By Kim Cooper
Food for Thought
Our farmers have always been innovative. They have to be. Changing world conditions and rapid advances in technology keep them finding more efficient and effective ways to manage and expand their farming businesses.
Our farmers are great at managing their own operations, but there are a number of areas which are out of their control.
One is the weather, and every year, farmers are subject to conditions which can have a huge impact on the crops they grow.
Another factor is the price. For many commodities, such as soybeans, corn, wheat, and others, crop prices are affected by so many outside influences.
One other factor that worries our farmers, and should worry each one of us, is the rapid loss of farmland due to urban expansion.
There is an ever-increasing demand for land to construct or expand industrial areas, homes, apartments, and infrastructure all across Ontario.
There is only so much land we have. Our farmers can grow many different crops, but they cannot grow more land.
How much farmland are we losing? Latest estimates from government census numbers show Ontario is losing around 319 acres of farmland every single day.
This is roughly 58 city blocks, or 797 hockey rinks, or nine family farms lost every day in our province.
Over the last 50 years, Ontario has lost 20 per cent of its farmland. This loss is unsustainable, and could mean all Ontario farmland could be gone within 100 years if this trend continues.
We don’t know how many acres we are losing every day in Chatham-Kent and Windsor-Essex, but we are losing too much valuable farmland.
Let’s break this down so we can see what we are really losing.
One acre of land is 43,560 square feet, which is just over the size of 2.5 Canadian hockey rinks.
Let’s take one acre of various food crops and products made from those specific crops. I have determined the average crop yield, per acre for each crop, according to government and commodity statistics.
The figure beside each crop shows us just how much food and food products are also disappearing for every acre of farmland we lose.
- Tomato and tomato products – 2,000 pounds
- Potato and potato products – 20,000 pounds
- Cucumbers – 40,000 pounds
- Corn and corn products – 11,000 pounds
- Wheat and wheat products – 7,800 pounds
- Soybeans and soybean products – 3,600 pounds
- Carrots – 37,000 pounds
- Green Peas – 2,500 pounds
- Onions – 38,000 pounds
- Apples – 15,000 pounds
- Peaches – 18,000 pounds
- Strawberries – 10,000 pounds
- Pumpkins – 23,000 pounds
- Brussels sprouts – 14,000 pounds
- Asparagus – 7,000 pounds
- Field Peppers – 30,000 pounds
- Sugar Beets – 70,000 pounds
For every acre of land we lose, this is also how much food is not harvested.
This is how much food does not get processed.
This is how much food does not make it to our retail stores.
This is how much food does not make it to Ontario homes.
This loss of productive farmland should greatly concern each one of us.
Just some food for thought.
Kim Cooper has been involved in the agribusiness sector for more than 45 years. You can reach him at [email protected].
