Bob Chorney, a man who almost singlehandedly willed into existence an organization supporting farmers’ markets in Ontario, and subsequently lived and breathed that existence for over 25 years, died July 14 at age 85.
Erin McLean, who – along with her brother Ben – owns and manages the Peterborough-area McLean and Buckhorn Berry Farms after taking over from their parents, told Farmtario the duo wouldn’t have been able to continue and expand upon the family tradition if it hadn’t been for Chorney.
Why it matters: Farmers markets give producers the ability to sell products directly to consumers, cutting out broker costs, while connecting directly with their buyers
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“He just had such a passion for what people could produce on their farms and what they could bring to farmers’ markets and how vibrant and alive farmers’ markets could be,” McLean said.
Chorney was also known for taking on food resellers in an effort to keep the farmer in farmers’ markets.
In 1991 Chorney was the founding executive director of Farmers’ Markets Ontario (FMO), a province-wide organization now with over 180 members that sets out rules about such things as product origin and food safety but also provides access to government lobbying, marketing funding and specialized insurance.
Following several years serving The Co-operators insurance company at its Sault Ste. Marie office, he took up a role as Northern Ontario Marketing Specialist for the provincial Ministry of Agriculture and Food. Funding for that position expired but Chorney could clearly see much greater prospects on the horizon.
Elmer Buchanan operates Elmlea Farms and serves with the Havelock Farmer and Artisan Market as well as being FMO’s current chair. But in 1991 he was Minister of Agriculture under New Democrat Premier Bob Rae.
“Bob Chorney showed up for an appointment in my office . . . and he had an idea if not a vision for the future of farmers’ markets in Ontario,” Buchanan recalled. “He felt that farmers’ markets, which had been growing in size and numbers throughout the 1980s, would benefit from some structure and a permanent staff person.”
The meeting resulted in Chorney receiving “a modest budget to work with the existing markets” – an initiative that soon saw FMO created.
“In essence, he was the father of Farmers’ Markets Ontario,” says Buchanan and he continued to shepherd and drive the growth of the organization until (his retirement in) 2017.
In the case of McLean and Buckhorn (the family purchased the second location in 2010) Berry Farms, Chorney’s 2006 spearheading of what was referred to at the time as the “Certified Local Farmers’ Market” concept was crucial in the family’s farming trajectory. Growing strawberries, raspberries, currants, gooseberries, peas, beans, sweet corn, squash and pumpkins and selling them at on-farm stores as well as six area farmers’ markets, Chorney’s dogged promotion of the value of home-grown fare helped boost the consumer appeal of the McLean model.
Chorney championed a certification initiative that would make sure farmers markets were for the people who produced the food.
A backgrounder document prepared by the organization as part of the proposal added “farmers were being literally squeezed out of existing markets by resellers who continued to glut the market with food terminal sell-offs and, in some cases, told there was no room for them to sell at market.”
McLean recalls the situation with resellers wasn’t only frustrating to anyone trying to market their home-grown goods but also financially damaging. The MyPick Verified Local Farmer Program – the outcome of the 2006 proposal – changed all that.
“It was such a difficult time for a lot of producers,” she said. The program “was a huge, huge undertaking for Bob and (his wife) Catherine (Clark),” involving researching successful certified-local models in Canada and the US, securing independent inspectors to visit farms, and launching a widespread marketing campaign to make sure consumers knew what the MyPick logo meant, but “it was really necessary.
“And it changed everything.”
