The Growing International Conference took place on November 27th, 28th and 29th, and focused on how to develop a local food supply for the GTA’s ethnocultural markets. It was a fantastic three days that included dynamic presentations, critical dialogue and valuable networking opportunities.

For those of you who missed the conference – and those who want a refresher you can review the conference resources, reports and presentations as well as speaker’s bio and contact information for further research purposes.

Conference Follow-up

Guru asks why our ethnic diversity hasn’t prompted local farmers to grow the world’s most savoured grasses

By WAYNE ROBERTS
NOW Toronto

I’m sitting in Addis Ababa, an Ethiopian restaurant on Queen West, trying to do a selling job on an ethnic farming specialist.

Try this, I tell Rutgers University’s Bill Sciarappa, offering him a piece of injera, the tart flatbead served with beans, veggies and meat. I’m hoping to convince him that teff, the grain from which it is made, could be grown in Ontario instead of imported, as it almost all is, from Idaho.

“Oh, you mean Ethiopian lovegrass,” he says, as he and the owner joke about the fact that the grass is treated as a weed in New Jersey and fed to livestock.

Sciarappa’s business is repositioning ethnic food as what he likes to call “world food.” That’s why FarmStart, an org promoting the needs of immigrants who want a career in food production, invited him in the last week of November to address three southern Ontario workshops in Toronto, Guelph and Durham Region.

Sciarappa, who wants to let a thousand bitter melons bloom, likes to tell farmers in New Jersey, the Garden State, to “get progressive or get out.” The phrase is a jab at the infamous slogan of 1950s agribusiness: “Get big or get out.” His mission is to help local farmers start serving an untapped billion-dollar market for “ethnic” fruit and veggies.

Read the Full Story

FarmStart’s November conference, Growing International: Producing and Marketing Ethnic Food in Ontario, was a great success. The aim was to create discussion on how to develop a local supply for the province’s growing ethno-cultural or world-food markets.The three day conference attracted a diverse crowd: in Durham over 40 participants joined us; the Toronto event drew over 70; and Guelph hosted over 60 people for the morning, with most staying for the strategic meeting in the afternoon.

Many organizations and stakeholders were represented including: OMAFRA, University of Guelph faculty and researchers, Farmers’ Markets Ontario, Fresh Fruit and Vegetables Growers, Ontario Institute for Agronomists, the AfriCan Food Basket, ethno-cultural community leaders, farmers from all backgrounds, and many other people representing various segments of the food supply-chain and related organizations.

Overall, it was clear there are many pieces and players necessary to encourage a local, world food system and a clear communication between all stakeholders needs to improve. Bill Sciarrapa, the keynote who shared his experience leading a large-scale research and extension project focusing on world crops in the NE United States, clearly attributed their success in the north East US to the wide range of industry, government, not-for-profit and university partnerships and networks.

The discussions largely centered on the production and market opportunities for ethno-cultural- or ‘world’- crops. The keynote along with a variety of panelists and conference attendees brought up issues and opportunities facing Ontario production and distribution of world crops. The conference provided an excellent opportunity to start many different conversations, but the long-term outcomes will depend on how organizations follow-up with the ideas and relationships formed throughout the three days.

The following is a short summary of the key points and questions raised during the conference.

Production Potential

Several presentations addressed the varieties that can be grown, the issues preventing access to appropriate seeds, necessary and potential growing conditions, and how to deal with weeds and pests. While some research has taken place in Canada and more in the US, it was clear that everyone supported the funding of large scale market oriented research and effective communication to farmers around new varieties and production issues.

Market Opportunities

The market opportunities and distribution of world crops was another prominent issue addressed. The variety and size of the markets was discussed through the work of Bill Sciarrapa’s research team, and in Ontario through demographic statistics, presentations by ethno-cultural and food chain leaders, OMAFRA new crop specialists and FarmStart market research findings. Key components for the development of these market opportunities is to understand the diversity and specific demands in the ethno-cultural markets, the structure and players in the food chains, and the potential to widen the markets to include mainstream consumers.

Farmers needed!

Another piece of the discussion centered around how to enable new farmers- both Canadians and newcomers- to start new farm enterprises and existing farmers to transition into world crop production from another farm enterprise such as tobacco. A major concern raised was finding access to adequate information on growing world crops and identifying and accessing appropriate markets. Barriers facing new farmers also include new access to resources such as land, equipment, and capital. A third opportunity discussed was the potential of tapping into the valuable knowledge of new comers to Canada who have agricultural backgrounds. The struggle is how best to connect them to the farming community.

Research and Extension Needed!

Along with that discussion, came the topic of university research and the role of OMAFRA and other relevant organizations. It was generally acknowledged that more research was needed and more effort needs to be put into outreach. Overall, it is clear there are many pieces and players necessary to encourage a local, world food system and a clear communication between all stakeholders needs to improve. Sciarrapa clearly attributed their success to the wide range of industry, government, not-for-profit and university partnerships and networks.
All presentations and more in depth discussion of the conference proceedings and this topic will be available in the MarketLINK section of the website soon.

FarmStart, along with the Ontario Institute of Agrologists, Durham Region Economic Development and the Centre for Land and Water Stewardship, is organizing a three-day conference to bring together farmers, farm leaders, food distributors and purchasers, ethno-cultural and new immigrant leaders, food system analysts, and policy makers to discuss how Ontario’s agri-food industry can take advantage of opportunities in the province’s growing ethno-cultural markets.

The three-day conference will take place in three separate locations: Durham Region, Toronto and Guelph.

Our keynote speaker for each of these days is Dr. Bill Sciarappa, an agricultural and resource management agent with Rutger’s University. Dr. Sciarappa, who holds a PhD in economic entomology and agricultural pest management, is an expert in specialty crop production and marketing. Together with a diverse team of researchers and extension agents, he is currently engaged in a major, USDA-funded research initiative to study crop production for ethnic markets throughout the North Eastern Seaboard.

Each day of the conference will feature panels and presentations from diverse stakeholders on specific issues.

Blackstock, Durham Region – November 27, 2007
Focus on ethnic crop production in Ontario, and will ask how farmers can viably access ethnic markets.

Toronto – November 28, 2007
Focus on new market opportunties and demands, as well as food system infrastructure needs.

Guelph – November 29, 2007
Focus on the development and coordination of critical market and production research and support.

We hope you will join us! We welcome the participation and perspectives of anyone interested or engaged in these issues.

Please note: pre-registration is required.
For full conference details and registration, please visit www.farmstart.ca/growinginternational

If you have any questions or suggestions, you can contact the conference organizer, Melissa Benner
Conference Contacts

FarmStart’s Local Food Pavilion complimented the trade show’s larger All Things Organic (TM) Pavilion, which featured organic farms, certifiers, and non-profit organizations. Our objectives for the pavilion were to engage ethnic retailers, processors, chefs and consumers in discussion around purchasing local food, and to explore the potential for future linkages between these groups and local farmers.

FarmStart worked in partnership with two local farmers, Heritage Line Herbs and Whole Circle Farms, as well as Hamilton’s non-profit Eat Local Program, to set-up an attractive display booth.

Our display showcased fresh, local produce, and featured information on developing a sustainable food system. The conference organizer, Donna Wood, generously donated the space for our pavilion, with the aim of drawing attention to local food opportunities.

Talking with the food company representatives who attended the show was in some ways a dispiriting experience, as it underlined for us the enormous distance that our food system has created between consumers and farmers. Few food company representatives could tell us where or under what conditions the produce that they use for their products is grown.

Most of the Canadian-based ethnic food companies that exhibited at the show produce prepared foods, to be heated and eaten direct from the package. These companies generally outsource their production to co-packers – large companies that manufacture and package food products on a contract basis. In the prepared food industry, responsibility for food safety and sustainability is diffused among an international network of producers, processors/packagers, distributors and retailers, all engaged in a race to the bottom on price.

This system simply cannot accommodate the small- to medium-scale, sustainable farming that FarmStart supports. However, FarmStart’s Local Food Pavilion did draw many attendees and exhibitors who are looking for ways to make change. We fielded dozens of inquiries from restaurateurs and entrepreneurs who are eager to establish relationships with local producers. The West Indian pumpkins on display at our booth – kindly donated by Elgin County’s Howe Farms – attracted particular interest, especially from Caribbean-Canadian retailers and chefs looking for a taste of home.

Follow-up since the show has generated some very fruitful partnerships. FarmStart has helped connect chefs, local retail shops and new bakeries to farmers and organizations working with farmers, such as Toronto’s Local Food Plus.

Overall, the show proved to be a valuable learning experience. It was a great way to spread the word about local food and connect with people who are interested in exploring that avenue. At the same time, it revealed just how much work needs to be done to provide alternatives to the unsustainable practices of the global food system.

Special to The Globe and Mail

August 29, 2007

MEAFORD, ONT. — The fields at the foot of Scotch Mountain are starting to turn gold. Soon, their grain will be harvested for the herd of cows that graze by the side of the road. It’s idyllic farmland here, south of Georgian Bay in Grey County, part of Ontario’s prime beef country.

But only a few kilometres from this bucolic scene, large refrigerated trucks speed down the highway, packed with American-raised beef on the way to the local grocery store.

This incongruity is something the two families who founded Scotch Mountain Meats, a farmers’ co-operative, are trying to change.

Since 2005, they have been promoting a local market for their naturally raised meats in a move away from the modern conventions of the North American meat industry.

In the process, they’ve started a small revolution and attracted the attention of chefs across Ontario.

It started when Murray Jansen, a goat and pig farmer, dropped in on his neighbour Frank Batty, who raises beef and lamb.

Both of their farms were suffering; due to mad-cow-disease scares they had not been able to export their livestock to the United States since 2003. With the border closed, they could only fetch rock-bottom prices at auction.

“We started talking that there had to be another way,” Mr. Jansen’s wife, Donna, says. “Why do we have to depend on the Americans? Why can’t we sell to our neighbours?”

So they devised a plan to save their farms and feed their community.

Instead of sending their livestock to the auction barn where a slaughterhouse would purchase, butcher and package the meat for a grocery chain, the farmers decided to take over the entire process – and return to the way the industry operated 50 years ago.”There was natural skepticism within the community,” Mr. Jansen says. “People wanted us to succeed, but it was a wait-and-see kind of thing.”

The co-operative found two family-run meat plants that would handle their small-scale operation. A plant in Stayner, Ont., wood-smokes their pork sausages and wraps them in natural casings.

In building their customer base, the major hurdle they faced was price: Because of economies of scale and the fact that they pay farmers more for their livestock, Scotch Mountain’s cuts are more expensive than those in the grocery-store cooler.

Nevertheless, through word-of-mouth and the rapidly expanding farmers’ market circuit in Southern Ontario, they have managed to win over chefs and shoppers – and double their sales in the past year alone.

Mr. Jansen credits their success to the quality of the meat, which is free of hormones and antibiotics.

Cattle on Mr. Batty’s farm are raised as they have been since the 1800s, when the first of six generations of his family started farming here.

For the first year of their lives, the cattle are left to graze on the pasture before they are brought into the barn for several months of “finishing” in which they’re fed a diet of grains such as soybeans and peas that the Battys grow themselves.

After the animals are slaughtered, the beef is hung to age for 21 days. Commercial cuts are usually hung for up to 48 hours.

Now, the chef of Cobble Beach Golf Links, a high-end golf club that opened this spring near Owen Sound, buys his meat from Scotch Mountain.

A pub in Thornbury, Ont., serves the co-operative’s prime rib, hamburger and lamb.

And Anthony Rose, executive chef at Toronto’s Drake Hotel, has cooked the co-op’s rib-eye steak and lamb.

“It’s being raised mostly on grass. You can taste it in the final flavour,” Mr. Rose says, pointing out that the lamb is not gamey like the ubiquitous New Zealand variety and the beef has excellent marbling.

The neighbours are also eating Scotch Mountain meat. The co-op runs a shop at the Jansens’ farm; its stall at the Meaford farmers’ market is always busy, and the local chip truck grills Scotch Mountain hamburgers.

In Toronto, the co-op sells to the public at the Brick Works farmers’ market and will soon be selling at the Liberty Village market.

Business is going so well that Mr. Jansen was able to quit his job after 30 years of driving transport trucks.

Now, other farmers in the area are dropping in on the Jansens, asking if they can get on board and sell through the co-operative.

Mr. Jansen welcomes the prospect of growing the business.”People think you have to go to the grocery store to get everything,” he says. “But the time is right for this local-food movement.”

An agricultural marketing co-operative is one interesting and viable option. Basically, these co-ops arise from farmers who jointly market their products. It can be as simple as pooling money for an advertising campaign to collaborating on a product delivery system. Market cooperatives come in all shapes and sizes, and I’ll outline three here.

In Canada, the Co-op Atlantic is a big success. This co-op works as an umbrella organization for smaller member co-ops across the Maritimes. Originally founded by a group of farmers, the co-operative has established extensive retail and grocery outlets. This way, the co-op maintains control of the entire food supply chain: from supplying seeds, to purchasing produce, to selling through the retail stores. The co-op also has a great website that introduces the producers who are involved: http://www.coopatlantic.ca/.

On a slightly smaller scale, there is Ontario’s own Quinte Organic Co-op. This cooperative consists of thirteen farmers who live between Toronto and Ottawa. The farmers recognize there are ample markets in these urban centres, but delivery is costly and time-consuming. So, each spring the farmers meet to divvy up production, and throughout the season, one person delivers all the produce to local farm markets.

Farmers in America are also experimenting with marketing co-operatives. One interesting venture is the Oklahoma Food Cooperative. It links producers to consumers through an online order form, and offers a wide range of products. The orders are delivered monthly to different points across the state, via a strong network of members and volunteers. As of May 2007, the Oklahoma co-op boasts over 1000 consumer and producer members.

These co-op marketing initiatives take a lot of hard work, vision, coordination and commitment. Yet at the same time, the pay-off is amazing. Farmers access all kinds of markets that are otherwise impenetrable, and consumers learn who and where their food comes from!

Part 1 – Living off the land
Part 2 – One cannot live on riesling alone
Part 3 -Taking a bite out of edible myths
Part 4 -Lessons in (farmers’) market economy

Some of these articles require that you have to pay to read them or to continue to the second page. Sorry about that but what can you do?

Our team has had little guidance in the research design. Because, despite the intuitive response of, “Well, yes, it makes sense that ethnic markets would be a cornucopia for Ontario farmers…” there is a lack of long-term and sustained research on this topic.

This makes the task at hand both exciting and a challenge. After much thought, and the help of community consultants in the GTA (thanks to Omme, Patrick, Anan, Angela, and Rhonda and many others) and studies from the States, we’ve arrived at a plan.

Our plan is to interview both sides of the food chain: New Canadian consumers and the ethnic retailers, processors and restaurants that sell the food. Through holding focus groups, taking surveys, and a lot of beating the pavement, we will trace how those Chinese cabbages make their way from airport (!) to market to table.

Our preliminary study will reveal the importance of continued research into this ever-growing ethnic food chain. We are also aiming for very practical outcomes: such as a shortlist of the most popular ethnic crops and how to grow them in
Ontario; such as a list of retailers who would consider buying direct from farmers. And we’ll see what else emerges.

In short, the MarketLINK team is very happy to begin this exciting research! As over 50% of Toronto’s population is born outside of Canada, as food miles add up with each import, and as Ontario farmers continue to lose their farms, we figure that now’s a good a time as any.