Science Matters - Food and Water First

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Published on Monday, 01 April 2013 01:41

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• Despite its huge area, Canada has relatively little dependable farmland. After all, a lot of our country is rock or buried under ice and snow. Fertile soil and a friendly climate are hard to find. To feed our growing urban populations and sustain local food security, it’s critical to have productive land close to where people live.

Some regions of the country, like the Golden Horseshoe surrounding Toronto, have an abundance of class 1 soils – the best there is for food production. But there, and in most urbanized regions of Canada, increasing proportions of these superior soils now lie beneath sprawling housing developments, highways, strip-malls and other infrastructure. As urban communities have grown over the years, agricultural lands and natural areas have been drained, dug up and paved over.

Only five percent of Canada’s entire land base is suitable for growing food. According to a study by Statistics Canada, our spreading cities sprawl over what was once mostly farmland. Urban uses have consumed over 7,400 square kilometres of dependable agricultural land in recent decades – an area almost three times the size of Prince Edward Island.

Almost half of Canada’s urban base now occupies land that only a few generations ago was farmed. Most of it can never be used for agriculture again. Though there are strong, sprawl-busting policies in provinces such as Ontario, with its Greenbelt Act and Greater Golden Horseshoe Growth Plan, and BC, with its renowned Agricultural Land Reserve, sadly, our urbanizing ways aren’t slowing.

A recent study by the David Suzuki Foundation examined threats to farmland in a 94,000-hectare patchwork of farms, forests and wetlands circling Toronto and surrounding suburbs called the Whitebelt Study Area. The report warns that this productive mosaic of green space and rich farmland is at risk from the blistering pace of urban expansion in the Golden Horseshoe. Municipalities there propose developing more than 10,000 hectares of the Whitebelt over the next three decades.

Paving over prime farmland and natural assets like wetlands is foolhardy. Studies show that near-urban croplands and farms contribute billions of dollars in revenue to local economies each year. Today, most of Canada’s towns and cities are at a crossroads. Down one path is continued low-density, creeping urban expansion – endless pavement, long commutes and traffic jams. Simply put, continued sprawl threatens the health and well-being of our communities and the ecosystems that sustain us.

In the other direction is an extraordinary new path: Ending sprawl using the principles of smart growth and creating compact, higher-density communities… surrounded by local greenbelts of protected farmland and green space.

Our political leaders and citizens must seize this opportunity to embark on a visionary path to grow our communities smarter and protect Canada’s near-urban nature and farmland.

If we value local food and want to maintain the critical benefits that nature provides, we must put food and water first. That’s why we’re calling on municipalities and provincial governments to redouble their efforts to protect our remaining farmland and green space from costly, polluting urban sprawl.

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Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation communications manager Ian Hanington. Learn more at www.davidsuzuki.org

Posted by Common Ground April 1, 2013

Ontario Serves Up Local Food Bill

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Published on Tuesday, 26 March 2013 00:44

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The new Ontario government is re-introducing legislation today that, if passed, would help make more local food available in markets, schools, cafeterias, grocery stores and restaurants throughout the province.

If passed, the Local Food Act would:

• Increase local food awareness, access and sales by setting local food goals and targets in consultation with stakeholders
• Enable government to work with public sector organizations toward these goals and share information on their progress and results
• Proclaim a "Celebrate Ontario Local Food Week" that would begin the Monday before Thanksgiving
• Require the government to produce a local food report on its activities to support local food

The proposed legislation is part of a broader local food strategy that encourages the growth and development of markets for foods grown and made in Ontario, and provides funding for innovative and collaborative local food projects. 

Promoting local food is part of the new Ontario government's plan to strengthen the agri-food industry, build stronger communities and create jobs that will grow the economy.

University of Guelph research aims to preserve food-producing land through rural planning

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Published on Sunday, 24 March 2013 20:22

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Preservation of agricultural land “fundamental to life itself"

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Published on Sunday, 24 March 2013 16:02

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Failure to enforce provincial legislation a concern for residents

By Kate Harries AWARE News Network March 23 2013

One of the leaders of the fight to stop the mega-quarry has issued a clarion call to preserve our most vital resources – food and water. 

“We’re living way beyond our means,” Carl Cosack of the North Dufferin Agricultural Task Force told an AWARE Simcoe meeting in Bradford today. “We’re using up land, land, land, in a way that is not recoverable and we will pay a price.”

Cosack, who raises beef cattle on a ranch near Shelburne in an area that was to have been the site of Canada’s largest quarry, described the “Food and Water First” campaign that NDACT is launching on April 10.

It will link urban and rural people, Bay St. and the environmental movement, First Nations and politicians. All will be asked to take a pledge to protect prime farmland and source water regions. 

“It’s time that we show folks that this crosses all borders of political stripe, this is fundamental to life itself,” Cosack said. 

The first step will be to “reset the clock” so we can all work out how to stop the runaway loss of farmland that has occurred (14,000 km2 from 1971 to 2001, 600,000 acres from 1996-2006, the meeting was told).

Cosack said there should be a freeze on new rezoning applications on Class 1 farmland, except for food producing operations, and as for Class 2-4 farmland, there should be an evaluation of whether the rezoning is of greater benefit than seven generations of food producing. 

Cosack said NDACT had learned from the Dump Site 41 battle – which was won despite all levels of government being opposed, and only First Nations prepared to join the cause. 

The advice from the Site 41 leaders was for NDACT to get in ahead of any approvals – and that’s the lesson that needs to be learned by citizens everywhere, Cosak said: Pay attention to what’s going on, look at what is proposed in your municipal and county Official Plans.

We need to get an alternative valuation “that gets us out of our ‘I want it now craziness,’ “ Cosack said, “because we can build all the buildings we want and pave over all the land we want, but if we rely on food from Chile, something is wrong in the equation.”

AWARE Simcoe members presented a vision of of how Simcoe County can progress in the next 50 years to provide good lifestyles in vibrant communities without exhausting resources.

Link to Vision draft 

Planning in Simcoe County consists of managing projected growth, said growth committee chair Sandy Agnew.  But there is no attempt to evaluate whether the results of the projected growth will be positive or negative,  or whether it is sustainable in the long run.

“Growth has assumed always to be good – it’s a new concept that some day we may have grown enough,” Agnew said.

Committee member Bill French noted that Places to Grow and the Provincial Policy Statements that provide the legislative framework for land use planning in Simcoe County are award-winning documents that protect farmland and guard against sprawl. 

If municipal governments understood this framework legislation and followed it, “we wouldn’t be having this meeting,” he said. “Our vision is exactly what the government intended, but got lost in translation.”

Bernard Pope of Ontario Farmland Preservation talked about how “politicians and planners in this onslaught of development need to understand the consequences of losing food producing farmland and make holistic decisions that protect that farmland.”

Many farmers approaching retirement are often anguished to reaize they have to sell the farm, he said – a farm that has been a constant companion for life. “The pain is further enhanced by the possibility of selling to a speculator or a developer, which although solving lingering financial issues, will eventually lead to the death of the soil.”

Bernard advocated a tax on land purchased by land speculators that would be retroactively applied to the time of purchae, if farmland (taxed at a lower rate) is converted to another use. 

Both French and Pope spoke of a key element of the AWARE Simcoe vision – the concept of net benefit that would apply to any proposal that would remove land from food production. 

Both also dismissed the idea that local government should feel obligated to change land use to accommodate land speculators who have assembled agricultural land at low cost in the hope of development profit. 

Environmental lawyer Laura Bowman was among those present – she echoed speakers’ observations that in many cases, protection for farmland and the environment exists in law. 

The problem, unfortunately, is enforceability. Bowman said she had that fear when the Lake Simcoe Protection Act was brought in, and it turns out to have been justified. “I can tell you right now that the model that Ontario currently uses, it’s not enforceable and it’s not accessible for many people.” 

The system is set up for planning experts to make decisions, Bowman said, urging that AWARE Simcoe include in its vision statement a mechanism to enable citizens to uphold the hard-won principles that get enshrined in legislation. 

Cindy Hillard of Severn Township, an AWARE Simcoe board member, agreed with Bowman that there is no enforcement of policies protecting farmland. She pointed to the lax application of outdated classification (dating back to the 1960s) of agricultural land in the approval process for solar ‘farms.’

“Why isn’t it just a matter of asking that alll developers have to do site-specific soil studies before they go onto the land?” said Hillard, who added that in Simcoe County, solar farms are being put on Class 1-3 farmland every day. 

(That’s prohibited under the Green Energy Act, but even the mayor of Severn has been frustrated in his efforts to get those provisions enforced). 

Alec Adams, an AWARE Simcoe board member from Orillia, noted that the province expects the county to grow by 50 per cent by 2031 – an extra 210,000 people on top of the present 420,000. “The notion that we can keep growing endlessly is truly insane. It’s not a matter of belief, it’s a matter of arithmetic.”

David Strachan of the Midhurst Ratepayers Association said that when his group looked at the municipally approved plan to add 10,000 homes to the village of 3,500 people, they found so many violations of provincial policy and legislation that “we were elated. 

‘We thought, this is completely illegal and they’ve got no chance of pushing it through. And we find out with a lot of skepticism and cynicism that the laws mean nothing… there’s all kinds of ways around the laws.”

The studies used by the municipality were carried out by a consultant retained by the developer, Strachan said, and “they rubbish the soils that people have farming on for 150 years,” concluding that “urban development would be a reasonable alternative use” of the farm land around Midhurst

Suzanne Howes of the Chippewas of Georgina Island said that her First Nation has been working with Ontario to get aboriginal content – much of it exactly what was discussed at today’s meeting - added to provincial policy statements. 

But when provincial bureaucrats are told that “everybody’s going to have a house to live in, but they’re not going to have anything to eat and they’re not going to have anything to drink, so how do you propose to fix that?"

The answer, said Howes, is, "we’ll get back to you.”

Feedback from the meeting will be incorporated in the draft vision and a finalized document will be presented at the Collingwood AGM, April 27 

Matteo Zamaria Receives Young Conservationist Award

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Published on Friday, 22 March 2013 19:49

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Remember Matteo Zamaria, the Orangeville District Secondary School (ODSS) student, who had created a petition opposing the proposed quarry in Melancthon?

Read more about his petition.

Gail Campbell and Matteo Zamaria with the Youth Award. Photo by C. Zamaria

His efforts were noted and recognized by the Credit Valley Conservation Authority.

Yesterday, March 21, 2013, Matteo received the Young Conservationist Award
in recognition of his leadership in raising youth environmental awareness and increasing community involvement in environmental initiatives.

Click here and scroll down to see photo of all award recipients.

Read more about the CVC Awards.

CONGRATULATIONS MATTEO!