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On the financing gap that is quietly draining Canada's local food capacity — and what Zawadi Farm did about it.
There is a conversation that happens repeatedly in small farm circles. Someone needs to build a greenhouse. Or install proper irrigation. Or put up cold storage so the harvest doesn't spoil before it can reach a buyer. They go to the bank. The bank looks at their operation — often on leased land, with seasonal revenue, without the collateral that an industrial farm or a commercial business can offer — and the answer is no.
I have had versions of this conversation. The financing system in this country was not designed for farms like Zawadi. It was designed for large-scale, land-owning, industrial operations. The rest of us are expected to grow our food systems on goodwill and government grants that come with reporting requirements so onerous they function as a second job.
The Specific Problem
The Canadian Small Business Financing Loan Program is the primary federal tool for small business capital access. It is not adequate for small-scale farms. The core issues are structural: most small and urban farms operate on leased land, which means no collateral for leasehold improvements. Seasonal revenue patterns don't fit standard repayment structures. Loan eligibility criteria exclude many of the infrastructure needs that farms actually have — greenhouses, irrigation systems, composting facilities, cold storage.
The result is that farms like Zawadi are left to piece together financing from multiple sources — grants, community loans, personal investment — in ways that are inefficient, precarious, and that most farms simply cannot sustain over time.
The financing gap is not a small farm problem. It is a food security problem. A farm that cannot access capital cannot grow its capacity to feed people.
What We Proposed
Earlier this year, Zawadi Farm prepared a formal proposal for amendments to the CSBFLP. We brought it to federal representatives including the MP for Toronto Centre. The core recommendations were straightforward: expand loan eligibility to include agricultural infrastructure, regardless of land ownership status. Introduce lower interest rates and flexible repayment terms that account for seasonal cash flow. Create a dedicated small farm loan category with a streamlined application process. And — critically — provide government-backed guarantees for leasehold improvements, so that farms operating on leased land can invest in the infrastructure they need.
We also proposed expanding eligibility to value-added agricultural enterprises: on-farm food processing, community kitchens, agri-tourism. These are the things that allow a small farm to build financial resilience and diversify its revenue — the things that make the difference between a farm that survives a difficult season and one that doesn't.
Why This Is a National Issue
Canada's ability to feed itself is more precarious than most people realise. We import the majority of our fresh produce. Our just-in-time supply chains have almost no redundancy. The farms that could provide a more resilient, locally-sourced alternative are starved of the capital they need to scale.
Fixing the financing system for small farms is not a niche agricultural policy issue. It is directly connected to food sovereignty, to economic resilience, to climate adaptation, to the capacity of communities across this country to feed themselves when global supply chains are disrupted — and they will be disrupted again.
What We're Asking For
We are asking for financing tools that reflect the reality of how small-scale farms actually operate. We are asking for federal investment in the infrastructure that makes local food systems viable at scale. We are asking for procurement policies that create stable demand for local producers, so that farms can grow with confidence rather than on speculation.
We are not asking for charity. We are asking for the same access to capital that every other small business in this country is supposed to have — built around our specific operational realities rather than a model that was never designed for us.
Canada's food future depends on whether we build for it now. We are trying to. We need the tools to do it.
Much love and light — Jessey Njau, Founder of Zawadi Farm
