While the Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA) supports the protection of farmland in Ontario, it says the Ontario Government’s legislative approach is doomed to fail. “The Ontario Government cannot protect a greenbelt without providing for the economic viability of farming,” OFA said in a submission to the Standing Committee on General Government on Monday.
Paul Mistele, OFA vice-president, said “it is our submission that Bill 135 (Greenbelt Protection Act) is the most draconian piece of legislation farmers in this province have ever been faced with.” The legislation’s premise that one size can fit all “ignores science, ignores economics, ignores farm businesses and their contributions to the Ontario economy,” Mistele said.
“The rural landscape the government is so desperate to maintain is actually land that has been maintained for over a century by Ontario farm families. This land, under the stewardship of farmers, has been contributing to the aesthetic and environmental health of this province over that time,” he said. “Good soil alone does not make a farm viable. Viability depends on a number of elements including market prices and necessary infrastructure.”
Neil Currie, OFA General Manager, talked to the committee about a farmland protection program in the State of Pennsylvania. Between 1950 and 1980, “Pennsylvania lost 46 per cent of its farms to reckless development and growth. Buck County, just outside of Philadelphia, lost 80 per cent of its farms,” he said.
The State of Pennsylvania and its farmers collaborated to develop the Farmland Preservation Program in an effort to gain control over development on farmland. “The Pennsylvania Agricultural Preservation Program is a model for success. They are national leaders in farmland preservation,” Currie said.
OFA has called on the Ontario government to strike a task force on the viability of agriculture in Ontario and wants it to be prepared to act on recommendations produced with the objective of improving the economic viability of farming; implement a land value monitoring program that would provide compensation to farmers for any loss caused by government policy; notify every affected landowner in writing of lands included in the greenbelt designation.
Mistele introduced farmers to the committee and said they are “being buried under an avalanche of restrictive government legislation and regulation based more on political agendas than solid science.”
~Paul Mistele~