Mid-size farms, like middle class families are declining in numbers. They’re giving way to smaller, specialized operations where food is more expensive to produce. That’s unfortunate because mid-size farms have been the stalwarts of Canada’s food production system – efficient, competitive and environmentally sustainable.
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Mini or “baby†vegetables have come to occupy a huge spot in modern culinary culture. But few can claim as exotic a lineage as Guatemalan baby corn. Producer Tulio Garcia Sr. explains how workers at a remote village in Guatemala are hand-harvesting up to three million ears a week for Costco. Photo: Tulio Garcia Sr.
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Agricultural suppliers point to the supply chain as the source of escalating food prices. But who’s driving those costs? It’s not farmers, who are paying up to twice as much for inputs such as fertilizer this year. It’s suppliers themselves. Photo: globalnews.com
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Shortages of labour, packaging and even pallets will be among our worst 2021 memories. Canada’s food system remained resilient though, and kept food on the shelves. However, political leadership is needed to address the skyrocketing prices farmers and consumers are now facing. Photo: thegrower.org
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Farmers have a lot of credibility with the public. And as the New Year advances, you can expect to see more of them in the media, communicating with consumers about how they produce food. Kudos to Ottawa and to the Canadian Agricultural Youth Council for their participation in this effort. Image: agriculture.canada.ca
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Owen Roberts is a faculty member in the Agricultural Leadership, Education and Communications program at the University of Illinois. As an agricultural journalist, he is the past president of the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists and a lifetime achievement award recipient from the Canadian Farm Writers' Federation. His programs and research papers have been recognized nationally and internationally through awards from the Journal of Applied Communications, the National Agri-Marketing Association, the Association for Communications Excellence, and others.