Can Canada grow more of its own food? Greenhouses, vertical farming makes it possible, experts say

While Canadians are taking time at the grocery store looking for Canadian-made products and labels like the maple leaf, local food growers are ramping up production to meet demand.

Jon Lomow is the co-founder of Fieldless Farms, an indoor vertical farm in Cornwall, Ont. He grows leafy greens and mushrooms year-round and says his produce has been flying off the shelf.

"We are selling out two- to four-times faster, in some instances, maybe five-times faster in high volume stores, than we were before all this was happening. That's a pretty strong sign that people have moved in the direction of wanting to buy more local," Lomow told Cost of Living.

They're planning to build another farm to meet that rising demand, and started a crowdfunding campaign. The company has nearly hit their goal of $2.2 million in only a month.

Pockets of food production in Ontario, Quebec, Alberta and British Columbia have led to greenhouse fruit and vegetable production volumes increasing by roughly five times since 2000, Royal Bank of Canada agricultural policy lead Lisa Ashton wrote in a report on agriculture and Canadian exports.

This growing industry can play a critical role in closing the production gap, where vegetable production would need to double and fruit production would need to grow by five times to feed domestic demand, she wrote.

The suddenly rocky relationship between Canada and the U.S. has many Canadians rethinking our dependence on our southern neighbour. 

Despite growing many fruits and veggies, Canada's fleeting summer and short growing season means the country relies on the U.S. and other parts of the world for fresh produce to balance consumers' nutritional needs — especially during the winter.

Lenore Newman, director of the Food and Agriculture Institute at the University of the Fraser Valley in B.C., said that for decades, importing produce from the U.S. was no big deal.

"It was just very easy for a long time to rely on them. And, it just worked until it didn't."

On average, about 50 per cent of vegetables, aside from potatoes, and 75 per cent of fruits eaten in Canada are imported, according to research from the University of British Columbia. And out of this, the U.S. supplies 67 per cent of Canada's vegetable imports and 36 per cent of its fruit imports.

Newman says we could grow more produce year-round like producers in the Netherlands. Though the country is smaller than Nova Scotia, it is the second largest exporter of vegetables in the world after the U.S. 

Dutch producers grow food in greenhouses with very little fertilizer, water and labour, and use a lot of solar-derived energy. In the Netherlands, roughly 5,500 hectares of land — or 2 million NHL hockey rinks — is dedicated to growing vegetables indoors.

And what prompted this has a lot to do with history.