Northern ag development on the province's agenda
Wednesday, November 5, 2014
Northern Ontario beef farmers are seeing hope for growth in the mandate letter released in September by the Wynne government to 'explore opportunities to develop the agricultural sector in the North'
by JIM ALGIE
After about two years of lobbying by northern Ontario beef farmer Matt Bowman and others at Beef Farmers of Ontario (BFO), the government of Premier Kathleen Wynne has begun talking publicly about new agricultural development for long-ignored parts of the province's north.
Bowman is a fifth-generation, New Liskeard-area farmer and currently first vice-president of the provincial beef farmers' commodity group. He, his wife, Elaine, and their two children manage about 700 acres of cash crops and a 110-cow, Charolais-based beef herd on former timberland cleared by his forbearers beginning in 1908.
Access to government-owned Crown land adjacent to relatively low-cost farmland in the north represents a significant long-term opportunity to supply calves for Ontario's recovering beef industry, Bowman said in a recent interview from his home.
"When we decided we needed to do something about the declining number of cows, we started looking at barriers," Bowman said of BFO board discussions over the past two years. The North American beef business is emerging from a period of decline following a complex set of trade, climate and commodity pricing issues.
Statistics Canada data for Ontario showed a cattle inventory of 1.682 million head at the beginning of 2014. That was down 3.3 per cent from 2013 and part of an eight-year decline which may have now ended.
Statistics Canada's July 1 herd numbers indicate potential rebuilding. Total beef cattle population rose to 1.739 million head in Ontario, and the beef cow herd grew by almost 1,000 with breeding heifers up by 3,700 head.
Skyrocketing land prices in cash crop areas of the province represent a major barrier, however, to new beef cow businesses, Bowman said. Long-neglected areas of northern Ontario's fertile Great Clay Belt, near Cochrane and Temiskaming, provide likely options, he said.
Even in established farming regions of the north, such as the one where Bowman farms, land prices have now risen as high as $4,500 an acre. That's partly because of the recent run-up in commodity prices and the success of cool season crops such as canola and new soybean varieties. By moving farther north and east, however, new operators could find cattle land at less than half of prevailing purchase prices in his neighbourhood, Bowman said.
The potential for new northern development received tentative acknowledgement by Wynne's Liberal government during last spring's provincial election. Since then, a mandate letter issued Sept. 25 by Premier Wynne to newly appointed Agriculture Minister Jeff Leal also referred specifically to northern agriculture. BFO president Bob Gordanier followed up both announcements by issuing statements of support.
Specifically, the premier's mandate letter directs Leal to "explore opportunities to develop the agricultural sector in the North" and to "prioritize opportunities on private land."
In an emailed statement provided to Better Farming by the minister's legislative assistant Cheslea Plante, Leal emphasized the preliminary nature of talks to date. However, the statement did refer to northern development as "an important initiative" with "tremendous potential for growth.
"We are currently developing options on how best to move forward to ensure the significant benefits of the Great Clay Belt are achieved," Leal's statement said.
Although the minister's statement makes no direct reference to Crown land policy, Bowman said access to provincially owned tracts through long-term lease or lease-to-purchase arrangements is key.
"What we're kind of thinking is if somebody moves in and buys a home-base farm and they've got two Crown lots next to them, access to those lots would make their operation much more viable," he said. "I don't think anybody's interested in going into a long-term lease for their whole operation, but it could be a significant part of any new operation that started up there."
Across the provincial border to the east, Quebec policies have encouraged large-scale beef cow operations in the adjacent Abitibi district. "You can base that on some of the programs they have had over there for the last 20 years," Bowman said of existing Quebec government policy.
He recognizes that current plans need a lot more work and will likely take a generation to complete. New farm development in many of the areas under consideration will also require clearing and tile drainage.
However, Bowman also hopes to see new policy from the province within two years and the start of resulting new farming operations within five years. "I think it's going to be a wild time, wild in an exciting way," he said.
A Ministry of Agriculture and Food fact sheet on agriculture in northern Ontario is available online and identifies "16 million acres of potentially fertile, glaciolacustrine soils in the Great Clay Belt of northeastern Ontario." That's double the amount of cropland currently being farmed in the province, says the fact sheet, which was prepared in 2013 by ministry beef cattle program lead Tom Hamilton. Only two per cent of the identified land has been developed for agriculture, the fact sheet says.
Government policy encouraged clearing and settlement of farmlands in the clay belt region of Ontario following World War One. However, the region's relatively short growing season limited the success of those early operations.
More recently, climate change and the introduction of new crops and new, short-season varieties of traditional crops have improved prospects for northern Ontario farms, Bowman said. He cited six cashcrop operations in his area with as much as 10,000 acres under cultivation, including one of the largest canola operations in Ontario. Hamilton's paper notes that weather data recorded at Earlton shows an increase in corn heat units from 1,800 to 2,300 over 30 years. BF