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Under the Canopy
On Outdoor Journal Radio's Under the Canopy podcast, former Minister of Natural Resources, Jerry Ouellette takes you along on the journey to see the places and meet the people that will help you find your outdoor passion and help you live a life close to nature and Under The Canopy.
Under the Canopy
Episode 127: How Controlled Environments Are Rewriting Canada’s Food Map
Winter doesn’t stop a ripe tomato anymore. We sit down with Richard Lee, Executive Director of the Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Growers, to unpack how controlled environment agriculture is rewriting the rules on local food, energy use, and year-round supply. From Leamington’s vast glass acreage to the algorithms that decide when lights switch on, we trace the systems that keep cucumbers, peppers, and lettuce thriving when the thermometer says otherwise.
Richard breaks down the economics and engineering: why energy and labor dominate costs, how double energy curtains and heat reclamation lower the load, and how light abatement keeps night skies dark while plants get what they need. We explore the limits of latitude—how yields can drop just an hour north—and why that pushes investment into supplemental lighting and smarter controls. Then we widen the lens to remote communities where a head of lettuce can travel by ice road. Vertical and container farms emerge as practical solutions, especially as new energy options become realistic, bringing fresh produce, skills, and food sovereignty closer to home.
We also dig into crop diversification, from the rise of greenhouse lettuce to the promise and setbacks of strawberries. Precision agriculture takes center stage: closed-loop irrigation, substrate growing on rockwool or coco, and sensor networks that alert growers in real time. It’s a portrait of modern agriculture that blends sustainability with scale, aiming to replace imports with Ontario-grown food that’s consistent, clean, and close.
Curious how this technology could serve your community—or your kitchen? Hit play, subscribe, and share this episode with someone who thinks fresh vegetables can’t be local in February. And if you enjoyed the show, leave a review to help more listeners find us.
And it comes to build one of the editor's most iconic fishing languages. I'm your host, Steve NeedsWiki, and you'll find out about that and a whole lot more on the Outdoor Channel Radio Network's newest podcast, The Fraysable Legend. This podcast will be more than that. Every week in the Ferrisable Legion, I'm going to introduce you to a ton of great people. Share their stories of our channels, tribulations, and inspirations. Learn and have plenty of lives along the way.
SPEAKER_03:Figure out how to catch a bass. And we both decided one day we were going to be on television doing efficient showing.
SPEAKER_06:My hands get sore a little bit when I'm reeling in on those bats in the summertime, but that's mighty for more efficient than it was punchy.
SPEAKER_02:You so confidently said, Hey Pat, have you ever eaten a drink? Find diaries of a lodge owner now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
SPEAKER_12:As the world gets louder and louder, the lessons of our natural world become harder and harder to hear, but they are still available to those who know where to listen. I'm Jerry Olette, and I was honored to serve as Ontario's Minister of Natural Resources. However, my journey into the woods didn't come from politics. Rather, it came from my time in the bush and a mushroom. In 2015, I was introduced to the birch-hungry fungus known as Chaga, a tree conch with centuries of medicinal applications used by indigenous peoples all over the globe. After nearly a decade of harvest, use, testimonials, and research, my skepticism has faded to obsession. And I now spend my life dedicated to improving the lives of others through natural means. But that's not what the show is about. My pursuit is a strange mushroom, and my passion for the outdoors has brought me to the places and around the people that are shaped by our natural world. On Outdoor Journal Radio's Under the Canopy podcast, I'm going to take you along with me to see the places, meet the people that will help you find your outdoor passion and help you live a life close to nature and under the canopy. So join me today for another great episode, and hopefully, we can inspire a few more people to live their lives under the canopy. All right. Well, as always, we want to thank our listeners throughout Canada, Ontario, around the world, the States, Switzerland, Saudi, Ghana, Caribbean, everywhere. We really appreciate you listening because without our listeners, we ain't going to be here. And not only that, but if you got any questions, let us know. You got any shows you want to see or here? I wish you could see. I mean, maybe that'll come in the future. But any shows you want to listen to, let us know and we'll see what we can do. Now, I got to tell you, I've been talking about this new fireplace insert that we have that has been eating the house. And I've gone from, well, this time of the year, mind you, it's pretty warm the this week, and we're looking into the pluses, but we've had quite a few days where it's minus 10 or colder. Uh quite a few periods of time for extended periods of time. And normally in those times I'm burning about, oh I know,$75,$100 a week in fuel to heat the place. And but I gotta tell you, since I put this insert in, and it's a fireplace insert that I spoke about a number of times, I've gone down to and did the calculations about I would say$10 a week instead of$7,500, and for those same heating periods. And all I do is um we crank it up uh the stove pretty good. We keep it going on a regular basis. It's got a double blower system, so it circulates the heat quite quite a bit. And uh the plants that we have in the same room, we just make sure that we water them a little bit more often. That uh with the Christmas tree there, we kept it uh moisture, a lot of moisture in it, of course, for a regular basis to keep it moist because it was at the other end of the room. But savings-wise, it's been huge. The problem is, and everybody told me you're not going to burn near as much wood. You'll burn hardly any wood at all compared to speaking. And yeah, I I can say if you took your fingers and touched your your fingers and your thumb together to go around, I would probably put four, maybe, maybe five pieces of wood that size, and they would be 14 to 16 inches long into this insert, and it would last me all night long, seven hours at minus 10, minus 15, and no problem at all. And it heats the house up. But the difference is, and everybody told me, oh, you burned way less wood. Yeah, I burned less wood. But the problem was with the fireplace, I'd have it on at night and keep it going as much, you know, fill it up. And not often is going as often, but with the uh fireplace insert, I got it going all the time. So I'm going through about the same amount of wood, just no extra heat required in the house at all. None of the other heat sources have been needed at all. So it's I'm going through probably the same volume, but I didn't plan for that. So now I'm running low and scrambling like crazy to keep filling my my uh wood box with uh good dry wood. And after a week's worth of cutting, splitting and hauling, I get in to see the chiropractor, and he puts my rib back in, fixes my wrist, fixes my knee, because I'm hauling it out by sled out of the bush. And I mean like a toboggan that you haul stuff out with. That might go in the back of a skidoo, but we're not hauling out with skidoos, we're just hauling out with with people's sleds, hauling it, taking it out of the bush. So it's paying a stole, but we're enjoying the heat. It's nice heat. It keeps keeps it well warm. And as I say before, I circulate the heat through the uh entire house by turning on the furnace fans and blowing that around. So it makes a big difference. Now, I know last time when I was coming in to record, Nick, and Nick and I share a recording studio. Nick's on the outdoor uh radio journal, The Fish and Canada TV show, and we share the same room, and Nick was sicker than a dog. As a matter of fact, uh his uh partner, he had to take her into the hospital because she was so sick, she actually had passed out from uh what she was dealing with. But like I said, haven't been drinking your Chaga, have you, Nick? And he said, No, I haven't, but he got right back on it. And I got to tell you, going into the same studio, never caught a thing, never had a problem. And the rest of the crews around who were who were drinking Chaga never had the problem at all, because Chaga works as an immunomodulator. And what that means is if your immune system is not active enough, it stimulates it to get going. But if it's overactive, it'll bring it down. So just another example of some of the Chaga stuff where we've had some benefits. And I got to tell you, since I started on this, I think I've been probably in nine years now, I've been sick maybe five and two half times. And the reason I say half times is because I thought I was getting sick, but never really got sick. But it doesn't work on stuff like strep throat and things like that. But as an immunomodulator, it works great. Now the other thing I usually bring updates is is uh my chocolate lab gunner. He's starting to worry me a bit. He's uh you know, he's getting up there early seven soon. And uh, you know, he still he goes like a mat, like a bat out of hell when you take him out for his his run. But we had another problem again, and I had him into the vets because he was actually urinating while he was sleeping, complete sleep. So this is something I've never seen a dog do before. And it was just like, what the heck's going on here? So I had him into the vet, and they just said, no, with uh the way his life is going, he's not a problem. Everything's normal here. It's just that he's in such a deep sleep that he doesn't wake up because he's so tired after a good run, which did occur both times. That's the second time it's happened. So it gives us concern, but uh we take care of Gunner, as everybody knows. He's my partner, my best friend, and the biggest thing is I can tell him all kinds of secrets, and he doesn't ever say a word to anybody. So we get along great. He likes to ride with me in the car, and this is the same one that gets to be a bit of a pain. And I have to close the washroom door whenever I go in there because when I walk in, he'll walk between me and the sink, as I told everybody else. For those that are regular listeners, no, and he looks up at me, which means he wants his teeth brushed. How many dogs you know want their teeth brushed on a regular basis? Well, he's one of them. Not only that, but when it's time, he'll bring his it's uh it's uh we put a harness on him, not a collar, put his harness on, and he'll when it's time for him to get out for his his run, his walk, he'll bring the harness out, sit it down in front of me, and try to put it on right in front of me to say, hey, let's get going. But he gives us concern because he's my buddy, so we watch out for him as much as we can. Now, today I've brought somebody, sorta kinda, yeah, sorta kinda know, a voice from the past sort of thing. When I was at Queen's Park, and those know, I used to be, once upon a time, I used to be the Minister of Natural Resources, served as Oshawa's uh longest serving member of provincial parliament, and uh have the designation of the honorable Jerry Olette. Mind you, I never use that or know what uh what that means, but anyways, one of the people that we used to have at Queen's Park was George, used to come in on a regular basis, usually saw him in December for sure, and George worked with the Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Growers. And George was a great guy, he'd bring in poinsettias at Christmas time and the uh for the MPPs, and we would pick up our poinsettias and have a discussion with them. And now I've got the executive director, Richard Lee from the Ontario Greenhouse Vegetables Growers, on to do a podcast with us. Welcome to the program, Richard.
SPEAKER_13:Thank you, Jerry. Appreciate uh the invite.
SPEAKER_12:I appreciate you taking the time. I know George was a great advocate and uh good worker for your organization in the past. Do you know who I mean? Or have you been around long enough to know George?
SPEAKER_13:Name seems to ring a bell, actually. George uh was uh predecessor, one of the predecessors to my role and uh chair of our organization. He has um retired uh about two years ago and is now representing Greenhouse through this office as our national rep, uh, where we believe there's a lot of work that needs to be done and uh gives him some uh some projects to work on as he uh he starts winding down his uh career.
SPEAKER_12:Very good. Good guy. I like him a lot. Uh he worked hard, he represented your industry well, and I'm sure he's gonna do a great job where he's headed to.
SPEAKER_13:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_12:Now, Richard, where whereabouts are you from? Just so our international listeners, uh you you heard uh we have listeners all around the world. Whereabouts are you located from, say, from Toronto, so our listeners get a sense of where you're located in Ontario.
SPEAKER_13:Yeah, so I'll kind of give you a little bit of a different uh lens on it. We're about uh 45 minutes uh south of Detroit, Michigan, and about three and a half hours um west of Toronto. We're located in a little town called Leamington, Ontario. Um that's where our office is located. And we host probably about 80% of the greenhouse acreage right here in southwestern Ontario.
SPEAKER_12:Now, Leamington was also known for, wasn't it, the tomato capital of Ontario at one point?
SPEAKER_13:It is. Uh ironically enough, what we've been promoting and representing our members with is that uh Ontario is the largest concentration of greenhouse vegetable production in North America.
SPEAKER_12:Okay, so Richard, let's start off with the basis. What is a greenhouse and what what gives it the classification to be called a greenhouse? I mean, I've got this little plastic, I don't know, it's uh what is it, uh uh six by eight kind of tent with uh with uh uh shelving in it that I use for for curing my Chaga when I first pick it. Uh Chag is a uh if you don't know what Chaga Richard, I didn't kind of give you the heads up, but it's a a rare mushroom that grows in about one in ten thousand birch trees. And First Nations have been using it for thousands of years, and I use a small little greenhouse in that. Give us kind of a background of when you say greenhouse, what are we talking about here?
SPEAKER_13:Yeah, so when it comes to greenhouse, we have a definition that we utilize that it's essentially any enclosure that is used and most popular is either polyglass used in commercial greenhouses to control temperature and the environment to support healthy growth of cucumbers, tomatoes, and peppers. So when you talk about some of these smaller, um I'm gonna call them hoop houses or hobby greenhouses, that's not something that we would ideally fall under would ideally fall under our regulatory authority, um, albeit there are some smaller hoop houses, and you know that they're they are producing some vegetables mainly for smaller communities. We are more focused on the commercial production of greenhouse uh vegetables throughout Ontario.
SPEAKER_12:Okay. So how large would an average unit uh that you're dealing with be, you know, in size, size-wise, either square footage or probably what is it, uh like uh 30 by 80 sort of thing, or what are we talking?
SPEAKER_13:Yeah, so the average acreage, I I've been with organization for 19 years. When I first came on, uh, the average acres of a farm was about 6.7 acres. Now, when we look at uh production on average, you're seeing farms around 30 to 40 acres. So it's a pretty significant investment when you look at costs to erect a farm, and this is not including uh land. So just to erect a greenhouse operation is approximately$1.7 million per acre, and then can escalate up to 2.2, depending if that uh that grower is looking to implement lights or new technology to maintain relevance.
SPEAKER_12:And so and these units run all year long?
SPEAKER_13:So that's a good question. Uh, what we have done with the use of supplemental lighting and investment in research and innovation, most of our farms do run year-round production. So we're able now to displace a lot of the imported produce and to ensure that product grown right here in Ontario serves both uh uh Canada uh and North America as well.
SPEAKER_12:Okay, so you're running year-round in order to supplement Ontario's industry that uh so retailers can get this product out to people in in and not bringing in products from other countries, such as what the states and and uh Mexico and that sort of thing?
SPEAKER_13:Correct. So I mean a lot of the imported product was needed because most of our product resellers, um, our marketers have year-round commitments, right? And those year-round commitments usually either specify country of origin or that they are looking for Ontario grown produce. So by doing that, they relied on competitors to provide produce throughout those shoulder months or winter months that we weren't growing produce in the greenhouse in Ontario. Now that we've implemented some um different energy and cost saving measures, but also the implementation of supplemental light, we're able to grow year-round and stagger the planting and pulling dates accordingly.
SPEAKER_12:So when you say uh energy and cost saving um implementations, what are we talking about here? What sort of things did you do for cost savings? Because it sounds, you know, when I was talking earlier on about minus 10, minus 15, mind you, you're in Leamington, so you you don't get quite as cold as northern Ontario, I don't believe, but there will be some periods as it gets pretty cold. What uh kind of energy cost savings and what do you do for saving costs there?
SPEAKER_13:Well, a lot of um the energy that and the and heat that we create through our boiler system is captured and reintroduced into our heating system to maintain that temperature needed for uh healthy plant growth. We've also had some innovation in utilizing energy saving curtains. And and imagine essentially you were talking about some of the um challenges we are having with keeping your home warm. Imagine creating a ceiling in a glass house that keeps the heat in, keeps the heat and keeps that uh the health of that plant uh going and making sure that you are growing a fresh, nutritious vegetable. Those energy curtains help reduce the cost of uh energy we utilize, uh, as well as we're able to now um be able to reduce the amount of energy we use and also reduce our carbon footprint. So a lot of these farms have implemented double curtains. They're recognizing that the single curtain works well and have added a subsequent uh layer which helps increase that R value, that insulation value, to help reduce those energy costs. When you look at greenhouse production, energy and labor are two most expensive costs. So every cost-saving measure that we can utilize as it relates to energy or labor will be implemented or being explored right now to help reduce those input costs.
SPEAKER_12:My understanding with talking with people in the basically the window industry for uh residential or commercial use, not so much greenhouses, but um, is that the windows are value are increasing substantially because of the technology that they're able to develop? Is that something that your industry is seeing a benefit from?
SPEAKER_13:It's it's difficult to focus on just that single pane of glass, right? When you look at opportunities, there are some farms that still utilize poly. Uh, there's some that use glass, they use diffuse glass, they're continuing to invest in technologies to determine whether or not um different types of glass will help support. Um sorry. It's okay. My apologies. Um, so so they're looking at investing in different technologies to help identify what uh ideal um substrate will it will help support the the greenhouse sector. So we got to remember that that light is is needed, and that amount of light coming into the greenhouse is very important. So when you start looking Double insulating or utilizing residential technology, that does impact your yields and your growing cycles. So you would probably have a trade-off, right? You may be a little more efficient, but you'll probably lose yield. And then how do you how do you manage the connectors, the connectors that connect the glass and create that structure to ensure that there's no um heat loss through those those um substrates? Um you look at different times of year where we have during the summer, as you can imagine, a greenhouse heats up significantly. And we need airflow and venting to ensure that the the health of that product is not uh jeopardized.
SPEAKER_12:Right. So um so there there'd be a trade-off, obviously, you just finished saying, uh, with the uh lower yield because of the amount of light that comes through. Now, in the winter time, you know, so uh when the the longest uh night of the year, the first day of winter, how does the light impact the production for this? And do they have to put uh supplemental lights in in order to get good production, or what sort of uh light time frames is necessary to have uh good crop production?
SPEAKER_13:Yeah, so you have um some different um um challenges that we deal with as we relate to supplemental lighting. You have potential environmental nuisances that are created in the municipalities we grow in, but ultimately we implement what's called uh light abatement curtains. So it blocks out a majority of the light being emitted by the greenhouse. But where we have those times of year where early in the morning or late at night, as you can appreciate, we're driving to work in the dark, coming home at night when it's dark. So that supplemental lighting will actually be utilized during those time periods of the day. So if you think about growing in the summer months, you have relatively light between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. So during those times throughout the morning and evenings where we've lost that natural daylight, we utilize supplemental lighting. In times throughout the uh winter months where we don't have those light levels, we utilize supplemental lighting during the day as well. Unfortunately, it comes at a significant cost. And we ultimately utilize uh very integrated computer systems to analyze the growing patterns, but also uh light levels that we experience throughout the year. This will automatically calculate when those lights should be on, how long, while also monitoring your energy consumption.
SPEAKER_12:Interesting. So your operations, you know, you're you're based out of Leamington, which is basically the some of the most southern parts of Ontario. How far north is it cost feasible in Ontario for your operations to be cost effective? Like, are we talking Thunder Bay? Are we talking Sault Ste. Marie, or how far up?
SPEAKER_13:Yeah, I think earlier you had made mention of controlled environment agriculture, and it's a common misconception that greenhouses can be erected uh anywhere. And I guess that statement alone is not totally inaccurate, but it greenhouses can be implemented almost anywhere, but it's whether or not they are profitable in certain locations such as northern Ontario. I'll tell you that about an hour north of uh Leamington here, in an area around Exeter, just north of London, Ontario. They'll notice a difference about five to seven uh kilograms per square meter just because of the difference of light levels. So now when you try to you try to recoup those um those yields, it ultimately results in increased input costs like supplemental lighting and running that throughout the day as well as evening and night.
SPEAKER_12:So some of the things, uh Richard, that make me think outside the box here is when you talk about the north, I've been to, you probably never heard of a spot called Fort Severn, not Port Severn, Fort Severn. And that's essentially where Hudson's Bay, Manitoba, and Ontario come together. And I did a fair bit of work up there with the First Nation, the indigenous community there. And the the the people there, uh, when I talk to people, when we were there, and we it was an interesting story that I I mentioned on another podcast where uh we come uh the width of a hockey arena from being uh torn up by a polar bear who is charging us, and we barely got away from it, a wild polar bear. This is this is normal for things where we were. But up there, for example, when you go into a grocery store and you buy a case of water, I don't know, if you if you look around and you pick it up for what,$2.99 a case? Well, that same case of water in Fort Severn is$70 a case. Right. So when we're looking to bring in fresh vegetables and things along those lines, is it there a potential for cost effectiveness to to try and compensate? Because bringing in fresh vegetables this time of year is done by two ways. You either fly it in or bring it in by ice road.
SPEAKER_13:Yeah.
SPEAKER_12:So is there some opportunities for future outreach to assist with remote First Nation communities?
SPEAKER_13:Yeah, that's it's a good question. And and sometimes during their Queen's Park visits, uh, a lot of the questions from the MPs or MPPs or ministers uh actually support this kind of strategy. So this is where you know, ideally, it's similar to island life, right? Any of these fresh vegetables or provisions needed from the mainland come at a significant cost. So when you're talking about Fort Severn, it's uh fair hike up there, probably not the easiest route to get from fresh fruit and vegetables uh to. And how do you maintain that freshness as well? So these are areas where ideally um, you know, the the technology of vertical growing or container growing uh is is an ideal suit for for those um remote communities.
SPEAKER_12:So when you So uh Richard, maybe you should expand a bit on what vertical growing or container growing is, so just so our listeners can can know. Because I've uh anyways, I've looked into vertical growing before, but maybe you can give us a breakdown of it.
SPEAKER_13:Yeah, so vertical growing and and uh container growing essentially is a small encapsulated uh structure that you're able to produce on uh different layers of a building, essentially. You're not utilizing as much daylight because, as you can appreciate, a building has limited access to windows to fully illuminate all different levels, but it gives an opportunity to control temperature as well as growing year-round. So when you look at communities like the GTA area, New York or any large metropolis, some uh vertical growing operations have been implemented to help specific little communities or restaurants that want to observe fresh or homegrown or organic growing. Right. This would be an ideal situation for these northern communities where they can utilize vertical growing or container growing. I know there's been some uh communities that actually have taken a shipping container, dropped it in the ground, and utilized LED lighting to produce fresh fruit and vegetables throughout the year. Now, when you look at cost-benefit analysis, it's probably definitely a lot cheaper than shipping produce in on a weekly basis or flying it in. Um, and you're only serving your individual community. So you're able to scale it to size to support that community, but also offer fresh, nutritious, healthy vegetables year-round.
SPEAKER_12:Hmm. Yeah, I don't know if anyone uh has ever had that discussion about those remote communities. At least when I was in the involved in politics, I I don't recall that, although it was certainly one of the areas that in energy production, because I know they had wind turbines in Fort Severn, but they were not able to get anybody to come up and repair them. So they weren't they weren't producing. So basically all their energy was diesel generators that ran and gave power to the community uh through the winter months, which all came in on ice roads again. Right. And when now this year wouldn't be too bad because the winter started fairly early, but when you have short window windows of opportunity, because you have to, quite frankly, when you're taking transport trucks along across lakes and things like that, you require minimum depths of ice to be safe for these things to get in. And with a warmer winter, you don't get it as long a window of opportunity to make those deliveries, so it gets more more costly. And this could be one of the ways to kind of supplement those remote uh northern communities.
SPEAKER_13:Very interesting uh concept. I haven't really explored that, the extremities of the northern community. I think as far as um we used to have a hunt camp up just by North Bay. And uh every year I'd enter with uh you know a couple a little bit of uh fruit and vegetables could brought uh that were donated to our camp. And it was like gold there during those months of the year. And uh, you know, those extremities are probably nowhere near what you're you're referring to in in Fort Severin. Uh but you know, these are all challenges that we face when it relates to infrastructure. Infrastructure that promotes that investment, but also the viability of those communities.
SPEAKER_12:Well, one of the things I used to ask when I was doing some missionary work around the world, I recall in in uh Sri Lanka, or when I was in Kenya as well, I had asked, what's the coldest you've ever been in? And I remember the the um it was uh it was a major that was uh driving us around with the military in Sri Lanka. And I asked, What's the coldest? He said, Oh, he was in the northern part of Sri Lanka, and it was it was really cold up there. He says, Oh, it was so cold. It was almost 10 degrees Celsius. That's how cold it was. And and and then they they inevitably asked, What's the coldest you've been in? I said, Well, I was at a place in Fort Severn in Ontario where it was minus 44. Wow. And I can't imagine how you'd ever be able to produce fresh fruits and vegetables in a place like that.
SPEAKER_13:Yeah, so when you look at those, you know, well-insulated uh buildings, um, you're obviously not using this footprint or square footage that a commercial greenhouse may use. But you probably would viably be able to support that community uh and and be able to weather the storm no pun intended throughout those cold months.
SPEAKER_12:Well, I I'll tell this story again. We were there and I was the uh PA parliamentary assistant, the junior minister for northern development and mines, and we were in Fort Severn and met with the council, and we were flying out. And uh my assistant and I, and my assistant at the time had hired uh uh uh Doug Bullock was his name. He was a former deputy chief of police for Durham Region. And we were there and we're we were driving to the airport with uh the chief and his brother-in-law, his brother-in-law's name was Moses, and Chief George and and uh Moses. And uh Doug uh were Doug says uh Is the plane gonna be able to land in this weather? Well, uh the the chief says to his uh to his brother-in-law, he says, Moses. And uh there's this this long kind of quiet period, and uh yes. Did you call? And Moses was I called, but nobody answered. Oh jeez. And so another long silent period goes by, and the the chief says to Doug, he called, but nobody answered. And I looked at the chief because he and I were in the front seat of the truck, and Doug and and Moses were in the backseat. And I said, Never mind that. I said, how do you see the front of the truck to know where the road is? The storm was that bad. And the the chief chief George just laughed. He said, Oh, you get used to it. And it was just a completely different environment. I mean, that's where it was$70 a case of water. I recall one quart of milk was like$20 for a quart of milk. It was subsidized to get there. It was all flown in. And I gotta tell you, we we get to the airport and Doug's pacing back and forth, looking out the windows. You can't see anything but snow coming down. And all of a sudden, a small patch of blue sky showed up. It was about the size of, well, it was a good sized shopping center parking lot, and down came the plane. And uh the people inside the terminal, and it's it's not like a normal terminal, like you think it's just a building with two rooms in it. The person inside there says, Okay, everybody, run. And we had to run like crazy to get onto the plane. Wow. And before we before we took off, you couldn't see the wings, but uh that's how mad the snow was. But it just a completely different environment. You you don't really get an understanding living in southern Ontario about the extremes that take place in places like this. And here we are talking about fresh vegetables and the potential to get them there and to possibly be self-sustaining, or how do you do it? And I know I sit on a local board where I had a person who was working for um one of the nuclear plants, and they were telling me that uh they're looking at development of small nuclear plants that's specifically designed to work with small communities of three, four hundred, or five hundred or a couple thousand uh community in small remote northern Ontario, which would have a huge impact on the energy industry for for small communities like that rather than being dependent on diesel generators. So I'm I'm wondering, you know, if and when these come about, does the cost of cheaper fuel make an advantage for your industry to locate in locations like this to be able to provide fresh fruits for them, vegetables?
SPEAKER_13:Yeah, so so are we we talking about commercial viability or being able to service those individual communities? Because both have their own inherent challenges, right? You need the political willingness, policies, infrastructure, and funding to help support any type of these developments. But when you look at you know, controlled environment agriculture, whether it be vertical growing or container growing, you're going to need that infrastructure. You're going to need that affordable energy. Um, at the end of the day, if if costs, I think you quoted$70 for a case of water, uh, what are those costs to grow that vegetable? And is it cheaper for them to import it in? So, you know, those policies, that political willingness, that education too, right? Because it is a totally different way of growing. Whether it be here in southwestern Ontario or northern parts of Ontario, there are issues that you're going to uh encounter, and you need to pivot because this is a live plant. This is a live organism that you make the wrong choice or put the wrong inputs in could be detrimental to the future health of that individual plant.
SPEAKER_12:Exactly. You know, but you have to look at some of the options. I know uh there was what I'm referring to is is how do you get fruits and vegetables there and and to make sure that there's a stable regular source for uh the vegetables that that could be utilized in that community. And uh if it was able to be there on its own, it gives some more, well, there's there's lots of benefits running the operations, um, keeping them going and maintaining them and that sort of thing certainly uh adds to uh the employment that's available in these communities. You know where uh it's it's not like a lot of people understand uh it unless you've actually been there, you don't get a real grasp. I recall, you know, the first time I was there, which was in February, where it was minus 44, um that uh it in the middle of the night, it was we'd finished meeting with the council, and I was sitting in uh Fort Severn is the only one that's got like a eight-room kind of um uh motel in the in the community. It's uh the only one that really has one in the on the Hudson's Bay coastline in Ontario. Pewonick doesn't, which is the other main community in that far north, but down Moose and Eway, they have a few things and and uh Moose Factory. But anyways, uh and so we were Doug and I were talking in the room, and uh all of a sudden we heard this small I heard what I thought was a tapping at the door. And remember it's minus 44, and it's like 10, 11 o'clock at night, and and this is where you get your your daylight hours are substantially reduced. Um so anyway, so this went on, and and Doug was a little hard of hearing at the time. And so I said, I'm hearing something. I think I think somebody this was after about half an hour. So I go open the door, and there's two First Nation ladies there who are wanting to trade uh a lot of their goods that they had made. But they'd been standing outside in minus 44 for over half an hour. Wow. And anyway, so uh the point I'm getting to is like, well, we didn't really bring anything to trade, but you know, we we naturally assume what are you gonna do? You're gonna buy this stuff from them. Anyways, I get back and I and I'm with um it's uh uh it's an indigenous First Nation Aboriginal uh representative Johnny Yesno was his name. He worked for uh Ministry of Northern Development and Mines. Johnny was a nice guy, and uh he would say, you know, and proudly say, you know, he was a G.I. And he looks at me and he says, Oh, yeah, I'm a G.I. And I looked and I said, You know what a GI is? He says, and I said, No. He said, a government Indian. And and it was rather unique. And he said, you know, the first time he was in Fort Severn, uh, or the last time he was in Fort Seven, when he landed, every single person in town was lined up at the plane waiting for him to come off the plane because they wanted to trade for what he had. Right. And it just like, well, well, okay, what did you have? You said, you know what I traded? He said, No. He said, I brought Kentucky fried chicken. Well, I have to tell you, the next time I went to Fort Severn, I've only been there twice, I took Kentucky fried chicken, and the entire community was overwhelmed with the ability to have it because we provided it for the council and the elders and things like that for free. And they were very, very appreciative of it. And those are the sorts of things you like I couldn't even fathom. As being something that would be of value to people, but it was certainly to them. And it would be the same thing with vegetables in your industry that uh to have something like that grown right there would certainly have a huge impact in benefiting that community, mind you, but with the polar bear issues and stuff like that, you'd have to find ways to keep the bears out.
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SPEAKER_12:And now it's time for another testimonial for Chaga Health and Wellness. Okay, I'm here in Millbrook with Trevor, who had a great experience and wants to share it with us with the skin cream, the Chaga Skin Cream.
SPEAKER_11:Trevor, uh, tell us uh what you went through and how much you used, and go ahead. I've had eczema on my arm since I was a little kid. It's always been quite a rough patch there on my arm. Um and no lotion seemed to ever get it so that it was smooth, right? But using the chaga probably for three weeks, it feels like normal skin now. Yeah, and how often did you put it on? I put it on maybe once every other day. I didn't remember to do it every day. Yeah, once every other day, one time a day. Very good. And you had great results, and now it feels like normal skin again. Very good. And you didn't try anything else, so you figure that's what no, that was it worked, so I'm sticking with that. Very good. Well, thanks, Trevor, here in Millbrook. Yeah, okay.
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SPEAKER_13:I'll tell you that, you know, we take a lot of things for granted, right? Yeah. And I was in Whitehorse um about two years ago for our FBT, Federal Provincial Territory Meetings, Agriculture. And uh, you know, I'm not claiming that I have all the solutions. I'm just trying to do my best in representing our sector and our members. But there's a reason why there's no greenhouses, right? In in these northern communities. Not saying that it's impossible, but it definitely makes it very difficult during those winter months to grow. When you think about the white horse, sometimes they're they have 20, 23 hours of life, right? Yeah. But there are opportunities, there are ways of growing it. There needs to be the willingness of that community, but also someone to show them, someone to guide them to ensure that they're able to be self-sufficient. The bartering trade system works well until it doesn't. And during those winter months, it doesn't work well because it's very difficult to get product in or out. For every haul, there needs to be a backhaul, right?
SPEAKER_12:Exactly. Yeah.
SPEAKER_13:So I think I think there are opportunities. I think there needs to be that willing to willingness to invest. I think a lot of it was placed on vertical growing, um, being able to be the solution for these remote communities. And I think cost is the biggest prohibitive um factor in being able to invest in those common climates.
SPEAKER_12:Right. And and so, Richard, so whereabouts, how your industry, it's uh well, it's the Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Growers. So what you mentioned about the tomatoes, the peppers, and the uh cucumbers are the main ones that you mentioned. Are there other products that your industry produces on a regular basis?
SPEAKER_13:Yeah, so our sector, um, our our regulatory authority that's uh provided to us through provincial legislation uh through the Farm Product Marketing Commission gives us the authority to regulate cucumbers, tomatoes, and peppers. Okay. We implemented uh um sustainable growth and prosperity study to help us identify opportunities moving forward and essentially taking a snapshot of the sector and where we're going. We've experienced some hypergrowth since 2011. We started off with about 1,500 acres of greenhouse. We on average up till about 2017 had annual growth of on average about seven to eight percent. That growth from 2018-19 to current has been maintained at a 5% annual growth with expectations for the next eight years now, um continuing to grow at that pace. So when you look at that, we also look at the future viability and market saturation. How many acres do we need to feed North America and in account taking into account our competitors? So we're looking at crop diversification. We have growers currently exploring other commodities, um, something that can be commercialized and produced in volume. There has been a splash of strawberries being grown in greenhouse. Variety is old, and you know, it started off pretty strong. We are pushing about 300 acres, 350 acres uh here in Ontario alone. And then came disease and pressures that prevented us from being able to grow cucum, grow strawberries economically. Another option is lettuce. So lettuce is currently under our regulatory authority. Going back to about 2011, we implemented mandatory food safety testing. At the time, I don't know if you recall, there was a lettuce food safety outbreak, Salmonella, that potentially could have threatened the launch of our food safety program, an industry standard that was widely recognized as one of the pioneers in implementing food safety. So we have to go back to the Farm Product Marketing Commission now and look to remove that exemption on lettuce so that we can regulate, so that we can regulate uh lettuce growing here in Ontario. We see approximately about 200 acres of lettuce currently, and we see that as the future, um, the future of lettuce increasing significantly, especially when we're looking on domestic sovereignty, on looking at reducing some of our reliance on imported produce. Strawberries will also be one of the those um commodities or varieties that we're looking to expand into. We do do some eggplant in greenhouse currently, but the volume just doesn't really meet that threshold to to include into our regulatory authority. So I guess it comes down to the question of what are the future of what future crops can be controlled, uh grown in a controlled environment, and how can we include that under the OGVG umbrella to ensure that they're properly represented and that we have some assemblance of the marketing of those uh commodities as well.
SPEAKER_12:Very interesting. So, Richard, you mentioned about 200 acres of lettuce. Now, when you say 200 acres of lettuce, that's that's how much production is done in a year? Because do you get, or is that how many actual acres are dedicated to lettuce solely to lettuce now? And what I'm asking you there is is you get more than one crop a year, do you not, in in greenhouses?
SPEAKER_13:Yeah, so lettuce is uh ongoing. I don't know enough about lettuce, but it's a pretty fast um growing commodity. Whereas cucumbers you can do four crops usually throughout the year. Peppers is one crop, and tomatoes is one crop per year. So with the lettuce, currently there's approximately 200 acres of lettuce in production. Right. So significant change in the structure and investment to currently what our members are growing for cucumbers, tomatoes, and pepper. So it would result in significant investment expansions of our existing farms, which currently do do lettuce, eggplant, and strawberry, um, to ensure that they're competitive across North America.
SPEAKER_12:Right. So this there's there's a big surge in this microgreens industry. Is is that something that your industry has looked at in microgreens? And is that a new area that you're looking in, or do you do you stay away from that?
SPEAKER_13:Yeah, so microgreens and leafy greens would be something that so again, we've got to look at the definition of what is all encompassing currently. Anything as it relates to the pepper, cucumber, tomato varieties fall under that regulatory authority. So when we look at microgreens, does it fall under the class of leafy green, or do we need a separate definition as it relates to greens or leafy greens? So those are things that we're currently investigating, consulting in our members, consulting in government to ensure that we're following a pathway that is both transparent and accountable back to our membership and potential new members.
SPEAKER_12:Yeah, I see the microgreens industry is is starting kind of its infancy stage, shall we say, is it's I see a lot of it at farmers' markets now. And numerous growers are now providing these radish greens and other greens that are available in the microgreen sector. And it certainly adds to a lot to the farmers' markets in that they sometimes have difficulty reaching that farmers market classification because they need to have 50 percent plus one in order to be designated a farmers' markets, and the microgreen industry helps out in that in providing that. But it's it's it would be interesting to see, you know, the the possibilities of your industry looking in those areas as well.
SPEAKER_13:Yeah, I when you look at scalability and volume, I'm not even sure what the threshold or the volumes of microgreens are currently, but I have seen those microgreens being grown in vertical farming. Right. And and that's across North America, not just on Ontario or Canada. So that could be a totally separate entity or separate commodity that is self-represented or potentially could be the future. Right. We don't know, right?
SPEAKER_12:Exactly. And it well, a lot depends on public demand as well, I would imagine, if there's a large demand for those things. And the other one that I see that I see kind of growing at in kind of as an infancy stage is the mushroom industry as well that is showing up at farmers' markets on a regular basis. And is those other things that have you looked at it as an industry?
SPEAKER_13:Not mushrooms. Um the microgreens, I think, like you you have indicated, more of a kind of a niche market and potentially even grown in your own backyard garden. But mushrooms is an interesting, uh, interesting um option that you've raised because in the same in the same vein of trying to identify commodities that are grown in a similar fashion, they do utilize closing environment agriculture, they do require heat. Um but they also have their own inherent issues that we may not want to align with. So when we look at complementing our current commodities, we try to identify those other commodities that are grown similarly and also share some of the positives and negatives to greenhouse production.
SPEAKER_12:Yeah, I had um a major, I would say, buyer industry person in the restaurant industry on on one of the podcasts, and he had to actually go to Chicago to uh to get a good regular source of mushrooms and the same difficulty with with microgreens because he couldn't find suppliers out this way in order to look at the quantity. And we're talking 30,000 meals a week are some of his contracts. Yeah, it's quite large. But to have to go to Chicago because he couldn't get in Ontario, uh sometimes, you know, it's it's the things that these sort of you can coordinate and try and work out details to make it work so we can keep Ontario strong in Ontario, so to speak.
SPEAKER_13:Mm-hmm. No, it's a it's a good point. And uh, you know, you look at some of the microgreens and the volumes that they're able to produce on such a small footprint. How many greenhouse farms or acres would you actually need to to to to ensure that that demand is met? That's where that's where we we we look to the industry experts, our marketers, our growers to identify those those uh commodities that can be grown in greenhouse um that remain competitive and scalable to ensure that the demand and and supply are aligned.
SPEAKER_12:Right. And I see that as I mentioned, it's kind of in in its infancy stage, particularly with microgreens, is that it's just starting to reach out to restaurants locally to make them available because they have local growers that can provide fresh uh micro uh greens to these locations. But I don't see a lot of restaurants promoting or utilizing it or even knowing that those options are potentially there. So, you know, there's always growth in an industry, and certainly yours being the lead one in the greenhouse vegetable growers would be one that uh, you know, would look at or think about things along those lines. But that's for that's where you said you've got all these individuals look at the market and the feasibility for these sort of things.
SPEAKER_13:Correct. Yeah. And and and another uh big, big uh important selling factor is the food safety. Right? Right. Yeah. How it's grown, under what standards, the integrity under which it's grown, the social sustainability of the product, and how environmentally friendly you are also when when you're uh growing these products.
SPEAKER_12:Right. So, Richard, now when you use a greenhouse uh process for growing, uh as we mentioned, the peppers, the tomate tomatoes, and the uh cucumbers, uh do you use as much fertilizer chemicals, uh pesticides, and things like that in with them with those growing situations?
SPEAKER_13:So I like to refer to it as precision agriculture. We maximize the inputs and minimize our outputs. So if you think about a vine that grows uh vertically, each vine has an individual spigot that is dedicated to that plant. And we maximize everything that's going into that plant and then we recirculate that water. So those nutrients, anything that's inputted into that plant, are recycled. They're recovered and reintroduced into the system to ensure that we're getting the most use out of that fertilizer or ensuring that that plant gets a maximum nutrition. That further reduces our impact on the environment and ensures our costs are kept relatively low.
SPEAKER_12:So it has a a very much uh far more environmentally friendly footprint when using these processes that you're mentioning.
SPEAKER_13:Closed loop recycling, yes. Um, any of that water that we utilize, we want to be able to recover those inputs, right? Right. Why add additional cost to your uh operation when you can minimize it by implementing technology? And this technology isn't new, it's it's actually dated. And some of the new control measures, the new implementation of AI, and being able to monitor these growing conditions and to maximize those conditions by tweaking your growing methods, by knowing when those lights come on, how much nutrients, when it has to go in, as well as how much airflow you need. There's so many, and it's no longer that you know, backdoor mon pa growing operation. These are high-tech growing um situations where they have sensors located strategically throughout the farm that notice notify a grower or whoever's on call if there's a drop or change in those environmental conditions that could threaten that plant. These things are these things are so high-tech that from your phone, wherever you're located, as long as you have internet or cell access, you're able to make those adjustments on the fly from your from your phone. Interesting. It's it's it's an ev truly an evolution of greenhouse growing that started off with, you know, probably uh collie-covered uh wood structure that uh was erected to grow tomatoes to feed your own your own family. Right. Exactly.
SPEAKER_12:Uh Richard, hot house, hothouse tomatoes, are they the same as greenhouse tomatoes, or what's the difference there?
SPEAKER_13:Or is it yeah, so hot house, I mean there just to be clear, there are some, there's low tech, there's high tech greenhouses. Some in some regions, they recover they uh refer to Shade cloth, essentially um, you know, a cloth fabric stretched out over a growing area to reduce direct sunlight as hot house or greenhouse tomatoes. Not not a fair depiction of what um current standards have evolved to. Um greenhouse, I'd like to think as is a controlled environment that has all sides covered and has some form of controlling your heat that is through a boiler uh system or provide heat to that growing area, whether it be a boiling system or some kind of uh walls to ensure that that heat remains in that in that enclosure.
SPEAKER_12:So, Richard, how many members would you have with your uh with the Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Growers?
SPEAKER_13:Currently we have 170 growers across Ontario that represent about 4,300 acres of greenhouse.
SPEAKER_12:Okay. And is there an a national organization as well?
SPEAKER_13:Um good question. So as as you had indicated earlier, George Gilvazi is now heading up our greenhouse vegetable working group that is comprised of greenhouse growers in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, and Quebec. A couple smaller ones in the Maritimes. That is currently housed under the national organization called Fruit and Vegetable Growers of Canada. Um, our greenhouse vegetable working group is currently looking to create a national group to represent the best interest of greenhouse farmers across Ontario, uh, across Canada. And uh we're looking to formalize that uh entity in the upcoming uh months.
SPEAKER_12:Very good, very good. So certainly, you know, from everything that you've you've let us know about uh the the way you recycle the in the water systems there, so most of these greenhouse operations, how do they, are they with soil or with with water that they're just growing it out of water?
SPEAKER_13:Yeah, so the growing media in, and this is another popular misconception, because we're sitting on some pretty fertile land, right? Yep. And that land is protected. That's protected by this controlled environment agriculture, by these greenhouses. When you lift that greenhouse, the soil's there, it's not disturbed. So they're actually usually um growing media. So it's essentially a bag that either has rock wool, um, similar to insulation, insulation that you'll find in a home, or cocoa, which is ground up coconut. Those bags are have the nutrients and water injected to create that growing media that feeds the plant. Very seldom will you see other than lettuce growing, hydroponic strictly. Only other um time you'll see actual soil being used is organics based on the organic standards here in Canada. So the growing media is a substrate that's either rock wool, cocoa, or in the in the case of organic, would be soil and under strict requirements based on organic standards in Canada.
SPEAKER_12:Very interesting. All right. Well, uh Richard, how do people find out more information about your industry or get in touch with you to get more details?
SPEAKER_13:Yeah, so we have a significant social media presence. Um our website is ontario greenhouse.com or OGVG.com. We've also launched a greenhouse goodness campaign, and greenhousegoodness.com focuses on elevating the profile of greenhouse grown vegetables, the benefits, and why you should be choosing greenhouse grown produce as opposed to other alternatives. It's a campaign that we've undertaken uh over the last two and a half years. Primary focus is North America. We do have a presence here in Canada, in Ontario, as well as um pretty much everything east of the Mississippi and as far down south as Florida. We access about 58% of the U.S. population in that area. So as we continue to develop our presence and look to um alter eating habits and choice of greenhouses, uh greenhouse grown vegetables, we're looking to move that uh those boundaries further west. We've just undertaken a new market in Tennessee and have uh pretty strong presence as it relates to educational uh materials and information that's being provided to consumers, retailers, and general public just to inform them of the differences between field-grown and greenhouse grown.
SPEAKER_12:Very interesting. Well, I thank you very much, uh Richard, for being on the program. And I think that uh the more people that learn and find out about uh greenhouse grown materials, the more that the industry and the people will benefit from utilization of that. You know, and particularly one of the aspects that's grown in Ontario and uh provided in Ontario on a regular basis where we can be self-sustaining and in areas that we would like to be, which is food security.
SPEAKER_13:Yeah, I think I think the future of agriculture, especially when we start looking at climate change, climate change initiatives, um, I think that is the future of agriculture. We can yield up to 20 times more than field farming, and and uh we're we're able to grow year-round and support that domestic sovereignty I spoke of earlier.
SPEAKER_12:Well, thank you very much for taking the time, Richard, to be on the program. We very much appreciate it. And it's just something a little bit different about what's happening in Ontario. Uh, and this is a different type of out there under the canopy. Thanks very much, Richard.
SPEAKER_13:Appreciate it, Jerry. You have a good day.
SPEAKER_05:Now, you might know us as the hosts of Canada's favorite fishing show, but now we're hosting a podcast.
SPEAKER_04:That's right. Every Thursday, Ang and I'll be right here in your ears, bringing you a brand new episode of Outdoor Journal Radio.
SPEAKER_05:Hmm. Now, what are we gonna talk about for two hours every week?
SPEAKER_04:Well, you know there's gonna be a lot of fishing.
SPEAKER_07:I knew exactly where those fish were going to be in how to catch them and they were easy to catch.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, but it's not just a fishing show. We're going to be talking to people from all facets of the outdoors.
SPEAKER_01:From athletes, all the other guys would go golfing, me and García turkeys, and all the Russians would go fishing.
SPEAKER_07:Scientists, and now that we're looking for single anything, it's the perfect transmission environment to find it.
SPEAKER_13:Check if any game isn't cooked properly, they're needed before you will taste it.
SPEAKER_04:And whoever else can pick up the phone. Wherever you are, Outdoor General Radio speaks to answer the questions and tell the stories of all those who enjoy the outside. Find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.