Local farmers see demand increase during pandemic

It's a late-summer Tuesday morning and Josh Suppan is picking strawberries from his everbearing plants.

There aren't many moments in the day when you won't find Suppan at work on his farm in South Frontenac, just north of the Kingston city limits.

For eight years, Suppan and his partner, Jen Valberg, have established and expanded Fat Chance Farmstead, a farm business that provides fruits and vegetables in food boxes to customers throughout the growing season.

Fat Chance Farmstead offers more than 40 varieties of fresh produce to its 63-member community-supported agriculture (CSA) program, a shareholder system of direct farm sales that sees members sign on at the beginning of a growing season to receive regular products through the farm's production months.

Fat Chance is one of more than 24,000 Canadian farms that sell its products directly to consumers, according to a 2017 Statistics Canada report. In all, 5.2 per cent of those farms use the CSA model.

Demand for Fat Chance food boxes has steadily increased in recent years, but nothing compares to the sharp increase in demand that Suppan and other local producers saw as the pandemic seeped into the Kingston community.

“I feel like everyone is saying this, but demand increased so much,” Suppan said.

“For us, we already have pretty high demand, but this made it go even higher. ... Our food box program has a massive waiting list; we won't even get close to getting those people into our food boxes next year.”

The farm's food box program also looked different this year.

“We're having to prepack everything,” Suppan said. “It's more of a workload there, but it's not overwhelming.”

While an increase in demand for local food is a good thing, the supply just isn't there, Suppan said.

As the president of the local chapter of the National Farmers Union, Suppan has heard concerns from many area members about the difficulties in producing enough food to meet the demand.

“It takes time to cultivate new farmers. It takes time to raise more cattle, or produce more vegetables, or grains, or strawberries or milk. Everyone's demand is way up, but our supply can't keep up with it. That takes time.”

Canada's farming population is aging, and barriers to new and young farmers make it a difficult profession to join.

In a report released in 2017, Statistics Canada said that from 2011 to 2016, the average age of farmers increased from 54 to 55 years, with farmers aged 55 to 59 accounting for the largest share of farm operators.

“The farmers we have can make more food, but we need more farmers,” Suppan admitted. “That's true across the whole country, and the world. We need smaller farms and more farmers and a food source that is more localized.”

But young people are taking up the profession. According to Statistics Canada, 2011 to 2016 saw the number of farm operators under the age of 35 increase by three per cent, the first time there had been an increase in this age category since the early 1990s.

Suppan said that if the demand is there, and if consumers are willing to pay a fair price to local farmers for their goods, then farming is “a no-brainer.” Those interested in producing food as a career need to see those upsides.

“If we can make farming look like a realistic career for someone, people are going to want to do it,” he said. “If we can show that the customers are there and you can make a living doing it, then we'll get more farmers.”