Groups Band Together to Save Farmland

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Published on Wednesday, 30 November 2016 12:40

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"We are building on our recent collaborative article in the Hamilton Spectator. This collaborative effort has been managed by Ontario Farmland Trust."

The Ontario Farmland Trust along with 14 other farming and conservation organizations have joined together and called on the province to freeze all urban expansion and introduce firm, permanent municipal growth boundaries in the Greater Golden Horseshoe. This urgent call is important to prevent the region’s remaining farmland from being paved over and additional farming communities from being displaced.

It’s clear that more land for urban development in the region is not needed, with an excess of 25 years’ worth of farmland already designated by municipalities to accommodate growth in both urban and rural settlement areas (Neptis Foundation, 2015). An area of prime farmland 1.5 times the size of the City of Toronto is in the process of being rapidly converted to housing subdivisions, warehouses and strip malls.

Not just home to the best farmland in Canada, the Greater Golden Horseshoe is home to one of North America’s largest agricultural and agri-food industry clusters, with a unique diversity of primary farm production, food processing, food service, food distribution and retail that represents the fastest growing employment sector in Ontario and generates $12.3 billion in annual economic activity.

The Greenbelt protects some of Ontario’s countryside, but there are hundreds of thousands of acres that continue to be at-risk and need protection now.

This call for firmer growth boundaries has been published in the Hamilton Spectator. Read the full story.