THE JOYS OF GTA FARMING

The heavy traffic, rude and disrespectful city neighbours, intrusive municipal bylaws and high land purchase costs all combine to make farming in the Greater Toronto Area a particular challenge. But, say its practitioners, there are some compensating benefits

by SUSAN MANN

For the past 20 years, the city has had a policy of preserving the 40 per cent of its land area which is rural. Harris farms in an area of 12,500 acres that is totally surrounded either by urban or industrial development. Within minutes from his 148-acre farm, where he milks 35 dairy cows, are the urban areas of Burlington and Milton plus industrial areas.

"I would call it an agricultural park that Burlington has created," he says. "It's expropriation by designation without compensation. They've basically put planning controls on this area. The only thing that can occur here is farming."

Severances aren't allowed and neither are golf courses, rural estate subdivisions and value-added businesses. But the city is currently studying the idea of allowing value-added businesses in the area under certain conditions. "The City of Burlington felt that they could preserve agriculture by designating it into place. If the only thing you can do is farm, therefore you're going to farm," notes Harris.

In fact, the city's policy has shown that farmland can be designated into place, but it hasn't resulted in farmers staying in the area. Of the 113 farm properties left in Burlington, 30 per cent are vacant with no buildings located on them and 50 per cent are owned by speculators, Harris says. "I couldn't name 12 farms where there is someone whose principal occupation is farmer in Burlington."

Welcome to farming in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), which takes in the City of Toronto, plus the surrounding regions of Halton, Peel, York and Durham. Farmers in the GTA make a significant contribution to the region's economy and are more productive than the provincial average (see sidebar). But farming in this highly urban and densely populated area also has its own unique set of challenges.

Among them are traffic, high land purchasing costs (although land rental costs are reasonable), high property taxes and the need to be on their guard against municipal bylaws that unduly restrict normal farm practices. GTA farmers have to be prepared to deal with complaints from non-farm neighbours and be on the watch for disrespectful people who steal farmers' crops from their fields, dump garbage and ride recreational vehicles in fields without permission. Added to these concerns are the ones that farmers all across Ontario think about -- the lack of a future generation to carry on the farm, the loss of prime agricultural land to development, poor commodity prices and high input costs.

"We, as a society, have to learn how to value our land and our food production and be prepared to pay for it," says York Region farmer John Holtrop. "I'm not asking for megabucks, just a living."

He questions why he should build up the nutrient values and humus content of the soil on rented land, when in three to 10 years it will be stripped of top soil because of development. He quips that in his area the crop rotation is corn, wheat, canola (or some other crop) and then houses. "That fourth rotation is permanent."

But it's not all bad. Despite these difficulties, many GTA farmers love what they're doing and feel optimistic about farming. Opportunity was cited by many producers as one of the chief benefits to farming in the GTA. And they don't just mean the opportunity to go to any Tim Horton's or McDonald's open 24 hours a day, or even the cultural and recreational events in Toronto. Most cite a plentiful supply of customers for pick-your-own operations or for roadside stands and the opportunity to sell land to developers for big bucks if there's no next generation to farm. Furthermore family members can pursue career and educational paths which would be unavailable in a more rural area.

Traffic tops the list
Ask farmers in the GTA to outline the challenges to farming in this area and traffic is at the top of many lists. Several farmers on busy roads could tell you the exact number of cars that go by in peak times and how long they have to wait to get out of their laneways.

For example, Bruce Pearse farms in the Sunderland area, which is the northern part of Durham Region. He farms about 1,500 acres of corn, wheat and soybeans on a combination of owned and rented land in both the northern and southern parts of the region. Much of the property is along Highway 12, which is part of the Trans-Canada Highway. During peak times, 1,200 vehicles an hour buzz past on weekdays and 1,700 vehicles an hour on weekends.

"Trying to move large equipment on roads with that much traffic is a risk," he says. At certain times, escort vehicles have to be used. Drivers are often rude and abusive and have used the ditch and the right side of the road to pass him. "The Queen's wave is not the traditional wave of choice out here."

It takes an average of 10 minutes for John Holtrop to get out of the driveway of his farm in Keswick, located about 12 miles north of Newmarket in York Region. He grows corn, soybeans, wheat, canola, hay, turnips and carrots on 4,200 acres of owned and rented land. The rented land stretches from Sutton to Aurora.

During peak times, 1,600 cars an hour go past his farm. Driving down the road with big equipment is just a nightmare. "People have absolutely no respect for any tractor," he says. "In fact, if you want to see dirty looks, hear bad language and see fingers in the air, just ride a tractor."

Jim Livock considers cyclists the worst. Jim and his wife, Elizabeth, have an incorporated company with their son--in-law, Andrew Vander Meulen, and their daughter, Jennifer. After a barn fire in Oakville two years ago, the Livocks pulled up stakes and moved to Northumberland County to set up their dairy farm. "Cyclists seem to have the attitude that they have the right to be there and 'you go to hell,'" he explains. Often they ride two, three or four abreast while Jim is trying to manoeuvre past mailboxes and other motorists with a load of hay or a 14-foot-wide haybine.

Another challenge for GTA farmers is garbage dumped in their fields or left by trespassing worm pickers.

Pearse's farm has gateways to fields. If they're not chained or the gate isn't closed, fairly often they'll find a trailer load of shingles, asphalt or car parts dumped in a field. Sometimes they'll even find a whole abandoned car or 20-30 tires left in a gateway. Pearse says they have to load the dumped material up and pay to dispose of it themselves. "It's on our property. It's in our way."

The worst dumped garbage is shingles because they're full of nails, says Jamie Fisher, who mainly grows hay on a combination of 800 owned and rented acres in Burlington, which is located in Halton Region. "We never really get them cleaned up."

But he adds that he's had as many flat tires from other causes as from shingle nails. "I've actually had to replace three tires because of deer antlers," he says. The puncture was too big to patch so he had to get new tires. "At least with shingles and nails, it's only a repair."

Kids in the corn
Theft is another problem GTA farmers face. "We can't leave equipment sitting around anymore because people will steal everything in sight," says Holtrop. Sometimes he'll go by a field and find someone digging up his vegetables or cutting firewood from a fencerow. When he asks them what they're doing, they'll often respond by saying they needed the vegetables or wood and "you have so much of it." "It's as if it's communal property."

It took Bert Andrews a few years to come up with a good line to use when he catches someone stealing fruit or vegetables from his fields. "Whenever I see somebody doing that, I walk up to them and say, 'May I help you?'"

Andrews, who operates a pick-your-own farm market and fruit winery near Milton, says this approach works much better than being confrontational. Usually people respond that they thought the produce was free.

Going hand in hand with theft are problems with neighbours. Holtrop says there are lots of pieces of land where they can't grow corn because "the kids think it's wonderful to go out there and make forts or run around and wreck it because nobody can see them."

Spraying is also a problem, he explains, because people will see them doing it and complain to both them and the police. "We have lots of farms where you can't spray between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. to dark," he notes. "You have to choose your times."

In Burlington, Fisher, whose farm on Highway 5 is across the road from an urban subdivision, also has kids trespassing on his fields on motorcycles. "I am literally amazed that parents would buy their 14-year-old kid a motorbike and let them go ride it. Where are they expecting them to ride it?"

Municipal bylaws can also pose a problem. Harris says that in Burlington a previous city council wanted to bring in a 147-kilometre public trail on private farmland. On his farm, there would have been two trails -- one east-west and one north-south. "Fortunately, we have rural residential property owners with money and we were successfully able to fight this."

Another proposed bylaw in Burlington would have banned the use of firearms. But farmers were successfully able to fight that one.

Looming on the horizon are groups pressuring Burlington council to ban the use of herbicides. "They're doing a herbicide study," Harris says, "and they keep telling us this won't mean the rural area, but you always have to be vigilant."

One way farmers can have input into regional decision-making on planning issues is through agricultural advisory committees like the one in Halton, which has been in place since 1979. "We find the Halton Agricultural Advisory Committee is a very valuable tool through which we can have direct input into the region's planning, especially the policies that have to do with agriculture and new proposals that are put to the region for development," says current chair Joe Richardson.

1000-per-cent tax increases
High taxes and incorrect assessments are another concern for GTA's farmers. Harris says both the city of Burlington and Halton Region have supported the Halton Federation of Agriculture's concern about how farmers' lands are assessed.

The Assessment Act says that all assessment values are to be based on sales to people whose principal occupation is farming. But Harris says that the organization that does the assessments, the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation, doesn't do this. "They are not using farmer-to-farmer sales. They send out a questionnaire to the people who own the land and they ask them why they bought it. If they say they bought the land for farming, they take that value and say that a farmer bought the land. Therefore, that's a farm value and they put that value in to get the basis for their property taxes."

To show the difference in taxes, Harris used Agricorp's provincial crop yield averages and compared Oxford County's Zorra Township to Burlington. Halton's average is 93.3 bushels per acre, while Oxford County's is 129.34 bushels per acre. In Burlington the assessment is $6,000 an acre, while in Zorra Township it's $3,800 per acre. The mill rates are basically the same. In Burlington, the taxes are 22 cents per bushel of corn grown, while in Zorra Township it's six cents per bushel of corn grown.

Despite these difficulties, farming in the GTA has given Harris' wife an opportunity to pursue a career as a software engineer in Toronto. "If we lived somewhere else, she wouldn't have been able to develop her career in this way."

For Andrews and other farmers who operate pick-your-own farms, the big benefit is the vast population they have to draw on as potential customers. For Livock, the good side to farming in the GTA is that everything is within 10 to 15 minutes of your doorstep. If, for example, you needed a part made, you could find a machine shop close by that could do it for you. Moreover, he is only half an hour from the airport. "It's an ideal place for doing business."

Dairy farmer David Lyons, who farms in partnership with his wife, his brother and his brother's wife on Mayfield Road between Brampton and Caledon in Peel Region, sees the high real estate values as an opportunity. "If you can grow your operation on the land base you have and you can stay there, the longer you can stay there, the greater the value of that real estate when development comes your way."

That's not the way you should look at it, he says. But some GTA farmers would be able to sell their land if there's no next generation to farm and retire as millionaires or multimillionaires. And that's not a bad problem to have. BF

Productive GTA farms make a big economic contribution to the region

by SUSAN MANN

That is just one of the conclusions in a report commissioned by the federations of agriculture in Durham, Halton, Peel and York. Released in 1999, the Greater Toronto Area Agricultural Economic Impact Study will be updated later this year once the new Census numbers are released by Statistics Canada.

The study, prepared by Walton & Hunter Planning Associates (now called Planscape), also emphasized the importance of agriculture to all residents of Toronto.

"Agriculture enhances the quality of life for residents of the GTA through the products it markets and by preserving a rural countryside in proximity to urban settlements," the study says.

The agricultural economy makes up about three per cent of the total Greater Toronto Area Metropolitan Product and represents about 7.5 per cent of agricultural production in Ontario. Of the $.13 billion in annual gross sales, about $585 million is in direct sales and $743 million in indirect sales. Based on the 1996 Statistics Canada Agricultural Census, there were 4,621 census farms producing more than $585 million in gross farm receipts in the GTA in 1996.

The size of the industry compares favourably to agricultural production in other regional economies. Agribusiness in the GTA produces more dollar value than Huron County (at $512 million in 1996), and the provinces of Nova Scotia ($384 million), New Brunswick ($326 million) or Prince Edward Island ($349 million).

Significantly, GTA farms have a higher productivity overall than farms in other parts of Ontario. Measured in terms of total farm gates sales per acre, GTA farms have a higher sales per acre (an average of $770 per acre) when compared to the provincial average ($560) or even Huron County ($698). These figures include livestock sales.

"While GTA farmers have relatively higher input costs than in other parts of the province, overall they are more productive on a per acre basis than their counterparts," says the report. "To some extent, the higher productivity in the GTA is the result of good land, higher value-added and good market access. A market of over 120 million people lives within a day's drive of GTA agricultural producers."

Slightly more than one third of production is in the traditional sectors of dairy, cattle, pigs and poultry, while slightly more than one third is in specialty -- horse, mushroom, greenhouse, nursery products, goats, sheep and lamb. The rest is made up of the fruit and vegetable sector (eight per cent) and field crops (almost 13 per cent).

During the past 20 years, the face of the industry has changed. While traditional sectors are still key economic producers in the GTA, others such as equine and specialty fruit and vegetables are also significant and are growing as a result of close proximity to a dynamic urban market.

The more than 34,700 jobs supported by GTA agriculture include 11,150 direct jobs, 6,231 indirect jobs and 17,320 induced jobs. This total of all farm related employment includes jobs that are supported by farm operations, businesses that buy from and sell to farm operators and services that support farmers and farm businesses. This total represents 1.6 per cent of the region's total jobs and five per cent of Ontario's agricultural jobs.

Despite its economic importance and success, the viability of GTA agriculture is threatened by rapid loss of prime agricultural land in the region due to urbanization and inefficient development patterns. From 1976 to 1996, the GTA lost farmland at a faster rate (16.5 per cent or 150,024 acres) than surrounding counties or the province as a whole.

Agriculture in the GTA is changing, it says in the report. "Innovative practices are leading to new products and improving traditional sectors. The planning controls to protect the land base have strengthened over the past 20 years. However, more can be done to support this vital element of the GTA." BF