From farm to fork, the average Canadian meal travels about 3,000 kilometres. Because of our cold climate and short growing season, much of the country’s fresh produce is imported — a dependency that compromises the country’s food security and carries a hefty environmental toll. And as the cost of living continues to increase, many people are struggling to access the nutrients they need: according to the Daily Bread food bank, visits to food banks in Toronto have increased 340 per cent since 2019.
We saw those vulnerabilities when peak pandemic shortages caused chaos at grocery stores, and the past year of trade friction with the United States has made it even more apparent that Canada cannot — and should not — rely on others to feed its own. Shifting that dynamic will require strategic thinking and new approaches.
Home base: Sourcing local produce can bolster resilience
Canada imports as much as 90 per cent of its lettuce, a fact that seems woefully out of step with a Buy Canadian ethos. It’s not just a greens issue — according to tracking from UBC, roughly 60 per cent of the vegetables and 80 per cent of the fruit consumed in the country comes from elsewhere. Most of us are hoping to change this reality: a survey by KPMG in February found that 93 per cent of Canadians prefer locally grown produce.
Haven Greens is tapping into that demand. The company’s sprawling greenhouse in King City, Ont., which started operations this past February, is the size of three football stadiums and grows nearly 10,000 pounds of leafy greens per day. “We need localized production to mitigate risks,” says founder and CEO Jay Willmot. “The list of risks is long: climate change, fuel and labour shocks and the trade war.”
To confront those challenges, the federal government has sought to strengthen local farming since 2019 through a funding program called the Local Food Infrastructure Fund. There has been some progress. Domestic production of lettuce has steadily climbed in the past five years, though not fast enough to meaningfully offset imports. And as greenhouse farming has accelerated, Canada has become more self-sufficient in cultivating crops like cucumbers, peppers and tomatoes. (The price of cucumbers, for what it’s worth, leapt 24.5 per cent between August and September of this year.)
Haven Greens is betting that lettuce can join the ranks. At its facility, which the company describes as Canada’s first fully automated farm, a Finnish mobile gutter system cradles the crops, maximizing production and efficiency. Willmot calls it “the perpetual motion lettuce machine,” which allows the greenhouse to operate largely without human labour. Alongside the system, computer-controlled irrigation and climate management fine-tune growing conditions while minimizing waste and water use.
Its location — within a day’s drive of major population centres in Ontario — allows for rapid distribution and reduced spoilage, says Willmot. It’s not just the food mileage. The greenhouse farm is adopting green technologies — solar power, reuse of rainwater and carbon capture — with the aim of reaching net-zero emissions by 2027. That systematic approach enables Haven to optimize its output, which means its supply often outpaces demand. This has allowed the company to donate tens of thousands of pounds of greens to community organizations — one step toward ensuring that cost is not a barrier for people who want to access fresh, healthy food.
Haven’s farming model isn’t going to dethrone traditional agriculture — at least not yet. Still, its operation reflects a broader push to bolster the resilience of Canada’s food supply. “Could we reach the point where Canadians are producing 20 per cent of what we need?” Willmot muses. “Yes, I think we can do that.”
Growing up: Vertical farming can strengthen food sovereignty
Even if imported produce used to have an economic edge, that’s no longer the case. In 2022, drought and crop diseases in California — a major lettuce supplier to Canada — triggered a shortage of lettuce across Canadian grocery stores, sending prices soaring as much as 500 per cent. Recent data from Statistics Canada suggests that shoppers saw lettuce prices leap 9.3 per cent between August and September of this year. This volatility points to another important supply-chain issue: being able to afford healthy food is a human right. And those rights may be in jeopardy depending on where you live.
For Corey Ellis, the alarm bells rang long before Canada’s supply-chain woes made headlines. In 2015, while studying business at the University of Ottawa, he visited Iqaluit, Nunavut, and was stunned to find local lettuce selling for many times the price in Ottawa.
“It was a bit of sticker shock, to put it lightly,” Ellis says. “Seeing this problem sparked a desire to do something about it.” That shock is part of daily reality in the North: harsh winters, rough road conditions and high shipping costs contribute to the fact that half of Nunavut’s population — the highest rate of all the provinces and territories — lives in food-insecure households, with unreliable access to adequate nutrition.
For Ellis, the experience planted the seed for what would become Growcer, the Ottawa-based vertical farming company he co-founded. “We grow food regardless of climate or weather,” Ellis says. “And the best way to protect ourselves against global shocks is to have farmers close to home without having to rely on others.”
The struggle to access healthy food is not exclusive to remote geographic areas. In December 2024, Toronto’s city council adopted a motion to declare food insecurity an emergency in the region. From Asia to Europe to the Americas, vertical farming is emerging as a promising alternative to traditional agriculture. It requires far less space and can be set up in places where conventional farming isn’t feasible. The industry is projected to grow to $9.7 billion (U.S.) by 2026, up from $3.1 billion (U.S.) in 2021, according to a market research report.
The company’s answer to that challenge is a modular unit that resembles a cargo container. Inside, plants are stacked on shelves in controlled indoor environments, where light, temperature and humidity are calibrated to ensure optimal yield. The crops are grown through hydroponics, a soilless technique in which roots dangle in nutrient-rich water beneath LED lights, and the company says the insulated panels in its systems help reduce energy consumption. Although the upfront costs are steep (the modular set-ups start at $205,000 plus shipping), the company has introduced the Growcer Fund, a partnership model that mitigates financial barriers by allowing prospective farmers to lease units, with the option to buy the systems outright after eight years.
Today, there are around 140 Growcer farms across the country supplying nearly 60,000 Canadians with fresh produce each day. Many of the company’s units support Indigenous communities, while others serve grocery stores and schools and institutions with high demand for fresh produce.
“Our view is we shouldn’t be moving the food,” says Ellis. “We should be moving the farms closer to where the food is needed.”
Cultivating community: Small-scale farming can have big impact
Globally, agriculture — through fertilizer use and wastewater — is one of the leading contributors to water pollution. According to an assessment by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, agricultural drainage is responsible for more than half of contaminated runoff released into the environment each year. Shrinking the footprint of farming presents a challenge — to grow food at a scale that is both economically viable and meets demand, many operators rely on conventional industrial methods, which can have detrimental effects on local ecosystems. In Canada, the federal and provincial governments have encouraged the adoption of environmental best management practices (eBMP), research-informed approaches that prioritize minimizing the impact of farming on the surrounding land, water systems and atmosphere.
While financial hurdles and a lack of awareness have hampered large-scale implementation of eBMPs in Ontario, one non-profit operation nestled along the shore of Lake Simcoe, shows how going small — even without fancy equipment — can make a big difference.
Georgina, Ont.-based Clearwater Farm has made water conservation its core mission. That focus is well placed: according to one local environment group, agricultural and rural wastewater is responsible for about a quarter of the phosphorus that makes its way into Lake Simcoe each year, causing toxic algae overgrowth and affecting fish and other aquatic populations. In March, the federal government designated more than $1 million in funding for projects related to the conservation and remediation of Lake Simcoe, with nearly 40 per cent of that money directed toward phosphorus pollution.
For Grace Harding, regenerative manager at Clearwater, the solution lies not in high-tech systems, but healthy soil. “The way you treat soil affects everything,” she says. “Having good soil prevents erosion and runoff. We want to make farming into something that can be beneficial for the environment instead of being harmful and extractive.” That philosophy plays out in small, deliberate ways. Clearwater eschews harmful chemicals and composts its own waste — pruned leaves and damaged vegetables. In addition to returning nutrients to the soil, the compost acts as a sort of sponge, says Harding. “Instead of watering every day or every other day in the summer when it’s really hot, you can water once a week or once every two weeks,” she says.
There are trade-offs. Without pesticides, the farm often relies on physical barriers to keep pests at bay. It loses crops sometimes. “You’re farming without certain tools in your arsenal because you know they cause adverse effects,” Harding says. But it’s worth it, she adds, if the goal is to benefit the environment as a whole.
That holistic approach extends to the community: Clearwater doubles as a classroom, offering lessons to locals on how food is grown and what it takes to farm sustainably. Residents can sign up to buy a weekly basket of fresh produce — tomatoes, leafy greens and carrots — for home delivery or pickup at the farm. The CSA program is another piece of the supply-chain puzzle: by proactively buying shares in a grower’s harvest, individuals help offset the risk inherent in smaller-scale farming, ensuring that their bottom line isn’t wholly tied to unpredictable variables such as weather.
Ultimately, as Harding explains, connecting people more directly to what they eat plants the seeds for future growth. “When you bring kids onto the farm to learn how their food grows, they engage with nature. With those memorable experiences, they’re most likely going to turn into adults who care about sustainability, who care about protecting our land and our lakes,” she says. “Those are the ripples we hope to create.”
Owen Guo writes about technology for MaRS. Torstar, the parent company of the Toronto Star, has partnered with MaRS to highlight innovation in Canadian companies.
Growcer is one of nine companies participating in the Mission from MaRS: Food and Agtech Accelerator, a program that aims to advance solutions that will strengthen Canada’s food supply chains.
