Province's green energy direction lauded and lambasted

Friday, March 27, 2009

© AgMedia Inc.

by BETTER FARMING STAFF

The provincial budget released Thursday offers some hefty investment into the development of green energy and Ontario Federation of Agriculture vice-president Don McCabe says farmers are ideally positioned to become a part of this direction, as long as the rules and regulations are in place. “We have all the feedstocks to make this happen,” he says. “We want those investments to come to rural Ontario.”

The federation supports the province’s proposed Green Energy Act (http://www.ontariogreenenergyact.ca/about.html). That support doesn’t extend to having solar panels on prime farmland. McCabe says the federation is working with the province to see how one regulation in the proposed Act might protect farmland.

McCabe also makes note of the hefty $32.5 billion investment to new infrastructure development, saying a portion should be used to help “bring agriculture further along in our industry.”

Finance Minister Dwight Duncan made no mention of funding for environmental goods and services. BF