Deachman: Almost every farmer has vacated the once vibrant ByWard Market. How do we get them back?

On a couple of recent fair-weather weekend visits to the ByWard Market, I counted just two outdoor stalls along the ByWard Market Square sidewalks selling any local produce.

There was the Maple Country stand, with syrup and other maple-based treats, and a lone flower/vegetable stall operated by a former local farmer-turned reseller hawking produce from farms located between Montreal and Niagara, as well as some local ones.

It made me nostalgic for not so many years ago when the Market was an almost endless cornucopia of fresh fruits, vegetables, flowers and, notably, customers.

It’s hard to imagine that any local farmers will still be there when the ByWard Market celebrates its 200th anniversary in four years.

The Market has historically been one of Ottawa’s most powerful economic engines, drawing tourists and residents with diverse arrays of interests and needs, day and night. More recently, however, it’s become a place that many people actively avoid.

It doesn’t feel safe, people say, with homelessness, drug use, crime and mental-health issues more prevalent than in the past. Driving there is a nightmare, and parking is even worse. And, I repeat, the farmers have gone.

What is city council doing?

The city is looking to revitalize the area, and on Tuesday, the Finance and Economic Development Committee, or FEDCO, received a report from staff on just how to do that. The report (titled ByWard Market Strategic Alignment and Public Realm Plan Update) will be presented to council for approval next week.

It proposes dissolving both the ByWard Market BIA and the existing municipal services corporation known as Ottawa Markets, the latter which oversees both the ByWard and Parkdale markets, and replacing them with a single governance structure: the ByWard Market District Authority, or BMDA.

The idea is that a single organization can better plan and oversee improvements than can different bodies with different mandates. You know, the too-many-cooks theory of broth-making.

There are numerous other moving parts to the plan. The money that the BIA until now collected from area businesses, for example — close to a half million dollars annually — will instead be raised through a “special area levy” paid by ratepayers in the Market, but only once they agree to it via a referendum. The idea is similar to how some Kanata residents agreed to pay extra taxes to cover mosquito-mitigation costs. The new BMDA, meanwhile, will receive $200,000 in immediate one-time “transition” funding, and $100,000 in capital funding to help the Parkdale Market with its 100th anniversary plans for next year.

The rejuvenation will also see further pedestrian-friendly improvements in the ByWard Market, including more trees, benches and a York Street plaza. The city parking garage at 70 Clarence St. will be turned into a “destination” building, with further details on that expected this fall.

The seven delegations who spoke at Tuesday’s meeting, including those from such groups as Ottawa Tourism, the Ottawa Board of Trade, the Ottawa-Gatineau Hotel Association and the Ottawa Coalition of BIAs, were largely supportive of the plan. One of them, Brian Lahey of The Properties Group real estate investment and management firm, even spoke of the need to get the farmers back.

“We need farmers to return to the market,” he said, “and feasibility studies or hiring consultants won’t do that. We all know what needs to be done and our group is in a position to help and advise. Most of us remember those magical market days on ByWard and York streets. Let’s bring them back now before they’re lost forever.”

Canaries in the coal mine or the other way around?

The farmers’ market is — or was — a feature of the ByWard Market that attracted all kinds of people: young and old, tourists and residents. True, tourists were never the farmers’ bread and butter, but they added to the animation of the Market’s streets. They came to experience it and take photos of it. They were part of its life. People like to be where other people are, and for generations, that place has been the ByWard Market.

It’s difficult to say whether the farmers are the canaries in the coal mine or the other way around, but they’ve been leaving the ByWard Market for years. According to informal audits done by architect, urban planner and friend of the ByWard Market Barry Padolsky, there were 250 “agrifood” stalls occupied by food, plant and flower vendors in the summer months in 2006. But by 2012, only half of those stalls were occupied by such vendors. And by 2018, only 30 per cent were still there, the unoccupied stalls devoted instead to parking, street furniture or crafts. Today, just the two vendors remain.

Much of the exodus has had to do with a longstanding battle between farmers and wholesalers/resellers, the latter who could buy produce from elsewhere — Mexico, say, where labour costs are low — and sell it for much less than local producers could.

Markets Ottawa addressed some of that problem by insisting that produce be Canadian, but local farmers say that still favours their Quebec counterparts, who receive greater provincial subsidies.

The last local farm stalls

Gerry Rochon and his son Jonathan were the last area farmers with stalls at the ByWard Market, and the second-last produce vendors. Gerry, whose parents and grandparents ran stalls at the ByWard Market, last sold at the ByWard Market in 2020. Jonathan did it in 2021 before packing it in.

Gerry says that the political will to get farmers back in the ByWard Market doesn’t exist, and hasn’t for years. He recalls his father, who was president of the ByWard Market Stallholders Association telling him of an Ottawa mayor — Gerry won’t say who — who told farmers that he didn’t care where the produce came from, just so long as it was cheap for Ottawa residents.

“I think that’s the case in the back of every politician’s mind, and it’s very hard to change that” he says. “Back in 2005, ‘Buy Local’ was the thing. People didn’t want to buy anything that wasn’t local, and the city still didn’t want to do it at the ByWard Market.”

Competition and other challenges

Some speakers at Tuesday’s meeting suggested that the ByWard Market is simply a victim of the 22 other farmers’ markets competing for customers in the area, including those at Lansdowne, Westboro, Orléans and Barrhaven, where farmers can set up for a single day each week and do well. The seven-day-a-week model is a tough show to hoe for farmers trying to work their land, and labour, as all kinds of businesses are finding, is harder to find.

The Saturday-only York Street farmers’ market that operated over the last three summers was not a great success, but it’s perhaps unfair to judge any new operation by its performance during a pandemic.

The increased pedestrianization of the ByWard area also won’t help farmers, whose customers don’t want to have to lug flats of flowers or a bushel of potatoes three blocks to a parking garage.

There’s also a generational shift, with the children of aging farmers less inclined to take over the family business. Meanwhile, more consumers are ordering food online.

So, what comes next?

But back to Tuesday’s FEDCO meeting for a moment. There was one thing that Lahey said that missed the mark. He sputtered when Kitchissippi Coun. Jeff Leiper asked him to elaborate on his remark that “we all know what needs to be done.”

Leiper admitted that he didn’t know what needs to be done. I similarly don’t know, but I suspect there are some farmers in the area who might.

It’s local farmers who are behind the Ottawa Farmers’ Market group that operates the four neighbourhood markets listed above. So why not bring them to the table and find out if they’d be part of renewing the Market?

Rochon said that it might be as futile as reviving a half-dead horse, but he didn’t rule it out. Markets Ottawa executive director Zachary Dayler said he’d gladly welcome farmers back. Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe indicated he would be open to discussing the matter with area farmers.

After Tuesday’s meeting, I spoke with Andy Terauds, owner of Acorn Creek Garden Farm and a director of the Ottawa Farmers’ Market. I asked him if it was unreasonable to suggest that farmers run the ByWard farmers market.

“That’s the only way it will work,” he said. “We’ve been telling the city that for years, but they have not listened to good advice.”

It’s time the city started listening to farmers.

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