Cebulak Family Farms is a fruit, vegetable and cash crop farm owned and operated by brothers Blaine and Leonard Cebulak alongside their next generation: Nathan, Andrew, Derek and Shawn.

Quality control is at the core of the of the Cebulak family’s success. Whether expanding current operations or trying a new business venture, the Cebulaks insist on excellence. It is the source of their passion in agriculture.

Even so, the business has needed to expand so it can accommodate the next generation of owners, and the family has opted to take some bold risks to find new revenue streams.

This is most evident in the investment made in new crops over recent years. The farm has primarily focused on ginseng and tobacco in the past, but has now incorporated a variety of other crops into the mix, most recently including strawberries and asparagus.

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These new crops bring with them a need for significant time and resources, and also a bit of good luck to be successful. Early seasons have seen droughts, floods, hail damage and changing markets — all acting as barriers to success — but that does not stop this family. They persevere.

“We pride ourselves on the quality of what we produce,” says Shawn. “We don’t cut corners just to make things easier for ourselves.” This commitment to quality is passed down through the generations. Blaine and Leonard emphasize that they may never achieve perfection on the farm as there are always ways they can improve, but they will always keep striving for it.

In addition to new crops the family has also been able to leverage the strengths of each family member in order to become more efficient. “Many brothers wouldn’t be able to work together like we have, and we’re confident in the talents that each of the boys bring to the table,” says Leonard.

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The level of trust between family members is certainly another driver for the success of the group. “Everyone here has been successful in their own areas and decided to come back to the farm to help push the boundaries,” notes Derek, who wants to ensure that the standards set by previous generations will continue to drive the success of the farm.

“I wanted my kids to grow up how I did and to learn to understand the value of hard work, money and ethics,” Leonard says. “My goal is to continue farming to help set that example and hopefully it will follow.”

This is another area where the Cebulaks are raising the bar. Not only is the family looking to continually improve their current business performance but they are also keeping an eye on the longevity of the business by planning for the current and future succession of the farm. When dealing with their current succession planning, the family all agree that the priorities are around taking care of the exiting generation, while simultaneously ensuring a seamless transition to future generations.

When asked about recent upgrades to operations, Nathan replies “I’m proud of the strides we have made in our business operations. We’ve formalized more of our processes across the board from cost tracking through to our labour management practices and we’ve started to see these efforts pay off.”

The modernization of business practices also left the family in a position more suited to be able to adapt to change such as during the recent COVID-19 pandemic. With their seasonal staff of over 70 workers, the pandemic placed an additional strain on the family due to the many changes and additional resources needed for managing, housing and isolating such a large staff.

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The key theme that has emerged during our time working with the Cebulak family so far has been the acceptance of risk, and the desire to be bold in business planning and continued expansion.

This was highlighted by Andrew saying “Our family has built something great but we need to keep pushing forward and expanding. We can’t just sit where we are, we need to keep finding new crops and new markets to pursue.”

Faced with the same challenges, many farms would play it safe and stick with what they already know, an approach that certainly has merits of it own.

The deep trust they have in each other has created a winning mentality amongst the members of the family. “If we put our heads together as a family there is no challenge that we can’t overcome.” This attitude has given them an ability to take on new challenges with the confidence needed to drive success and ensure that the legacy of their family farm can continue on for future generations. 

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“I’m very proud of how producers have risen to the challenges,” he says. “They always will find a way to get things done.” George is the chair of the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association (OFVGA) and is on the board of directors for the Canadian Horticultural Council.

The sector was especially hard hit because of its reliance on temporary foreign workers. George says that when the travel ban was put in place in March, they didn’t know if even 15 per cent of the work force would make it into the country. Across Canada, about 55,000 foreign workers made up 20 per cent of the agricultural work force in 2018.

COVID-19 woes

“The week after the travel ban was announced is normally the busiest travel week for workers,” George says. Some of his members were expecting 40 to 50 people, but at that point, they didn’t know if they would have any.

They were able to work through that problem, and had to ensure everyone followed the two-week quarantine once the employees landed on farms.

“By the time a lot of these operations got their workers, they were five to six weeks behind,” he says.

The OFVGA, which has a membership of 3,500 horticultural producers, has been actively involved with government and public health authorities to develop protocols, ensure producers know and follow protective procedures, and encourage workers to get COVID-19 testing. They also recommended that growers create separate teams of workers: those who live on the farms and those who don’t.

The death of three foreign workers due to the virus was a devastating blow. In July, the organization issued a letter to Ontarians which underscored the importance of the decades-old seasonal agricultural worker program and how ensuring the health and safety of employees is essential to being able to continue supplying fruits and vegetables.

Operational changes

“A lot of adjustments had to be made to keep workers safe, and the industry really stepped up by retrofitting equipment and packing houses, putting in protocols and ensuring housing capacity is at 60 to 70 per cent to allow for social distancing,” George says.

George has between 10 and 15 full-time staff, including six foreign workers, on his 160-acre vineyard, depending on the time of year. It’s highly mechanized, and he says that if he were still in the tender fruit business, he’d need 60 to 70 workers for a farm that size.

Other adjustments that growers were making included reducing the size of their crops, or switching to grain crops to shrink the need for labour.

“We were concerned — and the government was concerned — that growers might just take the year off and not plant at all, but that didn’t happen,” he says. “Growers realize that growing produce is an essential service for the province and the country.”

Labour shortages were a serious issue before the pandemic hit and George says he doesn’t know anyone who had a full complement of workers as a result of it.

There were serious concerns about the fall harvest — especially from apple growers — who were very worried about getting paperwork done from countries like Mexico, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago that send workers north.

“Everybody is stilling feeling the pinch,” he says, adding that the problems are not just in Canada, but in other countries, and how they’re dealing with the pandemic.

While getting applications processed wasn’t an issue here in Canada, government support overall at the beginning of the summer was lacking, according to George.

“We feel that our government could do more — we want to know that horticulture will have the same backstops as other industries,” he says, noting that getting changes to the AgriStability program so that it actually works for farmers would be one way for the government to show its support.

“Growers need to be assured that they can plant and grow crops without going bankrupt,” he says. The OFVGA — like many other agricultural organizations —is pushing hard to get coverage levels increased and make the program less complicated.

Government funds flowing

An announcement in mid-July by Ontario Premier Doug Ford and the province’s agriculture minister Ernie Hardeman saw an extra $50 million injected into Ontario’s Risk Management program, which includes a self-directed risk management component for edible horticulture growers.

In late July, the federal government announced $58.6 million in funding for the Temporary Foreign Workers’ Program to better prevent and deal with COVID-19 on farms. The money was split into $7.4 million to increase supports to foreign workers, including funding for migrant worker organizations; $16.2 to bolster employer inspection regimes and $35 million for improving living quarters, PPE (personal protective equipment), hand sanitizing stations and other health and safety measures. The contributions are non-repayable and are cost-shared 50:50 with applicants.

“It’s encouraging to see the funds being made available to offset growers’ costs due to COVID-19,” George says. “How the funds will be distributed will be the main thing.”

Looking to the future

George became cautiously optimistic about the 2020 harvest, as long as an adequate number of workers could be brought in.

Growers were also recruiting from laid-off people locally, and doing everything they could to get the produce to consumer tables.

“It’s challenging to get local labour, and people drawing on the CERB could be a factor in that,” he says. CERB is the federal government’s emergency response benefit that provides financial support to employees who are affected by the pandemic.

Looking further into the future, George says that the OFVGA has struck a committee to look into what needs to change.

The COVID-19 working group, headed by OFVGA vice-chair and apple grower Charles Stevens, will help develop a plan for next year. Its members represent a cross section of commodities and regions.

“We need solid recommendations that we’ll hopefully get in the fall,” George says.

In general, he says that the industry needs to examine where it sources labour — domestically and internationally.

“A concern of mine is that if the countries from which we source workers can’t get the pandemic under control, we wouldn’t be able to get the workers,” he says.

He says that there must be some fresh thinking into labour, including more use of labour-saving technology.

George’s own operation is highly mechanized so there’s little need for manual labour.

But that’s not the situation with many of his members.

“I’m sure there will be a lot of learning from this experience — which is the case for everyone,” George says. “Keeping people healthy is the main thing.”

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But what did the farmers think?

Ontario’s Greenbelt was established by the provincial government to maintain the area’s agricultural land while protecting natural features, wildlife habitat, recreational lands and the hydrological systems that not only provide flood control, but supply fresh drinking water to millions of Ontarians.

The Greenbelt Plan is shaping the future of the Greater Golden Horseshoe, one of the most dynamic and fast-growing regions in North America and home to more than two-thirds of Ontario’s population and a quarter of Canada’s. According to Edward McDonnell, CEO of the Greenbelt Foundation, the protected area of 809,371 hectares (two million acres) is “Ontario’s solution to some of the world’s biggest challenges — food insecurity, water protection, rural economic prosperity, growth management, biodiversity loss and climate change. You can’t separate these areas — they are co-dependent,” he says.

Maintaining agriculture close to urban centres has been, and continues to be, a worldwide concern. Ontario’s initiative is the largest greenbelt on the globe and a model that draws farmers, scientists and environmentalists from around the world who come to visit and learn.

Here is what these visitors discover:

The protected area bordering the metropolitan region of the Greater Golden Horseshoe is the most biodiverse region in Canada. Its fertile soil, moderate climate and abundant water resources — all of which support agricultural production — are not duplicated elsewhere in the province or the country, making it some of Canada’s most important and productive farmland. “It is also,” says McDonnell, “the region where biodiversity is most at risk due to urban sprawl and population growth.”

The Golden Horseshoe is home to nearly half of all food processing companies in Canada. The food and farming culture here is second only to the food-growing of California and processing in Chicago.

More than nine million people live within 20 kilometres of the Greenbelt. In the next 25 years, the region’s population is expected to grow to 13.5 million.

With $9.1 billion a year in economic activity, the Greenbelt supports 161,000 people.

Farmland makes up 40 per cent of the protected area, including Oak Ridges Moraine and two specialty-crop areas — the Niagara Tender Fruit and Grape Area, and the Holland Marsh. Farms and businesses in these two areas alone deliver an astounding diversity of food and drink. Local foods, award-winning wines, craft beer, cider, farmers markets, agri-food and culinary tourism experiences all play a part in keeping rural economies thriving.

Understanding the Greenbelt and its constituents

“In the early days, many people had concerns,” says McDonnell. “Some of those were based on not thoroughly understanding what the Greenbelt was or what it would mean. Some farmers saw their plan of eventually selling to developers squashed. In the past 10 years, the understanding of the benefits has become clearer and we have seen a lot of support in the agricultural community.”

In the long term, the Greenbelt has stopped the sprawl. “We want cities to grow — not out, but up,” says Janet Horner, executive director of the Golden Horseshoe Food and Farming Alliance. “And we don’t want the last crop to be a crop of houses.”

Research by Environics Analytics over the past 15 years has provided a picture of urban residents’ awareness, understanding and importance of the Greenbelt. According to Group VP David MacDonald, public awareness in the early days was nonexistent. Initially, respondents were unable to say whether they supported the Greenbelt Plan or not. However, familiarity with the goals and objectives has grown, resulting in a dramatic swing to what MacDonald describes as “wildly supportive.”

Kathy MacPherson, VP of research and policy at Greenbelt Foundation, credits COVID-19 and the media for making the public more aware of the importance of locally grown food and helping them to understand the importance of having and supporting local producers and an appreciation of food security.

But, as can be expected with a project of this magnitude and complexity, it comes with challenges and differing opinions. Farmers’ perspectives differ, depending on their location. For example, farmers in Durham County, an area east of Toronto that runs north from Lake Ontario to Lake Simcoe tend to like it. There is little development pressure here, a greater certainty around expanding an operation, the confidence to plan for their future on the farm and no worry about houses popping up over the fenceline.

Near-urban agriculture in heavily populated counties such as Peel County — an area west of Toronto that includes the communities of Mississauga, Brampton, Caledon and Orangeville — face different problems. Leah Emms, a member of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA) field staff, says that in these counties the volume of commuter traffic on roads designed for urban use makes moving heavy agricultural equipment from A to B difficult and dangerous. Ag-related service providers — such as feed mills and farm equipment suppliers — relocated farther afield when there was no longer a critical mass of farms, which has resulted in lengthy drives for farmers to obtain supplies and machinery parts, although for market gardeners or those involved in agritourism the advantage is their proximity to large markets.

For Tom Dolson, president of the Peel Federation of Agriculture, the Greenbelt was a worthy objective, but flawed by a lack of planning for affordable housing and transit. “Peel farmers are an anomaly,” he says.

Established communities in the region that were left with no room to grow have leapfrogged over farm-designated land to build new housing developments and bedroom communities just beyond the Greenbelt.

“These bedroom communities add to traffic problems,” Dolson says. Farm proximity to these new residential communities can also be a source of frustration and conflict. “Many city folk have the impression that farm fields are theirs to roam or picnic on and are unaware of the crop damage they incur. Garbage dumping over farm fences is a too-common occurrence.”

There’s also the economics. In the Stouffville area of York County north of Toronto, Kim and Murray Empringham have been farming 900 acres — mainly cash crops and sheep — for the past 45 years. “We are not the typical farm operation,” Kim says, “because we rent the land.”

Prices here have prevented the couple from buying. Renting from speculators over the years is an arrangement that works for them. “We continue to see more city folk buying 100-acre lots and putting up huge houses with expansive lawns, resulting in a loss of farmland. But as long as this doesn’t get out of hand, we will have land to farm.”

Gord Grant, OFA member service rep for Waterloo, Wellington and Dufferin counties, says the Greenbelt adds another level of regulatory hurdles for farmers to jump before doing any kind of expansion such as building a barn or other structure. “More paperwork, more hassle, more regulations as to size and the location on the property where a structure can be built,” he says. For example, the 30-metre setback from woodlots prevents erecting a barn or small building such as a cold storage for fruit that would provide additional income on the most logical section of the property.

Gerry Reid, whose 550-acre Dufferin County farm has been in the family since 1845, says “the Greenbelt has made a lot of people feel really good, especially touchy-feely tree-huggers,” but one of his frustrations is the extra tier of bureaucracy imposed by the conservation area on which his farm is situated. “I don’t like to be negative,” he says, “but we have so many layers of government and the Greenbelt adds one more.”

Many suburbanites purchasing property that abuts farmland aren’t aware of normal farm practices. They don’t understand that living in the country means dealing with farm smells, spraying of crops and orchards, the noisy bird bangers in the Niagara vineyards at certain times of the year, and heavy machinery creeping along the roads. “In many areas there is no buffer between a subdivision and an active farm,” says Janet Horner. “Edge planning has not been as strong in the past as it should be.”

And what of the future?

A report released in June 2020 from the Greenbelt Foundation (Plant the Seeds: Opportunities to Grow Southern Ontario’s Fruit and Vegetable Sector) outlines the opportunity to expand Ontario’s $2.2 billion fruit-and-vegetable sector by up to $100 million in increased farm-gate revenue.

The report focuses on six crops: grapes, pears, strawberries, garlic, eggplant and sweet potatoes, as well as vertical farming. According to this analysis, the expansion could replace some of the annual $7.3 billion now earned by imports.

“This report was timely,” says Alison Robertson, executive director of Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers’ Association, “except COVID-19 came along, totally disrupting the supply chain. It is my hope that when we emerge from this crisis — whether it is next year or the year after — consumers, food retailers and all levels of government will have a better understanding of where our food comes from, along with a new appreciation for the importance of increasing Ontario fruit and vegetable production.”

“I believe the public is now more aware of the importance of farmland and why it should be treasured,” says Gord Grant of the OFA.

“The farmers I work with are mostly hopeful and look forward positively. Certainly, the future will not be without challenges, but the challenges can be overcome, and their enterprises have a future that they are committed to.”

The organizations

The Ontario provincial government is the author, holder and implementor of the Greenbelt Plan. Today’s Greenbelt comprises areas identified by previous governments; the plan originated with the Bill Davis government. The Oak Ridges Moraine was added when Mike Harris was premier. Protected countryside and agricultural land were added next and, most recently, the Kathleen Wynne government added 21 urban river valleys, from Niagara to Durham.

The Greenbelt Foundation is the charitable organization dedicated to ensuring that the Ontario Greenbelt remains permanent, protected and prosperous, and to making investments in its interconnected natural, agricultural and economic systems, which ensure a working, thriving Greenbelt for all. The Greenbelt Plan, administered by the foundation, identifies where urbanization should not occur in order to provide permanent protection to the agricultural land base and the ecological and hydrological features, areas and functions within the area.

The Ontario Federation of Agriculture has articulated the farmers’ perspectives on the Greenbelt — initially, and through every proposal, amendment, and addition since — according to Peter Jeffrey, senior farm policy analyst. “We support the protection of agriculture land from non-compatible development,” he says, “and we continually try to argue that there are still some aspects of the plan that we feel are unduly restrictive.”

The Golden Horseshoe Food and Farming Alliance is a partnership between the Toronto Region Conservation Authority, the Friends of the Greenbelt, the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, and the regional municipalities and Federations of Agriculture in Niagara, Peel, Halton, York, Durham and the cities of Toronto and Hamilton. Their goal is to identify pathways for a more integrated and co-ordinated approach to food and farming viability in the area, to ensure that the Golden Horseshoe retains, enhances and expands its role as a leading food and farming cluster.

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The Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) began conducting these reviews similar to those required in the U.S. under its Food Quality Protection Act of 1996. Canada adopted the re-evaluation program in 1998, requiring all registrants to re-evaluate all pesticides on a 15-year cycle.

By 2013, roughly 150 active ingredients had been dropped from the re-evaluation process, mostly because the registrants had declined to spend the money to defend them. Still, that left more than 400 products to be re-evaluated, with another three years tacked on to the process, with warnings throughout 2015 and 2016 that more products could be dropped without appropriate entreaties to the PMRA.

Last year, individuals and organizations from different camps within the agri-food industry began turning up the volume on their warnings and protests.

That’s the backdrop for the current situation in 2018, where the urgency behind the review and its outcome have been ramped up even further. In a February 13th conference call between farm organizations and different departments within PMRA, a member of the agency’s health evaluation directorate reportedly conceded that there is a “data gap” on directives concerning post-application worker exposure, and the directorate asked for specific research be conducted to fill that gap.

It wasn’t an epiphany of any kind, according to Craig Hunter, research and crop protection specialist with the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers’ Association (OFVGA). He says they’ve known of such a gap for some time. Yet it was the first time that anyone within the federal agency said there’s a problem doing the re-evaluations. In spite of its timing, Hunter believes the admission fostered the chance for a collaborative approach in working to get the necessary data into the hands of those needing it, thus speeding the process and ensuring sound scientific principles are recognized as part of re-evaluation.

“My next question was, ‘How much time do we have to get this data, so that you can go back and look at the re-evaluations before they are released as final decisions?’” says Hunter. “That’s when the head of the re-evaluation section came on the phone and said, ‘You can’t expect the PMRA to stop their work for the time that’s going to take — and it’s going to take five years to get that information — and we just can’t stop what we’re doing.’”

Hunter was stunned at the response and offered that the data gap had been recognized, and that time and effort must be committed — and funding gathered — to fill that gap and get the information for re-evaluation. The same individual from the re-evaluation section reiterated their response, emphasizing the PMRA cannot postpone its work while awaiting the data.

“We’re absolutely stunned at the attitude of this one person, and we’re prepared to use whatever it takes to get the work done, but we need time,” says Hunter.

Hunter maintains that every sector — every crop — from A to Z will be affected. This re-evaluation touches on all chemical products and has the potential to seriously restrict access to many tools that farmers have come to rely on. And contrary to the contention of the individual from the re-evaluation section, pulling together the necessary data will not require five years: with adequate funding, the needed information might be assembled in a matter of months.

But the point on any further delays is that this process has already taken too long for many of the reviews. Hunter notes the agency began its review of Captan in 2006, with little or nothing to show for it yet. What’s worse, Canada is the only jurisdiction in the world proposing these particular measures.

Potential for a purge

The current three-year delay — now poised to become four — carries with it a greater concern for due process. Is it possible that the PMRA could view the standstill and the admission of a data gap as “too big and too overwhelming” — and like a corporation declaring bankruptcy — simply wipe away all of the re-evaluations?

That is the very course that Hunter and other agri-food stakeholders fear most. Not only is there no policy in place to prevent this “purge,” it is exactly what Hunter and others believe will happen.

“Back in 1998 when the new Pest Control Products Act was written, in the preamble to the act, there was a piece in there about ‘fostering a competitive agricultural sector in Canada’ as part of its mandate,” he says. “That quietly disappeared three years ago… They just decided to take it out, they didn’t consult, they just did it.”

One review that potato growers in particular are familiar with concerns the use of Tattoo C, a fungicide that contains chlorothalonil. The proposal on its use in potatoes would allow only one use per year, yet seldom is that sufficient in the control of a disease issue. And the PMRA is trying to completely eliminate the use of Mancozeb (dithane or manzate), so what they’ve done, according to Hunter, is to take away the tools needed for growers to protect their crops without any consideration of the impact. Without Mancozeb or Bravo, growers with tomatoes will be hard-pressed to control or manage late blight.

“None of us, including any manufacturer, has heard one whisper of what the final outcomes are going to be,” says Hunter. “We sent in all kinds of support to not let this happen, but the PMRA’s re-evaluation section does all the work in total secrecy, even though they agreed to and signed a new document to say there would be further and increased consultation and a new process that was supposed to start December 1, 2016, but only on new projects. Anything we started before that date, they did it the old-fashioned way — ‘Don’t tell anybody.’”

According to Hunter, the PMRA never initiated a single new study in all of 2017. For 13 months, there was a policy in place that was never exercised.

“The impact of that new policy tells me that they clearly understand that they need to do a better job of consultation, and they haven’t,” Hunter says. “And they haven’t done it on any of the old ones and it’s the old ones that are hugely a problem for us. The consultation we had on worker exposure was great, but that wasn’t done by the re-evaluation people, it was done by the health protection people.”

Once a product is cancelled, there’s little incentive for a registrant to come back and ask to re-register. For one thing, the costs involved are excessive, meaning it’s a disincentive to renew an old active ingredient. On the horticulture side, all crops are classed as minor crops and unless there’s a huge market potential for a product in a row crop, the chances of that product being renewed by its registrant are small. Farmers simply won’t have access to them anymore.

Hunter doesn’t have an issue with protecting workers — he’s been advocating for changes to label instructions on the use of protective clothing for post-application work. But other countries that import grains and oilseeds, and fruits and vegetables are not restricting the use of these products, so current maximum residue limits (MRLs) won’t be affected from an import perspective.

“If we lose these uses because of worker protection issues, the MRLs don’t go away because it’s not a food residue issue,” says Hunter. “The PMRA cannot revoke the MRLs, so the Americans or Peruvians or Chileans can ship treated produce into Canada with the same levels of residue that they have now and have the cost of production advantage of using these products that we can’t use. And of course, the residues off our produce have to be 0.0 ppm because we’re not allowed to have any detectable limit of an unregistered pesticide.”

Yet wholesalers can import produce that does have detectable limits.

The re-evaluations for several of the products under review were supposed to have been published in March, some in June, some in July and others in the fall. But Hunter maintains that they’ve likely been written already.

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In the steady stream of job seekers, however, few visitors to the jailhouse-turned-community service centre in this busy Ontario town stop to flip through its pages.

“I hear it all the time,” says employment counsellor Susan Loewen. “People come in and tell me they don’t want to work on a farm… they say, well, I want to work inside, I don’t want to work Sundays or weekends. They want something year-round.”

It’s a sentiment she can sympathize with.

The oldest child in a large family, Loewen immigrated to southwestern Ontario from a farming community in Mexico at age six. By age 12 she was working alongside her parents, mostly on tobacco farms.

“But when I was 17, maybe even a bit before that, I did realize that, okay, there are other opportunities out there for me,” she says. “Farming is labour intensive, the hours are long, you work outside in the rain, the cold and all of that kind of stuff, so when I got my licence I looked into factory work, I wanted something more stable.”

Her story is far from unique.

Farmers and processors across Canada are struggling to fill jobs as more Canadians seek employment outside agriculture. The result has been a stifling of farm growth, increased reliance on foreign workers, and $1.5 billion in lost revenue each year.

“It’s a really big challenge that isn’t going away,” says Portia MacDonald-Dewhirst, executive director at the Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council, noting that the vacancy rate on farms is closing in on 10 per cent. “The national average for other industries is only 1.8 per cent, so the industry is really being constrained and challenged by its inability to fill those vacant positions.”

A 2016 report published by the council warns the situation will only get worse. The organization predicts the agricultural labour gap will double by the year 2025, leaving an estimated 113,800 positions unfilled by the Canadian ag labour market.

But not all industries and regions will be equally impacted. The council’s report notes Ontario and Alberta will see their labour gaps grow fastest, while beef, grain and oilseed producers will see the largest labour gap growth as emerging markets drive demand for protein and new products.

Some farmers are already changing the commodities they produce to cope with labour shortfalls.

“That was sort of the anecdotal evidence we found when we did that research,” says Debra Hauer, manager of labour market intelligence for the council. “One producer in Alberta told us he’d prefer to be a beef producer, but he couldn’t do that, so he went to grains instead. Horticulture producers who have difficulty finding people to plant and harvest their produce are going to cash crops.”

Ron Bonnett, president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, has also noticed that producers who struggle to find suitable workers are shifting away from crops requiring intensive manual labour.

“You quite often see it with owners of farms that are getting older… rather than constantly struggling to find the labour they need, they will try and shift production,” says the Ontario cow-calf producer. “On the other side of it, what you have with younger farm owners is lost opportunity. They could expand their farms a lot more if they had the labour force to do it, but they don’t.”

In its last budget, the federal government set a target of $75 billion in agricultural sales by 2025, something Bonnett says won’t be possible unless labour shortages in both primary agricultural production and processing are addressed. That means taking a hard look at the complex reasons why Canadians aren’t choosing farm work.

The council’s study identified seasonality as a major deterrent for would-be farm labourers. Of the employers surveyed, 42 per cent identified seasonality “as being a key challenge” in recruiting and retaining employees. Excessively long work hours during seasonal peaks was identified by 24 per cent of respondents as a major factor in employee retention, while the unpredictability of working hours was seen as a deterrent for job seekers by about 35 per cent of employers.

The physicality of farm labour was also seen as a big drawback, with more than 40 per cent of job seekers identifying it as a retention issue.

Such factors hurt, especially when combined with agricultural jobs offering minimum wage compensation.

“When you look at the hours you put in, the physical nature of the work — which is often outside — I think that sometimes people feel they are not getting paid what they should be for that amount of physical labour,” says Loewen. “Many of these jobs, unfortunately, pay minimum wage.”

According to the Conference Board of Canada, farm workers pulled in an average of $648 a week in 2015. The weekly average for all other sectors was $923.

However, the same report also indicates farmers have trouble increasing wages because their profits are often constrained by globally or regionally set commodity prices. Still, it’s important to note not all agricultural jobs are seasonal and not all on-farm compensation begins at minimum wage.

According to Statistics Canada, general farm labourers could expect a salary of about $25,000 per year in 2011, while specialized livestock workers earned close to $35,000 that same year. Horticultural managers made an average salary just north of $50,000 in 2011, while harvest labourers could expect to earn less than $15,000.

The Human Resource Council also notes that the distance separating agricultural wages from those in other sectors has gradually narrowed. The average weekly earnings in farming were two-thirds of the average for all sectors in 2000. Today, farm earnings hover around three-quarters of the all-sector average.

“Agricultural wages have been experiencing above-average growth over this period and have become more attractive relative to many other sectors,” reads the report.

But not everyone is convinced rising wages will help close the agricultural labour gap.

Ken Forth is labour section chair for the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers’ Association and president of Foreign Agricultural Resource Management Services. He routinely sees agricultural positions paying $25 or $30 an hour go unfilled in rural areas.

“I don’t think it takes a rocket scientist to figure out that if there’s not enough people to take those jobs at 25 and 30 bucks an hour, they’re not going to work for me for 12 bucks an hour,” says Forth, who farms near Hamilton.

Changing demographics, he says, is the real issue driving Canada’s agricultural labour gap.

“There just isn’t a lot of people,” Forth says. “The largest demographic in Canada is baby boomers, and we’re all old, okay? We’re not going to do that manual labour anymore and that’s the way it is.”

Canadian farms are getting bigger and more complex, as well, and farmers are facing pressure to increase production and feed export markets. Where family members could once be counted on to fill labour gaps, most producers now require a significant amount of hired help.

At the same time, more Canadians than ever before are living in large urban centres, further reducing the rural labour pool.

But anyone seeking a golden past — one where Canadians flocked to on-farm jobs — won’t find it in the history books. The struggle to fill agricultural positions in Canada began long before the last of the Prairie sod was turned, eased only by waves of immigrants fleeing geopolitical upheaval.

“From right after the First World War, it was all immigrants that came from Europe,” says Forth. “And then the Second World War came along and we had a whole lot of immigrants come from Eastern Europe, Italy and Portugal in this area, and they also worked on our farms.”

But it wasn’t a permanent labour force. The long-time broccoli grower says it was the men who left agriculture behind first, moving onto jobs in construction or manufacturing.

“The women worked for us in the summertime and their husbands worked in the steel mill the whole year round and they had a pretty good income by the mid-1960s,” explains Forth. “And then, all of a sudden, they had achieved what they needed to have, they had built a brand new house up in a new development in Hamilton and the wife wasn’t going to work anymore.”

The need for on-farm labour has also spawned some dark chapters in Canadian history. Between the late 1860s and 1948 an estimated 115,000 British Home Children — pushed from their families by dire poverty — were sent to Canada as indentured servants.

According to the British Home Children Advocacy and Research Association, children as young as four were shipped to farms across the country with the promise of a better life that never materialized.

“The harsh truth was that the monitoring of children’s placements was often neglected, and many children found themselves essentially abandoned to new lives which were worse than the old,” according to the association. “Siblings were separated. Girls assisted farm wives not only with housework and children, but in the field, as well. Boys became farm workers who were grossly overworked.”

Both the Australian and British governments have apologized for their role in the child labour program, but Canadian survivors and their decedents still seek a formal apology from Canada’s prime minister.

Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission has also shed light on the abuse of Indigenous children forced to work as unpaid farm labourers while living at residential schools. These children spent half their days doing farm work under the guise of vocational training, which the commission described as “not so much training as child labour.”

In 1975, the now defunct Winnipeg Tribune uncovered a 40-year-long government scheme forcing Indigenous families to work on sugar beet farms under threat of child apprehension, while Canadians of Italian, Ukrainian, German and Japanese ancestry were forced to work as farm labour after being sent to internment camps during both world wars.

Today, Canada relies on migrant labourers from developing countries to help fill the agricultural labour gap. In 1966 the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program was launched and the Temporary Foreign Worker Program developed its agricultural stream in 2002.

“The Seasonal Agricultural Program has 50 years of success in the country and it’s a program that has brought a lot of value to not only Canadians by securing Canadian jobs, but also to the host countries, where the workers come from,” says MacDonald-Dewhirst. She adds that many migrant workers are able to build homes in their countries of origin and put their children though school as a result of participating in the program.

“It’s quite powerful, the stories that come out of this, and not well known, not well circulated in the media,” she says. “It’s a really fabulous program that as Canadians we should all be proud of.”

Jamaica was the first participant, but Mexico, Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, Montserrat, St. Kitts-Nevis, Trinidad and Tobago, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines have since joined the seasonal worker program.

Forth has used the program for 49 years. In 2013, he was awarded the prestigious Badge of Honour for Long and Faithful Service by the prime minister of Jamaica, recognizing his contributions to the migrant labour program.

“Without these men and women that come to our farms, we wouldn’t have a business. We’d all be growing grains and oilseeds and that’s not what we do here. We grow fruits and vegetables,” says Forth. “We want this industry to continue… if you go to Vancouver, or Montreal or Toronto, it looks like we’ve got scads of people. Truth of the matter is, though, in a big country with a population of 33 million, nobody is home, especially in rural areas, there is not a lot of people, there’s just not, and this is a solid labour supply that helps the province and the country.”

According to the Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council, about three-quarters of the current agricultural labour gap is filled by foreign workers, and migrant workers account for 12 per cent of the overall agricultural labour force in Canada.

While applying to the seasonal program is more complex today than it was five decades ago, Forth says organizations like Foreign Agricultural Resource Management Services offers assistance in navigating the bureaucracy and preparing for inspections.

“They have to have their bunkhouse inspection, their water inspection, the advertising that they’ve done has to be submitted… and if it’s not all there, then at FARMS we don’t even send the order to Service Canada so it doesn’t plug up the system with orders that aren’t right. Forth adds an administrative fee of $45 is charged to the organization’s Ontario members and out-of-province participants pay $50 a person for the service.

Last year, approximately 21,000 migrant workers came to Ontario through the seasonal worker program, while about 5,000 workers went to British Columbia. The Temporary Foreign Worker Program brought an additional 53,303 workers to Canada in 2015 under its primary agriculture stream.

But critics say both programs lack oversight and leave foreign workers vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. Johanna Dennie, an immigration lawyer at Legal Assistance Windsor, sees problems first-hand, including illegal recruitment fees charged to migrant workers, often under threat of physical harm or deportation.

“Recruitment fees charged to workers are not legal. If employers want to work with recruiters to have someone facilitate finding workers, bringing them to Canada, and placing them in jobs, employers are supposed to pay for all of that,” Dennie explains. “But what happens, I think really quite commonly, is that recruiters working in the countries of origin… prey on people who are already impoverished, who are just looking for just any opportunity to come to Canada. The recruiters make all kinds of promises about the opportunities in Canada and people pay tons of money. They mortgage their land and they go into enormous debt just to come to Canada, and in some cases, they actually find that the job they were told they were going to be doing doesn’t even exist.”

Last winter, a Windsor court convicted a man named Nehwin Wanhar of illegally collecting nearly $15,400 from three Indonesian greenhouse workers in Leamington. Similar cases have been heard in other provinces, but Dennie believes the issue is likely under-reported. Even if migrant workers can access resources, they often fear losing their jobs and being sent home.

Migrant workers technically have the same rights as Canadian workers, but Felix Martinez says those rights are harder to enforce. And while temporary workers make contributions to Unemployment Insurance and the Canada Pension Plan, they are almost never able to collect from those programs. And if injured on the job, a migrant worker can even lose access to health care.

The B.C.-based representative for the United Food and Commercial Workers Canada also says there are serious problems with how migrant workers are housed in Canada. “The federal requirements for housing under the seasonal agricultural workers program are totally unacceptable… they require only 75-square-feet-per-worker and one washroom for every 10 workers. This means that according to the federal government it is acceptable to have 10 adults living in a 750-foot house with one washroom for up to eight months,” Martinez says. “If the public was aware about the living and working conditions of most of the temporary foreign workers, they would be very upset. It is quite concerning that we allow this kind of treatment in Canada.”

Both programs also tie foreign workers to a specific employer, something Dennie says puts migrant workers at risk of repatriation and income loss if they speak out.

“Their status in Canada is entirely dependent on that job. So a lot of people, I think, stay quiet about abuses or exploitations because they are afraid to speak up,” says Dennie. Making work permits open, so workers can leave a hazardous or unfair situation and seek work on another farm, would be an easy fix, she adds.

Canada’s auditor general, Michael Ferguson, has also identified concerns about temporary foreign worker programs in Canada, including that they lack oversight and can suppress wages in the long term. Ferguson’s spring 2017 report found that “the department (Employment and Social Development Canada) did not adequately identify and deal with employers that were not following program requirements. It conducted few on-site inspections and face-to-face interviews with employers or temporary foreign workers.”

Other reports, like one written by Fay Faraday and published by the Metcalfe Foundation, also raise a host of concerns with the way temporary foreign workers are treated in Canada, while a human rights case in 2015 revealed 39 women had been subject to sexual abuse and harassment at one food packaging plant in Ontario.

That Canada’s reliance on foreign agricultural workers is predicated on global inequalities is also troubling for some advocates.

“It is because of the global inequalities that this exploitative program has been able to exist for so long,” Martinez says. “We frequently hear employers say that migrant workers are ‘happy’ to return year after year and that they never complain. It is no surprise they want to return. They have no other means of supporting their families… No one can argue that these workers are happy to leave their children behind for eight months every year to go live in a crowded house with strangers in the middle of nowhere, doing hard, physically demanding labour for 12 hours a day, for minimum wage.”

But despite the criticism, no one is looking to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

“I think it’s not only sustainable to have foreign workers, but it’s necessary,” says Dennie. “I think that it’s the temporary nature that’s the problem, if we’re going to be relying on workers to come to Canada… we should recognize that people are valuable for more than just their labour.”

Many others agree.

“We’re an industry that requires a bigger work force in order to thrive and grow, and so to provide a pathway to permanency for those who are Canadian-trained and interested in remaining here makes a whole lot of sense, on a whole lot of levels,” says MacDonald-Dewhirst.

According to Statistics Canada, only three per cent of workers who come under the seasonal worker program become permanent residents, while 21 per cent of all those who come to Canada through the Temporary Foreign Worker Program make the transition.

Mushrooms Canada recently called for the federal government to provide permanent residency to the nearly 900 temporary foreign workers that make up one quarter of the sector’s work force. The organization says both the industry and its well-trained employees need stability to thrive. In a report issued this past fall, the group also challenged the notion that workers leave agriculture when given permanent residency, noting mushroom workers who gained permanent status continue to work in agriculture for 11 years on average. Mushroom harvesters who immigrated to Canada in the 1980s stayed in the industry 20 years or longer.

The main impediment to permanency, however, is that Canada’s immigration system favours immigrants with technical expertise and post-secondary education.

“Agricultural workers are classified as, for lack of a better term, low-skilled workers and they are not on the priority list,” says Bonnett. “I think we need to take a look at how to better define that skill set, because you take somebody picking mushrooms, or vegetables or working in greenhouses and there is skill involved in that… just saying that they are low skilled sometimes underestimates the fact they are as important to some of those operations as some of the other jobs.”

But Canada’s agricultural labour gap can’t be filled with foreign labour alone. The domestic labour pool must be expanded as well, according to the Human Resource Council. That means eliminating barriers to employment and generating buzz.

At Aylmer Community Services, Loewen often helps would-be farm workers tackle a basic, but sometimes overlooked, challenge that drastically shrinks the farm labour pool.

“As employment counsellors, the age-old saying is: How do we get the people out to the rural areas? How do we get people from the town who want to work on a farm out to that farm? There’s no public transportation,” says Loewen. “We’ve even discussed getting a bus to come to town to take people and that kind of thing, because it’s definitely an issue for a lot of people.”

It’s especially an issue for students who would be inclined to work on farm during the summer, but don’t have access to a vehicle.

“You’re not going to ride a bike for hours a day to then go and work in the pepper fields or the cucumber fields or whatever… that is not going to happen,” Loewen says.

Loewen also sees immigrant families who want to work in agriculture, but can’t find housing in rural areas. There was a time when farmers offered seasonal or even year-round housing to employees, but those arrangements have largely disappeared, the employment counsellor says.

“Years ago, it was a different industry, where the farmer would provide the meals for the people that are working, but now, I don’t see that,” she says. “There are just not a lot of incentives for people to work on the farm.”

In southeastern Manitoba, Keystone Agricultural Producers is working with Workplace Education Manitoba and Industry Training and Employment Services to create a pilot program that would see interested participants trained to work on dairy farms and overcome employment barriers.

“The idea behind it is to fill some of the gaps in labour for farmers in Manitoba,” says Keystone policy analyst Alanna Grey. “It’s pretty significant how some of the labour shortages you experience can impact the finances of your operation.”

The program identifies individuals with barriers to employment and provides them with training, skill upgrades and employment counselling, as well as support during their first five weeks working on a farm.

Janice Goldsborough, a human resources consultant with the general farm organization, says they “are looking at people who are on employment insurance, who might be on social assistance, First Nations, youth, as well as immigrants and refugees.”

While other livestock sectors like the pork industry see greater labour shortages, Goldsborough says dairy farms presented fewer obstacles in terms of finding participants.

“We decided to focus on the dairy sector, mainly because there’s usually not any cultural or religious restrictions,” she says. “In the swine industry, which would be another good avenue to go, we had to be mindful that some cultures, such as those for a lot of the refugees coming in, their religion forbids handling pork, so we thought, dairy is a pretty safe industry.”

But she adds that the program’s long-term goal is to expand to other commodities, possibly reducing reliance on the temporary foreign worker program.

However, the program hasn’t been met with unbridled enthusiasm by producers, some of whom raised concerns at a Dairy Farmers of Manitoba meeting this fall about the willingness and reliability of domestic workers. The prospect of finding transportation and housing for employees also incited some scepticism.

“I know you’re all probably thinking, well yeah, but they’re not going to show up on time, etc.,” Goldsborough tells producers. “Those are expectations and what we’re hoping is that we can overcome the barriers to employment and get them working, that they will consider this a great opportunity and pick up their socks and be a good employee for you.”

Better educating youth about what agriculture offers — whether as short-term employment between school years or as a career-long endeavour — has also been put forward as a way to grow the domestic labour force.

“People don’t gravitate to this industry because they are that much removed from agricultural operations in their own lives,” says Portia MacDonald-Dewhirst. “Those that are school-aged are not pursuing careers in the industry because they are not even thinking about agriculture at all. They don’t recognize that it is growing, that’s it is an industry with tons of potential and all sorts of interesting jobs.”

Ron Bonnett agrees. He’d like to see agriculture added to provincial curriculums across the country so students understand both the importance of agriculture and the opportunities it provides.

Back in the small town of Aylmer, Loewen would also like to see schools help dispel some of the negative perceptions around farm work.

“Agriculture is the backbone of Canada and I think it’s really unfortunate that the farmers cannot find the people that they need to harvest their crops,” she says.

Already, the Agricultural and Farming Jobs binder at Aylmer Community Services is filling up with openings for next season. Jobs like tobacco labourer, ginseng labourer, blueberry picker, field crops and vegetable worker, listed months in advance by pragmatic farmers, are alongside postings for permanent jobs like hog farm labourer and swine genetics laboratory tech.

“I think agriculture is getting a bad rap, unfortunately, even at school,” Loewen says. “A change in attitude would be great. If we could start the process to say, it’s okay to work in agriculture, I think it could go a long ways.”

The post The job ahead appeared first on Country Guide.

The Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) is conducting the review, with a final outcome due in 2018. That gives growers and other industry stakeholders the rest of 2017 to strengthen their arguments and garner support from more players in the industry to change what’s now on paper.

Craig Hunter, who oversees research and crop protection issues for the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers’ Association (OFVGA), says the biggest challenge comes from Canada’s procedures in conducting the review. It all stems back to 1996 when the U.S. passed its Food Quality Protection Act, which required U.S. registrants to re-evaluate all pesticides on a 15-year cycle.

Canada adopted the same approach in 1998, with the PMRA starting the process soon after, although the agency was already two years behind. Some were conducted as joint reviews, but most were not, and in the initial re-evaluation, about 150 ingredients were dropped — most because the registrants declined to spend the money to defend them, says Hunter.

That left 406 products to be re-evaluated, and the PMRA is not done yet, meaning it’s three years late in getting its first 15-year plan completed. Since it’s due to start the next cycle (and will likely be two to five years behind the U.S.), it’s unlikely there’ll be as many joint reviews done as there could or should have been.

“The first 15 years, we lost those 100 active ingredients, and some of them were pretty important products to us,” adds Hunter.

He says there have been a lot of new registrations in those 15 years, especially fungicides. But most are single-site, single mode-of-action products which are prone to resistance if not used in combination with others in careful rotation.

Several potato products

Re-evaluations in 2015 and released for comment in 2016 included almost all of the broad-spectrum potato fungicides including Captan, Bravo, Polyram and Thiram. Mancozeb was another that was re-evaluated the year before. All of those products are needed to prop up the use of the newer fungicides, yet in every case, the proposals on these older fungicides were either to eliminate the use entirely, or greatly reduce the number of applications. Or they were targeted because they suggested a hugely increased re-entry time after application — to the point where growers couldn’t use them in most horticultural crops because workers have to go into those fields.

The proposal threatens the life expectancy of 30 or more other fungicides that have been registered in the last 20 years.

Hunter says this could affect all of horticulture as well as pulse crops in parts of Western Canada. It’s not about residue limits, it’s about worker safety and protection. But he says the PMRA has made its decisions using flawed information. Registrants told the PMRA to use the data in the post-application workers safety database, which was put together by some of the larger companies, merging studies that they’d all conducted and collected in one database.

“But that database is out of date, and never did apply to horticulture in Canada and sure as hell doesn’t apply to horticulture in 2016,” says Hunter. “But they either referred to that database by registrants who didn’t want to spend the money to do ‘modern work,’ or they referred to the database in the absence of other data. So their assumptions on worker activity are invalid in many cases.”

Worker safety concerns

Hunter says the horticulture sector has tried hard to document farm worker activities for the PMRA, but it’s running up against a policy that prevents the agency from putting the use of personal protective equipment (PPE) on a label. Personnel say they have no way of ensuring that growers will see that workers wear gloves or other protection if they’re going to be in a treated crop. Hunter says the industry disputes that.

“Farmers, first and foremost, want to protect their workers, a) because they want them to keep working and b) they don’t want the liability of workers who have problems either now or down the road,” he says. “But we’ve been using these products for 40 years and have not had any — any — documented problems with post-application worker exposure to the products that we use according to the label.”

Hunter says that during a national conference call involving PMRA personnel, grower groups and provincial representatives, the PMRA spoke of different provincial worker-protection legislations confounding the process. Yet there are grower safety courses in all but one province, and in horticulture, there are on-farm food safety programs where everything is documented, including pesticide use and an acknowledgement that label instructions for personal protection for operators have been followed. Technological advances also make it easier for such accountability practices, including apps for smartphones to enter application data.

“The ball’s in the PMRA’s court: they have to say that they will put these on the label, and they’ll have to tell us how they will audit or inspect to make sure people are following them,” says Hunter. “And of course, it’s up to farmers to follow the label for this like everything else, like making sure the re-entry interval is followed.”

Hunter says he is continually frustrated by the agency’s inability to adapt to the modern reality of what farmers do, what farming looks like and the farmers’ obligations for their workers.

“If there are some bad actors out there, and I suspect there are, nail them to the wall,” says Hunter. “Why should the vast majority of the people who are doing the right thing be denied, in this case, our major fungicides, that without them we’re in serious trouble, all because of a few bad actors?”

Hunter says more farmers need to step up and speak out to help the PMRA realize that the bad farmers are the exception, not the rule. And they’ll make their workers wear gloves and if that’s what it takes to allow the growers to continue. He has already spoken with the registrants and they’re pledging to put those kinds of directives on the label — if the PMRA will let them. Some companies have even offered to provide workers with the gloves, if that’s what it takes to maintain the uses of these products.

Fungicide losses?

Hunter says that potato producers will be directly affected by the potential loss of Mancozeb and Bravo, two of the primary fungicides for late and early blight, along with some uses of Polyram.

“Our growers will be in big trouble without the use of these, and if they use some of the other products that are available that are single-site modes of action, they’ll be lost in five years or so because of resistance,” says Hunter. “And once you get resistance, you can never go back to them again — you’ve lost them.”

Another indication of changing times is the PMRA’s seeming reliance on the “precautionary principle” in many of these evaluations: the agency concedes in its documents that neither the European Union nor the U.S. is imposing these directives.

Hunter met with federal Health Minister Dr. Jane Philpott in May 2016 and discussed the evaluations, among other issues. The minister told Hunter that she can’t interfere with the agency’s dealings, although he made her and her staff aware of the details of the discussions with the agency and the fact that the review is to be completed by 2018 with the final outcomes of the re-evaluations also due next year.

This article was originally published in the 2017 issue of the Potato Guide.

The post Pesticide review a huge issue for horticulture sector appeared first on Country Guide.

Like them or hate them, they’re all meant to be in the name of sustainability, traceability and food safety and security, which are under the watchful gaze of an increasingly urban population.

Now add one more set of guidelines to that list: maximum residue limits (MRLs). Unlike the others, which are imposed at the farm level, MRLs are creating confusion on an international stage and have garnered more attention in light of recent trade agreements. In spite of the potential benefits of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Comprehensive Economics and Trade Agreement (CETA), there is also the opportunity for trade disruptions from MRL-based disputes.

There are two primary issues. One is the establishment of tolerance levels for registered chemistries, and the other is the backlog of registrations before Codex Alimentarius, a combined agency of the World Health Organization and the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

The first issue brings into play the science of detection, which has become finer and finer over the past 30 years, so we can often measure in parts per trillion today, not just parts per million.

Despite that evolution, however, many of the countries Canada trades with still apply strict zero tolerances, making trade standards unpredictable and a stumbling block in trade relations.

The second component involves Codex and its near-four-year backlog, which can also create significant barriers to trade. In that four-year period, countries might be trading commodities based on mutually agreed standards, yet Codex could establish a different MRL, thereby putting their inventories at risk.

It’s also worth noting that the maximum residue limits play a larger role in trade relations and negotiations on the horticultural side of agriculture. Pulses are also affected, and there’s a greater potential for disagreements with some cereal and canola crops.

It’s about trade, not safety

“When we look at the issue in terms of actual trade impacts, it’s not that significant,” says Pierre Petelle, vice-president of CropLife Canada. “We’re not seeing a lot of interventions internationally in terms of ships being turned around or stopped. That said, there have been some cases, and there is growing concern about some export markets’ willingness to defer to Codex, for example, or other established MRLs, and wanting to establish their own.”

Petelle points to MRL discrepancies in wheat and canola over the past 12 to 18 months, which suggest that no crop is immune.

What’s needed most is to find a balance between trade risks and having a dialogue that assesses actual food safety. Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen as a general rule of thumb, but case by case and crop by crop. To maximize the value of this process the dialogue must include the chemistry developer right from the outset. That approach is favoured over a “do nothing” default, and for very good reason.

“If we take a position of ‘Don’t use these products — period — until all of the export markets are fully established with MRLs,’ we could have a tremendously negative impact on innovation and new chemistries coming to Canada,” notes Petelle. He refers to that as an “innovation chill” to be avoided not just because of the money invested by chemical companies but because of the potential impact on growers’ access to new technology.

Says Petelle: “It’s finding that balance between managing the risk on the export side and not stifling innovation and growers’ access to new solutions.”

Petelle acknowledges that MRLs can and have been used as a non-tariff trade barrier, and it’s possible this will continue, with some countries rejecting a boatload initially and then offering to buy it later, but at a reduced price.

Meanwhile, the reputation of Canadian agriculture is called into question.

Petelle also says the confusion created by the misperception of MRLs as a food safety issue is one of the biggest challenges facing agriculture. He cites one case where media backlash and public misunderstanding hindered efforts to modernize or harmonize the establishment of MRLs with another country such as the U.S., yet it had nothing to do with food safety.

Trade and export dependent

Chris Davison agrees this MRL confusion puts Canada’s export-dependent agriculture at risk. As such, there’s a need to pursue MRLs and import tolerances as they are required, and to reduce trade barriers for growers and exporters. That’s accomplished through the efforts of developers and registrants of products, as well as the collaborative efforts of grower groups, government agencies and other stakeholders within the value chain.

“A second factor is that we’re obviously operating in a very complex trade and regulatory environment,” says Davison, head of corporate communications for Syngenta Canada. “With MRLs specifically, this is illustrated by the fact that not all countries set MRLs at the same time — or at all. So we continue to work with a variety of stakeholders to establish and harmonize MRLs wherever possible.”

One factor in that scenario is the changing landscape in which MRLs are being established or modified around the world. Another is the fact that a pesticide may have a different registered use pattern in different parts of the world due to differences in geography and climate, plus dietary and cultural preferences that might determine the crops that can be produced.

“To build on it even more, the definition of a residue for a given pesticide may differ among countries, and there are also different methodologies for calculating MRLs,” says Davison. “The bottom line coming out of that is that MRLs for the same pesticide and commodity combination may differ among countries and regions, ultimately resulting in a barrier to trade. But the message has to be reiterated that MRLs are standards intended to facilitate international trade in agricultural commodities — full stop.”

What’s needed?

The call to action now is to work towards harmonization for MRLs. Davison believes more harmonization is possible, but it’s going to require the participation of all stakeholders. It’s not a matter of saying one sector or one crop is more important than another; it comes back to that trade component, where Canada is so reliant on trade and “getting along” with other partners.

“Where maybe it gets some more attention in different markets is that Canada is dependent on export markets, and different crops have different export markets,” says Davison. “Some of them have a lot more markets that are smaller, some have bigger markets, but fewer. So it’s not that one is more important, just that not all crops go to the same markets.”

From Petelle’s perspective, discussions must continue, and the companies that develop the chemistries and technologies must be at the table. There, they can provide the detailed, science-based information on the chemistry’s application, its active ingredients, how it breaks down and the methodologies for detection and in what parts of the plant it can be detected.

Petelle also says government must participate too: “The Canadian government can play a key role in this process, both from a harmonization and technical level, and from a trade level trying to get some recognition early on in trade discussions, whether they’re bilateral or multilateral.”

The government could also be a little more strategic and perhaps better co-ordinated, although Petelle believes there’s sufficient support from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada as well as Foreign Affairs. And he praises the efforts of the Pest Management Regulatory Agency on the technical side. Yet questions remain about who’s representing whom at the international level.

There is also the issue of the federal government dropping its subscription to an international database that provided organizations such as the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association and Pulse Canada with up-to-date MRL tolerances in different countries. That occurred in mid-2014. In the spring of 2015, the MRL working group (under Pulse Canada’s lead) pooled some of its own funds and purchased a subscription to a database that provides all MRLs from every country that has such standards. It also offers market intelligence about proposed changes, unpublished changes or speculative information from all of the participating countries.

The other fly in the ointment is the backlog within Codex’s harmonization process. Some of the hurdles include funding or human resource gaps within the agency’s structure. Solving those issues will not be quick or easy.

But Codex needs to make other changes too, Petelle says. “For example, many countries got involved in global joint reviews of chemistries several years ago. You had Canada, U.S. and Australia as the countries — and then sometimes a new country could be part of that, and they would review the dossier together and one country would have the lead.”

Yet trying to get Codex to recognize the co-operative work of agencies that negotiate with such openness is often the difficult part.

“Recognizing that there are efficiencies to be gained from acting more like a peer review of existing work, rather than starting from scratch with the raw data every time — that would demonstrate some forward movement and recognition of the same people,” says Petelle.

It wouldn’t make Codex into a rubber stamp. The agency would still do a thorough peer review, and it would be done at a point that’s well advanced instead of opening up the raw data every single time.

And there are some signs of progress: Petelle notes there’s an MRL calculator at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) level.

But agriculture says more can and should be done.

The post Another big hurdle for Canadian producers appeared first on Country Guide.

After a decade, it seems it may be working.

The greenbelt approach to land use planning has garnered mostly cheers — but some jeers too — from municipalities, environmentalists, planners, developers, farmers, academics and others. The plan’s future is currently being discussed by all of them under a comprehensive review with many, sometimes conflicting, ideas being offered up about its legacy and impact, and where it should go from here.

At stake is 1.8 million acres of highly productive farmland, natural treasures, and environmentally sensitive ecosystems right beside some of the most densely populated land in the country. The Greenbelt encircles what is called the Greater Golden Horseshoe, home to more than nine million people (i.e. a quarter of Canada’s population) including the cities of Hamilton, Toronto and Oshawa.

To farmer Jason Verkaik, however, the perspective is exactly wrong.

“We should have greenbelted the whole province generations ago and put up the cities and towns around the protected area,” says Verkaik, who grows mostly carrots, onions and beets on 220 acres of the Holland Marsh and who is president of the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association. The Holland Marsh, north of Toronto, is part of the Greenbelt, and its rich soil makes it a key producer of vegetable crops.

While Verkaik knows his idea is no longer a real option, he’s not anti-city. He is a progressive farmer — he tries new vegetable varieties, is plugged into the latest muck crop research, and appreciates his urban customers. He says things like “farmers feed cities, but farmers also need cities.”

But Verkaik draws the line at letting urban people decide policy for farmers because he feels non-farmers don’t have a full perspective of all the issues. He recalls, for instance, attending one of the province’s stakeholder organization meetings in March, and emerging with a clear take-home. “Some people have pretty intense agendas,” Verkaik says. “Not always do they balance that out with people’s need to eat.”

Still, Verkaik stuck to his message at the meeting. If you want to protect farmland, he told everyone who would listen, you have to protect the farmer and his business.

“We have to have a system in which the next generation wants to continue the business of farming as a great way of life that’s good for the world, where you can make a profit at it and have some security,” Verkaik says.

Many of the academics and non-profit organizations who have studied the Greenbelt agree with Verkaik.

In 2013, Wayne Caldwell, the University of Guelph’s director of its School of Environmental Design and Rural Development published a study about the Greenbelt called Possibility Grows Here. He feels that farmers’ needs and concerns must be more clearly on the table in the Greenbelt Plan.

“If agriculture is to be there, it won’t be there by accident — there have to be intentional policies to support agriculture — both nationally and provincially, and in terms of economics and land use,” Caldwell says. “There’s a need for a vision to clearly state what we want agriculture to be like in 20 or 30 years, and policies to adequately support it.”

The Canadian Institute for Environmental Law and Policy (CIELAP) also agrees. As its 2010 study that covered the Greenbelt in an international context says: “Protecting the Greenbelt’s valuable agricultural land base from loss and fragmentation needs to be complemented with measures to ensure the continued economic viability of near-urban agriculture. Municipalities and the provincial government should collaborate with local agricultural action committees and others to develop and implement supportive policies, including expansion of markets for locally grown foods and other more direct farm-to-consumer mechanisms, diversification of on-farm activities, and strengthening of farming capacities.”

The CIELAP study compared Ontario’s plan with other greenbelts in Denmark, England, Brazil, Australia, the Netherlands, Germany and the U.S.

Ontario’s version, while being the youngest, was also the most effective, the report says. It concludes, “Compared to other greenbelts around the world, this Greenbelt is underpinned by one of the strongest legal frameworks, impressive political commitment, a clear diversity of benefits, enthusiastic community organizations, and a supportive public.”

When asked what it is doing for farmers, the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing (MMAH), which is conducting the current review, says the province “has a wide range of economic supports, programs and resources to support the agri-food sector.”

MMAH says the early feedback from the farming community includes support for several key planks, such as strengthening agricultural land protection, providing flexibility for on-farm economic activities, streamlining implementation and approval processes that affect farming, and supporting farmers.

Some of the support that farmers have received has come in the form of grants from the Friends of the Greenbelt Foundation and later the Greenbelt Fund.

The foundation, created in 2005 shortly after the Greenbelt legislation was passed, has put nearly $36.7 million into farming, environmental, tourism and other projects in the area. The Holland Marsh Growers’ Association was set up in 2008 with $400,000 from the foundation.

The Greenbelt Fund, started in 2010, helps businesses and organizations all across the province. Between 2010 and 2014, it invested $7.9 million in local food-boosting projects — about 80 per cent in the form of grants. The organization says that for every $1 it invests, local food sales increase by $7.

The fund also sponsors Ontariofresh.ca, an online business connector that puts farmers and customers together.

While there is much to recommend the Greenbelt Plan, there are also some downsides, including the vast array of regulations and legislation that affect and overlap it.

The current province-wide review is called “co-ordinated” because it includes not only the Greenbelt, but also the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe, the Niagara Escarpment Plan and the Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Plan. The government set up a series of public consultations around the region to garner input into the plans’ future.

Most participants at the Caledon Town Hall meeting in late March agreed that it was wise to look at the four plans together. But some questioned why there had not been better co-ordination in the first place, and asked if there could be more consolidation coming out of the talks.

With 78 per cent of his municipality in the Greenbelt, Caledon mayor Allan Thompson expressed his frustration as a municipal leader trying to help farmers and businesses with all the rules: “We need one set of policies for agriculture, and one set for businesses and small communities,” he said after the initial presentation. “I don’t have a comfort with what you’re showing here — are you bringing this all together?”

Thompson pointed out that a Greater Toronto Area Agricultural Action Plan already existed and it covered the entire area, from Durham Region to Niagara. That plan was published around the same time the Greenbelt legislation was passed in 2005, and was supported by the federal and provincial governments, the Golden Horseshoe municipalities, and all the local federations of agriculture. It offered recommendations related to economic development, education, marketing, land use policy, and accountability and responsibility.

Over and above the four plans being reviewed, the Planning Act and Provincial Policy Statement (PPS) set the basic ground rules and directions for land use planning in Ontario. In addition, there are no fewer than 18 other laws, strategies, plans and guidelines that affect what happens in the area.

The Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing says that changes made to the PPS in 2014 provided added flexibility for on-farm economic activities. It also says that the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs is developing a “Farms Forever” program to complement steps already taken to better protect farmland and to support the growth of the agri-food sector.

Keith Currie, vice-president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA) was also at the Caledon meeting as part of the panel heading up the province-wide review. Two of the six panel members represent farm groups. Former Toronto mayor David Crombie chairs the panel, and Debbie Zimmerman, CEO of the Grape Growers of Ontario, is the other farm representative.

Currie says that while the OFA was initially against the Greenbelt legislation, in his words, “time heals, and the Greenbelt is not going away.”

The OFA is Canada’s largest farm organization, with 37,000 members. In its December 2004 submission on the draft Greenbelt Plan, it said the province could not protect a greenbelt without providing for the economic viability of farming, and that it mustn’t impose a one-size-fits-all approach to a diverse region.

There were concerns about making sure everybody knew that lands in the Greenbelt were privately owned, but that since environmental and drinking water protections are a public benefit, everybody should pay for the work farmers do in this regard.

Currie pointed out that some concerns have persisted including the “leapfrogging” effect that the Greenbelt has produced, with urban sprawl stopping at the city limits, but picking up again on the other side of the restricted area.

“There are certain unintended consequences that have happened over the years, and leapfrogging is one,” Currie says.

Currie thinks that some of the confusion could be taken out of the entire process by maintaining what is unique to each of the four plans, and referring their common aspects to the overarching Provincial Planning Statement.

Currie also thinks that the size of the Greenbelt should not be expanded until some of the more contentious aspects of the plan are fixed. He, too, agrees with the concept of protecting not just the land, but also the farmers, which extends to supports like good transportation routes and available suppliers.

One of the biggest concerns in 2005 was the possibility that agricultural land values inside the protected Greenbelt would plummet — something that would be confirmed, somewhat, by research.

A study from the University of Guelph published in 2010 found that the value of land under immediate development pressure (within five kilometres of the Greater Toronto Area) fell by about 24 per cent or $3,000 an acre as a result of the Greenbelt legislation. The agricultural land between five and 40 kilometres of the cities showed no drop in value.

One of the main goals of the Greenbelt Plan is to “prevent the loss and fragmentation of agricultural land” — something it has not yet achieved. In fact, the current review’s discussion paper says, “Between 2006 and 2011, the region as a whole lost 4.4 per cent of its total farmland area — just over 160,000 acres (65,000 hectares) — an area larger than the City of Toronto.”

Part of the problem, however, may be the grandfathering of land deals that were approved prior to the legislation taking effect.

“The land counts as agricultural until it is taken out of production,” says Wayne Caldwell. “It could be years between the purchase and actually doing anything other than farming on the land.”

Caldwell is currently looking into official plan amendments and anticipates that some approvals were granted decades ago and don’t reflect current planning practices.

“It doesn’t mean the Greenbelt Plan isn’t working,” Caldwell says.

Where the future takes the Greenbelt is in the hands of the many residents, farmers, environmentalists, organizations, experts and others who are weighing in at the 16 regional town hall meetings. Written submissions are also being received via the Environmental Bill of Rights registry and the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, with a draft document that will be submitted to provincial government in the fall.

The post Save Ontario farmers, save farmland in the process appeared first on Country Guide.

To say there is an abundance of information on this topic is one of the biggest understatements in agriculture today. Arguably, the most challenging task is to sift through the reams of available research and findings, analyzing the current political posturing and recognizing the misinformation that’s funnelled through the mainstream media. That’s also what awaits anyone trying to arrive at a workable solution that will suit modern farming practices while satisfying beekeepers and the general public.

What’s at stake can be frightening. Conversations with members of the seed and chemical sector, researchers and involved stakeholders including beekeepers call up a scenario that some say could conceivably push farmers out of business, or at least backwards by several decades. Claims by industry participants go beyond the notion that Ontario’s environment ministry is targeting neonicotinoids, while the agriculture ministry sits on the sidelines. Now there are rumblings that phosphorus fertilizer, herbicides, fungicides — even transgenics — are in the government’s crosshairs, any of which might render the province’s grains and oilseeds sector little more than an afterthought instead of one of its leading economic engines.

No one in agriculture is arguing there’s no room for improvement: that’s one of the hallmarks of the industry. Yet in spite of repeated pledges by Ontario’s agri-food sector to work collaboratively on finding workable solutions, it’s becoming evident that there is no room for negotiating in what began as a debate and now threatens to become a war. Even with the amount of information that’s available, activism and protectionism have polarized this issue. In many ways, it’s created a greater divide than the introduction of transgenic soybeans and corn, both of which came to market prior to the widespread adoption and subsequent reliance on the Internet and social media.

It turns out, however, that the neonic debate is unscientific from the very bottom. Bee decline isn’t an issue that can be boiled into a singular cause-and-effect relationship. Dr. Cynthia Scott-Dupree, a researcher at the University of Guelph who has studied this issue extensively since 1999, has referred to it as “a 1,000-piece puzzle.”

• The many facets of the neonicotinoid issue

That’s why it’s exceedingly difficult for media outlets and concerned individuals to provide balance and accuracy in reporting the ongoing struggles of this puzzle: the issue cannot be condensed or distilled down to a 450-word newspaper story or a 90-second sound bite. As with most aspects of the agri-food industry, there’s a lot more to it, and it’s debatable as to whether most people are willing to invest the time and effort to sort through all of the details.

Who’s involved?

As the Ontario Beekeepers Association (OBA) continues to ramp up its campaign against neonicotinoid seed treatments, the list of those advocating for sound science in dealing with the situation continues to grow. In 2013, when the issue of so-called “bee kills” began receiving more press, the seed and chemical companies were the first to respond, warning of conflicts and a potential return to the use of broader-spectrum pesticides. Prior to the growing season that year, government extension personnel and University of Guelph researchers began exploring different measures to reduce the impact of “fugitive dust,” which was identified as a significant threat to bee health.

In the time since, there have been numerous attacks by OBA board members and select beekeepers, and a successful bid to get the Ontario government to enact a policy that would see neonicotinoid seed treatments reduced by 80 per cent by 2017. Since the government’s pledge in late 2014, the Grain Farmers of Ontario (GFO) has been one of the leading opponents of any ban on neonicotinoid seed treatments, with news releases, a cover story in its own publication and in early March 2015, a pollinator health blueprint it has reportedly shared with the government.

Last November, the organization also joined Farm Action Now, a coalition with the Ontario Bean Growers (OBG), Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association (OFVGA) and Ontario Pork. Joining the list of organizations standing alongside the GFO are the Ontario Soil and Crop Improvement Association (OSCIA), the Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA), Canadian Association of Professional Apiculturists (CAPA) and the Canadian Seed Trade Association (CSTA). Statistics Canada, the Conference Board of Canada and the Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA), have also authored reports that counter some of the numbers cited in OBA news releases and on its website. There’s also been additional support provided by CropLife Canada, CropLife America, the National Farmers Union in Britain and other smaller organizations. On an individual basis, Drs. Cynthia Scott-Dupree and Chris Cutler, Alberta beekeeper Lee Townsend — even media pundits such as Terence Corcoran from the National Post and Henry Miller from Forbes — have been speaking out in favour of modern farming and denouncing the abandonment of sound scientific principles.

Departure from ‘sound science’

So the good news is that agriculture is developing a united front in countering the OBA actions. The challenge, however, is that modern agriculture is short on time. And it’s that commodity that agriculture and science need more of with roughly 20 months before the government’s proposed legislation goes into effect.

“Good science takes time,” says Dave Baute, current president of the CSTA. Although he’s pleased with interim reports that have been supportive, he is also frustrated with the lack of political will. “I wish that politicians would place their trust in scientists, not rely on some loose and tainted interpretation of a precautionary principle. The media and the government of Ontario chose to pay attention to very select statements made in papers and studies, and chose to ignore the context in which they were made and the facts presented by Statistics Canada.”

Those particular numbers (Table 1) indicate beekeeping and associated production is on the upswing, not declining as has been the contention of OBA board members. Baute, who is also president of Maizex Seeds near Tilbury, Ont., cites another StatsCan report that indicates bee colony numbers and honey production have risen steadily since 2002 (Table 1).

“The PMRA’s recent update that showed the reduced incidents over the winter of 2014 was also positive,” says Baute. “Partly as a result of the efforts of farmers and the seed industry, the numbers of overwintering incidents reported to the PMRA were down significantly from 2013, and most of the incidents reported came from only three operations.”

In fact, the agency’s report, issued in November 2014, supports the original registration data and notes a 70 per cent reduction in reported bee health incidents during the 2014 planting season, compared to 2013. That, adds Baute, has given some comfort to the agri-food industry to see that decisions are being made using a science-based approach at the federal level. It also provides a confirmation that farmers’ efforts as “stewards of the environment” are effective.

Collaborative effort important

The notion that so many interests in agriculture — from the seed companies to the chemical companies to equipment manufacturers and ag retailers — have worked together to reduce any impact of seed treatments on bee health needs to be underscored. It’s no secret that agriculture is divided and representative of a very small segment of Canadian society (the “less-than two per cent” factor). Yet following the spectre of thousands of bee colonies “being killed” in the spring of 2013 by the use of an insecticidal seed treatment in use for nearly a decade, Bayer CropScience rushed its new fluency agent to market, replacing talc and graphite as a dry lubricant. A French equipment manufacturer also made its deflector kit for negative pressure (vacuum) planters available to a Quebec dealer. And as Baute is quick to acknowledge, farmers do have the option of buying their seed without it being treated.

That option has sparked some concern within the seed and chemical sector, but Dr. Terry Daynard, a former University of Guelph professor, also sees that as a positive. He’s been approached by numerous farmers who have opted out of planting treated seed, only because they’re farming on harder clay soils and not finding the same insect pressure as those on sandier or lighter soils. That sort of scrutiny can only be a good thing, according to Daynard.

“The argument that not every acre of corn in Ontario needs to be treated is legitimate and it’s hard to argue with that,” he says. Daynard spends some of his time attending meetings and conferences, sometimes as a speaker but always as an interested participant. “You can say that it costs you about $6 an acre for treated seed, and you perhaps have an investment of $600 an acre going into growing corn. So from a management standpoint, this is a reasonable insurance cost, and if that’s all you were looking at, that’s a fair thing to do, but if you start looking at the environmental implications, then it’s not a reasonable thing to do. So that’s one that we have to struggle with and figure out how to deal with.”

Above all, Daynard is interested in establishing the truth along with the best course of action. Obeying sound scientific principles is the only way to do that, he says, so he got involved in this issue when the bulk of the information that was coming out in news releases, media reports and general discussions proved too one-sided. When he started doing some fact-checking of his own, including talking to those he knows in horticulture, he found the actual numbers didn’t jibe with the claims of the OBA and its supporters. As he’s learned more, he’s posted blogs on his website and taken to social media to provide balance and accuracy, and counter claims made by the OBA and its cohorts.

Much of the problem Daynard sees comes from the oversimplification of many of the points made by the anti-neonic side. For instance, there’s the belief that if neonicotinoids are banned, it would solve any problems surrounding bee health completely. Yet the exact opposite could occur. Without seed treatments, many growers could revert to using broader-spectrum pesticides that kill all insects, including beneficials such as ladybird beetles.

Varroa mites still a problem

Another misconception from the anti-neonic camp is that disease management is no longer a concern. Daynard insists that is simply not true. When he began studying the different aspects contained in the issue, he was surprised to find that varroa mite infestations are still affecting the beekeeping sector.

“If you don’t manage varroa very carefully, you’re going to have lots of problems in the bee business,” says Daynard. “Dr. Ernesto Guzman, who’s at the University of Guelph, and a group of other bee researchers across Canada published a report a few years ago that varroa is directly responsible for 85 per cent of the bee deaths in Canada. To me, that’s by far the biggest problem that beekeepers have — if you don’t manage varroa properly, you’re just not in business.”

Lee Townsend, a commercial beekeeper from Stony Plain, Alta., echoes that statement. A well-known advocate for beekeepers and agriculture working together, Townsend has also constructed a website in an effort to inform people — and dispel claims made by the OBA’s directors and other supporters. Early in 2015, he posted a five-page dissertation that picked apart a media release from the OBA disputing comments and claims from various agricultural groups and companies. From Townsend’s vantage point, there simply isn’t enough factual information that’s cutting through the rhetoric, including the facts on varroa, which he calls a “gateway pest.”

“If you have a problem with varroa in your operation, it leads you down the road of all the other viruses and diseases that can affect bees,” says Townsend, who has been monitoring the neonic situation since its introduction in Canada. “We do have controls for varroa; the one effective synthetic miticide we have is Apivar (amitraz), which we’ve been using now for six or seven years, and usually it’s around year eight that we start to see resistance buildup. We haven’t seen that yet, but we have no synthetic miticides in the pipeline ready to use if there’s resistance with Apivar.”

Another issue he has is with the reporting of colony health and deaths from the winter of 2013-14 (Table 2). On his albertabuzzing.com website, Townsend, who was once on the pesticide committee with the Canadian Honey Council, says that statistics on overwintering losses in Ontario are overblown. The stats are estimated via a voluntary survey sent out to the province’s 247 registered commercial beekeepers. Out of 247 in 2013-14, only 97 (or 39 per cent) responded — without a definitive statement on how many colonies were involved. And of those 97 producers, 50 (51.5 per cent) reported losses of higher than 50 per cent. Yet these producers that claimed losses of more than 50 per cent represent only 20 per cent of the commercial beekeepers in Ontario. So how OMAFRA arrived at the 58 per cent figure cited in the Canadian Association of Professional Apiculturists’ report is somewhat suspect, from Townsend’s perspective.

What about management?

Townsend maintains there’s a considerable difference between hobbyist beekeepers and those who rely on bee and honey production as a livelihood. In Alberta, he refers to the ties between the commercial beekeepers and the farmers, as well as those in the seed and chemical sector: the retailers and researchers.

“We’ve been dealing with these companies for a very long time, we’ve been exposed to neonics for as long, if not longer, than Ontario — and at a lot higher dosage level just by the acreage of canola that’s grown out here, and by the number of hives — and we haven’t had any problems,” says Townsend. “But we had other issues a number of years ago with hive health and we’ve worked with all of our partners to find out why. Since then we’ve seen nothing but growth, so we learned very quickly that working with the parties involved works much better than annoying them.”

To be clear, Townsend left the Canadian Honey Council’s pesticide committee because of his frustration in dealing with OBA directors, not the members. He stresses that there are some very good beekeepers in Ontario who have tried to distance themselves from the board, often because he finds the directors are fixated on the “one-issue, one-solution” scenario: ban neonics and all will be right in the world.

“When you try to bring up that (multi-faceted) approach with the OBA board of directors, it’s, ‘No, we know what we’re doing — it’s all the neonics,’ and that’s not the truth,” says Townsend, adding that media reports often unveil more information than intended. “Anytime I see the paper or TV reports, they show these beekeepers who are losing their bees and claiming that it’s neonics. But you look at the equipment they’re using and the management practices they’re following, and it’s not a surprise their bees are dying.”

Cause and effect

Management of bee health and the abandonment of sound science are also at the top of the list for Dr. Cynthia Scott-Dupree, who has been studying the effect of neonicotinoid seed treatments on canola. For her, there are two concepts involved with neonics and bees. The first is that of residues in nectar and pollen of flowering plants grown from treated seed (which is part of the work she has done in canola).

“If you look at the Tier Three large-scale field studies done on that — and even the Tier Two tented studies that have been done — you can see, repeatedly, there is virtually no acute impact on honeybees and there appears to be very little chronic or sub-lethal impact,” says Scott-Dupree.

The other part is the issue of contaminated dust that results during the planting of treated seeds with negative pressure or vacuum-type planters. In 2012, when the reports of the first bee kills in Ontario came out, it was a perfect storm of conditions: the winter season was short and very mild, the start of spring was open and advanced and some farmers were planting in late March, in windy and dry conditions.

“Because it was warm the bees were out foraging and there were bee losses,” she says. “The PMRA did its assessment and came up with the figure that 70 per cent of the bees that were dead contained neonics. But there’s a problem with that kind of reference to neonic residues, because they never indicated the amount of those residues — the mere presence of a toxin doesn’t mean that it’s going to kill — it’s the dose that makes the poison.”

This is where Scott-Dupree becomes concerned that the government’s approach is based on politics and emotions — not science. For starters, how did the provincial government arrive at an 80 per cent mark for the reduction of treated seed? On top of that, she questions the demand that growers buy treated seed in October when they can’t predict the severity of winter conditions and how those conditions will have an impact on pest levels the following spring.

“If we had the science that allows farmers to predict whether they will need treated seeds or not — that early before planting — then we’d be in a good place, but we aren’t there,” says Scott-Dupree. “In the end, if we want to come up with an answer that’s going to benefit everyone, there may have to be compromises from a lot of different sides.”

Other considerations

Scott-Dupree believes time will provide several clearer paths to follow. She has studied and participated in work being done by Dr. Art Schaafsma at the University of Guelph’s Ridgetown Campus, and she believes there is a problem with bee exposure to contaminated dust at planting. But finding scientific solutions takes time.

Even the recommendation within the government’s policy — to train certified crop advisers to scout pest levels and make recommendations on the need for seed treatment — will require more time than the policy allows. That’s mostly because there isn’t the long-term data required for training them.

“This is what annoys me about the government in making these decisions,” says Scott-Dupree, whose research has been ignored by the government on one side and routinely attacked by OBA board members on the other. “It all looks good… but they don’t have the science to support these decisions, and they don’t want to listen.”

Scott-Dupree contends that when the beekeepers first stated that neonics were killing their bees, people really didn’t pay much attention to them. But then when they shifted their perspective to say growers were not using the concept of integrated pest management (IPM) correctly — they’re treating with chemicals prophylactically, which is exactly what IPM isn’t — more people started listening, and rightly so.

That also opens the door on a whole new discussion surrounding the use of IPM. The challenge, however, is the confusion surrounding the actual definition of the concept. Like the term “sustainability,” IPM can mean different things to different people. As Scott-Dupree says, the concept of IPM on paper is amazing, but getting people to embrace it fully can be extraordinarily difficult.

Much more at stake

Beyond banning neonicotinoid seed treatments, there is concern that activists will continue their efforts. But if the effects of a neonic ban on rapeseed farmers in the U.K. are any indication, Ontario farmers stand to lose a lot in the short and long term.

Farmers in Britain have endured a ban on neonicotinoid-treated seed for their rapeseed, and in 2014 suffered devastating losses against overwhelming populations of cabbage stem beetles.

But the damage to farmers’ management practices and overall production levels are just two of many facets. Two separate studies, one from the Conference Board of Canada and another from a group of agricultural economists and scientists with AgInfomatics in the U.S., forecast crippling economic impacts in both countries. The Conference Board’s research estimates Ontario farmers would lose more than $630 million annually. That would affect jobs throughout the food value chain, from country elevators and ag retailers to equipment manufacturing and research and development. And it’s likely that it would affect jobs in urban centres, as well. The AgInfomatics research was a little more conclusive and ominous, stating, “Research results prove that neonicotinoids add billions of dollars to the economy and benefits entire communities, not just individual farmers.”

“This is a fight for science-based decision-making on the part of leadership,” says Baute, who is also impressed with how seed, chemical and equipment sectors have worked proactively to find the best course of action. “If the leaders of our government have caved to the political opportunity of popularity, then all bets are off.”

The post Making the case in the neonic debate appeared first on Country Guide.

Food bank, food hub.

But the next day, as my tour gets underway, I’m quickly humbled into the realization that there is a big difference after all. As we leave the brightly painted green and yellow office and walk down a hallway in this former school building, Field talks about the many FoodShare programs.

She tells me too that she suggested today for my visit because today is packing day for the Good Food Boxes, which I also come to see is the right place to start, because Good Food Boxes are such a powerful symbol of how this urban, non-profit organization is promoting and increasing the consumption of fresh produce by marketing the idea of good food.

More than that, these boxes also show how FoodShare is forging alliances with farmers.

Good food box

Field is an icon in Canadian food circles, although little known on most farms. She freely calls herself an activist, and her bio points to decades of proof that she deserves the label, starting with her joining three other women in 1979 to launch a successful human rights case against the male-only hiring practices of steel-maker Stelco, just about the biggest manufacturer in Canada at the time.

Since then, Field has participated in countless campaigns, including a long list that stem from strong left-of-centre political connections.

But since 1992, when she joined FoodShare, her main focus has been to tackle society’s ills through food. Clearly, this is a job she excels at, and her energy is considerable, as just about any of the numbers that spill out of FoodShare will attest.

Formed in 1985 as a fledgling non-profit with a vague mission to provide food security, FoodShare got its start just one year after the first modern-era Daily Bread Food Bank opened in the city in 1984, based on an Edmonton food bank opened in 1983.

Make no mistake. FoodShare does believe in what it calls food security, and in what it defines as every citizen’s right to food. But FoodShare also believes that consumers — especially children — need to know more about how to make the best food choices.

Field also sees larger social gains. Food isn’t only healthy, she likes to say. It can also be healing.

By 1996, Field was being haled by influential NOW magazine as one of Toronto’s 10 best organizers, and the accolades have continued non-stop ever since. Today, FoodShare defines itself as “Canada’s largest food security organization,” with a $6.4 million budget that comes in roughly equal measures from sales and from donations from foundations and individuals, plus 13 per cent from municipal and federal grants.

More phenomenal are its other numbers. In 2013, FoodShare had 54 staff — plus 5,133 volunteers, and together they reached out to 223,316 children and adults in all 140 Toronto neighbourhoods through their almost incredibly wide variety of programs (see “FoodShare’s many touchpoints” below).

Good food boxing

As we continue our tour, Field delivers me to a cavernous room made brighter by two open loading doors. This is the room where the Good Food Boxes are packed. The lines of people pack food boxes with a wide variety of fruit and vegetables.

The boxes are a non-profit produce distribution system, not unlike a buying club. People place box orders with a neighbourhood volunteer co-ordinator, and receive a box weekly, bi-weekly or monthly.

Field hands me the slip of paper listing the contents of today’s boxes: a half bag of apples, one cabbage, four ears of corn, one lettuce, one bag of onions, one kale, one basket of peaches, a half container of plums, 1.5 pounds sweet potatoes, one pound of tomatoes, and one zucchini.

“Look at that value for $18,” says Field as she points towards a completed box, because that $18 is exactly what a consumer pays for this box.

While the value is excellent, this food box is not subsidized by food donations. “They (farmers) are not donating to us. We’re paying full price,” says Field, explaining that FoodShare purchases directly from local farms and from the Ontario Food Terminal.

“These are gorgeous,” declares a volunteer, pulling out a beautiful, red leaf lettuce from a box stamped with the name of a farm in Quebec. The volunteer explains to me that these lettuces are not seconds. Nor are they the picked-through produce that one might expect at a food bank. These are top-grade vegetables, and she is the first person to handle it since it was packed at the farm.

Field says that with the exception of two employees, all of the dozen or so people in the room are volunteers — both low-income and corporate. The low-income volunteers receive lunch at the FoodShare cafeteria and a food box on the day they volunteer.

In deciding what goes into the boxes, Field says the top priorities are that the contents be healthy, affordable, and culturally appropriate. Second to these are that the produce is local and seasonal.

She picks up a small, yellow plum and explains that at this time of year, they are locally grown, which she considers a good thing. But because this sort of plum is a very good snacking fruit — a way to encourage a child to eat fruit — it is something FoodShare might buy out of season even if not locally produced. Field says FoodShare buys organic produce only if it is the same price as non-organic produce, explaining, “We don’t think it’s fair to burden them (shoppers) with a food system problem beyond their control.”

In 2013, through its various programs, FoodShare distributed 2,240,000 pounds of fresh fruit and vegetables. It bought $1,442,073 worth of fresh produce, $456,558 directly from local family farms. For an organization with a mission to increase access to and knowledge of good healthy food, that is good marketing.

FoodShare’s many touchpoints

The mission of FoodShare is to increase access to and knowledge of good healthy food. Some of its many programs include:

• Mobile Good Food Market: market trucks sell fresh produce in Toronto neighbourhoods where it might not be otherwise available.
• Field to Table Schools: Teaches students food literacy, including food systems, cooking, nutrition, food gardens, and composting.
• Wellness Boxes: Delivered by Meals on Wheels to seniors, a box contains 35 servings of ready-to-use produce such as cut-up vegetables.
• Composting: FoodShare produces a large amount of organic waste, which is composted on site, an excellent teaching opportunity. In 2013, 55,115 pounds of organic waste was composted to create 27,557 pounds of compost.
• Bulk Produce Program: Delivers fresh produce weekly to approximately 260 schools, 20 non-profit child care centres, 75 parenting centres, and 15 non-profit agencies across Toronto.
• Growing Food: FoodShare has a greenhouse and demonstration garden, and also facilitates school gardens in partnership with the Toronto District School board.
• Good Food Café: a model for a healthy, affordable school cafeteria, this kitchen at the FoodShare headquarters prepares healthy, affordable food for staff, volunteers, and visitors.

Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers’ Association Visits FoodShare

In August, 2014 the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers’ Association (OFVGA) visited FoodShare as part of its annual summer tour and barbecue. Alison Robertson, OFVGA program manager, explains this annual event brings together 80 to 90 people including farm leaders from a wide variety of commodities, along with industry stakeholders and agricultural extension personnel.

Until this year the tour visited farms and processors. “We had never done Toronto,” Robertson says. “We decided to take everybody out of what they know.”

The tour started with the ontario Food Terminal, a distribution hub for fresh produce. The next destination was a processor. The final stop was FoodShare.

“I was worried,” says Robertson, as she describes how this tour was different from past tours.

She’s pleased with the feedback, however, adding, “Some people said it was the best tour ever.”

“Sometimes you’re in your own world of growing or packaging,” she says of the need to see other players in the food system. She says there were good connections made. “It’s amazing what a bunch of very passionate people are doing in an old school.”

FoodShare and Norfolk Fruit Growers’ Association

Growing the next generation of apple consumers

During the interview, Debbie Field chomps on a good-looking apple from a nearby bin while touring the area where the Good Food boxes are packed. “This is an apple that would normally have gone to export or juice,” Field says, noting its small size. It’s a size rarely seen on Canadian shelves.

But the small, Ontario-grown apples are a great fit for FoodShare. Their size makes them snack-friendly and suitable for the Good Food boxes, while the price is lower than top-grade apples.

The small apples come from the Norfolk Fruit Growers’ Association. Tom o’Neill from Norfolk Fruit Growers’ later tells me some industry people ask him, “Why would you bother to do that?” wondering why he spends time on a relatively small-volume program. His response: “The sooner you get kids to eat an apple, the sooner you get kids to eat them the rest of their lives.”

“If you go in the store you might think apples come from Washington State,” O’Neill says. Not only does he want people to get used to apples — he wants them to get used to Ontario apples. Field says what o’Neill is doing here at FoodShare is getting apples into the mouths of a wide variety of people, many from countries where apples aren’t a traditional food.

This articles was originally published as “A slice of FoodShare,” in the November 2014 issue of Country Guide

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