These farmers want Ontario candidates to appreciate the important role of agriculture

Gerry Reid isn't sure any of the political parties vying for his vote in this provincial election understand the plight of Ontario farmers these days.

Reid, who farms potatoes near Orangeville on a farm that's been in his family since 1845, says instead, he thinks politicians are focused on simply getting votes to get elected for the next four years.

"That's a pretty cynical thing to say. But that's what happens," he told CBC News.

Reid said he thinks the Progressive Conservatives, led by Doug Ford, got the province through the pandemic, but he questions whether they — or the other parties — actually care about individuals.

"I don't know that there's any party that I would say really worries too much more than about who's going to get elected in June. And that's just the way it is," he said.

What he'd really like to see is a commitment to less red tape and a better appreciation of his industry.

"Having not only the customers — but the government — understand what's really happening on the farm."

Workers hard to find

Dan Schumacher is a farmer and farm worker near Formosa. The farm he works on had about 44 hectares of vegetables last year but will go down to about 24 hectares this year.

"It's hard to get labour out there and rising costs of fuel and just the sheer amount of time that it takes to do all the work," he said.

"For many years now I haven't seen many of the parties help us farmers out at all. You're out there 24 hours a day. You've got to worry about your farm and what you're going to do the next day, the weather. There's so many variables."

Sean Declerc is a partner in Fresh and Tasty Mushrooms near Shelburne. They grow exotic mushrooms, but the pandemic impacted them in a number of ways.

His company's sales to local restaurants were hit when many closed or reduced their offerings during pandemic restrictions. They started production for wholesale in January 2021.

"Then we had another provincial shutdown again," he said. 

The company lost quite a bit of money in that shutdown, he said, because the mushrooms have a limited shelf life.

Lack of choice

Jon Hogben has a millwright company in Guelph and a hobby farm with some cattle and pigs.

He says he thinks there's "a lack of a viable choice" in this election.

"Don't really like the Liberals, don't like the NDP. Doug Ford is doing a half-decent job, I think, but I'm not sure where he's going with what he's doing right now," he said.

"I'll vote. It'll probably be for the PCs of Doug Ford because it's the worst, the best evil or the worst evils, I guess."

He said he hopes the next government works to improve the province, instead of making policy decisions with an eye to getting re-elected.

"I don't even care if they do stuff I don't agree with," he said. "Just stick by your guns and do what you say you're going to do."

Farmers deserve 'pat on the back'

Reid says during the pandemic, he feels like farmers were largely ignored.

"You open the paper all the time and farming isn't even mentioned until all of a sudden there's a shortage of commodities," he said.

He said he's concerned about plans to build Highway 413 because of the impact it could have on farmland.

"We're losing land base all the time to development," he said. "I'm not sure we're really looking after the environment when we do that."

He said all the farmers he's talked to are concerned about costs, about getting their crops in and then whether the weather will co-operate. 

He thinks farmers across the country "need more of a pat on the back" and encouraged to continue the work they do, noting more could be done to drum up the next generation of farmers. 

"Like I'm, I'm at the stage that yeah, we'll, we'll get through it sort of thing. But the young people have to have an incentive to go ahead."