Call to action: Agriculture groups band together to save farming and farmland

By Matt Setzkorn Hamilton Spectator

Now is the time to protect at-risk farmland in Ontario for good.

Collectively, we in the agricultural sector call on the province to freeze all urban expansion and introduce firm, permanent municipal growth boundaries in the Greater Golden Horseshoe to prevent the region’s remaining farmland from being paved over and additional farming communities from being displaced.

It’s clear that more land for urban development in the region is not needed, with an excess of 25 years’ worth of farmland already designated by municipalities to accommodate growth in both urban and rural settlement areas (Neptis Foundation, 2015). An area of prime farmland 1.5 times the size of the City of Toronto is in the process of being rapidly converted to housing subdivisions, warehouses and strip malls.

The proposed changes to the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe and Greenbelt Plan fail to protect the majority of our farmers and farmlands from ongoing and poorly-planned urban sprawl. Maintaining policy that enables status quo sprawl makes it difficult to see a future for local food and farming in the region, despite the great economic contributions of the Greater Golden Horseshoe’s food and farming sector.

Not just home to the best farmland in Canada, the Greater Golden Horseshoe is home to one of North America’s largest agricultural and agri-food industry clusters, with a unique diversity of primary farm production, food processing, food service, food distribution and retail that represents the fastest growing employment sector in Ontario and generates $12.3 billion in annual economic activity.

The Greenbelt protects some of Ontario’s countryside, but there are hundreds of thousands of acres that continue to be at-risk and need protection now.

We are at a unique moment in history where there is an opportunity to enact meaningful limits on urban expansion, plan for healthier urban and rural communities, protect our irreplaceable agricultural land resources, and sustain a vibrant and prosperous agri-food economy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe for generations to come.

With an outpouring of public support for a larger provincial role in establishing firm urban boundaries and protecting agricultural land during the Coordinated Land Use Planning Review, now is the time for the province to demonstrate bold leadership to protect agricultural land and farming communities by implementing fixed, permanent urban boundaries on all urban and rural settlement areas in the Greater Golden Horseshoe.

Let’s work together to stop urban sprawl, protect farmland forever, support our farmers and create a secure future for farming in Ontario.
Matt Setzkorn is Manager, Land Programs and Policy, Ontario Farmland Trust. He wrote this commentary on behalf of:

Ontario Farmland Trust

Ontario Federation of Agriculture

Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario

National Farmers Union – Ontario

Golden Horseshoe Food & Farming Alliance

Sustain Ontario

Ecological Farmers Association of Ontario

Preservation of Agricultural Lands Society

Food & Water First

Farms at Work

FarmStart

Land over Landings

Langford Conservancy

Sustainable Brant

Simcoe County Greenbelt Coalition