Ontario needs more advocacy for the processing sector,
particularly at the federal level, says a committee struck last year to develop
recommendations for agriculture.
Ontario's Agri-Food Growth Steering Committee also says in
its report released this week that the Ontario government and the industry need
to do more promotion at home at abroad.
The third key recommendation is to focus on medium-sized
agri-food businesses to enhance competitiveness.
When she was agriculture minister in 2013, Premier Kathleen Wynne challenged the sector to double its annual growth rate
and create 120,000 new jobs by 2020.
Instead there have been a score of plant closures and
layoffs, including Heinz Ketchup in Leamington, the Kraft-Heinz salad dressing
plant in St. Marys, Kelogg’s breakfast cereals plant in London and Schneider’s
meat-packing plant in Kitchener.
The government says in a news release that the committee's
recommendations, which were presented at this year's Summit, will help the
sector meet the Premier's
Agri-Food Challenge.
Wynne presented honours to a number of companies during the
Summit.
VG Meats of Simcoe won the
Premier's Award for its customized training program in meat processing and
retail operations, which is supporting a new generation of skilled butchers.
Clear Valley
Hops of Collingwood received the Minister's Award for developing an
efficient process to produce unique, high-quality hops that reduces the time
from harvest to freezing to 24 hours.
Celmar Dairy Ltd. of Norwich was honoured for building a
custom system that improves the transfer and storage of forage and cuts the
time it takes to fill silos by 50 per cent.
Durham Foods of Port Perry was
honoured for creating a user-friendly food safety app that makes it easier for
companies to track and document their compliance with national food safety
guidelines.