Local food never had a bigger opportunity
The trickledown effect of the new Made In Canada movement represents a huge opportunity for homegrown food.
Change is afoot nationally, as we rally around the Maple Leaf and push back against U.S. aggression. True change starts locally… and there’s nothing more local than food.
U.S. President Donald Trump handed Canadian agriculture a gift when he started his menacing annexation talks. Even though at one point he said he didn’t need our farm products – or, for that matter, anything else we produce – he sure seemed pumped to make us the 51st state. What he really wants is our water and natural resources.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau warned Canadians to take Trump’s threat seriously. Many others have said it’s bluster. Either way, we need to pay attention to it. And in the face of potentially crippling tariffs that could leave us without some imported food and drink, we need to count on Canada more.
For example, how about the way LCBO stores launched a U.S. product boycott and displayed Made In Canada shelf tags? Grocery stores joined in, including Creemore’s Foodland, giving homegrown products a spotlight on store shelves.
Sustaining that momentum and making Made In Canada a truly country-wide movement means there’s work ahead. The winning recipe has three basic parts.
First, Canadian farmers need to be incentivized to produce, where possible, products currently imported from the U.S. (and elsewhere). Archaic interprovincial trade laws need to be harmonized so you can buy food from another province as easily as you can buy it from another country.
Second, retailers must get some kind of a break to offer more Canadian products for sale and feature them prominently. If they cost more, then maybe it’s a tax consideration to make prices more competitive.
And third, consumers need to buy them. That means they need to be accessible and affordable, besides being superior to imports.
If any part of that triad is out of whack, the system falls apart. But if it clicks, the drive towards a new nationalism will be fed and watered.
Local food enthusiasts don’t need any convincing. Quality wise, they know the virtues of getting produce and meat from neighbourhood farmers, even if it’s more expensive than mass-produced alternatives.
Where the Made In Canada approach may take some convincing is specifically on the homegrown side. For example, in Ontario, are you willing to pay extra transportation for products grown in B.C. compared to something produced closer but in the U.S., say in Michigan or New York?
That may be part of the cost of sovereignty.
Before long, I suspect Trump will get distracted with his own self-inflicted domestic woes. Americans didn’t expect the kind of pain (and bad public relations) he’s inflicting on them – including American farmers, who are pleading with the new Agriculture Secretary there for help.
But let’s not wait and see what happens. Now is the time to open the Made In Canada recipe book and start cooking.
Owen Roberts is an agricultural journalist from Guelph and a communications instructor at the University of Illinois. He regularly visits family in Creemore.
