Essex County is the agricultural powerhouse of the province, according to statistics cited in a recent report.
This region tops all the other regions studied when it comes to gross domestic product, generating $1.2 billion from agricultural activity each year.
Essex also tops Southwestern Ontario when it comes to employment, with 18,487 full-time equivalents in the sector. (Niagara Region is a close second, with 18,400.)
And Essex also raises the largest tax revenue for all three levels of government — a total of $369 million each year — when compared to other sub-regions in the southwest.
“There are lots of things Essex is doing and could do more (of),” said Atif Kubursi, professor emeritus of economics at McMaster University, and one of the authors of Dollars and Sense: Opportunities to Strengthen Southern Ontario’s Food System, which was released last month.
The report, prepared in conjunction with the Greenbelt Foundation, suggests farmers, food producers and the province as whole could gain even more by capitalizing on food trends like eating local and organic.
![David Dick, one of five Essex County farmers selected to provide produce for Highbury Canco in Leamington on June 26, 2014. (Tyler Brownbridge/The Windsor Star)]( "Essex County agriculture leads southern Ontario in generating GDP, jobs, tax revenue")
David Dick, one of five Essex County farmers selected to provide produce for Highbury Canco in Leamington on June 26, 2014. (Tyler Brownbridge/The Windsor Star)
Kubursi and his colleagues crunched numbers for the agricultural sector in southern Ontario – where 98 per cent of Ontario’s food production takes place – and suggest ways to re-jig the system to become more food self-sufficient and less reliant on food imports. According to the report, Ontario imports some $20 billion in food annually while exporting almost $11 billion worth.
They looked at data from the 31 counties, six regions and three cities that make up the four main agricultural areas in the southern part of the province: Southwestern Ontario, Eastern Ontario, Golden Horseshoe and Outer Greater Golden Horseshoe.
The research also shows Essex County leads the pack when it comes to income generated by the industry, followed closely by Huron County.
“Essex County leads southern Ontario in generating GDP,” the report states.
The reason for that, explained Don Taylor, chair of the board of the Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Growers, is that Essex produces fairly high-value crops, like greenhouse tomatoes and peppers.
![Vegetables sit on display, compliments of the Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Growers, during the 2010 Leamington Tomato Festival. (JASON KRYK/The Windsor Star)]( "Essex County agriculture leads southern Ontario in generating GDP, jobs, tax revenue")
Vegetables sit on display, compliments of the Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Growers, during the 2010 Leamington Tomato Festival. (JASON KRYK/The Windsor Star)
In fact, the report shows Southwestern Ontario produces the largest surplus of tomatoes and greenhouse peppers – a crop that’s a net export for the province.
“We’re producing more than what Ontario, and even the Canadian market can consume,” Taylor said, adding that about 70 per cent of what’s grown in greenhouses is exported.
But the report is right to suggest there are opportunities, he said.
“We’ve been looking at trying to produce year-round,” Taylor said.
Year-round production would help lessen reliance on certain imports, he said, but a key to making that easier is to get approval from the province for greenhouses to produce their own energy to run grow lights.
When it comes to boosting organic production in Ontario, the Canadian organic standard is quite stringent he said, so hydroponically grown vegetables, for example, can’t be certified organic even if they meet all other organic standards.
And it’s important to not leave out details like different wage standards when talking about boosting local production and minimizing imports, Taylor said.
But some of those imports, Kubursi said, could be grown here in Ontario, thereby adding jobs and boosting income for the sector and, by extension, the province.
“We could create the conditions where this becomes profitable,” he said.
![Labourers from Southeast Asia harvest green onions in a crop field along Ojibway Parkway, Friday, Oct. 18, 2013. (DAX MELMER/The Windsor Star)]( "Essex County agriculture leads southern Ontario in generating GDP, jobs, tax revenue")
Labourers from Southeast Asia harvest green onions in a crop field along Ojibway Parkway, Friday, Oct. 18, 2013. (DAX MELMER/The Windsor Star)
The report also suggests ways to re-route tomatoes and carrots, for example, away from the export market to meet local demand in other parts of Ontario.
You can’t overlook the profit incentive, said Sandra Pupatello, CEO of the Windsor Essex Economic Development Corporation. “Let’s be honest about that,” she said, adding that exports and locally processed foods present tremendous opportunities for growth.
But it’s no secret Essex tops the charts because of its greenhouse industry, she said, and that’s why there’s a push on the Ontario Energy Board to approve a new hydro transmission line to the county. “There are huge opportunities still,” Pupatello said. “We don’t think we’ve maxed out at all.”
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