Food and Water First
Food Water FirstThe County Plan
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- Published on Friday, 04 July 2014 15:14
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The GTA West Corridor plan advances and is now in Stage 2, which means that the general areas for a pair of new divided highways has been chosen.
The area is the rural part of Caledon Township. The Caledon and Peel Councils are opposed to any major highways through prime agricultural land. I understand that the Ontario government is adamant, though receptive to “consultations.”
In April a professor of the University of Guelph spoke to a “Food and Water First” meeting, the members of which aim to preserve agricultural land for agriculture rather than development, gravel pits, etc.
According to “In The Hills” magazine, Professor Rene van Acker showed that no new workable land is available or can be produced by man, that human life is totally dependent on food and water and that, therefore, agricultural land is far too valuable to be wasted on housing developments, highways, gravel pits, etc.
Southern Ontario contains over half of the arable land in Canada.
I examined the “Greenbelt” map and realized that those lands might have been chosen for future use as transportation corridors, for they surround the GTA and are comparatively cheap for government to acquire. The “Greenbelt” designation does not prevent the Ontario government from driving highways through those lands, and we know that new highways always attract housing, commerce and industry; so I fear that Caledon will soon be paved in large measure. Where will our water and food come from then?
Deliberately planning population increases in rural parts of southern Ontario is madness.
New developments should be – should always have been – sited in wastelands, where no agriculture can flourish.
New growth should be forced north, above Lake Superior and the French River, or to other provinces.
A former deputy mayor of Orangeville once said, “Orangeville must grow or die.” I submit that southern Ontario will die if farmland is wasted on growth.
By Charles Hooker, East Garafraxa
Published in the Orangeville Citizen, July 2, 2014