With spring officially underway on Thursday, temperatures starting to warm and daylight lasting longer, Rob Galey is itching to start planting.
There is extra incentive this season, as shoppers look for alternatives to American produce amid a trade war and U.S. President Donald Trump’s persistent threats to annex Canada.
The buy-local bandwagon is filling fast.
“I’m going to plant every square metre I have this year,” said Galey, a berry and vegetable farmer in the Blenkinsop Valley.
That means no fallow fields and cultivating the edges of fields for maximum yields.
“We’re already getting a lot of questions about how soon we’ll have local produce this year,” he said, adding Trump is motivating Canadians.
“I’ve see people get on the local kick before and then fade off, but it looks like this time people are going to change their habits. This looks like a permanent thing.”
Galey said he’s hoping to get his vegetable plants in the ground a few weeks earlier and then start bringing them to his farm gate and wholesalers by mid- to late May, depending on weather.
He has already hired more field staff, with plans to double raspberry production, increase strawberries by 10% and boost by 25% both his potato and corn crops.
“I’ve had enough [fallow] rotation over the last years, so I’m just going to seed as dense as I can,” said Galey.
Chad Shillito, general manager of Island Vegetables Co-operative Association, which represents growers on the Saanich Peninsula and the Lower Mainland, said the demand for local and B.C. produce has never been higher.
He said that support is apparent in the quick sales of “storage crops” like potatoes, onions, beets and cabbage, which are rapidly being gobbled up by wholesalers to sell to local grocery stores and restaurants.
“The demand has always been strong with Island customers wanting to buy Island-grown produce,” said Shillito. “But over the course of this tariff talk, the ante has very much been upped with customers now demanding local … we’re seeing that with a sales increase in volume and tonnage.”
Shillito said storage crops — picked late season or over the winter and easily preservable — usually hold farmers over until the next planting season. Those stocks being bought up gives farmers cash flow for the input costs of spring crops.
“You’ve got growers right now buying and procuring seed for the coming season,” said Shillito. “It’s a hard time of the year for them, but with this increased pulse, it’s allowing them to go a little longer and not have as much shrink [in income].”
Terry Michell of Michell’s Farm, one of the largest producers on the Island, said sales at the family’s farm store are up by about 60% since the wave of patriotic shopping began after Trump’s unprovoked trade attacks on Canada.
He said his supply of storage vegetables is being sold off at a rate not seen in decades.
Michell said wholesalers have been calling to ask what he’s planting this spring and how much they can get to supply local grocers like Thrifty Foods, Country Grocer and The Root Cellar.
“They want everything we have,” said Michell.
The sixth-generation farm raises beef and grows and sells about 35 varieties of vegetables and berries. There are plans to experiment with growing other vegetable types this year and to increase plantings for higher yields.
Shillito said the demand for local produce is coming not just from grocery stores, both large and small, but from restaurants and food processors.
He expects it to remain strong because of the product’s freshness and reduced travel footprint.
Farmers are already producing lettuces, carrots, kale, chard and other winter veggies. The main crops will start emerging in May and peak through June, July and August.
Greenhouse operations are ramping up, with seedlings for field planting as well as hothouse tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers.
“Everybody is just waiting for those longer and warmer days,” said Shillito. “The more tonnage that is moved through the local growing community now … that’s incentive enough for growers to plant more, increase their crops and to lay out the square footage of farms to the maximum.
“If this keeps up, the growing industry on the Island and mainland will flourish.”
Shillito said educating the consumer about the benefits of buying local has “always been the hard part,” but politics is taking care of that now.
“It’s really the consumer driving the bus here. If the consumer demands it, then our wholesale and retail customers demand it and that means increased movement for local growers.”
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