„ Protecting farmland, not sprawl, is the priority

To the Editor

In John Ibbitson’s

Globe and Mail article “There may be an answer to the housing crisis – Let cities sprawl,” he wrongly assumes that "increased agricultural productivity compensates for land taken out of use for housing."

There is a growing awareness among agriculturalists that as the climate shifts with a subsequent increase in heat waves, droughts, fires, floods and storms, farm yield stability is becoming more precarious. Up to a third of food production is expected to be outside the safe climate space within 60 years.

In the four decades prior to 2007, applications of synthetic fertilizer increased five to seven times, while global food production only doubled. Given increasing economic, energy and GHG costs to manufacture nitrogen fertilizers and the high-risk of continuing to flood our biosphere with nitrate, nitrous oxide and ammonia, humans should not rely on the elixir of N fertilizer to increase agricultural productivity even more.

Furthermore, it is not ecologically nor economically responsible to “let developers flood the market with cheap housing and to lay down the highways – such as the 413 and Bradford Bypass” as Ibbitson proposes.

Prime agricultural land is the most resilient to climatic disruptions and the most dependable for maintaining at least some production under extreme conditions. We need all the prime farmland we can preserve, including in areas surrounding the main urban centres in

Canada.

The Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario states that “defined prime agricultural areas are where development should not occur.” Similarly, “the Ontario Federation of Agriculture believes that the Ontario government should designate all lands in Ontario that are outside of current urban boundaries as Greenbelt.”

According to Ontario Farmland Trust, Ontario loses 175 acres of farmland and productive agricultural soil every day. Stop already! We’re not in the Holocene anymore.