I have a son who is a lawyer, so that's okay.
Thanks again for giving me this opportunity.
Farmers' markets have enjoyed an incredible renaissance over the last 15 or 20 years. I represent Farmers' Markets Canada, as its national president, and that is a volunteer position. My day job is as the executive director of Farmers' Markets Ontario, which is the provincial association of Ontario's 175 farmers' markets.
As I indicated earlier, farmers' markets are enjoying quite a rebirth in our country, primarily in Ontario and British Columbia. There are three reasons for that. The first reason is that shoppers and consumers want fresh, local produce. That's the number one reason we have this renaissance. The second reason is that farmers want to market directly and they want to cut out the middlemen. It's as simple as that. The third reason is that communities are looking for good things to do for their communities. For example, an economic development committee will help organize a market for its reasons. A chamber of commerce will do the same. An agricultural society will organize a farmers' market to make better use of its land and buildings. A service club will do it to raise funds not on the backs of the farmers, certainly. And on and on. These community groups want to do markets.
So we have shoppers wanting fresh food, farmers wanting to market directly, and community groups wanting to do something neat in their communities. Those are the main reasons for this renaissance of farmers' markets.
Less than 20 years ago we had 60 of them in Ontario. We're sitting at 175 today. Less than 20 years ago we had 5 or 6 markets in British Columbia, and we have well over 100 today. Across the country there are about 550 active farmers' markets. I've given you a copy of our last economic impact report, released in 2009. Sales over the last couple of years at Canada's 500 or so farmers' markets exceed $1 billion, and 70% of that happens in Ontario. I'm not here to plug Ontario; I'm just giving you the facts.
I'll speak about the economic impact of these markets. We just had an economic impact study done, and the experts tell us that farmers' market sales have a multiplier effect of 3.24. So with sales of $1 billion across our country, the economic impact of these farmers' markets across Canada is over $3 billion, very much a sleeping giant. When we put those numbers out there, people are pretty shocked.
There are probably 10,000 vendors in our sector—farmers, artisans, and secondary producers. The support we get from shoppers is incredible: 92% say they want to deal with the farmers; 62% say absolutely, and 92% say yes, we want to deal with the farmer.
I'm not going to get into it, but you are well aware of the Galen Weston comment. The Conference Board of Canada organized a Canadian Food Summit in Toronto earlier in February, and I attended it. Mr. Weston made his ill-timed remarks, and the media and the social network went wild. We have tracked it, and just hang onto your seats. There have been 40 million impressions from people supporting farmers' markets. That's Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and all the media—and 40 million impressions.
I can tell you that 99.9%—it doesn't get closer to 100% than that—are from people saying how objectionable that was, and how much they support farmers' markets. That's the kind of support we have.
We think that farmers' markets are very pivotal to the food supply chain. Young people today don't know much about a farm, and one of the things a farmers' market does is reconnect shoppers with our farmers. Shoppers can go to a market, eyeball the producer, find out what went into or on that product, and how to prepare it for the table. So farmers' markets are reconnecting society with our land, and we think that's critical.
Another thing about farmers' markets is that it's a great place to incubate small business. We have any number of small businesses who came to the market, started selling, and the first thing we know they're running a retail store, or whatever. It's a great place to incubate a small business.
It's also a great place for young farmers to get into the sector. A young farmer is not going to be buying quota and spending all kinds of dollars. With a small piece of land, some hard work, and a feel for the soil, a young person can very quickly get into the farmers' market sector and make a reasonably good living—part-time at first—and build from there.
I'm not going to tell you any more, other than the fact that I have a passion for these markets. I've been at it 20 years. I say one of my reasons for being is to help farmers be price makers not price takers. That is critical.
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada was great four or five years ago. They funded us to be able to do our economic impact study, our logo, our incorporation, and our website, but those funds dried up. We're hopeful—I realize times are tough in government—that Farmers' Markets Canada will be able to get some help fairly soon. We're a dormant organization right now. I'm trying to keep it going with some volunteer board members across the land, but we're hoping to be able to get some funding to do some things.
With that, I'll turn it back to you, Mr. Chair.