The Future of Agricultural Self-Sufficiency in NB

This Guest Blog by Brunswick News columnist Sue Rickards was published in January 2021 and reprinted here with the author’s permission

The impacts of the pandemic on transportation have focused our attention on supply chains

While New Brunswick’s geography and population density may protect us somewhat from the rampant spread of covid, these factors also affect our ability to receive goods from external sources. We are heavily dependent on truck traffic, which is vulnerable to interruptions. How do we respond to this fundamental challenge?  

Self-sufficiency, defined as the capacity to meet consumption with domestic production, is especially important in supplying our needs for food. Fortunately, our Department of Agriculture, Aquaculture and Fisheries (DAAF) is on the case. Its recently released Action Plan for Improving Food Self-Sufficiency seeks to develop a robust locally produced food supply while supporting profitability and sustainability for the industry. Its strategy is based on pillars which include efforts to encourage local production and consumption, increase access to farmland, support local markets for producers and consumers, expand processing, packaging and storage capacity, educate and train the next generations of farmers, build the needed workforce, and assist farmers to achieve financial stability.   

Climate limits agricultural potential

All of these pillars are vital but one of the plan’s most far-sighted components is the pledge to increase the amount of controlled environment farming, such as greenhouses, large indoor facilities and aquaponics. Climate limits agricultural potential. While we are self-sufficient in potatoes, blueberries, cranberries, maple syrup, seafood, dairy products, chicken, turkey and eggs, our supply of vegetables is well below the demand, due largely to erratic weather conditions which make growth, production and marketing unstable and costly.

“One can imagine the day when every school will have a greenhouse or aquaculture facility... students growing their own food has collateral benefits”

One can imagine the day when every school will have a greenhouse or aquaculture facility integrated into educational programming, either on site or community-based; many already do. Involving students in growing their own food has collateral benefits, including  exposure to hands-on learning and improved nutrition and health outcomes. It also promotes entreprenurial thinking and practice. We can learn from the example of the Presque Isle (Maine) high school farm, a 38-acre facility where students produce fruits, vegetables, apple cider and honey. The farm’s products are  available in local grocery stores, restaurants and non-profit organizations, as well as in its own store. The school farm opened in 1991 with seven students and now employs approximately forty.  Most of DAAF’s pillars could be integrated into this kind of experiential learning lab.  

DAAF’s plan is about networks. Steps towards its implementation are now in progress with the participation of other government departments and community- and sector-based organizations. Partnerships is the name of this game. The door is open to a vast array of collaborative efforts, including every sector and many government agencies, enabling expansion and diversity of approaches and solutions from the ground up as well as the top down.  

“In fact, DAAF’s plan is crystal clear about the directions the department intends to pursue in its attempt to develop self sufficiency in our food supply.”

Unfortunately, the Opposition chose the standard partisan knee jerk reaction, panning the document for its vagueness rather than offering an informed opinion. Their criticism is about semantics, not substance. In fact, DAAF’s plan is crystal clear about the directions the department intends to pursue in its attempt to develop self sufficiency in our food supply. Having worked with DAAF through the tenure of at least four Ministers, I know that the department is  home to a crew of visionaries whose feet are planted firmly in the soil of New Brunswick. Their efforts should be supported and encouraged, not peppered with unproductive political potshots. 

Let’s make agricultural self-sufficiency a provincial priority and build safe and reliable systems on the ground, using our expert human resources, our natural assets, our potential systemic flexibilty, our common sense and our imaginations to grow farming in all of its dimensions to support a sustainable and healthy future.

Guest Blogger Sue Rickards

Thanks to CECNB’s friend and columnist Sue Rickards for allowing us to reprint her article published in Brunswick News’ papers in Jan 2021