**Updated as of 11:00 a.m., Wednesday, April 5, 2023**
Huron-Bruce MP Ben Lobb says as a province and as a country we have to get more involved in food processing.
Speaking at last week's Huron Federation of Agriculture's Meet the Members event, Lobb pointed out that the pandemic has really exposed some of the supply challenges and food shortages in other parts of the world, and he says we have to make sure that food sovereignty and food security are pillars in Canadian life.
“That means supporting agriculture, but really starting to support the processing sector more as well because a lot of the food processing is outdated, it's old, it's not in the right part of the geography for where production is now," Lobb stated.
Lobb says that would be good for employment and it would be good for Canada's gross domestic product.
“We make foods and we make goods that the rest of the world want and instead of shipping it as a raw material or a raw good, we should be finishing it further so that when we ship it around the world it is a finished product," added Lobb.
Lobb says processing our food and our products here before we ship them around the world would be good for Canadians and Ontarians.
Huron-Bruce M-P-P Lisa Thompson strongly supports the point made by Lobb at the Huron Federation of Agriculture's Meet the Members day that, as a province and a country, we're missing out by not processing more of the food we produce.
Thompson agrees it doesn't make sense to send so much of the food produced in Huron County to someone else to process and then buy it back from them. Thompson goes on to say a lot can be done at the local level to address that.
“I think it would be of interest to everyone if we worked with our municipalities to identify ready opportunities in which we can attract and bring new processing manufacturing to the county," Thompson said.
Thompson adds, the future is bright for the agri-food industry in Ontario, so why not bring that home to Huron County.
