Celebrating Local Food Week: supporting Ontario farmers includes protecting farmland

By Drew Spoelstra, President, Ontario Federation of Agriculture

Buying local and supporting local farmers and food producers is a priority for many Ontarians. As farmers, we appreciate the enthusiasm in this province for buying local and for the support you give our farms and businesses.

I’m one of those farmers, growing crops, raising horses and producing high quality milk and beef near Binbrook in the city of Hamilton.

Ontario farmers are proud to celebrate local food, farm products and farmers all year long, but especially this week, when we’re marking Local Food Week in Ontario. It’s an ideal time to focus on the locally grown and produced items that are coming available as spring slowly starts to inch towards summer.

Locally grown plants, shrubs and flowers are available at markets, garden centres and supermarkets, farmers’ markets are opening up for the season, and some of our earliest local food crops – like asparagus, radishes and even a few strawberries – are ready for us to enjoy.

Local Food Week is also a time to think about what goes into bringing all these fabulous food and farm products to market.

At the root of it all – pardon the pun – is our farmland. We’re lucky to have a lot of it here in Ontario and it’s some of the best in the world, but it’s also a critical resource that’s under threat.

Ontario’s farmland is more than picturesque countryside — it’s what feeds our families, supports our economy, and sustains our rural communities. As our population grows, so too does the pressure on this limited resource.

Farmland underpins Ontario’s ability to produce food, fibre, fuel, and flowers for markets here at home and around the world. Yet from 1996 to 2021, Ontario lost 1.7 million acres of farmland.

Today, we are losing an average of 319 acres – or about four times the size of Canada’s Wonderland — to urban sprawl and other uses outside of agriculture and food production every day.