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LETTER: Seeds of dialogue can reap farmland preservation

It's vital 'to educate people about the ... scale with which food must be grown to meet the extreme food shortage threats faced globally,' says letter writer
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Every municipality in Ontario is faced with row-on-row sprawl-style development and surrounding farmland is being destructively gobbled up with little regard for future agricultural needs.

Over the past 150 to 200 years Canadian settlers have been blessed with ample access to endless tracts of land that never seems to meet the demands for never-ending development. This must come to a close.

Urban building densification, building up and building smarter must be the future for successful municipalities. Is a moratorium on further annexations of farmland needed? Yes, there needs to be a full stop on farmland destruction in Ontario. Is a moratorium on further farmland loss going to be implemented in my lifetime? Not likely. This is exactly why my wife and I decided on entering into a conservation easement agreement with Ontario Farmland Trust.

A conservation easement agreement doesn’t stop our small tract of farmland from possibly being annexed, but if more farms existing in Ontario today were to participate in similar conservation easement agreements, then the cart would have a possibility of pulling the horse. The horse, of course, is government.

On the Sunday, July 10 evening news, I watched the Ontario Federation of Agriculture president, Peggy Brekveld, standing on the side of an Ontario farm field and pointing towards the sprawl development approaching the farm she was standing on. Similar statements of alarm have been echoed for many months/years now by many reputable farm organizations including Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario and National Farmers Union—Ontario.

In contrast there was a follow-up story of a space-age system of growing vegetables on a tiered shelving unit reported to be a solution to do more with less space.

There is a very time-sensitive requirement to educate people about the very idea of the scale with which food must be grown to meet the extreme food shortage threats faced globally, and which will increasingly threaten each Ontario family.

Communication would appear to be the key. Ontario Farmland Trust is reaching out in a positive manner to various organizations committed to preserving our agricultural lands, both in the farming community, as well as organizations that benefit directly from farm-related enterprises. Hopefully, a much greater dialogue can be centred around a common goal of preserving Ontario farmland.

Further discussions around the preservation of farmland can increase interest in the currently existing Ontario Farmland Trust, conservation easement agreement program. At the same time this will allow collaborative sharing of information and ideas that enlarge the overall number of farming-related organizations and Ontario residents cognizant of the daily threat of farmland loss.

A good resource is The Future of Ontario’s Farmland, on the Greenbelt Foundation website. 

Mike Douglas
Ramara Township

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