As one born and raised in rural Southwestern Ontario, a love of the land was imprinted on my soul. From childhood, I learned the specifics of crops and their growth from seed to maturity. I worked on the land assisting in preparing fields for planting and then cultivating and harvesting a variety of crops.
Alas, I have lived most of my adult life in urban centers. With increasing worry and dismay, I watch as municipal councils expropriate land outside their cities and developers press forward with hungry eyes and voracious appetites to make big money building sprawling housing projects deeper and deeper into the countryside.
It is no secret that Southwestern Ontario boasts some of the best agricultural land in Canada and I dare add, even in the world. How can we stand by and watch helplessly as farm after farm is bought for urban development? In fact, much of the rural land is purchased by developers ten to twenty years before the land is razed.
Occasionally, I hear on the media a comment that we should think seriously about preserving farmland for food and agricultural purposes but no one seems to take the cause seriously. Even protected land gets decommissioned for big business interests. Perhaps we’ll realize our errant ways when it’s too late.
In her article, “Canada’s Disappearing Farmland”, Tanya Browers, a consultant for the Organic Agriculture Centre of Canada outlined the dire situation with regard to Ontario’s rampant loss of agricultural land. She states: “Ontario, for instance, with over 56% of the nation’s Class 1 land has lost, in the two decades between 1976 and 1996, over 150,000 acres or 18% of the province’s Class 1 land to urban encroachment and non-agricultural interests”. Can you imagine how much more arable land has suffered the same fate in the last twenty years?
Not long ago, my ears perked up when I heard a rare truth via a TV ad, “They’re not making any more land.” I heard this fact stated only once previously. The throw away line gave me hope. Maybe a few people are beginning to realize that land really is a finite resource that is being squandered for all sorts of endeavours. Will we protect our remaining agricultural land or let it quietly disappear?
Jean Moylan, CSJ