Canada may be rich in canola, potash and oil, but when it comes to lettuce, we're in a bit of a crunch. Despite our vast farmland, we rely heavily on the United States—especially California—for our salad supply. Roughly 90 per cent of our leafy greens are imported, leaving grocery chains vulnerable to fallout from Donald Trump's on-and-off-and-on-again tariffs.
Amid growing concerns about food security, a new greenhouse in King City, just north of Toronto, offers a glimpse of a more self-sufficient future. Haven Greens, a five-acre facility that harvested its first crop of leafy greens this spring, operates the first fully automated greenhouse in Canada.
Its founder and CEO, Jay Willmot, is a third-generation farmer who's parlayed his fixation on food sovereignty into a super-advanced agri-tech venture, capable of producing up to 10,000 pounds of lettuce every single day. Willmot spoke to Maclean's about automated farming, the withering effects of U.S. trade tensions and why this crisis is a wake-up call for Canada to get growing.
Read more at Maclean's