Farm revenues stagnate in Thunder Bay district, while rest of northern Ontario sees huge growth

Gross local farm revenue in Thunder Bay district has grown by two per cent over the past 10 years, well below the northern Ontario average of 48 per cent.

The region also lost 37 per cent of its farms and 32 per cent of the farmland previously in production in the same time frame. That's compared to just seven per centacross Ontario for both metrics.

Those numbers come from a new Food System Report Card released Wednesday by the Thunder Bay Food Strategy and its authors say the 76-page reportis the first comprehensive review of the local food system since its initial report card in 2015.

Thunder Bay's relative lack of growth has a lot to do with the maturity of it agricultural sector,said Raili Roy, a consultant who focuses on food and who worked on the food production segment of the report card.

"There isn't the immediate blast of a whole bunch of farmers coming that would create that shock of growth that you see in other regions."

Gross farm receipts in Rainy River district grew by 78 per cent during the same 10-yearperiod, while Cochrane saw growth of 260 per cent and Sudbury 373 per cent.

"Those regions saw a lot more land clearing and a conversion of farms to cash crops such as Canola, a high-revenue crop," said Peggy Brekveld, a Murillo dairy farmer and the president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture.

She agreed with Roy that the maturity of the Thunder Bay market helps account for the lack of growth.

"The unique thing about Thunder Bay is this real connection with local food," she said. "Thunder Bay farmers are growing more for the local market than, say, Rainy River, and that gives some stability to our farming revenue, but [we haven't] necessarily seen the revenue growth that new cash crop acres such as canola would have seen recently in other regions."

Belluz Farms co-owner Kevin Belluz said the stagnant growth in a locally-oriented market also reflects a concerning reality.

"Interest in local food I would say is waning," he said.

If the Food Strategy wants to grow local production, he added, it will need to address demand.

Local food production increases resilience

The documentprovides baseline data for measuring progress toward food sovereignty in the region based on the seven pillars of the Thunder Bay Food Strategy:food access; forest and freshwater foods; food infrastructure; food procurement; food production; school food environments; and urban agriculture.

It defines food sovereignty as "the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems."

Growing local food production would help the region become more resilient so it's better equipped to cope with a disruption in the food supply, Roy said.

"We saw something happen a couple of years ago when there was a closure on highway 11/17, and we saw empty shelves in the grocery stores, specifically in the produce department, as a result of that."

But attracting local producers to the Thunder Bay area remains a challenge, despite the fact that land here is cheaper than it is in the south, said Brendan Grant, the co-owner of Sleepy G. Farm in Pass Lake.

Grant and his wife and co-owner, Marcelle Paulin, have promoted the area with ads in farming magazines at their own expense, he said, but some people from southern Ontario just don't want to move all the way to Thunder Bay.

"Even people who have worked with us on our farm and have seen the potential and have spent some time in Thunder Bay seem to go back where they came from, and usually they cite reasons of being closer to family," he said.

Land values around the city are also becoming prohibitive for some, even if they are far cheaper than in southern Ontario, he added.

That was the deterrent for the Thunder Bay-born owner of Honey Berry Fruit Farm in the Fort Frances area.

"For a home with some land [around]it, we were looking at about $350,000-plus," said Bryan Kinsman.

"We bought land in Rainy River District with a home already on it ... and a decent amount of land to start a small farm for, like, $190,000. It's really hard. You know, when you're young, the banks don't really like to look at you."

These days, Grant said, old farmland around Thunder Bay is being bought up by homeowners who want to live in the country for more money thanthe land could earn as a farm.

But Breckveld said she knows at least three farmers who have settled in Thunder Bay district in the last fiveyears.

"I still think there's room to grow agriculture in Thunder Bay," she said.

Grant said he'd love to see municipalities add a farm tax to their property tax leviesto create a fund that would help farmers establish and scale up operations in the region.

Roy believes the region should promote itself to would-be farmers in southern Ontario as a place where land is cheaper and supplies are available, she said.

The Thunder Bay Community Economic Development Commission does not have an active strategy to recruit farmers or food producers right now,but it would be happy to speak to interested parties about opportunities and needs, said CEO Jamie Taylor in an email.

The CEDC's entrepreneur centre, meanwhile,provides support to existing farms and food producers, said development officer for small business Ryan Moore.

It has also partnered with the Food Strategy on initiatives to help expand markets for local producers.