Farmland is vital to farmers and communities. It is vital to food production. It is vital to every single Ontario resident. Farmland is more than just a farmer’s field; it sustains us all by providing healthy food and clean water and should be afforded the respect it is owed.
As the provincial election approaches, voters hear various political soundbites regarding farmland and agriculture, and it’s a challenge to sort fact from fiction. What the rhetoric makes clear is that farmland and food production are everyone’s business.
Without farmland, there is very little food production, and agricultural land and environmentally sensitive tracts should not form the basis of a real-life Monopoly game. The NFU-O strongly advocates for farmland protection and has called for the entire province to be temporarily greenbelted in order to create an intelligent, balanced plan which can meet population growth needs while also protecting our valuable farmland, moraines, and significant green spaces. This protective measure would also need to take into account the changing needs of farm families in order to support the economic viability of those who steward the land.
Urban sprawl gobbles up prime farmland and green space that protects key water and natural resources and is required to feed ourselves and our neighbours. While the current Ontario Greenbelt is a positive step to protect land, farmland outside its boundary is vulnerable to leapfrog development whereby developers jump over the boundary and pave over farmland just beyond it. Farm communities outside of the Greenbelt are being being overrun by developers and speculative buyers.