Near Toronto no place for livestock farming

Thursday, December 24, 2009

© AgMedia Inc.

by BETTER FARMING STAFF

Provincial government policy – or its lack – is driving livestock producers from Ontario’s Greenbelt, a University of Guelph study has found.

Harry Cummings, a professor with Guelph’s School of Environmental Design and Rural Development and the study’s lead researcher, says layers of environmental policy that target large-scale agricultural production are discouraging traditional livestock producers from doing business in the protected area around the Greater Toronto Area that the Province says should be farmed rather than developed.

“We can’t expect people to maintain agriculture in a greenbelt area without economic viability being there,” he says.

The study draws on 2001 and 2006 census information, (the Greenbelt was declared in the fall of 2005) and nine focus groups with farmers. It reveals significantly greater declines in dairy, beef and hog operation numbers than provincial trends. Hog operation numbers show the greatest rate of decline, having dropped 27 per cent from 2001 to 2006 compared to 11 per cent across the province for the same time period.

Other study highlights comparing census data in 2001 and 2006:

* The number of Greenbelt farms decreased seven per cent, three per cent faster than the provincial decline.
* While the number of sheep and goat farms grew 34 per cent province-wide, they declined by eight per cent in the Greenbelt in the same time period; poultry and egg farm numbers grew five per cent across Ontario but declined 19 per cent in the Greenbelt.
* The number of farms reporting horses and ponies grew by 17 per cent across the province, and only five per cent in the Greenbelt.

Cummings says he initially anticipated that smaller animal production such as sheep and goats would do better in the area because of the popularity of local food and environmental groups’ support for smaller farms. Now, he believes that provincial land use policies make it difficult for smaller-scale or niche-market producers to move in. He uses the example of the 100-acre provincial standard used for farm severances.

“At the prices that you’re paying - $25,000-$35,000 an acre – you’re not going to farm it and make any money at it,” unless you can obtain a speculative value, which is unlikely because of the Greenbelt’s restriction on development, he says.

Focus group interviews with farmers indicate Greenbelt restrictions also discourage smaller, on-farm processing or retail ventures.

Cummings says the 2005 Greenbelt legislation accentuates a situation already created by the interplay between environmental policy, negative attitudes towards large-scale farming and farmers’ proximity to urban centres. “It’s happening around all of our major (Ontario) cities.”

He plans to quantify the Greenbelt’s impact after the release of 2011 census data.

He proposed the study, begun three years ago, because he was aware existing data from the Province and the Friends of the Greenbelt Foundation was flawed.

“You need good, accurate numbers to do good policy,” he says. “If we can get policy right to support local food and near-urban agriculture, it’s going to help everybody in the province.”

He will release more results in January.

Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs is the study’s sole backer.

Provincial government websites say the Greenbelt’s intent is to protect 1.8 million acres of land around the GTA from development, preserve farming and protect natural resources. The Greenbelt extends 325 kilometres from the eastern end of the Oak Ridges Moraine in the east to the Niagara River in the west and includes land protected by the Niagara Escarpment and Oak Ridges Moraine conservation plans. BF