The OHL game, which fell on Canada’s Agriculture Day, saw record levels of food and money donated to help restock the food bank shelves during the Ontario Pork-Rangers event.

“The Food Bank of Waterloo Region was the real winner,” said John de Bruyn, Ontario Pork chair. “With help from the community, we were able to do a great job collecting cash and food donations that will really go a long way to help those facing food insecurity.”

The event collected 1,071 pounds of food and $4,643.90, providing approximately 10,125 regional meals. 

“Seeing the food donation bins overflow, seeing people make financial donations – it really warms my heart,” said Kim Wilhelm, Food Bank of Waterloo Region CEO.

Wilhelm said food insecurity happens 365 days a year, and year-round events keep the more than 58,000 people in Waterloo Region struggling to put food on the table at the forefront of people’s minds. 

The Ontario Pork partnership was the second food and fund drive held at the Rangers’ Kitchener Auditorium this season. The first was in December, providing 8,567 meals in the community. The hockey team and Ontario Pork are hopeful the event will encourage others to participate in the food drive challenge.

“This is an initiative we would love to continue to do with Ontario Pork,” said Sawyer Hume, Kitchener Rangers ticketing and sponsorship coordinator. “If there are any other organizations that want to compete with Ontario Pork a little bit to see if they can get donations up near the same level, we would very much welcome that positive competition.”

Ontario Pork’s The Whole Hog cookbook was available for purchase, with proceeds going to support Feed Ontario.

“Our partnership with Ontario Pork really means the world to us,” Stephanie Ashton-Smith, Feed Ontario’s Director of Development & Partnerships, said, adding that the Ontario Pork partnership is critical.

“2023 was really the toughest year that food banks have faced; it’s almost at crisis levels, and we expect that to worsen in 2024,” said Ashton-Smith.

“So, any opportunity to have events like this to bring the community together and raise awareness of food insecurity is really crucial.”

Ontario Pork hopes the awareness and coverage of the event are as impactful as the donations in inspiring other communities to find new opportunities to help their neighbours.

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Wednesday, federal agriculture minister Lawrence MacAulay announced up to $9.98 million in funding for community food projects through the fifth phase of the Local Food Infrastructure Fund, an outworking of the Food Policy for Canada.

The fund is geared toward “projects to improve food security across Canada, including community gardens and kitchens, refrigerated trucks and storage units for donated food, and greenhouses in remote and Northern communities,” a federal news release said. Since 2019, the Local Food Infrastructure Fund has committed $64.8 million to such projects, the release added.

The 192 projects approved for this installment of funding include:

• Solar panels for a vertical farm at a school in High River, Alta.
• Hydroponic tower gardens, potato farming equipment and gardening tools for Kawacatoose First Nation in Saskatchewan.
• A cargo van and power pallet truck for Greater Hamilton Food Share in Hamilton, Ont.
• A tractor, greenhouse and various gardening equipment for Le Conseil des Atikamekw d’Opticiwan in Quebec.
• A cargo van for a church in Edmonton, Alta.

“In communities of all sizes, we need to continue supporting service organizations aiding families,” MacAulay said in the release.

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“It is probable that Canadians will continue to experience the strain of food inflation compounded by increasing costs of housing, energy and various other expenditures,” according to Canada’s Food Price Report 2024.

The food bill for a family of four is estimated at $16,297.20, an increase of $701.79 compared to 2023.

The report is produced by Dalhousie University, the University of Guelph, the University of British Columbia and the University of Saskatchewan.

Sylvain Charlebois, project lead, professor, and director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University, said this reflects two major disruptions — the global pandemic and the war in Ukraine — having been largely absorbed by global food markets.

“These ‘black swan’ events have kind of faded away,” Charlebois said.

Grocers are responding to the return of some stability by running promotions and generally engaging in stiffer competition.

“It is much easier for them to plan, and plan promotions,” Charlebois said.

Last year’s report forecast a five to seven per cent increase in food prices in 2023. The current rate for food price increases is 5.9 per cent, according to Consumer Price Index data.

The increase was attributed to enduring COVID-19 supply chain problems, climate change, carbon taxes, the conflict in Ukraine and labour disruptions.

Charlebois expects food inflation to continue to fade throughout 2024. “The sweet spot for food inflation is 1.5 to 2.5 per cent,” he said. “We’re not there yet, but I think we will be there by the end of 2024.”

Still, Canadian consumers have been hard-pressed in recent months when it comes to food prices. There were nearly two million visits to food banks in Canada in 2023, a 32 per cent increase over the previous year.

“This is the highest level of food bank use in Canada on record,” stated the report.

Consumers believe that price gouging by grocery companies is the main reason for escalating food prices, but a Bank of Canada study shows markups were in line with inflation rates.

Charlebois expects to see the political heat surrounding food inflation to fall in lockstep with the slower growth in food prices. He also noted that consumer fury around food prices was largely a reaction to another runaway piece of the Canadian consumer economy — the cost of shelter. As that’s risen rapidly, consumers are frequently forced to make hard decisions in other areas of their domestic economy — such as food choices, as it’s easier to make changes to food purchases than it is to find suitable affordable

“We’ve had a massive trading down in food choices in Canada over the past year — mostly from February to October,” Charlebois said. “That is stabilizing now.”

Charlebois added that the recent Bank of Canada decision to hold pat on interest rates will also contribute to consumer relief both on food prices and shelter costs. He noted that global warming and the desire to decarbonize food supply chains remain inflation risks in the food sector.

Concentration

The report noted that 80 percent of Canada’s grocery market is controlled by five companies: Loblaws (29 per cent market share), Sobeys/Safeway (21 per cent), Costco (11 per cent), Metro (10.8 per cent), and Walmart (7.5 per cent).

“Canada has a concentrated grocery industry and is a tough landscape for new players to break into,” stated the report.

One thing that should help is the “imminent introduction” of a consumer protection code of conduct in Canada’s food sector.

“(It) is a momentous development with promising implications for consumers and the industry,” stated the report.

Australia, the United Kingdom and Ireland have already adopted codes and those countries have shown more modest increases in food prices when adjusted for inflation. However the voluntary code has run into newfound opposition from grocers as it nears the finish line. Loblaws is suggesting it could raise grocery prices by more than $1 billion, and Walmart Canada has said it could add unnecessary burdens to producers.

That’s led to a code of conduct push from two high-profile Canadian political leaders.

Lawrence MacAuley, federal minister of agriculture and agri-food and Andre Lamontagne, Quebec’s minister of agriculture, fisheries and food, have issued a joint statement.

“After years of work, broad consultations, and unprecedented engagement across the grocery supply chain, we’re disappointed to see that the Grocery Sector Code of Conduct has still not been launched and that supply chain partners are hesitant to move forward,” the statement reads.

The Canadian government has also introduced Bill C-56, which proposes amendments to the Competition Act to enhance competition in the grocery sector.

—Gord Gilmour is senior editor, news and national affairs with Glacier Farmmedia. He write from Winnipeg.  Additional reporting from Sean Pratt.

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Tony Kime, Bluewater Pipe president, has set aside a five-figure amount to match donations from contributors but is also inviting his two competitors to join in the giving.

“That would mean three of us were putting money into the pot, plus drainage contractors and farmers,” said Kime. “I suspect most of the people I’m appealing to are already donating time, food, or money because rural Canada is community-based, and we grew up learning to take care of people around us.”

Bluewater Pipe’s reach stretches throughout Elgin, Middlesex, Perth, Oxford, Bruce, Peterborough and even into the Ottawa Valley. He hopes to leverage funds by working with food producers to buy products at cost.

“We need to figure out how to help people who need help and do it well,” he said. “And take the profit out of it.”

He said that grocery stores that promote food bank drives make upwards of 40 cents on the dollar but don’t offer any discounts for donated food, which would allow people to make more significant contributions. 

“That’s money wasted as far as getting food to people who need it,” he said. “Whoever wants to match dollar-for-dollar the money I set aside, we can leverage our relationships in food production . . . to buy it (food) at cost, or less than cost. So we get a heck of a lot more miles out of the dollar.”

Twenty-five years ago, his father, Grant, wanted to fill a transport truck full of food. They accomplished the goal with predominately Ontario-made products within a dozen phone calls to co-business owners, wealthy residents, and farmers. 

It was Kime’s inspiration when he partnered with Glenn Hayter of A.G. Hayter Contracting to raise funds last year. He then connected with Tom Hayter, Hayter’s Turkey Farms and Van Osch Farms and used the money to buy protein at cost and delivered it all to the Huron and Middlesex County food banks. 

 Kime will handle the logistics of touching base with the foodbanks to get a list of products they need, collect the goods, and deliver it to the food banks in each county covered by Bluewater Pipe contractors.

“Those of us who have gotten through the last three years in agribusiness have actually done okay, and there’s a lot of people who haven’t,” he said. “Right now, food is something that is needed and expensive. So although the food bank needs stuff all year round, now’s a good time to be helping them top up the coffers.”

Those interested in contributing or farmers interested in donating food products can contact Kime via telephone at 226-425-2111 or by email at info@bluewaterpipe.com.

Kime said the fundraising would continue until he maxes out the matching donation amount, but anyone is welcome to add to the pot to maximize the fundraiser’s reach.

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Federal Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau on Monday announced $28 million “to support the diversion of surplus potatoes, including help to redirect surplus potatoes to organizations addressing food insecurity and support for the environmentally-sound disposal of surplus potatoes.”

Past that, the money will also go toward “marketing activities” and to help the province’s potato industry “develop long-term strategies to manage future challenges.”

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada said Monday it will work with the province, the P.E.I. Potato Board, national food bank organizations and “other stakeholder groups” to deliver the funding.

Details on how producers can get support from the new funding envelope will be available “through the coming weeks,” AAFC said.

Canadian export certification for P.E.I. potatoes destined for the U.S. has been suspended since Nov. 22 at the request of U.S. officials, after confirmation of potato wart in two separate P.E.I. processing potato fields on Oct. 1 and 14 respectively.

The two fields were related to previous potato wart detections and were already under regulation, so those fields’ production was at no time destined for the U.S.

Potato wart first turned up in P.E.I. in October 2000 and had since been found in 33 other fields there. After a months-long ban on P.E.I. potato exports to the U.S. in 2000, a system was set up in 2001 to allow exports from lower-risk zones where the fungus hasn’t been detected. That system, dubbed the Potato Wart Domestic Long Term Management Plan, had been in use since then.

The federal government reiterated Monday it “stands firmly on the science that indicates that the risks associated with the transmission of potato wart from fresh potatoes remains negligible when appropriate risk mitigation measures are in place.”

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency said Monday it will continue to make “science-based data and details of its investigation” into the October cases available to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), and that soil sampling and soil testing processes “are taking place as quickly as possible.”

Describing the suspension as “an incredibly hard time for our province’s potato farmers,” Heath MacDonald, MP for the P.E.I. constituency of Malpeque, said Monday the U.S. nevertheless has “been clear that trade cannot resume until we have worked through their technical concerns.”

Disposal of surplus potatoes — particularly in 2021 — is expected to be difficult at best. Greg Donald, the P.E.I. Potato Board’s general manager, said earlier this month it won’t be possible for the Canadian domestic market alone to eat through the surplus.

“If this goes beyond another week or two, somebody’s going to have to make some tough decisions what to do with the massive volume of potatoes,” Donald said on the Dec. 2 episode of the Between The Rows podcast.

To destroy surplus potatoes during a P.E.I. winter will mean shredding them through equipment such as snowblowers for spreading onto fields as compost, he said.

To leave them in storage beyond the winter, for disposal somehow in the spring, would be “a huge biosecurity issue itself” — and “you can’t dig a hole deep enough” to bury that volume of product.

Typically growing about a quarter of Canada’s potato production annually, P.E.I. was just coming off a record-level year in terms of both yield and quality,

Generally, he said, about 40 per cent of P.E.I.’s fresh potato crop is shipped each year to the U.S., and that level was expected to be higher this year as U.S. domestic production was expected to be down on the year.

‘Potential solutions’

While not considered a human health or food safety risk, potato wart is known to drag down crop yields and can make potatoes unmarketable by ruining their appearance.

The disease appears mainly below-ground, on plants’ tubers and runners. It comes from a soil-borne fungal parasite that spreads through movement of affected potatoes, soil, farm equipment and manure from animals that digest infested potatoes.

Potato wart has never been seen in any other Canadian province except Newfoundland and Labrador, where it’s been under “regulatory control” since 1909.

U.S. officials have said the disease “is not known to be present” in that country; it appeared during the 20th century in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Maryland and was deemed eradicated in all three, lastly in Maryland in 1994.

After the export suspension was imposed last month, the federal and P.E.I. governments and stakeholders set up a Government-Industry Potato Working Group to “exchange information, help mitigate impacts of potato wart on the sector, and identify potential short- and long-term solutions to current trade disruptions.”

AAFC said Monday that Fred Gorrell, a former assistant deputy minister with the department and leader of the federal Market Access Secretariat, has been asked to be the new co-chair of the working group.

Past that, the federal and P.E.I. governments noted Monday they’ve also arranged changes to the AgriStability income stabilization program, allowing late enrolment for any potato growers who hadn’t already signed on for the 2021 program year.

The allowable interim payments available under AgriStability have also been raised, AAFC noted, so producers can apply to receive up to 75 rather than 50 per cent of their anticipated payment.

‘Ineffective action’

The province’s potato growers, meanwhile, took their concerns to the public Monday, organizing a convoy that included 16 potato trucks, carrying an estimated half million pounds of fresh potatoes through Charlottetown.

“We are here to show the federal government, who walked us into this situation, how we’re feeling and the impact their ineffective action is having,” grower John Visser, who chairs the P.E.I. Potato Board, said in a release Monday.

The board said the convoy of potato trucks is also “a statement by farmers of what is to come” as farmers may have to destroy up to 500 million pounds of “healthy, safe potatoes” because of the export ban.

Visser, in the board’s release, noted that growers “appreciate (Monday’s) assistance announcement as a start; however, what’s going to make the most difference to us is a resolution to the border issue, so we can resume trade as soon as possible.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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As part of the federal pandemic response, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced in early May that Ottawa would budget $50 million for a food surplus purchase program. The funding would go to buy and move large quantities of perishables deemed surplus as the pandemic shut down much of the restaurant and hospitality industries in Canada and the U.S.

The program was opened up for applications from interested non-government organizations from mid-June through mid-July and Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau announced the eight successful applicants Thursday at an event at St-Hyacinthe, Que.

The eight partnerships, which in all involve over 100 different organizations, are expected to address “urgent, high-volume, highly perishable” surplus.

The funding provided under the program is expected to ensure producers and processors are “fairly compensated” for their work at the cost of production, while also helping to develop relationships with community food providers and support efforts to reduce food waste, the government said.

In all, the chosen program partners are expected to redistribute about 12 million kilograms of surplus food to “more food-insecure” families — food the government said “would otherwise have been wasted.”

The chosen organizations are to leverage “existing food redistribution and recovery networks and agencies,” among them “leading not-for-profits,” which will redistribute products including, among others, potatoes, chicken, turkey, eggs, fruit, vegetables, fish and other seafood.

The program’s $50 million budget will break down as follows:

• Canadian Produce Marketing Association and charitable agencies, $11,429,926
• Food Banks Canada, $11,358,529
• Second Harvest, $11,007,095
• Fisher River Cree Nation, $10,845,048
• La Tablee des Chefs, $1,522,900
• Clearwater Seafood and Indigenous communities, $1,491,072
• Les Fermes Dani, $1,430,000, and
• Green Seafoods Ltd. and Feed Nova Scotia, $55,230.

The program “leverages the deep supply chain expertise and knowledge the food banking network has, thereby helping those in Canada experiencing food insecurity in the most efficient manner,” Food Banks Canada CEO Chris Hatch said in the government’s release Thursday.

“We are thankful for the opportunity to build deeper partnerships within the agri-food system as well as helping ensure that highly nutritious, available food feeds people in need and that these resources are stewarded responsibly.”

For its project, Food Banks Canada plans to rescue “multiple” surplus commodities and flow those foods in both “current and processed formats” to its network of over 3,000 local-level food banks and community agencies.

The CPMA’s project will work similarly, moving produce to participating charitable agencies through participating distribution and transport companies.

Second Harvest’s project will work in much the same way, but will use its FoodRescue.ca online platform and mobile app to determine “when and from where” specific surplus foods are acquired, and to make sure the rate of distribution “does not exceed the handling and storage capacity of individual food charities.”

Quebec-based La Tablee des Chefs plans to recover over 350,000 kg of surplus foods, to be turned into meals by its network of chefs in Les Cuisines Solidaires in Quebec and in five Canadian cities: Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver and Winnipeg. Meals are then to be redistributed through Banques Alimentaires du Quebec, Second Harvest and other organizations.

Fisher River Cree Nation, in Manitoba’s Interlake region, expects to secure up to 2.9 million pounds of walleye caught in Canada’s inland lakes, for distribution to over 75 Indigenous communities in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Canada’s North.

For that project, distribution will be handled by way of the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corp., the Winnipeg-based marketing agency for commercial fishers in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories.

The Clearwater project will see 150,000 pounds of surplus seafood distributed to Indigenous communities in Nova Scotia and nationally, while the Green Seafoods project will see 24,000 pounds of frozen blue mussels bought and distributed through Feed Nova Scotia. Les Fermes Dani will distribute surplus potatoes to Indigenous communities in New Brunswick and nationally.

“Not only are we helping producers who cannot sell their goods to restaurants, but we are also aiding Canadians that have had to seek help from food banks,” Bibeau said during Thursday’s announcement.

“These eight impressive partnerships between food businesses and not-for-profit organizations target those food commodities that had significant and urgent surpluses, making a difference both at the level of the producer and the food bank, from coast to coast to coast.”

“By working across sectors to build partnerships, we’re creating a mutually beneficial system that meets two urgent needs at once,” federal Fisheries Minister Bernadette Jordan said in the same release.

Bibeau’s event Thursday was held at the St-Hyacinthe head office of Nutri Group, an egg marketing agency which with partners across Canada pledged over one million dozen fresh shell eggs to the Food Banks Canada and Second Harvest projects. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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The $50 million Surplus Food Rescue Program — which Prime Minister Justin Trudeau telegraphed in a funding announcement May 5 — will take applications from “organizations addressing food insecurity” from now until July 15, Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau announced Monday.

The program — to be administered by the federal agriculture department — is meant to move surplus food through the system “as efficiently as possible to help vulnerable Canadians.”

The COVID-19 pandemic led to the “near closure” of the restaurant and foodservice sectors in both Canada and the U.S., which in turn left producers with surpluses of food and “increased demand from grocery stores alone is not expected to clear the inventory before it spoils,” the government said in a release.

“At the same time, the pandemic has increased the demand for food from food banks and other food security organizations in communities across Canada.”

Bibeau said last week the government had already started to work on the program with businesses that have surpluses they can offer to food bank networks.

The program is to back the “purchase, processing, transportation and redistribution of surplus food… that may be fresh, frozen inventory or in need of further processing due to its highly perishable nature.”

Surplus commodities eligible for the program can include foods in fresh form as well as those that need to be processed and packaged into “shelf-stable” products for storage or distribution.

Surplus foods, once processed, must be donated and are not to be resold, AAFC added.

Applicants can include not-for-profit and for-profit organizations, such as industry groups, processors, distributors, food serving agencies, regional and municipal governments, schools, school boards and other agencies.

But applicants must also “demonstrate an ability to handle the full logistical requirements for acquiring, processing, transporting and ensuring shelf-life stability of surplus commodities and delivery to organizations serving vulnerable populations.”

The program is meant to address “urgent, high-volume, highly perishable surplus products falling under horticulture, meat and fish and seafood,” the government said.

“Priority consideration for surplus commodities that have immediate risk of loss will be determined first,” the government said. It gave potatoes and “some aquaculture products” as examples of goods that “need immediate processing or will be lost or destroyed.”

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada said it will take an “inclusive and challenge-based approach” with applicants.

Contributions from the program will be paid out to organizations which, among other criteria, can “acquire and move the most surplus product.” Applicants will need to identify the amount to be moved.

Applicants must also show they have the “most cost-effective approach” in acquiring food — for example, at or below the cost of production, or through donations where possible. They’ll also have to show they can provide the most cost-effective approach — at “minimal cost” — for processing if goods can’t be distributed otherwise.

They’ll also have to show they can be the most efficient at drawing down surplus stocks quickly, from wholesale purchases through to food-serving agencies, and that they have partnerships “already established along the supply chain” — including connections to food-serving agencies.

AAFC, which is targeting up to 10 per cent of all food specifically for northern communities, also said applicants will need to be able to make sure food reaches “the most vulnerable and remote communities” in Canada.

“Nobody wants to see food go to waste, and thanks to this new program, we’re helping the industry redistribute surplus products to vulnerable, local communities where it can make a real difference in someone’s life,” Fisheries Minister Bernadette Jordan said in Monday’s release. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Ottawa tabbed $50 million of its COVID-19 response funds for agriculture to buy surplus food from farmers and redistribute it to communities in need.

The challenge Bibeau and her federal colleagues are faced with is how to match excess food supplies with pre-existing food security distribution networks.

“It’s a matter of days before we inform everyone of the criteria of the programs, but we have already started to work with the different industries who have surpluses that they can offer to the food-bank networks,” Bibeau said during a media availability Tuesday.

Initial indications from the federal government were that the money would start rolling out by the end of May, when the fund was first announced.

But Canada’s food supply chains are not straightforward enough to simply take excess products, such as potatoes and poultry, and distribute them to food banks.

In an online meeting of the Commons standing agriculture committee on Wednesday, Bibeau said some concerned sectors, including meat, horticulture and fish producers, have been contacted already.

According to a statement from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC), commodities that would be eligible for the program are still being identified, and the program parameters are being developed to be made public “in the near future.”

“This will be done in a manner that respects the needs and health of vulnerable populations in Canada, fairly compensates agricultural producers and agri-food processors, maintains positive relationships with community food providers, and supports efforts to reduce food waste,” the statement said.

Bibeau also hinted the federal government’s “Buy Canadian” promotional campaign will “have to wait a bit longer” before being launched.

Concerns have been raised within her department over the timing of that program, and what commodities it will focus on, but its goal remains to spend $25 million to “build consumer confidence and pride in Canada’s agriculture, food and seafood producers and highlight the advantages of their products.”

Bibeau’s comments came during a press conference to announce previously announced money was available to help address food security issues. To support local food infrastructures, roughly $43.4 million can now be accessed by eligible organizations.

— D.C. Fraser reports for Glacier FarmMedia from Ottawa.

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The year will be a much bigger challenge from a management perspective. In farming there are many factors to be managed, but only a few usually give you headaches each year. It might be labour, or machinery decisions, or weather, or markets. They rarely all converge in one year.

This year will be different. COVID-19 has created unprecedented instability for most of us, including farmers.

While COVID-19 remains a threat to human health, farmers are forced to manage day-to-day operations differently, keeping suppliers and employees if necessary at a distance. This could mean less efficient and reliable supply, although a huge and long-overdue effort is going into digitizing financial and information relationships in Ontario agriculture that will create efficiencies now and in the future.

Farmers need a plan if they or a family member or key employees fall ill to the virus. It’s not just the fact you may be ill for a couple of weeks (or worse in a certain percentage of cases that aligns with the average age of farmers), but having the disease can mean a need for more sanitizing and cleaning and distancing from family and workers.

Jim Campbell, general manager of AGRIS Co-operative, recently told me that he most worries about the end of the growing season, when farmers have crops to sell. That’s when the COVID-19 effect could have the largest effect on Ontario farmers.

Soybeans are trading sadly close to $8 per bushel on CBOT, with corn at too close to $3 per bushel. That’s far below profitability and far away from happy times for farmers.

Crop markets behave in generally predictable trend lines, but will those trends make sense this year? The time to have a marketing plan is when prices are low and unpredictable. You can’t afford to miss rallies in price as long as COVID-19 roils the markets.

Understanding finances will also be key to getting through 2020. Cost of production understanding comes first.

I’m also a big fan of understanding important farm finance ratios (likely from too many episodes of talking to and reading work by Larry Martin of Agri-food Management Excellence).

This might be the year to employ your accountant to make sure you can monitor gross margin, contribution margin and operating efficiency ratios. They are benchmarks that tell important stories about farm financial health.

There will be opportunities in this crisis both for larger production farmers and those who can hit target markets selling direct to a suddenly very interested and motivated consumer. Those who have the ability to seize those opportunities will be the ones to come out of the COVID craziness in better shape than they went into it.

Canada also needs a healthy farm sector to help lead it out of the large COVID-19 slump.

We’re on a strange and rocky road. It was originally hoped farmers, who can naturally social distance with ease, could ride through this relatively unscathed. However, the challenges of processing plants shut down due to COVID-19, market gyrations that have led to farmers dumping product and the beating commodity markets have taken, mean that while farmers still are able to work, the next year is going to be one where management will count.

I committed to recognize in my column some of the good deeds in our rural communities during this crisis. Here are a couple recent ones that stood out:

Farmers show their appreciation

Farmers across the province paraded tractors and trucks past hospitals to show their appreciation for frontline workers. The first was in St. Thomas, but there have been others, including in Elmvale and Cobourg, past the Northumberland Hills Hospital.

Foodbanks not forgotten

Foodbanks may be struggling with increased demand and a loss of their often-older volunteers to social distancing, but they’ve been a beneficiary of the overflow of food caused by massive shifts in consumption patterns now that Canadians are eating at home instead of out. Mushroom farmers have donated tonnes of excess to food banks, while Chicken Farmers of Ontario recently donated $25,000 to Feed Ontario. Individual farmers have donated excess hogs. This is on top of the usual donation programs that many organizations, including dairy and pork sectors, have with food banks.

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Not every school that uses Fresh From The Farm gets a visit from a farmer, but Streef, whose family helped start the program, takes the time to talk to children who are part of the fresh vegetable sale program.

Why it matters: Local markets are important to Ontario growers so a program that provides that, while also delivering healthy food and a healthy message to school children is a win on many levels.

Streef said when he delivers produce to schools where the bundles are prepared, he finds the children are always happy to see him.

What’s in it?: This year, participating schools will be taking orders on two different bundles:
Bundle A (five lbs. of white potatoes and three lbs. each of carrots, yellow onions and sweet potatoes for $14)
Bundle B (an eight-lb. box of Empire apples for $15).

“Some of them never get to see a farmer. Some of them have never met a farmer,” he said.

He finds children awestruck to see 50 pounds of potatoes in a single box or bag.

“I say to myself, ‘You should see my 17-million-lb. pile at home.’

“The questions they ask, I wonder, ‘How do you not know that?’ Then I kick myself a little and remember not everyone knows about farms, and this is a great opportunity for them to ask someone.

“They ask all kinds of questions, and I love answering all of them.”

The Fresh From The Farm program offers farmers a new market for their produce and schools the opportunity for an effective fundraiser.

Since its inception, the program has seen 1,165 schools raise more than $1.1 million for their own programs from the sale of 2.7 million pounds of fresh produce. The program continues to grow.

This is the sixth year for the program, said Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers’ Association program manager Dan Tukendorf.

“We hope it will be the biggest, exceeding the 500 schools participating last year,” he said.

Last year, the program sold over a million pounds of Ontario-grown fruits and vegetables, and raised over $500,000 for their school communities.

“Local Ontario fruit and vegetable producers have a new market to sell their produce into the school community, an alternative that didn’t exist five years ago,” said Tukendorf.

Fruit and vegetable sales give the schools a healthy fund-raising alternative to the typical chocolate almonds and wrapping paper, a shift to apples and other produce people need and use every day.

It also allows the schools to introduce a food-literacy component that helps connect schools and children with a better understanding of what’s produced in Ontario.

He gave credit to the Streef family of Princeton, Ont., whose third-generation farm has been in business for 40 years.

Nathan Streef recalled how they were inspired by a similar program called Pick of the Crop in Manitoba. They rolled up their sleeves, enlisted some key community partners and saw it take off from there.

“We’ve been doing it ever since,” Streef said.

“It first started with only 20 schools. Now 500 to 600 apply every year.”

One of the significant partners, in addition to Tukendorf’s organization, is Dietitians of Canada, which now operates the program.

Dietitians of Canada spokesperson Lisa Mardlin-Vandewalle said the organization took on the project to offer a program that supports the provincial government’s Student Nutrition Program and also helps to stimulate the local economy.

At Colborne Public School, in Northumberland County, principal Joanne Shuttleworth is in the midst of her own school’s Fresh From The Farm program. She said it was a popular fundraiser over the past several years when she was at Murray Centennial Public School in Trenton, and she expects similar results at her new school.

“We like to promote healthy eating here, breakfast program, healthy-snack bin,” Shuttleworth said.

“This is an extension of that, promoting healthy eating at home with families. And it’s a great fundraiser for the school.”

In Northumberland County produce for the program is sourced through the Food 4 All warehouse with Northumberland Food For Thought as a partner.

Food banks and other programs, including schools, that use the Food 4 All, buy annual memberships, Food For Thought community-development co-ordinator Beth Kolisnyk said. In return, they get the Fresh From The Farm produce and a monthly offer of quality fresh fruits, vegetables, eggs and cheese.

For Northumberland growers, this monthly arrangement amounts to an additional market.

“We offer support in terms of resources and apply for grants and try to collect funding so we can make purchases like cheese or apples that we offer to school,” Kolisnyk said.

For Streef’s part, he has a special affinity with the students who are part of Fresh From The Farm, knowing that he is something of an ambassador for the farming community to kids who weren’t as lucky as he was to grow up on a farm.

At about the time he was working on getting the program organized, he was a young man buying his own share of the family operation.

The Streef farm began back when his grandfather came from Holland with about $20 in his pocket. He worked hard and was eventually able to send for his wife. Five sons later, Streef said, his grandfather had the hobby farm he’d always wanted, seven acres of tulips that, in time, grew to 3,000 acres of vegetables.

This was more than his grandfather really wanted to work, Streef said, so the sons took it over. Now a third generation is getting involved.

Streef said he and his brother were in their early 20s when they bought their share.

“But that was the idea from the start, for my dad and my uncles to pass it on,” he said.

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