owners: Joe and Tony Lang.
With a possible host location in place, the next step was to quietly check in with the higher ups at the OPA - the association that oversees the event. “I got in touch with the executive director at the OPA and said, ‘What now?’ and she said, ‘Nothing. Don’t say anything.’”
That caution reflected the size of the undertaking. Hosting the IPM is no small task, and the only way to know if the community was ready for it was to ask. Pepper organized a public meeting to gauge interest, booking the lower level of the Walkerton Library. “It holds about 80 people - I thought that it would be good!” Pepper declared.
The overwhelming response proved otherwise. When over 350 people expressed an interest in attending that first meeting, Pepper quickly changed the location to a larger venue. “We ended up at the upper level of the Walkerton Arena,” she recalled. “There were about 157 people in attendance. It was phenomenal - I don’t think the smile left my face!”
What she saw that evening confirmed that Walkerton was ready for another IPM. “People kept walking in with posters from the other IPMs in Bruce County and old souvenirs and pictures,” she said. “Everyone was in complete agreement, and that was kind of that.”
With strong local support behind the idea, Pepper and the other organizers felt they finally had enough momentum to involve local government. “We went to Bruce County Council to make sure they would endorse it and set us up with some seed money,” she told The Citizen. “We got $100,000 as a start-up loan, so the county’s behind us.”
From there, the planning effort expanded rapidly. Today, dozens of volunteer groups are working behind the scenes to prepare for the event. “There are about 70 committees working right now,” Pepper said. It’s estimated that over 1,500 volunteers will be needed to make the match happen.
Like many large events, the match faces some modern challenges, particularly when it comes to funding. “Sponsorship is becoming harder and harder to find, especially in this day and age,” she said.
At the same time, organizers are looking closely at ways to encourage more young people to take part in the actual plowing competition itself. One of the IPM committee’s goals is to reduce some of the barriers keeping young people from competing, such as the financial cost. “We know it’s a big expenditure for people to come to the IPM - it’s four days off in a week, and you’re spending money on entry fees and accommodations,” Pepper explained. “We’re really looking at ways to assist in getting more youth to come plow, whether that be a fuel allowance or more prize money - just to make it more appealing.”
For somebody so deeply involved in the world of the IPM, it may surprise you to learn that Pepper’s own involvement in competitive plowing is relatively recent. She first got a taste for the art of plowing while competing for the title of Bruce County Queen of the Furrow in 2019.
It became a family pursuit when her father also decided to try his hand at plowing. “He wanted something to do with me - we like to be close and do things together,” Pepper recollected. “And then he also took a liking to it!”
Her father quickly made a name for himself in competition. “My dad’s been at the IPM three years, and the last two years he was Reserve Champion of his class; no prior plowing experience, but he’s a perfectionist,” she said. “He started plowing in 2019 too, and then started going to the IPMs after that as well… now we have five tractors and about eight plows between the two of us. About five years ago, we had nothing!”
Pepper believes that preserving rural traditions through events like the IPM are more important now than ever. “The art of plowing is being lost, for sure,” she lamented. The match also plays an important role in keeping those traditions, and the broader story of agriculture, visible to the general public. “We’re bringing tourism in, we’re bringing city people to the country, and showing them what we’re doing, showing them about farming,” she told The Citizen. “It’s important to show kids where their food comes from. Education is a core part of the IPM - bringing people out and teaching them about everything we’re doing. And the square dancing tractors are coming back! That’s going to be a big draw.”
With months still to go before the gates open, Pepper and the organizers are continuing to recruit volunteers from across the region. “If you’re interested in getting involved, heading to our website and filling out the volunteer form is the number-one way,” Pepper pitched. “Whether you want to volunteer for a little bit or a lot of time, we’ll take any help we can get!”