The Holland Marsh, Ontario's vegetable patch: Andrew Coppolino

If you happen to be driving up Highway 400 this summer, pay particular attention to the very rich looking, pitch-black soil you see as farmland in and around Bradford West Gwillimbury.

You are in Holland Marsh country, a region of family-owned farms responsible for growing a lot of the carrots, onions, celery and other produce that Ontario eats each year.

Local food from our region is important in many ways, but there likely wouldn't be enough healthy, proper food for Canadians to eat were it not for the Holland Marsh.

Located about 50 kilometres north of the CN Tower, that icon at the heart of the country's most densely populated urban region, the farms here grow more carrots in North America than anywhere else except places like California's Imperial Valley 4,000 kilometres away.

"The Marsh," as it is called, is more than 7,000 acres of reclaimed swamp in the Holland River Valley, which was drained between 1925 and 1930.

The idea of farming the wetlands evolved out of studies by Ontario Agricultural College professor William Day, and a series of canals and dykes were built to drain the region.

Funding for the project came from Ontario and Holland – the presence of those first Dutch farmers is evident in the Dutch names and heritage of the current Marsh farmers.  

Feeding 65 per cent of Canada

Draining The Marsh revealed rich, fertile earth called "muck soil." It was the perfect medium for growing veggies and is now home to about 175 farms, which came together as the Holland Marsh Growers' Association (HMGA) about 10 years ago. 

"Farmers felt they needed a voice like all the other associations," HMGA executive director Jody Mott said. "The potato people had their board, the apple guys have their guys, and we needed to be heard because we are a unique piece of farming. We have unique soils and we need a voice."

She's right. The HMGA refer to The Marsh as Ontario's soup and salad bowl.

"We feed approximately 75 per cent of Ontario and 65 per cent of Canada," Mott said, adding they grow 66 varieties of vegetables. "If they weren't there, I don't know where a lot of it would come from." 

In fact, The Marsh farmers harvest enough carrots that each Canadian could eat about four pounds a year. That's a lot of soup. But it has an international impact, too.

"You'll find [Holland Marsh produce] in the Caribbean, you'll find it in Mexico," Mott said. "We're all over. A lot of our produce is actually sent right down to the States. Even in China you will find us."

Entrepreneurship and obstacles

The Marsh grows entrepreneurship and innovation, too. Farmers have arrived from all over the world and are growing unique vegetables and herbs such as bitter melon and anise. For instance, on his Summerside Farm near Bradford, Rex Sugrim from Guyana produces crops that are in demand from new Canadians.    

Yet, like any other farmer, Marsh farmers face obstacles, not the least of which is the weather – and especially so this summer with a lack of rain on the one hand and a recent bombardment of crop-damaging hail on the other.

Like all farmers, they must also see to labour issues, face dollar exchange rates, watch agricultural input costs rise more than retail prices and adhere to more and more standards imposed on them regarding food safety certification, water use and waste, and observe crop protection regimens against pests and blights.

Still, the organic muck soil of the Holland Marsh will continue to produce a vast and plentiful array of healthy vegetables as well as provide an income for family farms under their care and land stewardship.

The rest is up to us as consumers – 100-mile diet or not – to understand and appreciate the importance of, and the pressures on, Ontario's vegetable patch in a huge country where a little more than four percent of land is suitable for growing crops.