Farmers across the province, including members of the Kent Federation of Agriculture (KFA), are concerned about the declining amount of usable farmland in Ontario.
According to the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, Ontario sees a loss of 319 acres of arable land a day. It’s based on statistics gleaned out of the 2021 Census of Agriculture.
Brad Snobelen, president of the KFA, said preserving that land for agricultural use is of vital importance.
“Here in Chatham-Kent, we have highly productive natural irrigated soil,” he said. “We have around 70 different commercially viable crops that can be grown. Maintaining agricultural land is very important here. Chatham-Kent can literally feed the world.”
Calling recent advancement of urban sprawl in the municipality “very concerning,” Snobelin urges municipal officials to look elsewhere first when planning home construction.
“The municipality needs to consider a vacant land tax within urban borders. Add a tax to land held by speculators that is not developed,” Snobelin said. “This land has services like roads, power, water and sewer.”
The KFA president believes this would help us grow within our urban borders and slow the urban sprawl.
Ryan Jacques, director of planning services for the municipality, said loss of farmland to urban sprawl is a fact here, but it’s not proceeding at any breakneck pace.
Jacques said figures from the Census of Agriculture taken in 2016 and again in 2021 indicate Chatham-Kent had lost just 81 acres of farmland to residential use over that five-year period.
He said 70 of those acres were located in Chatham, and the remaining 11 were in Blenheim. In both cases, they fell within the planned urban settlement boundaries of each community.
Snobelin is also encouraging the municipality to plan to build up and not out for the future.
Jacques said C-K, in an effort to accommodate a growing local population and employment base over the long term, is initiating a public process this fall that will provide updated public policy to guide urban development to 2048.
All citizens, people with farming interests, and people with development interests will be invited to participate in this decision-making process.
