“Our food systems need to be transformed.” — Kushank Bajaj, former University of B.C. postdoctoral research fellow.
A new online tool developed by researchers at the University of B.C. shows just how many fruits and vegetables eaten in B.C. are imported from the U.S.
Hint: It’s a lot.
“Our food systems need to be transformed,” said Kushank Bajaj, a former UBC post-doctoral research fellow who developed the tool along with Navin Ramankutty.
“What’s happening right now with (U.S. President Donald) Trump and tariffs, it just shows how vulnerable our supply chains can be,” he said.
In 2022, 81 per cent of the spinach, 75 per cent of the onions and 70 per cent of the lettuce consumed in B.C. came from the U.S.
By comparison, just 13 per cent of the spinach, 14 per cent of the onions and 24 per cent of the lettuce was grown locally.
For fruit, the story is no different.
Over 75 per cent of strawberries for sale in B.C. come from California and nearly 60 per cent of apples come from Washington state.
Certain amounts of fruit that are staples of Okanagan farmers still come up from the U.S. Thirty-one per cent of peaches and nectarines sold in B.C. come from California.
The cost of food and other goods Canada imports from the U.S. could spike depending on Canada’s reaction to Trump’s threatened 25 per cent tariffs. But there are other concerns. Bajaj’s work also highlighted how climate change could impact B.C.’s food supply.
B.C. and other western provinces source much of their fruit and vegetables from California and Mexico, two regions at high risk of climate-change-induced drought. Eastern provinces, Bajaj said, often have “a much more diverse supply.”
“When you overlay the future climate risks and look at how droughts are going to impact these regions across the supply chains, we find that western provinces, like B.C., are more exposed to drought,” he said.
Bajaj and his colleagues combined data on food production, imports and exports to estimate how 18 fruits and 16 vegetables were consumed and shared between 2010 and 2022. It also breaks trade flows down between individual provinces and U.S. states — something that’s never been done before.
“When we look at trade and food coming into a country, we always look at the national level,” Bajaj said. “This is the first time it’s been done at provincial scale.
“Then we also had data disaggregated by U.S. states, so we know where it’s coming from within the U.S..”
Bajaj said he hoped the project would start a conversation about sustainability and climate risks in Canada’s food systems and help people learn and connect with their food.
“When we go to a grocery aisle, we never look at if this product is from Mexico versus something coming from California or something that’s local,” he said.
The import of fruits and veggies isn’t a problem in and of itself, Bajaj said, especially since local climates don’t support all the fruits and vegetables British Columbians are used to eating.
“Canada’s Food Grade recommends that half our plate should be fruits and vegetables,” he said. “It’s harder to do that without global trade.”
