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Agricultural Businesses Receive Online Support

Families in Nipissing receive more food choices when buying food and plants online

NIPISSING – Today, Vic Fedeli, MPP for Nipissing, announced that four local businesses are receiving funding to establish or expand their online presence through the Canadian Agricultural Partnership’s Agri-Food Open for E-Business Initiative. These recipients will receive a total of $10,672.31 from the Ontario Government. This funding will help provide consumers with more access to local food.

“This pandemic has changed the way we shop, and our investment in e-business will go a long way to safely connect more retailers with more consumers,” said MPP Fedeli. “This support will help agri-food businesses in Nipissing to better and more quickly adapt to the retail challenges of this unprecedented time and to modernize their operations for the future”.

Local recipients include:

• Green Legacy Farm
• Bella Hill Maple Syrup
• Golden Treasure Maple Syrup
• Long’s Maple Syrup

With $3.5 million in Canadian Agricultural Partnership (the Partnership) funding, food producers, farmers markets, retailers, garden centres, greenhouses, nurseries, and agricultural associations have developed or expanded e-commerce ventures this year, which are helping to broaden their marketing channels, increase online sales and provide consumers with greater access to a wide variety of food and agriculture products.

The funding is in addition to other programming launched this year to assist the sector in meeting challenges related to the COVID-19 outbreak, including:

• The $25.5 million Agri-food Prevention and Control Innovation Program to help reduce disruptions in business operations and risks of COVID-19 exposure in the workplace;
• The launch of a portal to connect farms and other agri-food sector business with labour needs to job seekers;
• The creation of a $26.6 million Enhanced Agri-food Workplace Protection Program;
• The investment of an additional $50 million into the Risk Management Program for 2020,, one year earlier than originally promised.

Since June 2018, both the federal and provincial governments have committed support to more than 4,200 projects, through the Canadian Agricultural Partnership, to help eligible Ontario farmers, processors, businesses and sector organizations innovate and grow.

QUICK FACTS

• The Canadian Agricultural Partnership is a five-year, $3 billion investment which includes $1 billion for federal activities and programs, and $2 billion in cost-shared programs delivered by provinces and territories on a 60-40 basis.
• Businesses in more than 200 Ontario municipalities were supported by this programming.
• Applicants in the cost-share stream of the Agri-Food Open for E-Business initiative were eligible for funding up to $75,000.
• The Digital Main Street program supports small businesses in downtowns and main streets across Ontario, including providing the training and support needed to adopt digital technologies that respond to changing retail and service environments due to COVID-19.
• The Ontario agri-food sector supports more than 837,000 jobs in Ontario and contributes more than $47.5 billion each year to the province’s economy.