Industry applauds new farm sign law
Monday, December 8, 2008
© Copyright AgMedia Inc
by GEOFF DALE
A landmark Ontario law allowing farmers to post seasonal directional signage on private agricultural land adjacent to highways is being widely applauded as a huge victory for the province’s farming community.
For Norfolk County asparagus grower Chuck Emre, the law’s passage represents personal vindication.
His troubles began in 2007 when Ontario Ministry of Transportation officials told him to remove signage promoting his locally grown asparagus from a neighbour’s property. Complying with the order, he created a smaller hand-painted sign with an arrow and, with permission from another neighbour, placed it in on that property.
Officials removed the new sign and sent a letter to the neighbour threatening him with fines up to $5,000. Emre says he was told not to erect a sign – even if placed beyond the MTO’s jurisdiction of 400 metres from a provincial highway – unless he owned the land.
“This was a two by three foot sign you could barely see above the weeds, tucked away in the neighbour’s field,” says Emre. “In the greater scheme of things, this was nothing. Where was common sense in all of this?”
Frustrated by what he describes as an escalating “negative situation” that was resulting in a 40-50 per cent revenue loss, he took his fight to local media and Norfolk County’s Mayor Dennis Travale.
The final chapter was written last week when all three parties in Queen’s Park unanimously passed Bill 98, Signage to Promote Ontario Produced Agricultural Products Act.
Introduced last spring by Oxford MPP Ernie Hardeman, the private member’s bill was only the fourth of its kind this sitting to reach third reading.
In addition to permitting signage on private property next to highways, the new Act allows “signage at the premises where the agricultural products are for sale.” Previously only signage that identified a business or landowner was allowed within 400 metres of a provincial highway without a ministerial permit.
Hardeman, the Tories’ critic for agriculture, says the end result is two-fold: an increase in farm sales and removal of red tape and expense of applying for a signage permit.
Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers’ Association chair Brenda Lammens says permitting directional signs on privately owned, agriculturally zoned land “makes sense for farmers and consumers. The intent is simple – to link consumers with fresh, locally produced food that might be hard to find on country side roads.”
Ontario Federation of Agriculture president Betty Jean Crews, who operates her own roadside market just outside of Trenton, says the news from Queen’s Park is great for all farmers. “We lived through this so I can relate to it,” she says. “Besides, if we want the buy and eat local concept to work, then we shouldn’t be setting up roadblocks.”
Says Travale, who spent much of the past year contacting commodity groups and members of the general public: “this is a victory for logic, for grassroots organizations that simply said enough is enough and we’re not going to take this any longer.”
Yet while Travale agrees Bill 98 is good news, he’s not finished fighting government bureaucracy, having recently challenged another MTO policy. “It seems if a farmer wants to expand his or her market and put a stand in their farm, they can’t because the driveway is just part of the farm and not commercial,” he says. BF