The Case of the Disappearing Farmland

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Published on Monday, 25 November 2013 13:20

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Farm meets city, Rob O'Flanagan, Mercury staff
Houses along the new subdivision on Davis Street on the east side of Guelph are seen from a 26-hectare clover field. There use to be a farm where the houses now stand.

GUELPH — Hectic residential and commercial development on the perimeter of Guelph in recent years has dug up, paved over and built up hundreds of hectares of good farmland.

Along Arkell Road, some of those agricultural hectares are currently being scraped away by backhoes and excavators to make room for the new homes that have been sprouting up and advancing toward the city's boundaries over the past decade or so.

Those sprawling homes have pushed to the city limits along Davis Street east of Watson Parkway North, where a steel fence serves as a demarcation line between city and farm.

"That all used to be a farm," said Attilio Odorico, who bought his 37-hectare agricultural property nearly 20 years ago — back when there were a number of farms immediately to the west. Where crops, pastures, meadows, barns and chicken coops once stood, now there are tightly packed rows of large houses, all in the same drab earthen tones.

"I would definitely like to see farmland protected around here," said Odorico, 76, a retired construction worker. Immediately east of his land, which he leases to a local grower, there is nothing but farms and acreages. To the west, there is nothing but urban sprawl. Where new streets like Acker, Linke, Maude, Severn and Couling are once stood good, growing fields.

When the houses started springing up and bordering his land, Odorico said some residents began using the farmland as a dumping ground for all sorts of household waste. He complained and a fence was constructed along the length of Davis Street to keep the city out. Odorico said he would not be surprised if his land was city in another decade.

A century from now, human beings may well grow most of their food in farming highrises, in hydroponic greenhouses or on underwater pods. But for now, we primarily grow food on farmland, and in Ontario, that farmland has been vanishing for many years, those monitoring the situation say.

The past half-century has seen the gradual elimination of large amounts of southern Ontario's prime farmland, with the decline accelerating in more recent times. But insiders say there may now be momentum building to protect what is recognized as the best, most fertile agricultural zone in all of Canada, and one of the most productive in the world.

A staggering amount of fertile land has been lost to farming forever, primarily through urban and commercial development and, to a lesser degree, from aggregate resources extraction.

"In essence, when you look at the numbers, the aggregate companies are not the ones that gobble up Class 1 farmland," said farmland protection activist Carl Cosack. "It is really development and urban sprawl."

University of Guelph food, agricultural and resource economics professor Alfons Weersink said that since the 1950s, there has been a steady decline in the amount of farmland in the province, amounting to about a one per cent loss per year in all types of farmland, including crop land, summer fallow and pasture.

Much of the conversion of farmland to other uses, Weersink said, takes place along major highways outside of urban areas — a trend particularly evident in Guelph along the Hanlon Parkway. Prime growing land in the tender fruit region of the province is under significant development pressure, he added.

From 1976 to 2011, 1.1 million hectares of farmland has essentially disappeared in Ontario, according to Statistics Canada data cited by Matt Setzkorn, acting executive director of Ontario Farmland Trust. There remains about 4.9 million hectares of good growing land in the province.

Farmland is the foundation of Ontario's agricultural sector, now considered the largest economic driver in the province, contributing $34 billion annually to the provincial economy.

"When you think about the value of the land base in Ontario," said Setzkorn, "it is the richest farmland in all of Canada and a very limited and non-renewable resource. What obligation does Ontario have to protect that land?"

Ontario Farmland Trust is an organization dedicated to the protection and preservation of farmland in the province. Committed to improving provincial policy on farmland protection and bringing awareness to the urgent need to protect Ontario's best farmland, it works with farmers, rural landowners, community groups and municipalities to permanently protect land for agriculture.

"The agri-food sector in the province of Ontario is the largest economic driver we have," Cosack said. "Now consider if you keep eroding the very fundamental part of what this is all based on. That seems to be ludicrous. You would think that it would not be a stretch to declare this highly productive farmland a provincially strategic resource."

The Greater Toronto Area alone, according to Ontario Farmland Trust, lost 2,000 farms and about 60,700 hectares of farmland in the two decades between 1976 and 1996 and another 20,000 hectares between 1996 and 2006. The entire province lost 243,000 hectares of farmland between 1996 and 2006, which included a staggering 18 per cent of Ontario's Class 1 farmland, the best of the best land.

Once farmland is lost, it cannot be recovered, since it takes thousands of years for the topsoil needed for agricultural production to develop through natural processes.

Most of Ontario's best farmland is in a relatively small southern zone that is ideally suited for growing some 200 varieties of crops — the most diverse growing region in Canada. The moderate climate within the Great Lakes Basin, the lush soil and levels of soil moisture and the optimal growing temperatures all combine to make it Canada's premier growing land.

As the population grows, necessitating more food production, the strain on a diminished number of growing hectare will be felt more acutely, says Cosack, head of the Food and Water First campaign, a movement dedicated to protecting Ontario's Class 1 farmland and source water regions.

"Once society decides it needs the farmland, you cannot undo the clock," said Cosack, who was among the leaders of a successful campaign to stop a 937-hectare quarry in Melancthon Township, north of Shelburne. Much of that acreage was on prime potato-growing land.

"If we just keep using up some 350 acres (142 hectares) a day, you lose your ability to grow food," Cosack added. "And on the other hand, we have more people to feed all the time. That tipping point has been reached."

The province, he and others said, is in urgent need of a precautionary policy statement or legislation that protects Class 1 farmland, ensuring the land will remain farmland.

"It is the most valuable for growing food, so let's set it aside and let's give our kids the ability to decide if they want or need the farmland, or they don't," Cosack said.

If those steps aren't taken now, 20 years from now, Ontario may find itself unable to feed itself, Cosack said. "And then there is no unwinding of the clock."

In the entire world, he said, there are very few jurisdictions capable of growing the variety of foods that southern Ontario currently produces. The province has an "unbelievable" agricultural zone, and it is not surprising that agricultural land in parts of Ontario sells for up to $25,000 per acre.

If one were to look out from the top of the CN Tower in Toronto, they would see that about half of southern Ontario's best farmland is now gone — with the trend of disappearance accelerating since the 1960s, Cosack said.

The Greater Golden Horseshoe is projected to add anywhere from three and 11 million more residents over the next 40 years, he added. Where will the land come from to accommodate that population growth? At the same time, a growing, diverse population with diverse dietary needs will need all the farmland it can grow on.

Guelph Mayor Karen Farbridge said the disappearance of farmland — whether within the city's current boundaries or immediately surrounding the city — is a concern to her.

In recent years, farmland has been lost in several places on the edges and outskirts of the city as residential and industrial development push to the city limits.

Farbridge said one of the many goals of the province's Places to Grow legislation is to push back against urban sprawl, to protect farmland, natural areas and groundwater recharge sites.

As the city progressed on its local growth strategy, she said community consultation allowed citizens to engage with a software program that projected into the future what growth and urban development would look like if it progressed on a business-as-usual basis.

The exercise demonstrated just how much more surrounding land, some of it farmland, would need to be annexed by the city. From that consultation, she said, the city decided to confine its growth through to 2031 within existing boundaries.

"We set that boundary, and the reason we did that is precisely not to grow out onto farmland," Farbridge said.

"That is very much part of our growth strategy," she added. "While the development of the Greenbelt and Places to Grow was sort of the first wave of starting to look at how the province could protect farmland, it has been recognized over the past couple of years that there still needs to be a stronger policy framework to stop seeing Class 1 farmland getting taken out for development."

A review of the Places to Grow legislation is coming in the next couple of years and she suspects that the current push for farmland conservation is partly intended to point out the flaws in current legislation and the need for additional policies.

"Agricultural production in this area of Wellington County is significant and its part in the local economy is significant," the mayor added.

There are just over 150 agricultural organizations and companies based in Guelph, employing over 6,500 people, according to Peter Cartwright, Guelph's general manager of economic development. Economic impact from agricultural research carried out at the University of Guelph and the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food, and the Ministry of Rural Affairs has a $1.15-billion impact locally, he said.

"Certainly, I think the momentum is building," said Matt Setzkorn, speaking of the push to permanently preserve the province's best farmland. He said the Greenbelt Act and Places to Grow Act, both established in 2005, began the legislative push to protect farmland, while a grassroots effort has also emerged over the last decade.

"We see the Farmland Trust as an expression of some of that public concern around the loss of farmland and, in some cases, the inadequacy of policy to protect farmland fully and the need for other tools and mechanisms to be developed, with more collaboration around these issues," he said.

While 350 acres (142 hectares) per day is the general figure used to describe the extent of farmland elimination, there is a need for more accurate and nuanced information about the extent of the problem, Setzkorn said.

"What it doesn't capture, what doesn't show is how much land is actually being permanently lost to agriculture," Setzkorn said.

Based at the University of Guelph, Ontario Farmland Trust is working with various stakeholders to create a better sense of how much land is being lost to urbanization, how much to gravel pits and quarries, and so on. It is also working to identify what land municipalities are designating for agricultural protection and urban uses.

"There are many values to protecting farmland," Setzkorn said. "It's a hugely important foundation for our agricultural industries in Ontario. You don't have that sector without the farmland. So it is very foundational to the province's economy."

By Rob O'Flanagan
Published in the Guelph Mercury, Nov. 23, 2013

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