The rapid disappearance of prime Ontario farmland isn’t just a political gambit in the current provincial election campaign, local farmers say.
It’s really happening.
Peggy Brekveld, a Murillo dairy farmer and an Ontario Federation of Agriculture past-president, said she and other agriculture advocates have been sounding the alarm for several years about urban expansion into areas that once produced local food.
“Cities do grow out,” Brekveld said on Wednesday. “I remember my grandmother telling me the area on (Thunder Bay’s) Waterloo Street, where the KFC outlet is now, used to be farmland.”
On Wednesday, Ontario Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner referenced a little-known and eye-popping figure regarding the impact of urban sprawl.
According to federal census data, Ontario lost just over 116,000 acres of farmland per year between 2016 and 2021, which works out to be nearly 320 acres per day.
“I’ve seen those numbers before,” said Oliver Paipoonge-based farmer Bernie Kamphof. “Ontario is a large place geographically, but yes, 300 acres per day is still an astonishing amount.”
Only about five per cent of the province’s land mass is suitable for farming, the federation notes.
Schreiner, who grew up on a farm in Kansas, said: “We can build the homes our province needs without sprawling onto our prime farmland.
The loss of 300 acres on a daily basis is the equivalent of losing nine family farms each week, the federation has estimated.
“What will that look like in 10, 50 or 100 years if left unchecked?” Brekveld said in a previous federation publication. “Once this farmland is gone, it’s gone forever.”
What’s needed to preserve farmland that’s left, the federation says, “is “long-term strategic land-use planning.”
Schreiner has said that if his party forms the next government, it would protect farmland through the creation of “an Ontario foodbelt.”
In 2023, the Conservative government came under fire for contemplating development in greenbelt areas in the Greater Toronto area.
