Food and Water First
Food Water FirstFood and Water First gains Melancthon's backing
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- Published on Monday, 25 March 2013 20:37
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New campaign aims to protect farmland province wide
A new campaign to protect Ontario farmland and source water is establishing its roots in north Dufferin County.
The North Dufferin Agricultural and Community Taskforce (NDACT) is leading the charge for the Food and Water First Campaign, an effort to change policies that allow rezoning that compromises of food and water sources.
NDACT was created with the mandate to stop The Highland Companies quarry plans in Melancthon as well as influence change in the province's Aggregate Resource Act (ARA). With the quarry application withdrawn, the group is now focusing on ensuring legislation exists to protect Ontario’s edible assets.
“If we quit now, it would be a really hollow victory for all the people who engaged in this,” said NDACT chair Carl Cosack. “We haven’t really changed anything. We changed it locally, but it’s still wide open to resurface.”
The campaign is asking municipalities to become Food and Water First communities to outline their commitment to preserving agricultural land.
Melancthon was the first township to oblige the request, with council voting unanimously to carry the designation.
“We‘re going to say that is the priority for our township. We want land preserved and water preserved,” said Melancthon Mayor Bill Hill. “We view it as a simple notion by us. … We want to push it through provincial levels too, as best we can.”
With Melancthon on board, the campaign will visit Mono council at the end of the month as well as Mulmur in April.
“We’ll keep hitting rural townships with the message of food and water first,” Cosack said.
Cosack added the campaign request would also be delivered to municipalities outside of Dufferin County, as well as organizations and businesses.
“We’re trying to build momentum to which we can do a spring planting of Food and Water First signs,” he said. “Food and Water First will help us take (the message) beyond Melancthon.”
Businesses and organizations who join the campaign are asked to add their own website addresses to the signs.
“It shows folks who drive up and down how widespread agricultural economic reach is in the province’s economy,” Cosack said.
Becoming a Food and Water First community would help municipalities battle zoning challenges at the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB), according to Cosack.
“There is importance, not just in the symbolism of it,” Cosack said. “We have a really legitimate case to go to the OMB that Melanchthon has stated it is an agriculture community and should be respected accordingly.”
However, Melancthon’s mayor disagrees the designation would help in an OMB battle.
“I don’t think it would hurt, obviously,” Hill said.
Current provincial policies, like the ARA and Green Energy Act trump municipal decisions on land use.
“We understand that is limited to what a township has influence over,” Cosack said.
By Bill Tremblay
Published in the "Orangeville Banner", Mar. 25, 2013
Get to Know PitSense - Letter to Editor
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- Published on Thursday, 21 March 2013 18:07
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An editorial posted in the Caledon Enterprise, Thursday March 21, 2013
Dear Editor:
Re: ‘Recycling aggregates preserves natural resources’, Enterprise letter Jan. 24
A recent letter to you from Moreen Miller of ‘Aggregate Recycling Ontario’ has seriously misinterpreted the article ‘Is Recycling Always a Good Thing?’, and has misrepresented the views of PitSense. We believe Ms. Miller would not wish her credibility, nor that of the various organizations to which she belongs, to suffer from such errors. Nor would you want your readers to be misinformed. To be very clear, PitSense is not “opposing recycling” as she suggests. In fact, as Matthew Strader’s article made quite clear, PitSense is emphatically in favour of aggregate recycling because, as Ms. Miller correctly states, it is an excellent way “to reduce the need for more primary operations”. And PitSense’s statistical research shows that “more primary operations” (i.e. new pits and quarries) are simply not needed. Increased recycling will certainly serve to lessen the need even further.
But the answer to the question posed in the November article is not so “simple”. Recycling is not ‘always’ a good thing. For example, if a recycling operation poses serious risk to the environment, or damages human health, or fails a cost/benefit analysis, then it needs re-thinking.
Ms. Miller’s assertions are understandable when we realize where she is ‘coming from’. She is a very effective lobbyist for the Aggregate Industry. She is a key player in a number of organizations, including the recently established Aggregate Recycling Ontario (ARO), and the Ontario Stone, Sand & Gravel Association (OSSGA). Prior to joining the OSSGA, she was Vice President, Land, Aggregates and Concrete Division for Lafarge, the world’s largest construction materials producer. She is also part of TAPMO (Top Aggregate Producing Municipalities in Ontario), and the fledgling Cornerstone Standards Council (CSC).
I know PitSense is in total agreement with Ms. Miller and ARO when she points out that “many municipalities’ specifications do not allow recycled aggregates to be used in construction projects. Processed properly, these aggregates meet all performance requirements and provide a suitable alternative to primary aggregates”.
The key phrase here is “processed properly”.
It is clear from Matthew’s article that PitSense is simply questioning whether existing pits and quarries, which are designated as an ‘interim land use’, are the proper places for industrial recycling operations.
I invite Ms. Miller and your readers to visit the website – www.pitsense.ca or contact PitSense directly at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to get more accurate information about what PitSense actually stands for.
Bob Shapton,
Caledon
Taters not craters: celebrating the mega-quarry victory
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- Published on Friday, 01 March 2013 12:44
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I’ve experienced my share of memorable parties over the decades, but the mega-celebration at the hockey arena in Honeywood on Feb. 16 quite possibly takes the cake.
The cause for celebration was the Highland Companies recent withdrawal of its controversial plan to turn thousands of acres of prime farmland (home to Honeywood Loam) into a massive limestone quarry. Essentially, corporations with very deep pockets wanted to dig a very deep hole to fill their shareholders’ equally deep pockets.
One of the organizers (tongue in cheek) thanked the Highland Companies for bringing together so many diverse groups and individuals who otherwise would not have met. Paradoxically, a big-city American hedge fund accidentally built a stronger community in rural Canada and energized an ongoing Food and Water First movement.
The capacity crowd at the party was a reflection of that diversity and that sense of community. Partying together were transplanted urbanites, longtime ruralites, holdout farmers who wouldn’t sell to Highlands, farmers who sold and regretted it, babes-in-arms, local elders, ranchers and Native people; plus representatives from the Council of Canadians, the David Suzuki Foundation, Wellington Water Watchers and journalists and musicians who were not even trying to appear objective.
And this diversity was also reflected in the music, the dancing and the food. In the music department there was everything from square dance reels, to native drumming, to a fresh-faced band called Harlan Pepper playing songs easily three times their age, to Our Lady Peace and a young vocalist named Kirt Godwin who was apparently channelling John Lennon.
Young solo freestylers shared the dance floor with jiving intergenerational unlikely partners and elderly couples waltzing with the kind of synchronization that only comes from decades of dancing together. When a traditional country square dance was followed by a traditional native round dance, the symbolism seemed perfect, with the circular non-linear nature of native cultures juxtaposed with the grid roads and square fields laid out by settlers.
With the local food movement playing such a key role in this struggle, it wasn’t surprising that there was some great food on offer.
Choices ranged from gourmet golden caviar hors-d’œuvres to egg salad sandwiches, both of which I enjoyed equally, with a slight preference (partially sentimental) to the homemade sandwiches set out by the local women around midnight.
As you’d expect, there were speeches and many people to be thanked and lots of applause and cheering. Local rancher and North Dufferin agricultural and community task force chair Carl Cosak delivered the keynote address, dressed in his signature pink cowboy shirt, cowboy hat and oversized belt buckle. One of the more moving moments came when a young teenager, speaking on behalf of the next generation, presented him with a new belt buckle customized with the task force’s logo.
Cosak spoke with great passion about how this battle had surpassed political partisanship, with support from within all three parties, including Red Tory Wellington-Halton Hills MP Mike Chong.
Cosak, ever the showman, got the crowd going by reminding them: “We said we’d send the PR firm back to New York and the hedge fund back to Boston and we did it!”
Native elder Patricia Watts recounted, in reverential terms, traversing the proposed quarry site with Cosak on horseback — a new take on the stereotypical cowboy and Indian scenario — she having never been on a horse and he, having never met native people, expressing his new-found respect for First Nations culture and sensibilities. Watts also drew a parallel to the Idle No More movement, recognizing the importance of not succumbing to colonialism’s classic divide and rule tactic.
University of Guelph agriculturalist and quintessential farm boy Rene Van Acker managed to captivate the crowd (despite the fact that many were in a party mood) with a lecture-style talk about the importance of soil, water, genetic diversity and farm viability. This was a crowd ready to listen before they partied.
Several speakers reminded the receptive audience that victory is a relative term and encouraged them to remain engaged through the task force’s new focus on food and water first, to be vigilant regarding possible next moves by Highlands, lobby to amend the aggregate resources act to fill legislative loop holes you could drive a gravel truck through.
Perhaps my favourite moment was during the party when someone announced that the seventh generation of a holdout farm family was in the room, at which point a baby was held high in the air above the crowd and an audible gasp went through the crowd — perhaps in response to the sheer confidence of a young first-time father hoisting a newborn into the air, but also, I think, in recognition that this was a historic watershed moment and that victories like this are few and far between and need to be savoured and celebrated.
By Dale Hamilton
Dale Hamilton is a member of the Guelph Mercury Community Editorial Board and Playwright for Everybody's Theatre Company
Published in the "Guelph Mercury", Feb. 26, 2013
Urban sprawl is destroying Ontario’s farmland
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- Published on Thursday, 21 February 2013 21:00
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By: David Suzuki and Faisal Moola Published on Thu Feb 21 2013
Despite its huge area, Canada has relatively little dependable farmland. Good soil and a friendly climate are hard to find. So it seems like good news that on a clear day you can see about half the best agricultural land in Canada from the top of Toronto’s CN Tower. If we’re to feed our growing urban populations, having food lands close to where people live will be critical to sustaining local food security.
Some regions of the country, like the Golden Horseshoe surrounding Toronto, have been blessed with an abundance of Class 1 soils. But an increasing proportion of the best soils in the Golden Horseshoe and in most urbanized regions of Canada 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 far too often been drained, dug up and paved over.
According to a study by Statistics Canada, our growing cities sprawl over what once was mostly farmland. Only 5 per cent of Canada’s entire land base is suitable for growing food. At the same time, urban uses have consumed more than 7,400 square kilometres of dependable farmland in recent decades. That’s 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 being farmed. For the most part, this land can’t be used for agriculture again, despite efforts of city people to use community gardens, green roofs and even guerrilla gardening to grow food.
Though there are strong sprawl-busting policies in provinces such as Ontario, with its internationally renowned Greenbelt Act and Greater Golden Horseshoe Growth Plan, prime farmland and rare ecosystems in the region, like wetlands, remain at risk from further urban development.
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 its 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 have proposed developing more than 10,000 hectares of the Whitebelt over the next three decades. This is in addition to 52,000 hectares of land the province had already approved for development before new policies to curb urban sprawl came into effect. Together, these lands are more than twice the area of the city of Mississauga.
Paving over remaining prime farmland and natural assets like wetlands is foolhardy. Studies show that near-urban croplands and farms in the Golden Horseshoe contribute billions of dollars in revenue to local economies each year, from a cornucopia of fruits and vegetables, beef, pork, dairy and award-winning wines.
And as the Foundation report shows, near-urban farmland and green space also represents a Fort Knox of additional natural benefits that we typically take for granted: trees clean the air, wetlands filter water and rich productive farmland soils store greenhouse gases.
Today, Ontario’s towns and cities are at a crossroads. Down one path is continued low-density, creeping urban expansion. We know how this well-worn route looks: endless pavement, long commutes and traffic jams, not to mention the high social and ecological costs associated with such a wasteful form of urban design. 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 serviced by public transit, bike paths and walking trails, and surrounded by local greenbelts of protected farmland and green space.
Our political leaders should seize this opportunity. While industry and developers will continue to pressure us to sacrifice our cultural and ecological heritage, together we much embark on a visionary path. We must protect near-urban nature and farmland and ensure the health and well-being of all Ontarians.
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 and polluting urban sprawl.
You can join the conversation on Twitter at #FoodAndWaterFirst.
David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation.
Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Ontario Director Faisal Moola.
Published in the "The Star" Feb. 21, 2013
A shift of focus for NDACT
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- Published on Friday, 15 February 2013 04:10
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Members and supporters of the North Dufferin Community Agricultural Taskforce will gather this Saturday night in Honeywood to celebrate their victory against the Highland Companies, which withdrew its application to develop a “mega quarry” in Melancthon Township last fall.
But beyond some great local food and a plethora of live music, the night will feature something else as well: the unveiling of a new vision for NDACT, of which the group`s president, Carl Cosack, gave us a sneak preview this week.
“We’ve always seen our task as two-fold,” said Cosack. “Job one was to stop the mega quarry, and now we can tick that off. Job two is to make sure the legislation is changed so that food and water are the first priorities. On that subject, our demand for change is as strong as ever.”
Two pieces of Ontario legislation, the Aggregate Resources Act and the Provincial Policy Statement, have always allowed aggregate extraction to trump agriculture, even on prime agricultural land. Both the ARA and the Policy Statement are currently under review, and for the next 18 months, until Cosack is finished his three-year term as head of NDACT, he intends to fight to make sure that situation is changed.
NDACT’s “Stop the Mega Quarry” signs, which have been visible all over Ontario for the past few years, are gradually being replaced by “Food and Water First” signs, and an upcoming “spring planting,” as Cosack calls it, will soon see many more dotting the landscape.
In addition, NDACT will be approaching businesses and organizations across the province who are involved in agriculture in any way at all and encouraging them to sign a pledge, the wording of which is still in the works, and make their commitment to food and water known in their literature, at their storefronts and on their websites.
Meanwhile, NDACT members will be lobbying politicians and bureaucrats, many of whom have made connections locally during the mega quarry fight, and encouraging them to fight to make sure prime agricultural land and specialty crop areas are made sacrosanct in legislation.
“Food and water need to be prioritized,” said Cosack, noting that he was still working on his exact speech for Saturday night. “Once the foodland is gone, it’s gone, and a society that cannot feed itself cannot claim to be a sovereign society.”
Tickets for Saturday night’s party, at $20, are available at ndact.com.
By Brad Holden
Published in the "Creemore Echo", Feb 14, 2013