Sir: I literally thank God for Chatham’s local farmers’ markets which are run by genuine farmers, stocking mostly their own local produce. I expect many other readers were shocked to see the CBC News Marketplace program which used hidden camera footage to reveal market vendors pushing bogus home-grown fruit and veggies to innocent consumers.
The Marketplace team went undercover to several bustling markets across Ontario this summer to ask vendors where their produce came from and then tested the veracity of those claims using surveillance and other investigative techniques.
The results suggest many consumers could be paying premium prices for produce with fake promises about where it was grown. At four of the markets, the investigation exposed five different vendors who claimed to be selling fresh produce they had grown themselves but who were really reselling wholesale goods purchased at places such as the Ontario Food Terminal in Toronto — Canada’s largest wholesale market. There was even one vendor who was passing off Mexican produce as Ontario-grown.
I am just thankful that none of these farmers were located in Chatham.
I have a lot of respect for farmers. My great-grandfather Horner in Yorkshire was a farmer, a fact of which I am very proud.
Stephen Beecroft
Chatham
