It is a shame that disaster for some may bring opportunity for others but farmers and municipal leaders would do well to heed the advice of Leon LeClair.
[audio wav="http://blackburnnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/COMM-June-18.wav"][/audio] Leon the Innovator wants to draw together farm knowledge, food marketing and processing knowledge and put together a forum, or think tank of sorts to see if we can't grow more veggies.
The health people tell us we should eat more and they are right, but there may be good economics in growing more.
Leon has been interested in vegetable plots for some time and has been studying the issue.
His logic goes like this: vegetable prices, food prices generally actually, are up, in part because of the drought on the west coast, so why not grow more here?
Certainly we grow a lot of vegetables now. Carrots, peas, snap beans, brussels sprouts, tomatoes, the list does go on. And one thing our experience teaches us about those crops is that they are value added not only for the farm operation but for the economy as a whole.
The farms that grow them require more staff, for harvesting, grading, packing, and often delivery.
That translates into more jobs, and while some people think jobs in agriculture are minimum wage jobs, that is only partly true. Some pay comparatively well.
I, like many have been saying for some time we need to take this agriculture thing to the next level. If that next is through vegetables, fine.
Leon knows it would be a big step. While a lot of our farmers do grow veggies they are set up in many cases for specific crops. Other farmers are geared to grains and oil seeds and making a big investment in a new crop is, .. well it's a big investment and that kind of money isn't an in and out thing. It's a long term investment or don't do it.
That's why the call to put the brain trust to work, to develop the way to make it work for now and into the future.
Right now it's all open. Are you looking at fresh or processed, local market or export, The answer is yes.
You look at everything. You consider everything. But if you are going to make a difference in the local economy, you have to go big, so there is a need to find markets outside the area.
And why? Because there are so many unknowns. Because a huge investment in a crop that peters out after a year or three is silly.
So why not just grow corn, and wheat and soys?
Well that's a fair question, and for some, on some of Ontario's farmland it's a no brainer. Corn and wheat and soybeans are your most profitable crops because the soil isn't suited for veggies.
But in those areas where it is suited to veggies, why not go for it? Why not hold that think tank and work up ideas for growing new and interesting crops, that can be marketed throughout the world?
Right across Ontario, one gets the impression that more value added crops are possible. Certainly not on every acre, but the land is there.
Let's at least examine it and see where the idea takes us....
