Pressure increases on farmland | Farmtario

Ensuring Canada remains an agricultural powerhouse requires concerted efforts to preserve the country’s natural capital and resources, particularly farmland, according to a recent Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute (CAPI) report.

With long-term planning, the pressures affecting agricultural productivity and farmland loss in Canada can be navigated, bringing greater prosperity and environmental improvement at home, as well as food security for other countries, the report says.

Why it matters: Protecting farmland and natural landscapes, and thus Canada’s ability to produce food in an unstable world, requires cooperation and long-term thinking.

The problem? Long-term thinking in Canada is lacking. Planning experts and the report’s authors say a reversal of many development and environmental policies is required to avoid catastrophe.

The CAPI report identifies a myriad of competing pressures that threaten sustainable land use in Canada and abroad.

Margaret Zafiriou, research associate with the organization and one of the report authors, says each pressure is occurring in a global environment where food insecurity, geopolitical turmoil, climate change and other factors have replaced abundance with scarcity.

As a major producer and net exporter of high-quality, sustainable agriculture and agri-food products, Canada will face pressures to produce more to meet the demands of countries experiencing population growth, urbanization and increased food demand.

As the report details, commodity shortages and price spikes due to food scarcity will affect prices, costs, farm income and land values, putting pressure on land conversion. Biofuel mandates and current agriculture support measures are also exerting pressure on prices and land use, and need to be reassessed to preserve land and food security for future generations.

Policies that promote land zoning and protection of sensitive ecosystems must become an important part of the toolbox, say the report authors, who drew from international examples in Europe, the United States, and traditional Indigenous knowledge.

Climate change and extreme weather events are affecting productivity growth as well. Investments in research and development, infrastructure, better data and knowledge and technology transfer are key to future sustainable productivity growth, which can help achieve food security while minimizing environmental impacts and protecting land use.

Of the many conclusions within the report, a critical recommendation is that Canada should focus on intensification rather than extensification — producing more on less land while trying to save or revitalize natural spaces, as opposed to allowing more land to be converted to farmland.

This is in contrast to what is happening in many parts of the world. Examples include ongoing deforestation in Africa and in some European Union countries where environment and food policies discourage localized intensification.

“It’s the long-term issues that we can’t get on people’s radar because they’re so preoccupied with short term things,” says Zafiriou, citing one reason she and her colleagues decided to compile the 27-page research document.

“If we’re not careful and we don’t take measures now, we’re going to lose out. At some point we have to protect our capacity to produce.”

Ontario policies overtly short-term

While the report reiterates that Canadians and policymakers must think long-term to ensure farmland and ecologically sensitive areas are protected, the opposite is occurring, particularly in Ontario.

The report argues that it is difficult to return agricultural lands to nature once they have been plowed, but nearly impossible to return urban concrete jungles to agricultural land once they are paved.

Without accompanying improvements in yields and land intensification, it says, the world “will become a more crowded and hungrier place.”

Similarly, it points to how a rising population will exacerbate ecological challenges. Canada’s population is expected to be 45 million to 74 million by 2068, which will put more pressure on land. Thus, more thought must be given to prevention of urban sprawl and land use conversion and protect valuable agricultural land for Canada’s future food production capacity.

“From a planning perspective, this really has hammered home everything we’ve been saying for years,” says Emily Sousa, a municipal planner working with the County of Brant, and previously with the Ontario Federation of Agriculture.

“The number one thing that I got from the report was, at a high level, this is a really big, wicked, complex problem and it’s going to take not just federal, provincial and municipal governments cooperating, it’s going to take a whole lot of people to come together and prioritize to protect farmland, and farmland quality and availability.”

Sousa considers Ontario’s land development policies a stark contrast to what should be done.

With dozens of changes to land development policy — up to and including sweeping housing reforms, the overriding of municipal plans and expansion of severance allowances under Bill 97 — the continued fragmentation of farmland and current zoning framework makes her question whether intensification of agricultural production is possible.

Wayne Caldwell, recently retired professor of development and rural planning at the University of Guelph, agrees the CAPI report highlights how far afield current development policies have gone.

“There are different perspectives about the role and importance of agriculture. The report values agriculture in the way I do, in that it has the potential to help us face challenges in the decades ahead,” said Caldwell.

“I think the idea we can produce our way out of it, and don’t worry about farmland, is misguided and short sighted.

“What we have in this province is second to none. You see it just by looking at farm productivity and gross farm sales per acre. It really is something special and it needs to be protected and respected,” he said.

“There is changing productivity across the planet, but we live in an area where we might be fortunate enough to see increases in productivity whereas [other areas] it’s a decrease in productivity. We have a moral responsibility. It speaks to me of the importance of reminding people what we have and not taking it for granted. Once it’s gone, it will never come back.”