UNCERTAINTY GROWS
Andy Terauds is among area growers who want the city to open the Lansdowne and Westboro farmers’ markets before June 30 so crops aren’t wasted, Peter Hum writes.
At the best of times, business can be uncertain for the Ottawa area’s many farmers. The novel coronavirus crisis has only caused a spike in their uncertainties that has some wondering whether they’ll survive the pandemic.
Of course, at the very beginning of spring, some farms don’t yet have produce to sell. But others have seen the disappearance of produce sales to restaurants and other wholesale buyers, most of which have been closed since midMarch and will remain shuttered because of a provincial emergency declaration in effect until at least April 23. For some farms, those losses have been offset by increased direct sales of wares to customers.
For many, though, the most critical development came this past week when the City of Ottawa extended the closure of all city-managed facilities until June 30. As a result, the city’s two largest farmers’ markets at Lansdowne Park and on the Byron Linear Park in Westboro won’t open until at least July. The same holds true for a smaller market at the Ray Friel Recreation Complex in Orléans.
“The worst-case scenario is that the markets will not open, or there will be very limited traffic, and we won’t be able to sell our produce,” says Zoltan Sara, who operates Addison Gardens, an organic farm about 20 kilometres northwest of Brockville that vends at the market in Orléans.
“In that case, we’ll lose about 90 per cent of our income, which would pretty much end our farming business. We really hope it won’t come to that,” Sara says.
And, yet, Farmers’ Markets Ontario, an organization that boasts more than 180 members, announced this past week it had confirmed with the Ontario government that farmers’ markets, as long as they were primarily vending food, have been designated an essential service along the lines of grocery stores and supermarkets.
That means other farmers’ markets in the Ottawa area, such as Carp Farmers’ Market or the Main Farmers’ Market in Old Ottawa East, could be allowed to open sooner than July if permitted by their landlords and if approved by Ottawa Public Health.
The Carp Farmers’ Market cancelled its Easter market on Saturday, but market manager Ennio Marcantonio says he still hopes his market, which rents space from the Carp Agricultural Society, will open as planned on May 9, but with physical distancing and other pandemic-related changes in place.
“Things are changing daily, so you just don’t know,” Marcantonio adds.
The discrepancy between publiclyand privately-managed markets is not lost on farmers who rely on the Lansdowne and Westboro markets for the much of their income.
Andy Terauds, who owns Acorn Creek Garden Farm in Carp and is a board member of the Ottawa Farmers’ Market Association, says his group will try to persuade the city to open the three markets on its properties before June 30.
Terauds adds that he and other farmers have received many phone calls from people keen to buy produce once it’s available.
“They’re wondering how they’re going to get our stuff,” he says.
“To not provide some kind of exception for the farmers’ markets (on city property) seems a little bit short-sighted of the municipality,” says Stuart Oke, who vends at the Lansdowne and Westboro markets.
“Are we just playing favourites between who gets to supply food to the people and who doesn’t get to supply food to people?”
On its website, Farmers’ Markets Ontario details protocols for vending produce during the pandemic, including physical distancing, increased sanitation measures, and bans on offering food samples or using bags supplied by customers.
Terauds and Oke say farmers’ markets, especially outdoors, would be able to sell to customers as safely or even more safely than grocery stores.
“Obviously, the farmers’ markets would have to work differently,” Oke says. “We need to be more focused on just the bare essentials, trying to get food in people’s hands, and not the same sort of social element that’s often present in farmers’ markets.”
Oke says his business derives 60 per cent of its income from sales at the Lansdowne and Westboro markets, a percentage that won’t be easily made up if those venues don’t reopen in 2020.
“Mitigating risk, that’s what farming is about,” Oke says. “But mitigating this level of risk is pretty tough to do.” And Rooted Oak doesn’t qualify for emergency relief currently available from governmental sources, Oke adds.
Like many others, his farm is trying to increase direct sales to customers through the delivery of CSA boxes and through participation in the Farmhouse Food collective, which bundles goods from several producers.
Since the COVID-19 outbreak began, Alska Farm in Low, Que., has had to undergo a similar and massive business shift, co-owner Geneviève Marquis says.
The farm produces maple syrup and pasture-raised pork and beef, but syrup sales to large wholesale clients including Bridgehead Coffee, Pure Kitchen and the Shaw Centre dried up because of the pandemic. As a result, it has had to focus on selling meats, which it boxes and then delivers.
“The response has been enormous, and has both of us that work the farm going full tilt,” Marquis says.
Alska also has a shop on its property, which has seen a “huge increase” in customers since the pandemic was declared, Marquis adds.
Marquis says she takes precautions, including limiting visitors in the shop to one person at a time, disinfecting all surfaces regularly, and accepting only tap payments or e-transfers.
Sara says his Addison Gardens business has set up an online shopping option for produce in case there are no farmers’ markets, and his business will deliver its wares if needed.
“However, we have no idea how many people we can reach,” he says. “Online marketing is very expensive and we’re not sure how effective it will be.”
Terauds says Acorn Creek Garden Farm has lost several thousand dollars because deliveries to almost three dozen Ottawa-area restaurants have stopped.
However, he says he’s pleased that three foreign workers coming from St. Lucia have been approved to work on his farm from mid-April to mid-November.
“We’re all clear, only waiting for the flight coming in. I can tell them what to do from six feet away,” Terauds says with a laugh.
“They’ll have to be isolated,” he adds. “As soon as they go across the farm gate, they’re isolated. They have to sit pretty.”
Oke says Rooted Oak Farm is growing more food than ever, anticipating there could be shortages in Ottawa’s food system in coming weeks.
“We’re really motivated to try and provide as much food to people as possible,” Oke says. "We’re feeling less anxious about making money and more anxious about growing all this food and not being able to get into the hands of people that need it.”