Farm-fueled economy
Welcome to The Creemore Echo’s second Ag edition – “Agonomics.”
In this year’s edition we are exploring some of the area’s on-farm businesses that are either part of the prime agricultural sector, or provide a service to the agricultural community.
Farming is big business in this area and almost everywhere you look there is a service that supports the industry, from vehicle sales and repair all the way to restaurants and coffee shops. These are part of Ontario’s farming and food production that make up a multi-billion dollar industry, when considering both primary agriculture and its economic ripple effects. The jobs created by prime agriculture, food and beverage production, and all of the secondary activities, fuel our local economy by creating good jobs. That income is dispersed locally in what the economists call the ripple effects of the industry.
This year, we set out to learn about some of the biggest operations in our area, with a focus on food production and processing. The region is home to Reinhart Foods, Canada’s largest vinegar producer, and Tupling Farms, a large-scale potato farm that supplies potatoes to Swiss Chalet.
With the exception of Reinhart Foods, the businesses featured in this edition are located on farms and operate supplemental to the agricultural use. In most cases, the proprietors come from multi- generation farm families but have specialized to meet the needs of the agricultural community.
We are grateful to those families for opening their farms and factories to us and giving our readers a chance to see inside.
It should be noted that the interviews for this edition were already in progress as talk of tariff threats from the U.S.A. was ramping up. When we spoke to farmers and agricultural sector businesses they were not yet fully aware of the impact tariffs would have on their businesses.
Furthermore, the agricultural community was hit hard by the ice storm. It should be acknowledged that as we were preparing to assemble this edition, farmers and producers were working under arduous conditions to care for their animals and keep their processing plants goings.
On top of all that we have entered into a federal election campaign, which is an important time for farm advocates to call for protections against trade tariffs, and improving access to temporary and seasonal international workforce through the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP) and the Agricultural Stream of the Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) program. These are just two of the federal election priorities set out by the Ontario Federation of Agriculture.
The food growing and production industry is large and complex, and is vital to our region. Take a look at all this area has to offer and one doesn’t have to look too hard to find a link to the farming community.
