Harvesting a lifestyle of pride, economics
Ontario farmers help create $63 billion in sales, employ more than 767,000 people
It’s not an easy life: They work long hours, they rarely get a day off, and they’re at the mercy of Mother Nature. So why do farmers do it?
Phil Tregunno is a fourth-generation farmer, who grows tender fruits such as peaches, nectarines, plums and grapes, along with his wife, two sons and daughter-in-law in Niagara-on-the-Lake. He’s also chair of the Ontario Tender Fruit Growers.
“It’s a business but it’s also a lifestyle,” he says. “There’s a lot of pride involved in growing and operating a farm, and a great sense of satisfaction in getting a crop up. If you grow a tomato in your backyard, that’s the best tasting tomato you’ve ever had, and you’re so proud of that tomato. Well, we get that every day.”
Farmers are also essential to the economy. From smaller family farms to co-operatives, co-packing plants and large farming operations, the ag-food business is helping to build communities and create jobs. Ontario’s food system generates more than $63 billion in sales and employs more than 767,000 people, according to Econometric Research Ltd. And that translates to 11 per cent of the paid labour force.
Though his father, grandfather and great-grandfather were all farmers, Tregunno wasn’t planning to continue the family business — he fell into it when his father passed away. After stepping in to run the farm, he realized that was where he wanted to be.
Tregunno sees a lot of growth in the ag-food business. Growing up, there wasn’t a big “buy local” movement in Ontario. But that’s changed. “We’ve always pushed buying local, but when it became an environmental issue that’s when it really took off,” he says. “It really has revitalized the industry; there’s great support from retailers.”
There’s also growth in smaller, niche markets, such as organics. “We’re always looking for new varieties,” he says.
But farming these days comes with its challenges. “The availability of land is really critical now,” Tregunno says. “If we didn’t have a Greenbelt and it wasn’t protected, it would be all gone.” The population is growing,
“The farm community in Ontario is one of most productive sectors of the province, and it will be called upon to be even more productive in the future.”
JEFF LEAL ONTARIO MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS
but there’s less farmland, and fewer people farming it. “At one point in time we had about 1,200 tender fruit growers (in Ontario); now we’re looking at 250 to 300.”
Farmers are also under pressure from foreign buyers to sell their land, so “you get farmland at prices that are not reflective of what you can grow on it.” Absentee ownership isn’t good for the land, either. “Farmland needs the owner’s footprints on it to really thrive,” he says.
While preserving farmland is an is- sue in rural areas, it’s also an issue for urban farmers looking for accessible, affordable land.
Jacqueline Dwyer, co-founder of Black Farmers and Food Growers Collective of Toronto, is a farmer and community organizer, with a mission to grow clean food. She wants to help provide all generations within the African diaspora with access to affordable, clean foods, as well as food sustainability and a stronger sense of community.
“I am a food insecure person for many reasons on the strata,” she says.
The collective — a member of the cross-cultural food access hub FoodShare Toronto — is a group of farmers, growers, small business owners and food insecure families.
“We came together to change the narrative,” says Dwyer, who has been farming at Downsview Park as part of Fresh City Farms since 2013.
“We bring more diverse foods here, whether it’s tropical or equatorial, and we are asking other farmers and growers to join us. It’s vital that we start . . . to dismantle clean food poverty.”
Noel Livingston, also a co-founder, is an urban farmer and musician, avid about community development, food policy and food justice. He spends a lot of time working in the collective’s Downsview greenhouse, growing foods that aren’t easily accessible in grocery stores, such as tropical fruits.
“Mom-and-pop stores can’t afford . . . to pay the farmers in Jamaica or Trinidad or Africa to grow food in bulk, so (these foods) are gradually being deleted from the market,” he says. “We believe if we have access to space in a greenhouse, we have the knowledge to do what we need to do.” They’re growing, for example, five varieties of sweet potatoes.
Access to land is an issue for both rural and urban farmers. The province, for its part, is creating a new soil map. “It will identify those areas of Ontario that we must retain for the production of agricultural products,” Ontario Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Jeff Leal says.
“It will assist our administrative partners to stay away from valuable farmland . . . and allow us to sustain agriculture in the province of Ontario.”
After all, agriculture is the largest economic driver in Ontario, making up $6 billion of the GDP, Leal says. This is predicated on 50,000 family farms producing 200 commodities; 65 per cent of what is grown in Ontario is processed in Ontario. “What that tells you is the farm community in Ontario is one of most productive sectors of the province,” he says, “and it will be called upon to be even more productive in the future.”