Southern Alberta greenhouses seeing more interest in locally grown produce amid tariff threats

While tariff back-and-forth causes disruption in the economy, it also brings on higher costs of fruits and vegetables imported into Canada.

Farmers in Alberta who specialize in growing and harvesting fruit and vegetables say business has increased as more people worry about potential cost increases at the grocery store due to tariffs.

Whole Leaf produces 50,000 heads of lettuce every day at its greenhouse east of Coaldale.

• The information you need to know, sent directly to you: Download the CTV News App

“We’ve had a lot of interest in existing and new customers interested to purchase our lettuce,“ said Colin Chapdelaine, president of Whole Leaf.

“We have seen the numbers go up as the rhetoric from the U.S. administration has increased, so has the interest from Canadians and our retail partners.”

With U.S. tariffs threatening to put a 25 per cent increase on imported produce, Chapdelaine says people are starting to source local.

“While there is nothing cheaper than growing outdoors in a big open field, we bring a couple of different things to the table in terms of sustainability,” said Chapdelaine.

“When it comes to water use, we use 1/100 of the water it takes to produce a head of lettuce in the field; we’re doing that in the greenhouse. We have a 12-month-a-year program that we don’t stop, and we’re able to reduce the food miles that go into delivering the product to Canadians.”

Greg Holmes, greenhouse facility manager with Lethbridge Polytechnic’s Centre for Sustainable Food Production, says growing crops within a greenhouse can increase the quantity of produce, allow crops to be grown during temperatures between -40 C and 40 C, and be grown year-round.

“It’s quite a bit different than growing out in the field,” said Holmes.

“In a greenhouse, it’s a controlled environment, so you’re controlling all of the variables that could otherwise be controlled by weather, so that does cost a little bit more, but it also enhances the plant production, so you have much higher yields.”

Chapdelaine says the pandemic began the push for buying local. With cross-border travel limited, people turned to finding alternatives north of the 49th parallel.

“You’re starting to see the greenhouse industry starting to gain a bit of a foothold,” he said.

“We were the first in Canada with our greenhouse in Coaldale to introduce this new style of lettuce to the market and the market has really embraced it.”

Experts say crops like lettuce and strawberries are the most common to be grown in a greenhouse in southern Alberta, but the possibilities are endless.

“There’s definitely some stuff that isn’t practical to grow in a greenhouse, like bananas that grow for a couple of years and you have one big harvest, but we can now build our greenhouses large enough to grow trees so we can have some similar-to orchard production,” explained Holmes.

While the uncertainty lies with tariffs, Chapdelaine doesn’t expect business to slow down anytime soon.

“Canadians pushing back against this injustice that is happening to us and really supporting the locally grown and Canadian-grown product is amazing and it’s great to see,” said Chapdelaine.