Farmland needs to be better protected
Editor:
Congratulations on last week’s Agriculture Edition of The Echo – excellent work!
This special edition was great to see and I hope that it is just the beginning of sequels that will share the experiences and lives of other farmers within our area.
I would like to offer some additional information, as I understand it, to the short article you had titled Farmland in Ontario is Disappearing. First of all, thank you for incorporating this article and for exposing the frightening reality that the farmlands which feed us are being lost to building developments, highway expansions, aggregate extraction, parking lots, etc. at a totally astonishing rate. Think about it, an average of 319 acres of farmland being eradicated every day – four of your traditional Ontario farms when you consider a fairly optimistic 80 per cent of arable land per farm, vanishing beneath development day after day. At that rate the original 100-acre farm parcels on both sides of 124 from Duntroon to Nottawa would be eliminated from our food production system in only eight days. Creemore to the northern edge of Clearview along Fairgrounds Road has about 100 original 100-acre farm parcels, 50 on each side, a total of 10,000 acres. At the current rate of agricultural land loss in Ontario, if concentrated on that one country road, that highly productive farmland would be eliminated in only 31 days. Imagine driving the length of that road now, and then only one month later, not seeing a single farm during your 15-minute trip, only “development.” Now imagine repeating that over the course of a year, resulting in 45 Duntroon-to- Nottawa stretches of farmland being pulled out of agricultural production… in just a single year. Understandably, our farmland needs to be much better protected ASAP since this rate of eradication is definitely not sustainable.
While it is easy to think that addressing this issue needs to fall on the shoulders of municipal, provincial and/or federal powers that be, it is heartening to know there is a very interesting program available for an individual or family to protect their farmland permanently, with no effect on their ownership, the continued farming of their land, or their rights to sell or pass it on to the next generation.
The award-winning Ontario Farmland Trust (OFT), Canada’s first province-wide agricultural land trust, originated at a forum at the University of Guelph about 20 years ago. OFT supports grassroots, farmer- led initiatives for farmland protection – a bottom-up rather than top-down approach that places the ability to permanently protect a farm’s future agricultural use squarely within the hands of the landowner, whether that be the farmer themselves, or someone with a weekend or retirement property who has their farmland leased out or worked by others.
Landowners that take advantage of OFT’s Farmland Easement Agreements can receive tax benefits, with further tax breaks being possible if the farm also contains significant ecological features such as forests or wetlands. There is also an option for a landowner to donate their land to OFT, potentially in conjunction with a Farmland Easement Agreement if they have no need to hold on to it or leave it to others.
I would encourage all owners of farmland who are concerned with the preservation of farming within our community to learn more by visiting the OFT website, ontariofarmlandtrust.ca, and contact them at info@ontariofarmlandtrust. ca or 519-781-3276.
And the next time you drive between Nottawa and Collingwood, past the Morrison Pumpkin Farm, note the sign “Farmland Forever” at their gate and appreciate that they have taken this step with Ontario Farmland Trust to ensure their land remains as farmland, forever.
Jim Campbell,
Rockside/Duntroon.
