‘We are just waiting to see who will be the last farmer left’: Prime farmland in the GTA is disappearing fast. Doug Ford’s growth plan may be making that worse

Thestar.com
Aug. 30, 2021
Noor Javed

There is a hint of sadness in Paul Doner’s voice as he points out some of the land around the GTA that his family once farmed.

“We were the last ones to farm this plot,” said Doner, pointing to an empty field where bulldozers are now moving soil.

“We planted wheat on this land last year, but this year they told us they have their permits to build,” said Doner, pointing to another lot across the street. “It’s all getting built up around us.”

The Doner farm, established in 1806 near Leslie Street and Stouffville Road in Richmond Hill spans from Leslie to Highway 404. The Doners still grow cash crops like soy and corn on the land, and store grains for other farms. Twenty years ago they farmed more than 4,000 acres of nearby land. Now they farm less than half of that.

The farm has persevered over eight generations -- through the Industrial Revolution, the establishment of Canada as a nation and both world wars. But as the urban shadow looms over him, Doner doesn’t see a viable future.

“It’s sad. But the truth is, most of the farmers, if they could get out, are already gone.”

At a time when the pandemic has shown the fragility of supply chains and the climate change crisis has highlighted the need for a smaller carbon footprint, the idea of sustainable local food has taken on renewed importance. But there is widespread concern that the province is not taking concrete steps to ensure that the future of farmland in the GTA is protected -- and may be accelerating its decline.

Municipalities have been told that by next summer they must update official plans and plan until 2051 to accommodate population targets set by the province -- 10 years beyond standard practice.

In some municipalities, like Vaughan, Markham and Milton, meeting the targets that some have said are inflated would require developing all the remaining land that sits outside official city boundaries, called the “white belt lands”-- almost all of which is farmland.

“The majority of the best farmland is in southern Ontario and the Greater Toronto Area, and it is covered with asphalt and concrete,” said Keith Currie, a director with the Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA), who represents Peel, Simcoe and York. “Trying to preserve most of the remaining land for food production should be a priority.”

Earlier this year, the OFA launched a campaign to bring attention to disappearing farms. It says, according to agriculture census data, 175 acres a day are lost to urban development -- equivalent to about five farms a week. In Ontario, there were approximately 10,000 less farms in 2016 compared to 2001 and more than 450,000 acres of farmland has been lost from the Greater Golden Horseshoe since 1991. The OFA also opposes minister zoning orders, which in at least seven cases, have fast-tracked development on prime farmland.

“Our government knows that Ontario’s farmland plays a vital role in the success of our agri-food sector -- and the province’s economy,” said Matt Carter, spokesperson for the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing. The growth plan “affirms our commitment to ensure prime agricultural land and natural heritage systems are protected.”

Much of the land in southern Ontario is considered prime farmland, or class 1, 2 and 3, given its ability to produce high yields and its resiliency to unpredictable weather conditions, said Currie.

Some 7,000 farms are protected within the Greenbelt Plan while others are limited from development by specific designations in the Oak Ridges Moraine Plan. Within the Greenbelt, the Holland Marsh and the Niagara Peninsula Tender Fruit and Grape Lands are deemed “Specialty Crop Areas” and protected because of their special climate, unique soil and crops that grow there.

But most farms outside the Greenbelt in the GTA sit on white-belt land, which can be redesignated to be developed when a city determines it is short of land within its urban boundary.

Currie said just five years ago, municipalities and developers largely agreed there was enough land to accommodate growth for the next 20-25 years, without spilling into the white belt. But he said the province is feeling pressure to increase supply, given high housing prices.

“The white belt was intended for spillover once designated areas within the urban boundaries are filled,” said Currie. “So let’s make sure we do that first through higher density and infill instead of just sprawling out.”

That’s why many are questioning why the province is forcing municipalities to plan three decades out, if the need is not there. Critics say this just a way for Doug Ford to assure landowners who own farmland that they have approvals they need for development down the road.

“Developers and speculators have always presumed that the white-belt would be urbanized -- and so they bought it up,” said Halton Hills Coun. Jane Fogal, who opposes the province’s 2051 timeline. Developers “are doing their utmost with the Ford government to make sure the municipalities take as much land as humanly possible into the urban area right now ... before the election ... so that it can all be built up down the road.”

In April, NDP municipal affairs critic Jeff Burch asked the provincial auditor general to look at how the province calculated the growth projection numbers that each municipality is being asked to accommodate. He believes those numbers are “severely inflated.”

“We want policies based on evidence and policies that are transparent so that municipalities can understand why these growth projections are being made,” said Burch. “Municipalities have a right to be concerned that if they lose their farmland, and we go down the road of massive urban encroachment...we will be jeopardizing our freshwater and our food sources.”

The auditor general is expected to report her findings later this year.

“Ontario has a severe housing supply shortage,” said the ministry of municipal affairs spokesman Carter. “We need to take action now to increase housing supply at all levels of government and we don’t have any time to spare.”

The province's growth plan sets out the percentage of population growth each GTHA municipality is expected to plan for up to 2051.

“The faster official plans are completed, the faster we can start building much-needed housing and create jobs,” Carter said.

The province’s growth forecast has York, Peel and Toronto taking the highest share of growth over the next three decades. It will force York, for example, to use 80 per cent of its white-belt lands to meet the population target of 2.02 million people by 2051.

There are still 600 farmers in York Region. Among them is Dean Orr, a young farmer who helps his father farm more than 2,400 acres of rented land in King City.

New farmers are inhibited by the high cost of land, so they rent and farm it for deep-pocketed developers and speculators who use the agriculture designation to keep taxes low.

Orr said York Region’s plans for the future make it clear there’s no space for people like him.

“Most farmers are not in it because it pays well, because it doesn’t all the time. They do it because they enjoy it -- they get to be outdoors, and it’s meaningful work,” said Orr. “But when you see all this development non-stop encroaching on you, it feels like what we do is not respected.”

Orr’s lands would be impacted by the proposed GTA West highway, if it were built. “It’s hard not to get down on the fact that you are getting pushed out and that no one cares if you are here or not.”

Caledon resident Jenni Le Forestier, who is running for the Green party in Dufferin-Caledon, said she is particularly concerned about the impact of the 2051 plan on her town, where nearly half the land in the municipality is still farmland.

According to the provincial projections, the population of Caledon is set to increase fivefold from 66,000 to 330,000. Le Forestier said that means much of the farmland will be impacted.

“The planning is not happening with the climate emergency in mind, because we are not building complete communities,” said Le Forestier. “If we are planning for the future, why would we simply do all the same things that we have always done?”

In a deputation to Peel Region in June, Le Forestier urged it to follow the lead of Waterloo Region, which implemented a “countryside line” in 2009 as a way “to control development and urban sprawl by constraining future growth within the region’s urban areas.”

Regional officials have been committed to preserving the line -- even taking the Ontario Municipal Board to court in 2015 to protect it.

But there is widespread consensus that there is no easy fix to the problem of disappearing farmland without having hard discussions about “responsible growth” at the municipal and provincial level.

Already, residents in Hamilton and Halton are pushing back on the province’s desire to expand urban boundaries to 2051, saying such vital discussions should not be taking place during a pandemic. The OFA, the Greenbelt Foundation and ecogroups like Environmental Defence are also pushing for hard urban boundaries, and for the province to reinstate higher density targets within city borders.

“We are asking for responsible growth,” said the OFA’s Currie. “We have not done a good job in incentivizing or encouraging municipalities to have more housing option. Right now, it’s either single-family homes or condos.”

He also thinks there should be an agricultural plan as part of the municipal official plans, while others are calling for a province-wide agricultural study.“There is only one landscape, and it has to serve all the purposes for the people of Ontario.”

Elsewhere in Canada, British Columbia successfully preserved farmland with the creation of an agricultural land reserve in the ’70s that protected 4.7 million hectares of public and private land that can be farmed, forested or are vacant.

On a smaller scale, some local farmers have started to protect their farms through the Ontario Heritage Trust, which allows farmers to register legal agreements on the property so that when it’s sold, it can only be farmed. So far the trust has protected 17 farms in Ontario.

The OFA’s Currie said broad land-use policies don’t work for all farmers who have different circumstances. While larger farms may be struggling, being near cities has been beneficial for smaller farms who sell direct to customers through retail operations.

But for others, policies to protect land can become burdensome.

“We cannot lose sight of the value of the green space ... whether it’s climate change or stormwater related,” Currie said. “But the farmer should not be penalized or held hostage to holding green space (if farming is no longer viable) just because it’s there. It’s really a Catch-22 situation for these farmers.”

"No farmer would pack up and leave if they are making a profit," said Paul Doner, adding that his farm in the shadow of Richmond Hill is increasingly difficult to run.

That’s precisely the predicament Paul Doner said he is in.

Most of Doner’s land falls within the Oak Ridges Moraine designation that restricts its use to agriculture, limiting both potential buyers and keeping the price lower than market value. He said the proximity to Hwy. 404 has reduced the quality of soil on his land and crop yields.

For farmers like Doner, the lure of cashing out their farmland for a life in the countryside is hard to resist. Those running big operations near urban centres say it’s become increasingly more difficult to turn a profit as farmland dwindles.

“No farmer would pack up and leave if they are making a profit,” said Doner. It’s also difficult to invest in rental land, or in investments or upgrades when there is so much uncertainty around.

Doner said his situation is unique, but he worries that opening up the white belt to development will further encroach on other farms, creating more like his -- completely surrounded by city.

He said that as his difficulties have grown, he’s come to believe farms near urban boundaries should be given some leeway.

He thinks the part of his land that’s environmentally sensitive should be protected as such, but he should be able to sell the rest to a developer instead of having them sprawl into the white belt. Given his farm’s proximity to the highway, transit and servicing, it would be a better use of the land than farming, he argued.

Doner knows it’s not a popular position to take, but he believes farmers shouldn’t have to bear the brunt of bad planning and poor policy.

“We don’t want to be here. And frankly, people don’t want us to be here,” said Doner. “It seems like at this point, we are just waiting to see who will be the last farmer left.”