Matt Gurney: Canadians will not starve, but we are not spoiled for choice in our local food supply | Instant news

When the boys run out, they turn to Farmerettes.

In 1944, with the devastation of World War II, Ontario’s agriculture was severely understaffed. Antarians must eat, and millions of calories are also needed abroad to prevent Britain from hunger and to keep the Canadian Alliance split strong enough to fight. Food is an important war industry, and there are not enough workers.

Middle school students are a clear place to start, as they get old and strong enough to work in the fields, and they’re too young to fight. My grandmother wanted to join in 1944, but they only escorted the boys that year. The following year, with the war almost over but the need to work was more desperate than before, it was decided that girls could also work in the fields. My grandmother gets a chance. In the barracks with other girls in Clarkson, Ontario, near Oakville, they will be picked up by farmers in their barracks every morning, work hard in the fields all day, and bring them back. They pay 25 25 an hour and can ride home to Toronto on the weekend. To this day, he remembers her as one of the best summers of his life – work is very tiring and often confuses city girls, but it is a lifelong experience.

It has left the personal financial pandemic of COVID-19 in disarray and threatens to destroy more companies, small and large, than we expect. But these economic shocks also threaten the truly critical industries that we need not only to support our prosperity, but also to our survival. This is not about our standard of living, but about life. No industry is more important than agriculture.

One of the great victories in human history has been the gradual but steady decline in the percentage of the total working population working in food production. As recently as about 150 years ago, the most developed countries could have involved about half of their productive workers directly in food cultivation and processing. Nowadays, this number is approaching two percent. This is the foundation of our modern technology community – a staggering increase in productivity per agricultural worker, over time, allowing millions of people to focus their lives on other endeavors. In other words, two percent of North American workers feed the other 98 percent, who are able to do everything else that you will find in our society.

Some increases in productivity related to advancement of knowledge – the concept of crop rotation is a prime example. But the productivity of our relatively young agricultural workers depends on adding to their workforce through massive external inputs in the form of advanced machines, fossil fuels, fertilizers, pesticides, and tens of thousands of temporary foreign workers (TFW).

Watermelon and asparagus farmer Mike Cromsack, waiting for workers to arrive and begin mandatory quarantine against coronavirus (COVID-19), is released on Chromczak farms in Brownsville, Ontario, Canada, April 2, 2020.

Carlos Osorio / Reuters

Farms from World War II were replaced by up to 60,000 foreigners traveling to Canada on a temporary work visa to help with Canadian agriculture, fisheries and food processing facilities. A few weeks ago, when the Canadian government essentially closed our borders, a preliminary report caused the TFW not to be ruled out with some actual panic between agricultural producers. These workers are extremely important to our agricultural sector – as important as seeds or fertilizers. The federal government soon turned around and said it could come, subject to a 14-day isolation period, but there are still fewer-than-usual reports of arrivals, which makes sense, given global fear and normal travel disruptions.

Can Canadians do this job? Definitely. After all, the grandmother and her colleagues did. But this will require mobilizing tens of thousands of Canadians in a matter of weeks – agriculture is not far away. These newly-mobilized Canadians need time to learn the details and get out, so efficiency is reduced. They are also demanding high fares, which consumers ultimately pay when they check out in bulk.

TFW is just one part of a very complex supply chain that depends on our food supply – so complex that even experts find it difficult to fully understand it. Canada is a major global player in fertilizer production, for example, but many Canadian farmers still import from abroad (often from the United States), due to transportation costs, while most Canadian production is sent to the United States. Domestic production can be converted to the Canadian field, but this will require significant logistical efforts, at a time of year when rail and commercial truck fleet demand is already required.

Snow crab descended in Dartmouth, NS. On Monday, February 14, 2000.

Andrew Vaughan /

The release of the Canadians

None of the above has been presented, because mostly, the major industry associations and agricultural groups themselves have only collected important data and have begun to fully understand the potential dimensions of labor and supply shortages, along with the possibility of disruption to transportation. Imagine if a group of railway workers ended up in quarantine in a major logistics center like Chicago. Canada produces more food than it consumes, so with this scale we can defend ourselves, as long as we can continue to access the necessary agricultural inputs.

But the entire Canadian agricultural sector, including food processing and packaging, is in a location that is (or may be) a growing global marketplace that makes fresh food affordable for millions of people at any time of the year. Ideally, the global market will continue to grow. But this epidemic showed us how weak these systems are. In an emergency, the best thing we can say for sure is that we may be able to feed ourselves, but on a diet that has the potential to seem completely different from what we have had lately.

At present, we do not know what the diet will look like, or whether we can grow, process and pack it using local resources and supplies. We may never have – God willing, we will not do it – but can we? Even the experts I spoke to this week don’t know. The most optimistic they will express is that we might be fine, if there is no mistake. Excellent.

Humans may not live on bread alone, but bread is a very good place to start. Ensuring that we have enough will be a top priority for the government in the coming days and weeks. Once you make sure we have enough, you can expect a long and difficult offer on our system. Our food supply should not be something that Canadians are concerned about. But we are here.

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