Quebec’s efforts to grow fruits and vegetables during freezing winter months have gained new urgency after the coronavirus pandemic exposed risks to supply chains around the world.
The Canadian province touted a C$1.3 million ($930,000) investment in an engineering company that outfits farmers to produce strawberries in winter. Premier Francois Legault also called on people who have lost their jobs because of the pandemic to work on farms, as travel restrictions make it harder to recruit seasonal foreign workers.
Legault, a self-described Quebec nationalist, has identified food and medical supply as two areas where he’d like Quebec to become more self-sufficient. Canada imported about C$3.6 billion ($2.6 billion) worth of vegetables in 2018, with about 60% coming from the U.S., according to data from Statistics Canada.
Now the pandemic has created international tensions as countries restrict exports of medical equipment and compete for scarce supplies. Global trade has increased food security, said Sylvain Charlebois, the director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. There’s now a risk governments will become too protectionist, he said.
“Before the crisis, you heard terms like plant-based, veganism, animal welfare. Now it’s about shelves, supply chains, flour and yeast,” said Charlebois. “Consumers get protective in a time of crisis when they’re fearful, but countries do the same.”
Finance.yahoo.com reported on Quebec Economy Minister Pierre Fitzgibbon saying the province of 8.5 million people remains in favor of free trade but sees an opportunity to dent an overall trade deficit of about C$20 billion. The government’s push for greater food autonomy had already started before the crisis, including through support for greenhouses, he said.