Ontario’s maple syrup sector sees sweet growth potential

Ontario’s maple syrup industry has untapped potential and renewed hope for expansion through a recent funding program.

Randal Goodfellow, Ontario Maple Syrup Producers’ Association president, said the Maple Production Improvement Initiative is the first industry-specific program with $1 million available for projects up to $20,000 with 50 per cent cost-sharing.

Why it matters: Ontario dropped from second to third place in the country for total maple syrup production, lagging behind Quebec and New Brunswick.

“We had to do a very detailed strategic plan for the sector and development of the sector because our potential is so massive,” said Goodfellow. “If we could produce as much as Quebec, if we had the right people and scale – that’s a big economic development opportunity.”

Producers fully subscribed to the Sustainable Canadian Agriculture Partnership-funded program supporting investment in equipment and woodlot management within hours of intake opening on Nov. 9, 2023.

Goodfellow believes a program top-up or extension is necessary. He said the funding would allow producers to upgrade or improve existing infrastructure, such as remote monitoring, sap collection pumps, reverse osmosis or evaporator equipment, as well as woodlot improvements.

“Eighty-three per cent of our membership is below the economic breakeven level, including myself,” he said. “But I’m also increasing my taps now that I’m retired and moved near my sugar bush.”

For some producers, like Lanark’s Marty Ennis of Ennis Maple Products, funding could allow them to achieve a part-time breakeven or full-time economic viability.

A maple producer and engineer, Ennis and his brother took over the 4,500-tap maple bush 16 years ago, crafting a full-time breakeven multi-year business plan.

“This isn’t my sole source of income, but I’m not too far away from a tipping point where it could be,” he said. “(Funding is) allowing us to sort of kickstart that acceleration into the next level where you can make it viable and profitable.”

Ennis’s funding will allow him to add 1,000 new taps and two electrical mechanical releasers to bolster vacuum levels, resulting in an expected 10 to 20 per cent increase in production and a reduction in labour costs.

“Every little per cent helps. (It) can be the difference between being profitable and paying everybody else but not paying yourself that year,” he said.

“At 50 per (cost-share), that makes a project you’re on the fence about now viable, which means more Ontario maple syrup on shelves.”

While small operators are aging out, a new generation of 20- to 40-year-olds, like John Tomory, 34, and his brothers at Pefferlaw Creek Farms, are stepping into operations where, at minimum, the part-time breakeven is established and expanding.

Tomory’s certified organic maple syrup hybrid operation is one of the province’s largest, with 35,000 taps in the south and 25,000 new taps in the north after eight years in the industry.

“The vast majority of our installed infrastructure (around the Uxbridge-area home farm) was on rented land, and that was a major risk point for our business,” said Tomory.

They took possession of 1,000 northern acres in September 2022, shortly after a storm knocked out 30 per cent of their Uxbridge operation.

The new taps produced 1.4 litres of sap per tree in the first season. Trucking concentrated sap south to the Uxbridge facility for processing was more economical than investing in on-site infrastructure, labour and machinery. The Uxbridge site’s oversized evaporator easily accommodates input from 50,000 taps, and one truck sat idle after losing 120 acres of bush.

“There’s no return on the building; there’s return on the tubing in the forest. We’re trying to save all our money for the bush work,” he said. “Let’s say we do push it to 70,000 taps instead of the 60,000 taps (evaporator capacity). We would rather suffer for a season, see how it works, and then make that decision later.”

After two years of storm clean-up, Tomory’s approved funding will upgrade the Uxbridge woodlot infrastructure, and discussions about developing the northern operation are on the to-do list.

Tomory said they’d love to be a sap hub that could assist new or smaller producers with a less capital- and management-intensive system.

“The two most expensive pieces of equipment in a sugar shack are your reverse osmosis and your evaporator. If you can at least remove one, that saves you a whole bunch of money in the first year,” he said.

“We can boil 100,000 taps worth of sap up there. We would very much be interested in something like that.”

The Algoma region tops provincial taps, and Goodfellow anticipates increased migration north of Highway 7, where younger producers can tap into expansive tracts of maple stands and affordable land leases.

Ennis said government funding has spurred a lot of growth. Still, compared to New Brunswick’s growth, the government could bolster the untapped potential of Ontario’s maple syrup industry with increased Crown land access and funding.

“It wasn’t that long ago that Ontario was bigger than New Brunswick,” he said.

New Brunswick growth

Frédérick Dion, president of the New Brunswick Maple Syrup Association, said increased access to Crown land was the linchpin for the industry’s rapid growth.

With the addition of 5,000 hectares in 2023, the industry now harvests 0.7 per cent of New Brunswick’s Crown land, just shy of 20,000 hectares. Dion believes the industry could share land management on increased hectares with the forest industry to benefit the woodlots and the province.

According to a Feb. 2 Université de Moncton economic report on the maple syrup industry, it contributed $37 million to New Brunswick’s GDP and $3.6 million to provincial revenue, an increase of 173 per cent since 2010.

For every 1,000 hectares of sugar leases on Crown land, the study projected the province stands to gain 26 jobs and $1.8 million in GDP, or $200,000 in direct revenue.

Dion said data in the report supports the push for Crown land expansion and incentive program proposals at the provincial and federal levels.

“We’ve had a big growth in the last 12 years. If we want to have a real discussion about the land, we need current data and information to put forward. Now we can discuss the right percentage of Crown land that should be allowed sugar leases.”

From 2010 to 2022, the New Brunswick maple syrup industry increased its number of taps by 86 per cent, to 3.5 million, syrup production by 162 per cent to 811,000 gallons, and production value to $33 million – a 77 per cent increase.

In that time, producer access to Crown land grew from 9,239 hectares to 13,078, accounting for 77.5 per cent of provincial taps. That places it third in global maple syrup production, behind Quebec and Vermont.

To grow the industry over the next 10, 20 or 50 years requires decisions and an action plan by the government, said Dion.

Ontario saw a decline in maple syrup farms between 2011 and 2021, according to a 2022 Agriculture and Agri-Food Ontario statistical overview.

By comparison, New Brunswick more than doubled its syrup production and farm cash receipts from 2018 to 2022 to nearly five million kilograms and approximately $33 million.

Ontario, which led New Brunswick in 2018, saw fewer gains in production kilograms and farm receipts, growing by less than a million kg and $10 million.

Tomory said with inflation, high interest rates and rising minimum wages, many operations’ expansion plans are on hold because no one wants to take on too much debt. Access to low-interest bank loans could spur investment and growth.

“We want to try and dump as much money as possible from our business into the business. That means making a more measured expansion plan, so funding would change that dramatically.”