Canada’s funding for controlled environment agriculture must amount to more than a cheap food policy
Environmental, labour, local market, and technology adoption considerations are missing from Canada’s food security strategy on greenhouses, vertical farming
Achieving food security requires change in the whole system – an investment into greenhouses and vertical farms addresses only one small piece of that system. The National Food Security Strategy has committed $750 million to expand controlled environment agriculture (CEA), which includes indoor food production systems like greenhouses, vertical farming, and hydroponics operations. It is not clear how the investment in CEA will reduce food costs or address other issues in Canada’s greenhouse sector. The National Farmers Union (NFU) believes that the CEA funding in the National Food Security Strategy (NFSS) must address the environmental, local market, and labour impacts of CEA operations in Canada.
The NFSS should explicitly designate a portion of the CEA funding to increase energy efficiency and mitigate the environmental impacts of greenhouse gas (GHG) production associated with CEA. Natural gas furnaces are used to heat greenhouses, which is a major source of GHG emissions. The CEA funding stream should address the energy required to meet the expansion goals for the sector. Southern Ontario’s CEA energy use has doubled from 1.4 terawatt hours to 3.9 terawatt hours between 2019 and 2024 – enough to power over 300,000 homes. The NFSS must ensure that the expansion of the CEA sector does not strain rural energy grids, and that new energy needs can be met by renewables.
Greenhouse operations supported through the NFSS must also follow strict rules in terms of nutrient runoff. The Essex Region Conservation Authority, which has the highest concentration of greenhouse operations in Canada, reports that streams connected to greenhouses maintain higher concentrations of phosphorus.
Supplying Canadians with more produce grown from CEA will require more than investing in CEAs themselves. Canada produced nearly $2.75 billion of CEA grown vegetables and exported 70% of that amount in 2024 according to Statistics Canada, a significant percentage, considering that Canada holds a negative trade balance for fresh fruits and field vegetables.
If Canada continues to export at the rate of 70%, total production of the entire sector would have to double to meet the NFSS’s goal of $1.55 billion of CEA produce sold to the Canadian market by 2032. Government policy must create incentives to divert more CEA produce to Canadian consumers.
“Controlled environment agriculture is the only direct investment that the National Food Security Strategy has made in agriculture,” says NFU President Jenn Pfenning. “If we are to become more self-sufficient and strengthen our national food security, we must also invest in field production to serve up the full variety of foods required to offer a stable diet for communities across the country.”
Only $100 million of the $750 million total CEA funding stream will be directed at building capacity to supply fresh produce to Northern and remote communities. Given the severity of the food affordability of the crisis in Canada’s North, $100 million is insufficient. More funding, both for CEA operations and for distribution of nutritious food, will be needed to supply food to Northern, particularly Indigenous, communities.
The NFSS names labour as a substantial cost for the food supply chain and aims to reduce labour costs for CEA by 10-20% over the funding term. CEA operations rely heavily on migrant labour. Labour abuses and digital surveillance of Temporary foreign workers (TFW) in Canadian greenhouses are regularly exposed by organizations like United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW). To be successful, the NFSS must protect TFWs from workplace surveillance, extend employee insurance, and ensure pathways to citizenship for farm workers employed in Canada.
CEA operations rely on expensive and risky technologies. Since the cost of technology implementation is so high, large-scale corporate operations are more able to absorb these costs, and a major barrier to entry exists for small and medium sized operations. The NFSS must ensure that the largest-scale operations are not receiving the bulk of the funding provided through this program.
Investing in the CEA sector must do more than incentivize construction, reduce barriers to technology adoption, and increase efficiency. If CEA is to contribute meaningfully to food sovereignty in Canada, questions about labour justice, environmental impact, domestic food economies, and technological risk must be answered.
For more information, please contact James Hannay, NFU Policy Analyst: hannay@nfu.ca
