Police were called after swarms descended on site to snap selfies with sunny crop

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

The hope was to earn a little extra income during the two weeks that the family farm’s crop was in bloom.

But Ontario’s largest sunflower grower soon found itself backtracking on the idea, after it was swarmed by selfie-seeking visitors who trampled all over their crops and clogged up the nearby highway.

Bogle Seeds – a sixth-generation family farm near Toronto – had prepared for the crowds by hiring eight extra staff and setting up portable toilets.

What they hadn’t taken into consideration, however, was social media – where selfies snapped along the farm’s 1.3km (0.8 miles) patch of sunflowers were quickly going viral.

“Everyone was laughing and having fun,” Barry Bogle told the Globe and Mail. “Then all of Toronto showed up.”

On Saturday, cars began rolling in hours before the farm was set to open. By noon, the area was flooded with sunflower seekers, some who had parked more than a kilometre away.

As staff struggled to control the hordes, hundreds strolled directly into the fields without paying while others left their garbage among the blooms.

Police were soon called in to help manage the chaos. People, at times with strollers or children in tow, were crossing four lanes of traffic to get to the farm. Neighbours complained of people parking on their properties and, in one case, urinating in their bushes.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Crowds trampled the sunflower fields at the Bogle family farm near Toronto. Photograph: Bogle Seeds Instagram

After the crowd swelled to an estimated 7,000 cars – far exceeding the space available in the farm’s 300-car parking lot – police asked the family to shut down the operation.

Similar situations have been playing out at sunflower farms across the country, with one farmer in Manitoba complaining that some 2,000 people had been traipsing around his property last weekend in search of the perfect shot.

At the Bogle family farm, the full extent of the damage done won’t be known until the sunflowers are harvested in autumn. Their focus is now on getting the message out that they are closed to sunflower seekers, likely forever.

Reaction to the news has been mixed; some accused the family of ruining their vacation while others simply drove around the corner and – selfie sticks in hand – snuck past the “no trespassing” signs.

“I’m getting the finger quite often,” Brad Bogle told the National Post. “I’m getting people yelling at me. I’m getting people telling me: ‘I drove two hours, three hours, I deserve to get my picture taken.’”