It’s a concerning number. Roughly the size of 135 football fields. Every day.
Whether you are talking about your morning toast, an apple in your lunch or grilled chicken for dinner, it all comes from Ontario farmland.
We get it – urban development matters. But where our food comes from matters too.
Although Ontario farmers do a lot with a little, only about 5% of land in the province can actually produce food.
More than 200 different fruits, vegetables, grains and livestock are grown or raised right here at home.
The land that supports this food production is a finite resource1. It needs to be protected now.
Once a farm is turned into a shopping centre, or warehouse, or subdivision, it will never produce food again. We lose the food that was grown on that land - permanently.
Cities need to grow. We get that. But it’s time planners and developers started looking in and up before they look out.
And let’s not forget the significant impact urban sprawl has on the environment2. Significant wetlands, key shorelines and forests are threatened by the urbanization pressures we’re facing that encourage sprawl. We need to ensure the highest level of protection for our landscapes and water before we lose it to over-development.
The government has a big say over where and how urban development happens. MZOs (Minister’s Zoning Orders) exacerbate the problem, bypassing long-standing processes intended to protect farmland3.
MZOs are being used today more than ever.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, an MZO has been used 6 times to rezone farmland for an urban use. This is added pressure Ontario farmers simply don’t need.
environment.
farms.
food.
health.
environment.
wildlife.
future.
The answer is quite straightforward. We need to ensure we have the land to grow food for today and for future generations.
What we need to do is:
Agriculture and agri-food processing is the Number 1 economic diver in Ontario — it contributes $47 billion to provincial economy and supports more than 860,000 jobs.
Ontario farmers grow or raise more than 200 fruits, vegetables, grains and livestock for food, fuel and fibre.
Less than five per cent of Ontario’s land base can support agricultural production — and once it is lost to urban development, it is lost forever.
Ontario has lost more than 1.5 million acres of productive farmland since 1996 — roughly the combined size of Toronto, Peel Region, Halton Region, Waterloo Region, Hamilton and Niagara Region.
Based on data from the last Census of Agriculture, Ontario is losing 175 acres of productive farmland every day to urban development. That is the equivalent of 135 football fields, or five family farms every week.
