As food products in Canada are facing their highest price increase in 12 years, supporting smaller producers by shopping locally could be the best solution to keep down the price of your household groceries, according to the Eastern Ontario Agri-food Network (EOAN).

With inflation soaring globally, partially due to the disruptions experienced in the pandemic, the cost of meat, fruit, vegetables and dairy products are set to rise too but buying locally could be part of the solution. 

“Individual farmers do not set market prices, food is affected by world wide supply and demand,” explained EOAN Executive Director, Tom Manley. “To adapt, consumers can find local farmers, a resilient supply chain to be somewhat safer from international supply disruptions.”

Manley also suggested buying products in bulk and storing them to reduce their costs too and, although it may be more time consuming, it’s an investment to reduce “the money being put in”. 

Although the trickle down effect of inflation means that costs will increase for consumers and producers alike, Manley explained that this rise in costs could benefit a market that has an ongoing shift towards buying and producing locally. 

“Consumers are weary of disrupted international supply lines,” he said. “Local farmers, right now, are largely sold out and they are trying to scale up.

“We see new farmers coming into the system, whether they are second-generation farmers or second and third career farmers, but they are struggling.”

These struggles come down to a lack of financial capital as well as access to labour as immigration, which provides “over 100,000 workers” per year across Canada as the country “took a pause and interrupted itès immigration flow” during the pandemic. 

“It’s an important factor, not just in terms of agricultural jobs, but also ownership,” Manley said. “Purchasing farms, even at the entry scale level, establishing their own businesses. Immigration is going to be an important factor as a solution to agricultural based business.”

The Eastern Ontario Food Portal expanded earlier this year to bring together producers from not only Prescott-Russell but also Stormont-Dundas and Glengarry, Cornwall as well as other parts of Ontario. 

This virtual “supermarket” is designed to work alongside regular in person farmers markets and gives consumers easier access to locally sourced food.