In Wilmot Township, Ont., family histories and futures are closely intertwined with the land and what governments decide to do with it.
Adam van Bergeijk moved to the southern Ontario farming region 28 years ago with his wife and two sons after development encroached on the lands surrounding his dairy farm in the Netherlands.
He figured that would never happen in Ontario, where farmland was fertile and protected.
But in March, van Bergeijk was approached by Canacre, a private-sector land consultant, with an offer to buy his family’s land for industrial use on behalf of the Region of Waterloo and the Township of Wilmot.