The city is drafting a new bylaw that would ensure that local produce is featured more prominently at the Parkdale and Byward markets.
The city is drafting a bylaw to ensure local markets sell more local produce than imported food, something that many residents mistakenly thought was the case already.
According to Doug Moore, the city manager of venture properties, a large portion of what is currently being sold at the Parkdale and Byward markets is not produced locally.
He said that there are less local producers and more retailers now than there were a decade ago. Retailers are those who resell produce they have purchased wholesale or from other producers.
“Some people sell only what they grow at their stand,” said the markets’ manager Phillip Powell. “If it’s the only stand that you shop at, you are sure to get only local products.”
Some vendors are producers and sellers – that is they sell some of the food they grow and resell food that they purchase.
For example, mix-producers may sell tomatoes that they grow and then sell other produce that they have purchased.
Other vendors concentrate only on selling what they buy from wholesale.
As residents are becoming more conscious about what they are eating and where it is coming from, the City of Ottawa is trying to develop policies that respect this trend, said Moore.
The head of the city’s rural affairs committee, Rob Jellet, said he has heard anecdotal evidence that the proportion of local produce at the Byward and Parkdale markets would be “as low as 20 or 30 per cent.”
Powell pointed out there is no requirement to sell local products at the Byward and Parkdale markets.
“We’re hoping the new bylaw will allow us to keep track of the amount of local products,” he said.
The new rules for farmers’ markets are expected to be introduced to council this fall and be implemented next year.
In 1995, a provincial court judge ruled a city bylaw, which restricted local markets to area farmers, was illegal. This means merchants at the Byward and Parkdale markets have been allowed to resell produce they have purchased wholesale. The local producers – those who sell only the produce that they grow – are currently in the minority.
Jellet said the agricultural and rural affairs committee voted unanimously to keep the Ottawa Farmers’ Market going for at least another two years this winter.
Councillors also voted to allow the market, which sells only local products, to open on one weekday on Thursdays, as well as on Sundays.
At the Ottawa Farmers’ Market, all produce and fruits sold by the vendors are produced by those vendors. The market attracted 3,000 to 6,000 shoppers each Sunday last year – who can be totally confident that what they purchased was grown locally, according to Andy Teruad, the president of the market.
He said it’s impossible to compete with those who buy the produce from wholesale and then resell it at a low price.
He saw a problem with the bylaw that is being drafted. Teruad said those markets are never going to sell 100 per cent local produce if the bylaw does not clearly indicate that they should be selling only local produce.
One of the options being considered is for vendors at the Byward and Parkdale markets who sell imported food to operate in a separate area.
“At the moment, we’re trying to figure out a way to encourage more local production, without penalizing those in the resell,” said Jellet.