Non-Agricultural Uses in Prime Agricultural Areas

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Published on Thursday, 19 February 2015 12:59

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The Dirt on the Year of the Soil

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Published on Friday, 30 January 2015 14:55

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In a few months, Ontario’s rich agricultural soil will start feeding us once again. The fields and orchards will emerge from another winter, ready to produce a bounty of fresh local vegetables, grains and fruit.

The 2015 growing and harvest seasons will be especially significant because they will take place during the International Year of Soils. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization has declared that over the next 12 months every country should be paying more attention to the soil that grows our food, filters our water, stores vast amounts of carbon and keeps us alive.

The Year of Soils is an opportunity for us to stop treating this vital resource like dirt. We can start here in Ontario, home to the best soil and climate conditions in Canada. This vast country is comprised of just 0.5 percent of Class 1 soil, the rarest in the world. Just over half of Canada’s Class 1 farmland is found in Ontario. Lucky us. Yet, we’ve destroyed nearly 20 percent of it.

We continue to pave it over for urban sprawl or mine it for aggregate, ignoring the fact that once this soil is gone, it’s gone forever.

Soils don’t have a voice and few people speak out for them.

Read more at: The Big Carrot

Farmland Going Public?

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Published on Tuesday, 27 January 2015 13:17

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Ottawa based company cites potential for value of property it invests in to grow by four to five per cent annually over long term

by BETTER FARMING STAFF

A new company, counting on global trends that point towards increased demand for food, has announced intentions to sell public shares in Canadian farmland.

Bonnefield Canadian Farmland Corporation, based in Ottawa, announced Thursday that it plans to sell common shares in a scheme that will either buy farmland outright or, in jurisdictions like Manitoba and Saskatchewan that restrict public ownership of farmland, provide interest-only mortgages.

Investors would obtain “a liquid investment in primarily Canadian farmland, with the potential for long-term capital appreciation and dividend income,” the company’s preliminary prospectus says. The prospectus is filed with security regulatory authorities in all Canadian provinces and territories for review.

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2015 - The Year of Soils

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Published on Wednesday, 07 January 2015 16:08

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The timing could not be better! The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) will spend the next year focusing on the world's soils. We treat this vital resource like dirt, but it feeds us, filters our water, stores carbon and is home to one-quarter of the world's biodiversity. The rare soils of Ontario deserve special protection for all of the above reasons. The UN's International Year of Soils will add further momentum to our movement!Watch the FAO's terrific short video launching its 2015 campaign.

Video: International Year of Soils

The United Nations also has an informative website about the International Year of Soils. Take a look!

 UN website: Healthy Soils for a Healthy Life

What does the soil say?

 "Soils don't have a voice, and few people speak out for them. They are our silent ally in food production." Jose Graziano da Silva, FAO Director-General.

However, the group Conservation International turned to Hollywood to give voice to the soil.

Watch this powerful and chilling video:Edward Norton: I Am the Soil 

By: The Food & Water First Team

December Message From the Chair

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Published on Wednesday, 03 December 2014 16:07

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Food & Water First is the legacy of the Stop the Mega Quarry campaign that began in Dufferin County northwest of Toronto in 2006.  The Highland Companies – a front company for a $27-billion Boston hedge fund – bought 6,500-acres of Class 1 farmland and stated it wanted to become the largest potato producer in Ontario. But in 2011, it filed an application for the largest quarry in Canadian history on the best soil in the province and at the headwaters of five river systems. The Mega Quarry would have spanned 2,300-acres and plunged 200-feet below the water table.  It would have destroyed rare food-producing land and impacted water resources for up to one million people downstream.

Farmers, chefs, First Nations, city-dwellers, environmentalists and artists formed a remarkable alliance. Culinary protests were held to raise awareness about the vital farmland and water resources at risk. Foodstock in Dufferin County 2011 (28,000 people), Soupstock in Toronto 2012 (40,000 people).  In November 2012, one month after Soupstock, Highland withdrew its mega quarry application. Then, in July 2013, a Canadian investment firm, Bonnefield Financial, purchased all 6,500-acres from Highland. It has leased the land to local farmers ensuring the fields remain in food production.

However, the campaign for farmland and water protection continues. The Mega Quarry fight exposed many flaws in current land-use policies. Ontario’s prime farmland and source water regions remain vulnerable to sprawl and aggregate operations even though they’re critical to our food security and Ontario’s $34-billion agri-food sector, the largest in Canada. We believe our prime farmland and water should be protected in perpetuity, not threatened or squandered in perpetuity. We believe it’s time to put Food & Water First.

For more information and to take the Food & Water First PLEDGE, visit www.foodandwaterfirst.com

Shirley Boxem, NDACT Chair