Greenbelt report touts region's economic impact

Monday, May 14, 2012

by SUSAN MANN

A new report pegs the total economic benefit of the Greenbelt to Ontario at more than $9.1 billion annually but farming is lumped in with other industries making it hard to determine agriculture’s portion, says a farm group spokesman.

“We know anecdotally how important agriculture is,” says Ontario Federation of Agriculture president Mark Wales, noting the industries included in the study to analyze the Greenbelt’s economic impact were: agriculture, fishing, trapping, forestry and tourism and recreation. There are 7,000 farms in the greenbelt.

The study, called Evaluating the Economic Benefits of Greenbelt Assets, was funded by the Friends of the Greenbelt Foundation and prepared by Econometric Research Limited. The foundation is a non-profit corporation and a registered charity that’s dedicated to promoting and sustaining the greenbelt.

The study also found that 161,000 full time equivalent jobs are dependent on the greenbelt. This volume of employment is larger than the entire fish, forestry, mining, quarrying and oil and gas extraction sectors in Ontario, the study says.

Wales says the majority of the greenbelt employment is in tourism, accommodation and food, most likely in restaurants or processing.

Wales agrees with the study that the greenbelt is a major economic contributor to the province. Farms in the greenbelt engaged in direct consumer-related activities, such as pick-you-own, on-farm wineries, bread and breakfast establishments, on-farm retail stores, and agri-tourism, are doing well. But the “challenge has been for production agriculture and livestock.”

Those farms are running “into a lot of burdensome regulations,” he says, noting they have to go to 10 different places to get approval for a relatively simple activity.

There are so many overlapping organizations within the greenbelt and they all get in each other’s way, he says. OFA has been asking for a one-stop place to get permits and approvals and applications should be simplified.

The legislation to create the Greenbelt was passed in 2005. The greenbelt covers more than 1.8 million acres of permanently protected green space, farmland, communities, forests, wetlands and watersheds. BF