by BETTER FARMING STAFF
When a University of Guelph researcher began to study the agriculture sector in Ontario’s Greenbelt, he expected to find differences from the overall provincial industry. But Harry Cummings, a professor with the university’s School of Environmental Design and Rural Development had certain expectations.
With the region’s proximity to the GTA, he had anticipated — and found — declines in traditional agriculture, such as cash crops, dairy, hogs and cattle between 2001 and 2006. Farming in the Greenbelt area and near urban environments “is much more problematic because of various factors like the cost of land, the feeling from urban neighbours that you’re not quite doing what you should be doing,” he says.
But he also thought he would find growth in high value agriculture ventures. Instead ventures ranging from greenhouse production and organic agriculture to ginseng production were either in decline or growing at a significantly slower pace than in the rest of the province.
“Ginseng declined by 36 per cent in the Greenbelt; grew by 61 per cent in Ontario,” he says. “Potatoes down by 39 per cent in the Greenbelt; down by eight per cent in the province.” The number of certified organic farms increased two per cent between 2001 and 2006. Elsewhere in the province, they had increased 52 per cent over the same period.
Even the area’s top crop, alfalfa and alfalfa mixtures, declined over the five-year period. That this crop was “massively ahead” in terms of size from more traditional commodity crops “speaks to land going into more casual use, I think, less intensive use,” he says. The crop ranked second largest in acreage province-wide (along with corn for grain) during the same time period.
Moreover, while the average farm size is growing in Ontario, it shrank in the Greenbelt area. In 2006 the average Greenbelt farm was 149 acres, down two acres from the 2001 average. In contrast, the provincial farm size, 243 acres in 2006, had grown by seven acres since 2001.
Cummings wonders if this decline in size is because commercial agriculture “is largely fleeing” the Greenbelt and what is left are smaller farm parcels. “There are still some of those (larger farms) using Greenbelt lands but they’re fewer,” he says. “And those are the people who are really mad” because of all the regulation. “The Greenbelt is just another layer on top of it all.”
This week, Cummings released a report on the results of the second and final stage of the statistical analysis. Graduate student Sarah Megens and research associate Don Murray are the report co-authors. The first stage looked at livestock producers in the Greenbelt and found significant declines there, too.
Cummings says there have been two other studies done on agriculture within the Greenbelt to date. What makes his study different is the acquisition of census data that was customized to profile only the Greenbelt. He says the previous studies accessed only published census data and omitted information from Greenbelt locations within four counties: Dufferin, Bruce, Peterborough and Kawartha Lakes.
His study indicates that about 932,000 acres or 50 per cent of the Greenbelt’s 1.8 million acres is farmland. A 2009 report on the Friends of the Greenbelt website indicated 60 per cent of the Greenbelt was farmland.
Cummings says the decline in agriculture is not caused by the Greenbelt, which took effect in 2005. Rather, the study provides a benchmark to assess the effectiveness of the Greenbelt once data from the 2011 census becomes available.
“You need reliable estimates to be able to develop good policy.” He says his frustration with provincial agriculture policy not addressing the differences between agriculture taking place near urban environments and elsewhere in the province was a motivation for tackling the project. “If we don’t get policy right for these lands, we’re going to lose them.”
He says that he had applied for funding to broaden the study to include farm areas near other urban centres such as Ottawa, Hamilton and Waterloo but was rejected. He says the $25,000 he received for the study from the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs was used to buy the customized census data and hire graduate students to help.
Provincial government websites say the Greenbelt’s intent is to protect land around the Greater Toronto Area 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
Comments
i am a greenbelt farmer serf. i opposed mcginty's ill advised green belt. i indicated the reasons why. harry cummings has substantiated them and ncginty's government denied cummings further research funding. why? is mcginty afraid of the truth? mcginty certainly is not afraid of continued greenbelt pbfuscation.just another promise broken and obfuscated.
The Greenbelt has been a project of Government bungling kept in a shroud of half truths. There were no pre-greenbelt studies done to determine threshold benchmarks, no expropriation or appeal under expropriation laws were denied, and there will be no examination until 2015 of the success or failure of the stated objective goals of "science based and economically neutral".
Harry Cummings studies are not the only ones that have been done. Dr. Richard Vyn. Agricultural Economics College Professor. Degrees: Ph.D. Agricultural Economics - University of Guelph M.Sc (Agr.) did his thesis on land values (2005) in and out of the greenbelt showing some startling findings of equity loss for farmland within the greenbelt.
OFA (mostly staff) have repeatedly disavowed Dr Vyns work as not being creditable although he seems to be quite game-fully employed (and building a pension) as "Dr Vyn" at U of G and has been for some time.
Another study done by the Geo Morris Center also shows distinct disadvantages to farming in the greenbelt as an agricultural preserve with a deteriorating future.
The political will of appeasing urban environmental passions to buy non vested votes, has visions of (government) greenbelting significantly more agricultural land in Ont before any measured success or failure of the present greenbelt is undertaken.
It is little wonder McGinty would choke funding to stop any reveal of a failed non science based Greenbelt. It is too bad that the beholden effect of stable funding issued to GFO's has the same outcome on facts too real to refute now shown to be true in Cummings Government funded studies.
The issue of real property rights and impact on those rights, whether it be for greenbelt preserves, windmills, solar panels or source water is too big to be considered someone else's problem in a land 'away over there'.
Sooner or later the impact of loss of property rights and equity on your land without consent or compensation will effect you.
The idea of a greenbelt around urban areas is not to aid farming enterprises but to allow urbanites to feel good about saving a little piece of their perception of farmland. It allows them a pleasant not-too-far-from-home Sunday afternoon drive through 'pristine countryside'. It is a completely backward idea - put the rest of the province in a greenbelt protection area and keep the developers fighting over dirt close to urban centers. Those of us who are already in a natural greenbelt need to be protected from a 'man made' greenbelt.
And all farmers outside of the greenbelt should be thoroughly pissed at the millions of taxpayer dollars that is doled out by the Greenbelt Foundation to businesses/farmers/groups/you-name-it inside the greenbelt (ie why is greenbelt money going to a landowner to pay part of the capital cost of solar unit that will be earning him 80.2cents/kW)
While most of your assumptions are correct, the Greenbelt bribes being offered do not begin to cover the equity draft that took place. On top of that new rules are being considered that may eliminate any type of major built investment. Imagine having to get your neighbour to agree to new opportunties as in the Niagara Escarpment planning area. Most of the farm community will abandon the area in favour of Bay Street types and it is poised to become the pony capital of Canada.
why their aren't more comments on this. i live in Simcoe county and the government did a big FU to the greenbelt when a power plant was allowed to be built on unbuildble soil - the Holland marsh. no one, not even the province's ag orgs, which can no longer be mentioned in comments here, did anything about it. The greenbelt is a joke.
The Greenbelt is just a nice museum between urban Ontario and the true rural agricultural areas of the rest of the province.
The true farmers exist outside of the Greenbelt and cannot take advantage of all of the funding available to promote themselves.
These kinds of comments are the reason farmers get no where- because you are too busy attacking other farmers instead of the real culprits in Ottawa and Toronto. The Greenbelt was an arbitrary designation by government. There is nothing 'untrue' about the farmers stuck in it. They are farmers just like the rest of us, only they have a lot more crap to put up with.
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