Agriculture Committee on June 11th, 2026

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Coteau]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 41 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food. Today's meeting is taking place in hybrid format pursuant to the Standing Orders. Members are attending in person in the room and remotely using the Zoom application.

Before I continue, I'd like to ask all in-person participants to consult the guidelines written on the cards on the table. These measures are in place to help prevent audio feedback incidents and to protect the health and safety of all participants, including our interpreters. You'll also notice a QR code on the card, which links to a short awareness video.

I'd like to make a few comments for the benefit of witnesses and members.

Please wait until I recognize you by name or you're asked a question directly by a member before speaking. I don't think we have anyone on video conference today.

I'd also like to remind witnesses that committee members may ask questions in both French and English. If you need interpretation, please take a moment now to prepare your earpiece and select the listening channel you need in advance, in order to take full advantage of the time allotted for each question and answer. I remind you that all comments should go through the chair. For members in the room, if you wish to speak, please raise your hand.

Joining us today for the first 45 minutes, we have, from the Atlantic Food Action Coalition, Justin Cantafio. From Food First NL, we have Joshua Smee. From Second Harvest Canada, we are joined by Lori Nikkel, chief executive officer.

We'll start with Joshua, please.

You have five minutes.

[Joshua Smee, Chief Executive Officer, Food First NL]

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. Good morning, in fact. I'm still on Atlantic time, I think.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to the committee about this important topic today, and thanks for taking it up.

My name is Joshua Smee. I'm the CEO of Food First NL. We are a non-profit organization with staff across both Newfoundland and Labrador. At Food First NL, our vision is of a Newfoundland and Labrador where everyone can eat with joy and dignity. That vision reminds us that food security isn't just about how many calories you eat. It's about where those calories come from, how you eat them, and whom you eat them with.

In these unstable times, every part of that picture is under pressure. Your committee has heard this repeatedly. You've had some great speakers in, including folks from our own province.

When our organization looks around at the state of our local food system in Newfoundland and Labrador, too often we see a landscape of missed opportunities. We see an aging population of farmers at the same time as we see young people struggling to find a foothold in the food system. We see stores full of imported food that's been sitting on trucks and in warehouses for weeks, while local producers struggle to access local markets. We see the vast majority of our province's institutional buyers, places like hospitals and schools, sending their food budgets out of province, not because they don't want to invest locally but because they don't have a mechanism to do so.

What could some solutions look like?

We think that, at least in part, it looks like a thriving network of food hubs across the country. We're really excited to hear the details of the announcement that's coming this afternoon, because I think that lines up pretty closely with some of what I'm going to say. I think I can preview Justin's remarks a little here.

We operate two non-profit food hubs in Newfoundland and Labrador right now, one in western Newfoundland and one in the Avalon Peninsula. I'll tell you a bit about how they work.

We operate an online store that producers in each region sign up for. Each week, they post what they have, and then customers can make a single order that includes products from as many producers as they want. Food First NL goes out, gathers things in bulk from all the producers, divides them into customer orders and ships those back to pickup points in people's own communities all over the province. You go down to your local store to gas up your car, and there's a box waiting for you with your name on it, with products from 40 different farmers in it.

That's the kind of community-based solution we're seeing emerge all across the country. To be clear, we did not invent this model. We are riding a wave that is spreading across Canada, and for a very good reason. Food hubs provide huge benefits, both to producers and to purchasers.

The biggest impact here is on small farmers and other small producers, many of whom can't gain access into grocery stores or can't afford to, and on new entrants, especially new Canadians entering the food system. These folks gain immediate access to an enthusiastic market with thousands of customers and dedicated promotional and marketing support. They have to spend less time off their farm or outside of their operation trying to sell and more time doing their work.

On the consumer side, people are able to access local food more reliably, particularly people who don't have access to a car or don't have a farmer's market nearby. MP Connors is here from Newfoundland and Labrador. We know how it works. We have the highest percentage of farm gate sales in the country. That's all well and good if you can drive from farm gate to farm gate, but lots of us can't.

We also see that restaurants and institutional buyers whose orders are too big for a single producer to meet can use a food hub to aggregate products from multiple producers. As an operator, we've seen a lot of success with this, but we've also seen the challenges these models face.

For a food hub to stand on its own two feet financially, it needs time to build up its market and its customer base. That is a hard thing for a non-profit organization to come by. Our funding systems are overwhelmingly focused on supporting capital costs, when what a lot of these local initiatives actually need are operating dollars. They need some runway.

We do, though, see some really great things coming. We see a powerful alignment emerging now with the national school food program. A core principle of Canada's school food policy is that food be locally sourced where possible, and reflective of local and regional circumstances. We've seen recent research showing that a national school food program could contribute $4.8 billion to local economies through domestic food purchasing over the next 10 years and create hundreds of thousands of jobs in the food system. In our conversations with stakeholders across Newfoundland and Labrador, we have heard over and over that food hubs are going to play a critical role in making this happen.

“What can government do?” is a question that always comes to mind.

We would hope to see a dedicated funding stream emerge that can make both capital and operating investments in this kind of infrastructure, multi-year investments that give these kinds of infrastructure projects the runway they need to get off the ground and sustain themselves.

We also really hope to see continued work to embed conversations about local procurement into the conversations between the federal government and the provincial governments as the next round of school food agreements is updated. It's really important to have the federal government play that role in setting targets and keeping the provinces ambitious about local procurement.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Coteau]

Next, we'll go to Second Harvest.

[Lori Nikkel, Chief Executive Officer, Second Harvest Canada]

Good morning. I'm Lori from Second Harvest. I'm the CEO. We are Canada's largest food rescue organization and a leading source of information on food waste.

We tackle food waste at the systems level through research, surplus food redistribution, education and advocacy, and our research on food waste is Canada's best resource on where, why and how much of our food that is produced for Canada is being lost or wasted across the supply chain.

We also did some great research on charitable organizations, of which there are 61,000 across this country, that are providing people with low- or no-cost food. We work with about 15,000 food businesses across every province and territory to rescue their good surplus food and distribute it to some of these charities, and we supported six million people last year with that great food that would have gone to waste.

We have a pretty unique perspective on food security, food waste and the opportunities that exist within Canada's food system, and one of the key themes emerging from this wonderful committee's work on the study is that food security extends far beyond production. We agree that while Canada produces an abundance of food, barriers related to affordability, access, distribution and food loss and waste continue to prevent many people from getting the food they need.

Addressing these challenges requires a systems-wide approach, and today I'll focus on three areas as you consider evidence for this study.

First, Canada must unlock more value within its own food system by investing in domestic processing capacity and innovation. Across Canada, we continue to export raw materials while importing higher-value processed foods. Meanwhile, industry leaders tell us that parts of Canada's food processing and co-packing infrastructure are underused and causing edible food to go to waste.

To better understand these challenges, Second Harvest has launched a national research project on Canada's food processing and co-packing capacity. The study will identify where infrastructure exists, where capacity gaps remain, where assets are underused and what barriers prevent businesses from making full use of existing facilities. It will also examine trends in exporting raw commodities and importing finished products to identify opportunities to keep more value creation in Canada. Industry stakeholders involved in the project have already told us that this is research that should have been undertaken years ago.

The research is supported by an advisory committee that includes Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, national industry associations, major food processors and Canada's largest retailers.

It is rare to see this level of alignment across the food value chain, and it underscores the importance of addressing long-standing gaps in our understanding of Canada's food processing capacity.

Second, I want to highlight how strengthening local production and processing will reduce food waste and our environmental impact. Our research shows that we waste 46.5% of all the food produced for Canada. Of that, 58 billion dollars' worth is avoidable waste of perfectly edible food. The annual CO2 emissions from this avoidable food waste are equal to the emissions of 5.6 million cars every year.

Buying locally can help reduce food waste by reducing the number of food miles travelled between farm and consumer, allowing food to arrive fresher and with a longer remaining shelf life. Shorter supply chains also reduce spoilage, damage and quality deterioration during transportation, particularly for perishable foods. By keeping food closer to where it's produced, a local food system helps ensure more food is eaten rather than wasted.

Third, I will draw from Second Harvest's experience in supporting local purchasing initiatives and food recovery programs that kept Canadian food in Canada's communities.

During the pandemic, the federal government's surplus food rescue program provided emergency funding to purchase surplus food that lost its markets when restaurants, hotels and institutions suddenly closed.

Through that program, we purchased and redistributed more than 9.4 million pounds of surplus food across every province and territory. It supported Canadian producers and food businesses facing unprecedented disruption, while ensuring that good food reached communities instead of going to waste.

Beyond the food itself, the program helped build and strengthen a national network of community organizations, distribution partners and logistics infrastructure that continues to support food recovery efforts today.

In 2022, as you all may remember, there was a market disruption that left millions of pounds of P.E.I. potatoes without a destination, so we partnered with government, growers and community organizations to purchase and redistribute 12 million pounds of those potatoes across Canada to everywhere, including rural and remote places.

In 2024, when the closure of a major fruit co-operative left apples stranded in B.C. orchards, we worked with farmers and partners to purchase and distribute more than 154,000 pounds of apples.

Initiatives like these provide a release valve after a supply chain disruption, supporting Canadian businesses in recovering value, increasing access to nutritious food and keeping more Canadian-grown food within the domestic food system.

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Coteau]

Thank you.

Next, we'll go to the Atlantic Food Action Coalition.

You have five minutes.

[Justin Cantafio, Director, Atlantic Food Action Coalition]

Good morning, Mr. Chair and committee members.

Thank you for inviting me to appear here today.

My name is Justin Cantafio, and I'm the director of policy with the Centre for Local Prosperity. I'm also a co-founder and current director with the Halifax Regional Food Hub, and I'm appearing today as director with the Atlantic Food Action Coalition, or AFAC.

AFAC works across Atlantic Canada to strengthen food sovereignty and community-rooted food systems. Over the past several months, we've supported a listening project with over 150 farmers and food producers. I'll be drawing from those conversations today.

This study asks the right questions: how we strengthen food security amid global instability, create more value in Canada's food chain, support local production and processing, and support local purchasing. Answering these questions honestly means going beyond the usual language of growth, innovation and productivity.

Our clearest finding is that Canada doesn't have a food production problem. That is not the root of our food insecurity crisis. Our farmers know how to grow food. What we're losing are the systems that let communities feed themselves—the processing, storage, distribution, procurement, local ownership and market pathways that move food from farms into homes, communities, institutions and beyond.

Across Atlantic Canada, demand for local food is real. Consumers want it, institutions want to buy it, and producers want to supply it, but the middle of the food system has been hollowed out.

Producers tell us about lost processing facilities, lost abattoirs, limited cold storage, weak local distribution, difficult procurement pathways and increasing transportation costs. Many can grow food, but they can't profitably sell it into regional markets. We lost over 21% of our farms in five years in Nova Scotia. If a region can't process, store, distribute or purchase the food that it produces, it's not resilient by any measure.

True resilience comes from diversity, redundancy, interconnection and the ability to adapt. A system built on concentrated ownership, long supply chains and just-in-time logistics may look efficient under stable conditions, but under stress it breaks—and it's breaking.

We also need to name corporate concentration directly. Canada has one of the most corporately concentrated grocery sectors in the entire world, and concentration continues to rise across processing, distribution inputs and seed systems.

The issue isn't whether value is created in Canada; it's who captures that value, who owns the infrastructure, who sets the terms, and whether food-system wealth circulates in communities or leaks out of them.

This speaks directly to the gap between producers and consumers. Farmers are at the end of their margins. Labour, land, debt, fuel, feed, fertilizer—it goes on. They're all going to keep rising in cost. Many simply can't charge less and survive. At the same time, households are facing a brutal cost of living crisis, and Canada's grocery sector is continuing to profit.

That gap won't be solved by telling producers to absorb more costs or telling consumers to pony up and pay more. It requires shorter supply chains, stronger local markets and public policy that helps more value reach producers while increasing access for eaters.

That's where community wealth building is helpful. It asks who owns these assets, who gets the contracts, where public spending goes and whether wealth stays rooted locally. GDP misses out on this. The GDP can rise while the number of farms falls, while food insecurity climbs and while public dollars keep getting siphoned out of the tax base.

This is why local food isn't a cute thing. It's not just a consumer preference. It's not a branding exercise. It's pragmatism. It's food sovereignty, power, agency, land, governance and control over our very food systems.

Based on what we've heard in Atlantic Canada, we recommend four practical solutions. First, invest in the missing middle of regional food infrastructure. We gutted it. We can rebuild it.

Second, use your public procurement dollars as an economic development tool. Institutions already pay for food. Public spending should be serving the public good, not chasing sticker prices, and regional procurement requires hard actual purchasing minimums.

Third, we need to strengthen fair-price market pathways. That means supporting independent grocers, farmers' markets, food hubs, co-operatives and regional distribution, all while addressing corporate concentration.

Fourth, we need to really start measuring what matters. If we count only export growth, output and GDP, guess what we keep missing? Farm profitability, succession, processing capacity, ownership diversity, economic leakage, food insecurity, local economic multiplier effects—the list goes on.

What we're hearing loud and clear is that folks aren't asking for another short-term pilot project to solve this problem. People are asking for the infrastructure, funding and policy conditions to rebuild food systems that are resilient, democratic and rooted in place.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Coteau]

Thank you very much.

We'll start our first round of six minutes with the Conservatives.

Mr. Epp.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all of you for your testimony and also for the good work that your organizations do.

Very recently, as in hours ago, I came back from a conference that dealt more with global food systems, touching on many of the themes that you did as well. Caloric intake for the world on average is 2,963 calories per person. In North America it's 3,500. It's down to 2,600 for Africa. In Asia it's just under 3,000. Much of the world has room to grow. Obviously, they're also going to be focused on local systems.

The speaker I took a lot away from was Richard Sexton, whose book is Food Fight. He gave an interesting presentation. This will sound a little counter to some of your testimony, but he was saying three things: The world needs to eliminate yield-reducing policies, it needs to stop discouraging innovation through regulations and legislation, and it needs to find the most efficient land use and the most efficient purposes. That's his approach, but he's coming at it from more of a global system. You're coming at it from more a local system.

I have a question for each of you. North America averages 3,500 calories. What's the present caloric intake supplied locally? By locally, let's say it's Atlantic Canada.

Lori, I'll start with you, and then we'll go across.

[Lori Nikkel]

I don't have a clue what the answer to that is, but I'll go back to the food waste. Our systems globally are broken. If we can waste this much food while people can't have food, that's a big problem. Calorically, I think it would vary, depending on whom you're looking at.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Justin.

[Justin Cantafio]

It's a great question. There are already more than enough calories on the planet to feed people. Most food is actually grown by smallholders or by small- to medium-scale farmers. Globally, there's 29% food insecurity. Where I live, it's about that percentage too. That's by design. That's a choice. I think the challenge, really, is to recalibrate the food system such that it's of and for the people and not of and for the profit-takers.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Joshua.

[Joshua Smee]

In Newfoundland and Labrador, we don't have calorie data, but I can tell you a few things. We know that the vast majority of the food eaten by folks in our province is brought in from outside. We don't have an exact read on it, but it's somewhere between 75% and 90%. However, I think what we miss when we use that number is that we also have the highest rate of wild food access of any province. Everyone I know either fishes or hunts, or knows someone who does, and a lot of people are producing their own food outside of the market economy. We're not counting food that's grown in roadside gardens on the highway, if you've ever driven up the Northern Peninsula in Newfoundland, and stuff like that.

I think for most people in Atlantic Canada, it's true that we'll always be in a global food system and that most of our calories will always come from outside of it, but we have to be careful not to let that swamp the thinking about how to make the local food system stronger within the share that it is still making up.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

I live in southwestern Ontario, which has a rich diversity of access to food, but I suspect that most of my food is also not drawn locally, because of the diversity, which came up...and to have that access. I think we all want to strengthen our local systems. I'll get to the “missing middle” in a second. I really liked that language.

What's your recommendation? Agriculture is a shared jurisdiction between the federal government and the provincial governments. How do we get at that? How do we get at encouraging the processing when it becomes a shared jurisdiction? Where does the responsibility lie?

[Joshua Smee]

I think there are couple of pieces. There are joint federal-provincial programs that are important players in the funding space. Sustainable CAP, for instance, is a vital support for farmers and producers, with their equipment costs and things like that. There's a new policy framework being developed for SCAP right now. It's important to think through some of the questions this committee is addressing in that policy framework development.

The other role the feds can really play is as a target setter. In agreements with the provinces, such as the school food agreements, the federal government has the opportunity to build in targets and look to the provinces to figure out ways to meet them, particularly for institutional procurement, which is a real driver of this.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Would either of you like the opportunity to weigh in?

[Justin Cantafio]

Yes. One thing I like to stress is that food security is a matter of national security. We need to find ways to take our coffers, which are considerably larger at the federal level, especially if you consider the size of the coffers of a small province like Nova Scotia, and incentivize public partnerships between provinces and the federal government. I think we have a big kitty we can draw from. We'll see the provincial government happily join up or follow suit, but they can't do it on their own.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Ms. Nikkel, you touched on the affordability aspect. How do we get at that? Is the gap in affordability coming from how our food systems are structured, or is it coming from our general economy and our general income? How do we get at that affordability?

[Lori Nikkel]

It's income. I would argue that it's income.

To your first question, I would say that federally you have a role to play in the harmonization of things across the provinces. That's a big problem. When we can get a farmers tax credit in four provinces and not across the board, that's a problem.

Poverty reduction is about income. People need money in their pockets to buy food. That is a very complex system. It is not just within the agriculture system. I would go back to the argument that the agriculture system is broken when we can waste this much food while people are hungry. It won't solve hunger, but we can solve an environmental imperative while we work on policy for the economics of just your average person.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

You all touched on the missing middle, the processing capability, the value adding that we don't do a good enough job of. Again, where do we start in addressing that?

Lori.

[Lori Nikkel]

We start with the research. We need foundational research to say what's actually happening across this country so that we can make decisions and goals for that. That's what we're starting with.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Coteau]

Thank you very much.

We will go next to the Liberals for six minutes.

MP Connors.

[Paul Connors, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Thank you very much.

Welcome to our guests.

Welcome, Josh. I want to say what great work you and Food First NL are doing in Newfoundland. It's remarkable.

To the other associations as well, you're doing lots of great work.

Josh, the issue of food security in Newfoundland and Labrador is a bit distinct from in other places. We are an island, and we rely on Marine Atlantic to bring a lot of our fresh fruit and vegetables to the island. In your opening remarks, you talked about missed opportunities in the demand for local food. Can you elaborate on some of those missed opportunities?

[Joshua Smee]

Sure. I'm happy to. I think there are a lot of them.

For example, we've seen this on the institutional buying side. I was talking to a school food provider who spent a whole summer trying to figure out how to replace their imported carrot supply with local carrots. As you know, we don't grow a lot of things in our province, but we do grow plenty of those. They couldn't make it work. That missing middle wasn't there. There was no one they could buy from in the quantities they need, who could ship in the quantities they need, or who could process in the ways they need to supply their school food program.

This is the kind of story we hear all the time, particularly from schools and from hospitals. Think about who the biggest buyers are and who could make the most impact on the shape of the sector by doing things like forward contracting. If producers knew that there was a steady demand going forward, that would give them the security to expand their operations. With the missing middle, it just isn't happening. Those connections are getting missed. People are sailing past each other.

They're saying that they want to work together, and we hear that, but we also hear that from individual households who would love to buy local but don't know how. In particular, if we talk to folks in larger communities, such as St. John's or Corner Brook, lots of them don't have access to the countryside where the producers are located. They're missing out. We hear from them all the time. It's those people who are driving the demand for the food hubs and other operations that already exist.