Farmland is still a needed resource - From the Cluttered Desk with Keith Roulston
It’s a long way from here, but farm organizations in both Ontario and Quebec are concerned about plans for a high-speed rail service between Toronto and Quebec City.
The service, supported by the federal government, would travel 1,000 kilometres through Ottawa and Montreal and speed travellers along at 300 kilometres per hour. But the presidents of both the Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA) and Quebec Union des producers Agriculture (UPA) worry that the plan for the high-speed railroad threatens to expropriate productive farmland, fracture farm operations and restrict critical access to fields – putting both livelihoods and long-term food production at risk.
Because the train travels so fast, secure fences will exist along the entire 1,000-kilometre line. I grew up on a farm north of Lucknow that was bisected by the CN Kincardine-Stratford railway line. We had level crossings to allow us to get to our back fields. We also had only about three trains a day pass on that track, at predictable times.
The OFA and UPA are worried that farms will be cut in half by this high-speed railway with farmers having no way to get to the part of their farm that is on the other side of the rail corridor. They have called on the federal government to halt the project while economic, social and environmental aspects are thoroughly studied.
I’m torn on this issue. On one hand, the rail line will save many air flights a day for travellers who need to get from Toronto to Ottawa or Montreal (or vice-versa) and that will mean environmental savings. On the other hand, valuable farmland will be lost forever. Although the Kincardine/Stratford line was closed 40 years ago, many areas had been altered so significantly to build the line in the 1800s that they could not be used for farmland.
The joint resolution states that if the high-speed project ultimately proceeds, it must ensure full access is maintained to farmland, maple groves and woodlands and establish properly-sized agricultural and forestry crossings. I would suspect that the company building the new railway may object because each of those crossings is going to cost big bucks.
Ontario’s farmland is a precious resource, but it’s one that is seldom recognized by urban-based governments. In the past 35 years, Ontario has lost 2.8 million acres (18 per cent) of its farmland to non-agricultural land-uses like urbanization and aggregate mining. At the same time our population has surged.
“Ontario’s farmland is a strategic asset and the highest and best use of our arable land is for agriculture and agri-food as a cornerstone of Ontario’s economic prosperity,” said OFA President Drew Spoelstra. “This sector, which is built around productive agricultural land, contributes $51 billion annually to the provincial economy and employs about 10 per cent of Ontario’s workforce.”
Yet, we have a premier who used to be a Toronto city councillor and whose brother was Mayor of Toronto, who thinks priorities include getting rid of bike lanes in Toronto and removing speed cameras that caught people speeding on some Toronto streets.
Our Prime Minister, meanwhile, is a former head of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England and represents the riding of Nepean, a suburban section of west Ottawa, in Parliament that once was farmland.
In response to the high-speed rail line, the OFA and UFA are proposing:
• Staying out of prime agricultural areas
• Avoiding the division of farms into smaller pieces and keeping fields and farm operations whole
• Protecting farm drainage systems essential for crop production
• Addressing farmers’ concerns about construction impacts and ongoing costs, including fencing and the building, upgrading and long-term maintenance of safe crossings for equipment and livestock
• Ensuring agricultural impact assessments are independent, thorough and publicly available.
“Projects deemed to be of national interest must not compromise the vitality of rural communities, the long-term viability of agricultural businesses and farmland, maple and forestry potential, or the food security of the population which should be a true priority,” said UPA President Marton Caron.
It’s that last quote that strikes me as important. Today we have a smaller proportion of the population with roots in farming than ever before. Because of the enormous productivity of farmers, our food stores are filled with food. But all this depends on farmland and we cannot treat this as something to be covered by high-speed rail lines or burgeoning suburbs and highways to serve them.