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The Rural Voice, 2005-08, Page 33Stuck in a niche Once Ontario's garlic growers dreamed of supplying the whole Canadian market. Because of cheap imports they have only niches to fill By Keith Roulston Growers like Warren Ham (centre) no longer dream of vast fields of Canadian garlic. They're settling for niche markets. How the attitude of Warren Ham has changed since we talked 10 years earlier. Then he was excited about the future of supplying all Canada's garlic needs through locally -grown product. "It's been a pretty tough go over the last few years. I'd say we were really at the bottom of the barrel", he says. The culprit is cheap imported garlic. Despite winning a case before the international trade tribunal that said Chinese garlic was being dumped in Canada, garlic growers got little satisfaction because garlic started landing in Canada from just about every country in the world except China but at low Chinese prices. "I'm waiting to see 'Product of Greenland'," Ham says with a cynical chuckle. Growers suspect major importers of helping the Chinese find ways around the anti- dumping tariffs. "I think the writing's on the wall, there will be no enforcement of the tariffs." "They've managed to bury the industry on the commercial, conventional level with the major supermarkets. It's virtually impossible to find Canadian garlic in a major food retailer," he says. "We've appealed to customs and border security people so many times that we really feel there's no political will to find the people who are doing the trans -shipping." Ham says that sometimes garlic is landing in Canada at a price that 30 THE RURAL VOICE would just pay the container fees for shipping it to Canada. Even organic garlic, individually labeled, is now arriving at "unbelievable prices This is painful to producers like Ham who had identified organic garlic as one niche where they could make money. The worst damage from the flood of cheap imports came from 2000- 2003, at a time when producers also have weather issues, Ham says. "That buried the big companies like Perth Garlic and Flat Creek Farms," says Ham who had operated Flat Creek before its demise. Back then Flat Creek grew 100 acres of garlic and processed another 300 acres. They were selling garlic through Loblaws, Sobey's, A&P, Costco, Metro and even shipping to chains in the U.S. Flat Creek employed an equivalent of 10-15 full-time employees in growing and harvesting garlic, brushing and grading it, peeling it for restaurants, some chopping and some roasting for the food service industry. "We had value-added products made in jars: pickled, fermented garlic." "We'd worked hard and we were in a lot of places," he recalls. "Then when the Chinese garlic was coming in at 35-36 cents a pound it was impossible. We always thought garlic at $1.25 for conventionally produced garlic was a do -able proposition. "I think we went from probably about 2,000 acres (in Ontario) at the top end to about 300 acres now," Ham says. This at a time when garlic consumption is probably higher than ever before in Ontario but consumers will be hard pressed to get access to Ontario garlic through major food outlets. Ham admits to feeling sheepish for urging others to stick with garlic growing because he was sure the government would come through with protection from unfair trade. Today there's one grower who probably grows about 60 acres and a couple of others at 15 acres, he says. "I don't believe the acres will go lower than this, ever," says Ham. "We've certainly found people who are dedicated to the Ontario product and who are intent on using the northern, six -clove variety of garlic. There are people doing further processing. There's a glimmer of interest in some of the major food chains again." "The few of us who have stayed in garlic have shifted the focus to really niche markets rather than broad promotion. We've shifted our focus to consumers who want to see the face of the producer," through things such as garlic festivals. Ham has set up another company called August Harvest that grows about 10 acres of garlic, the bulk of it organic. "By next year it will all be organic." August Harvest focuses on health food and specialty markets such as the Korean community and community sponsored agriculture.