Ethnic diversity a ‘game changer’ for Ontario growers

by SUSAN MANN

Scientists at the Vineland Research & Innovation Centre are researching some very different vegetables that when grown here may give Ontario farmers an edge in the marketplace.

Centre CEO Jim Brandle says Vineland researchers aren’t tinkering with production methods for existing horticultural crops. Instead they’re focused on projects that are “game changers” and in turning ideas into cash.

They’re working on projects that will give Ontario horticultural farm an advantage by standing out in the marketplace. Currently “many of our products are not differentiated. They are easily substituted,” he explains. “Like a peach is a peach.”

One Vineland scientist, Ahmed Bilal, crop production and diversification, will be speaking about his work on Indian Kaddu and Chinese red hot peppers at this week’s Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers’ Association annual meeting in Niagara Falls. His talk is on Wednesday morning during the research section business meeting.

Brandle says every five years about 1.1 million immigrants come to Canada, with more than half moving to Ontario particularly the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). They come from India, China, Africa and the Caribbean where vegetables are a big part of their diet and they’re used to spending a larger proportion of their income on food than Canadians.

Bilal says 47 per cent of the people living in the GTA weren’t born in Canada. “The market for horticultural products is changing with the change in our demographics.”

Brandle says a University of Guelph survey of 700 people in Toronto documented the demand for several different vegetables that aren’t grown in Ontario. The centre’s researchers focused on seven that can be grown here including: Indian Kaddu (a type of squash popular with South Asians), Chinese red hot peppers, fuzzy melon (a type of zucchini), yard long beans, callaloo (a leafy green), okra and Asian eggplant.

Bilal says he picked these seven because they’re hard to find in the GTA and they’re more difficult to ship. In addition, they “can fit very well in the current infrastructure of the farmers. They don’t need any special post-harvest requirements.”

Brandle says there’s consumer interest and demand for these vegetables. “We’ve done some early acceptance testing and early production scale up” for Indian Kaddu and Chinese red hot peppers.

Along with growing these vegetables for the local market, Brandle says it’s possible to process and export them too. “In many of these countries where those vegetables are produced they don’t have the processing infrastructure that we have.”

In addition to replacing imports, Bilal says demand for these vegetables can be created among people who aren’t familiar with them. For example, in testing at a community centre in Toronto the Chinese red hot peppers were popular with Italians and people from the Middle East.

The market for these vegetables would be ethnic stores but Bilal says he sees them being sold in major retail chains eventually just like broccoli, which was only grown in back yard gardens here by Europeans 30 years ago. Now it’s readily available at major retailers.  

Bilal says he’s in his second year of testing Indian Kaddu and Chinese red hot peppers in three different locations in southern Ontario. He’s found they’ve performed well and can be produced successfully.

But would growers be interested in producing them? Bilal says at a booth at the Outdoor Farm Show in Woodstock last year there was a lot of grower interest.

The Vineland centre, which has been in place for two years, works in partnership with others, such as universities, governments and grower organizations, to deliver innovation and research. Brandle says they’re developing new structures to meet new needs, including doing work that gives an advantage to Ontario horticultural farmers over their competition in the marketplace and thinking more about consumer demand and less about production. In addition, Ontario farmers must stop thinking about being low cost producers.

“We need to start to work in a different way where our customer is our friend and not our enemy,” Brandle says.  BF