OCTOBER 2023
CELEBRATING 144 YEARS AS CANADA’S PREMIER HORTICULTURAL PUBLICATION
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BUILDING COMMUNITY
Farmers’ markets expand on tradition
Given the public interest in land use, particularly around metropolitan areas of Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal, farmers’ markets play an increasingly important role in connecting farmers with consumers. These are more than commercial transactions. These are personal relationships, priceless in forging a sense of community. Just ask Kevin Gallant and his wife Keara who farm near Vanessa, Ontario, supplying three farmers’ markets in the Greater Toronto Area. Photo by Marcella DiLonardo. KAREN DAVIDSON It’s 6 am and Kevin Gallant has just pocket dialled several friends. He’s been busy loading pumpkins onto a truck headed for the Milton Farmers’ Market, one of many such markets in the Greater Toronto Area. His wife Keara will be off soon in the other direction, to the Burlington Centre Farmers’ Market, also about an hour’s drive away from their farm near Vanessa, Ontario. Between them, the early morning banter is about their daughter Presley. At the age of nine years, she’s already a formidable sales agent. Having made a quick decision about which market she will choose this Saturday fall morning, Presley slides into the truck beside her dad. Milton it is. Gallant Farms, home to Presley’s Pumpkin Patch, has a long-standing tradition of growing vegetables. Their pumpkins have become so popular that five Terra Greenhouse stores now feature their harvest-season globes
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and gourds. A pick-your-own pumpkin market also opens to the public on the farm until end of October. Like many market growers, Kevin and his family have benefited post-COVID because the 2020 pandemic shone a light on just how important farmers’ markets are to consumers. Some markets didn’t open at all, others spread out to temporary quarters while still others clambered aboard the bandwagon of e-commerce. Since that time, the food landscape has changed in ways that could not have been imagined three years ago. “The appreciation by customers is unbelievable,” says Gallant. “They want to hear about your farm and how the weather is affecting your crop. They are craving a connection at the market.” Dedication to the direct-to-consumer model has paid off for Gallant Farms which has expanded from five acres in 2017 to 80 acres of vegetable production now. In 2022, the Gallant’s added the Ancaster Farmers’ Market to their mix. At that market, more than 80 per cent of their customers used a debit card --– part of a tap-and-go trend
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that eliminates the inconvenience and personal contact of exchanging cash. The economic impact of farmers’ markets is challenging to quantify says Catherine Clark, executive director of Farmers’ Markets Ontario (FMO). The last study dates back to 2011 when the research showed the province’s markets had an economic impact of $2.47 billion annually. Clearly, in the last decade those numbers have ballooned. “The dynamics have changed,” says Clark, who represents 180 members. “There is a need to update this information and to understand the importance of farmers’ markets to the agricultural sector. With the supply chain disruptions during the COVID- 19 pandemic, consumers appear to be more dedicated than ever to shop directly from the farmers who grow the food.”
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