Farm Groups Stand Guard as Rail Route Planning Continues

Tuesday, April 21, 2026

By Emily McKinlay

The Government of Canada has moved Alto — a proposed high-speed passenger rail network between Toronto and Quebec City — into its development and pre-construction phase, with work not expected to begin until around 2029.

Still in the early stages, the project has many unknowns, leaving producers in Eastern and Central Ontario questioning how their farms will be affected and whether the future of their operations will be protected, while farm groups are calling for agriculture to be recognized as a priority in the planning process.

What is known

As Canada’s first high-speed rail network, Alto is expected to undergo an extensive development and pre-construction period that will extend into 2029 or 2030. The project is being led by Alto, a federal Crown corporation, in partnership with Cadence, a private consortium selected to help design, build, and operate the line.

Alto is designed for speeds above 300 km/h and would span nearly 1,000 km from Toronto to Quebec City, with additional stops in Peterborough, Ottawa, Montreal, Laval and Trois-Rivières. Public consultation meetings were held between January and March 2026, and throughout the remainder of 2026, Alto plans to conduct field studies, share the results of those consultations and hold further engagement, including another consultation period in autumn 2026.

Between Ottawa and Peterborough, two broad corridors are currently under study. The northern route is more direct, crossing Lanark, Frontenac and Hastings counties along a path broadly similar to Highway 7, while the southern option would run closer to more populated areas but intersect the Frontenac Arch Biosphere. Alto has said its preferred alignment “would favour existing corridors — highways, rail lines, and power lines — to limit impacts on agricultural, forested and recreational areas.”

“A number of factors, such as technical, environmental, social and financial aspects, will help inform the selection of the rail network alignment,” says Crystal Jongeward, senior advisor of corporate communications for Alto. “Over the past two years, our teams have engaged with interested parties that include associations, all levels of government, municipalities and public institutions to introduce them to the project and provide opportunities to listen so we can ensure the project’s design is guided by community input.”

Potential benefits & who sees them

The Alto project aims to bring connectivity, transportation and economic benefits to Canadian communities along the busy Toronto-Quebec City corridor. Federal announcements and Alto’s own materials say the line could deliver nearly $25 billion in annual socioeconomic benefits — about 1.1 per cent of Canada’s GDP — generate more than 50,000 jobs during construction and more than 5,000 ongoing jobs once the network is fully operational. Jongeward adds that during construction, Alto anticipates a boost to local businesses, along with opportunities in construction trades and service contracts.

For rural areas along the corridor, Jongeward says potential benefits could include partnerships with colleges and training centres for trades programs, set-asides for local aggregates and businesses, improvements for recreation areas and upgrades to local infrastructure. However, many of the communities where farms will be directly affected will not have a nearby station and may see few day-to-day transportation benefits from the line itself.

This leaves some landowners questioning how the project will affect the workflow and profitability of their farms, especially if their operations are bisected by a high-speed rail line that cannot easily curve around fields and homesteads.

Farmland, fragmentation & ‘agriculture-first’ planning

Because high-speed trains require relatively straight alignments and have limited tolerance for tight curves, farms or woodlots that fall within the final corridor may be difficult to avoid. Farm organizations warn that the risk is not just acres lost to the right-of-way, but also long-term fragmentation: fields cut in two, awkward access for large machinery and livestock, and a patchwork of underpasses or overpasses that may not align with existing farm lanes.

The Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA) and l’Union des producteurs agricoles (UPA) have taken a clear position in a joint statement calling Alto’s current study area “some of the most productive farmland in Ontario and Québec.”

“Ontario’s farmland is a strategic provincial and national asset, and the highest and best use of our arable land is for agriculture — and let’s not forget that agriculture and agrifood is a cornerstone of Ontario’s economic prosperity,” OFA president Drew Spoelstra said in the recent release.

Together, OFA and UPA are calling for an immediate suspension of the project “in pursuit of a cautious, transparent approach” that fully weighs the economic, social and environmental impacts on rural communities before any route is locked in.

In practical terms, the two organizations are urging provincial and federal governments — and Alto — to commit to several agriculture-first principles.

They want the line kept out of prime agricultural areas where possible, farms kept whole rather than split into smaller parcels, and critical farm drainage systems protected so that fields continue to function as productive cropland. They also emphasize the need to address construction and ongoing costs, such as fencing, as well as the building, upgrading, and long-term maintenance of safe crossings for equipment and livestock. OFA and UPA have called for agricultural impact assessments to be independent, thorough, and publicly available, not folded into broader environmental reviews, where farm-specific issues might be diluted.

Clint Cameron, OFA’s Zone 11 director representing farmers in the counties of Dundas, Frontenac, Grenville and Leeds, says that “in Eastern Ontario, the high-speed rail will have a huge impact. There is a lot of good agricultural land and many large livestock and poultry farms and grain farms, and if we start cutting those farms in half, it will cause a lot of harm.”

Cameron warns that “any time we have these kinds of projects go through agricultural areas, there is going to be a huge impact. We don’t want to limit farmers’ access to their land and add difficulty getting around the rail to access these farms. There is a big cost to moving equipment further, and it’s going to add stress and financial burden.”

Jason Leblond, president of Beef Farmers of Ontario, said in a recent statement, “We remain deeply concerned about the significant uncertainties surrounding this project and the very real risk it poses to dozens of family farms across eastern Ontario. The long-term implications for land access, farm viability, succession planning, and rural stability cannot be overstated.”

Looking ahead

Alto says it is listening. In a recent statement, the Crown corporation reiterated its commitment “to working constructively with farmers in Québec and Ontario, so that the project reflects agricultural realities and delivers regional benefits,” and noted that engagement with farm groups has been underway for more than a year at both leadership and working levels.

The organization has pledged to “limit impacts on farmland, maple groves, and woodlands through an optimized alignment and tailored mitigation measures,” while continuing to explore access solutions that help maintain continuity of agricultural operations.

At the same time, farm leaders are signaling they want strong guarantees before Alto moves beyond the planning stage. OFA and UPA championed a Canadian Federation of Agriculture resolution passed (with nationwide support) at the CFA’s February AGM, which urges the federal government to immediately halt Alto to allow for comprehensive economic, social and environmental impact assessments and meaningful consultations with agricultural, forestry and rural communities. They also argue that farmers should receive fair, proportional compensation that reflects the permanent and more significant impact of a high-speed rail corridor compared with highways or transmission lines.

As the Alto process unfolds through more studies and consultations in 2026, Ontario producers will be watching closely for signs that agriculture is being treated as more than a footnote in a nation-building infrastructure project.

For farm groups, the bottom line is clear: projects deemed to be in the national interest must not come at the expense of Canada’s food-producing land or the long-term sustainability of rural communities. BF

Backgrounder: Rail Lines & Rural Land in Other Nations

Ontario producers eyeing Alto are not the first to wonder how high‑speed rail and prime farmland mix.

In California, construction of the San Francisco–Los Angeles high‑speed rail through the Central Valley ramped up after 2015, with large‑scale right‑of‑way acquisition from about 2013. Reporting in the late 2010s described thousands of acres of orchards and row crops removed, irrigation systems severed, and farmers facing long waits for compensation on land taken under eminent domain or ‘voluntary’ sale. One grower compared the line to “cutting your house in half and having to go around the back to get to your kitchen,” capturing how new embankments and access changes can damage efficiency beyond the acres formally expropriated.

The state has since introduced agricultural conservation and easement tools and soil‑restoration requirements, but the Central Valley segment remains under construction, and farmers continue to dispute compensation and severance.

In the United Kingdom, the HS2 project — announced in 2010, with Phase 1 enabling legislation in 2017 — drew early pushback from arable and livestock producers on its route. HS2 Ltd and the UK government responded with a ‘Guide for Farmers and Growers’ and compensation frameworks that promised to minimize loss of the best (Grade 1–3a) land, restore agricultural soils, relocate farm buildings and provide “accommodation works” such as new tracks, culverts, fencing and underpasses.

By 2024–25, the northern legs of HS2 were cancelled on cost grounds, but the London–Birmingham section continues, and many affected farms are now operating with altered field layouts and access, while disputes over valuations and mitigation persist.

In France, where the first TGV line opened in 1981, high‑speed rail and related projects form part of a wider “artificialization” of farmland around cities.

Studies estimate that roughly two million hectares have shifted to built uses since the early 1980s, with transport corridors, logistics hubs and sprawl all contributing. That pressure on prime soils has helped drive “zero net land take” targets and efforts to concentrate new infrastructure and development on already‑urbanized or lower‑value land. BF