While Canadians are taking time at the grocery store looking for Canadian-made products and labels like the maple leaf, local food growers are ramping up production to meet demand. Jon Lomow is the co-founder of Fieldless Farms, an indoor vertical farm in Cornwall, Ont. He grows leafy greens and mushrooms year-round and says his produce has been flying off the shelf.
"We are selling out two- to four-times faster, in some instances, maybe five-times faster in high volume stores, than we were before all this was happening. That's a pretty strong sign that people have moved in the direction of wanting to buy more local," Lomow told Cost of Living. They're planning to build another farm to meet that rising demand, and started a crowdfunding campaign. The company has nearly hit their goal of $2.2 million in only a month.
Pockets of food production in Ontario, Quebec, Alberta and British Columbia have led to greenhouse fruit and vegetable production volumes increasing by roughly five times since 2000, Royal Bank of Canada agricultural policy lead Lisa Ashton wrote in a report on agriculture and Canadian exports.
This growing industry can play a critical role in closing the production gap, where vegetable production would need to double and fruit production would need to grow by five times to feed domestic demand, she wrote.
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