Needed: A New Vision for Rural Development

["Elbert van Donkersgoed" <evd@christianfarmers.org>]

Corner Post
Farm & Rural Commentary by Elbert van Donkersgoed
December 29, 2000

Throughout the 20th century the business side of the family farm became
bigger, more formal, more important. Harvested pastoral landscapes became
production agriculture facilities. This pattern cannot hold.

The historic doubling of production from our farms every 20 years is not the
only pattern of change in the countryside. Each year, 40,000 new residents
move into rural and small-town Ontario. Agriculture's freedom to adopt new
technology, to expand, to capture economies of scale, to retool for the
export market is now constrained by the urban shadows cast by its many
non-production neighbours. Your freedom ends where my toes begin!

Minimum Distance Separation formulas have kept a semblance of order in this
scattered approach to rural development. Their stated purpose: to keep
incompatible uses a reasonable distance apart.

In many rural communities it's still possible to expand and maintain a
reasonable distance between incompatible uses if the family farm is growing
from 120 sows to 250 or from 80 cows to 140. But the opportunities for yet
bigger are fading fast.

For four decades Ontario has allowed incompatible uses to mix it up in the
countryside - with some buffering distance between them. But our barns have
doubled in size and could do so again, given today's technology. All the
impacts from these expanded production facilities cannot be managed by
reasonable distance rules.

Municipalities are adopting new tools to protect the interests of production
agriculture's neighbours.
* One municipality has capped barns at 600 livestock units.
* Another has restricted density of 1.5 livestock units per acre.
* A dozen municipalities have enacted interim control bylaws stopping all
expansion beyond 50 livestock units until a permanent bylaw will manage
production livestock operations.
* Fifty plus municipalities have adopted Nutrient Management Planning bylaws
that require a detailed, public and third party reviewed nutrient management
plan with any building permit application for a large livestock facility.

Ontario's family farmers are about to hit a ceiling for the size of their
farms, particularly for livestock production. The bigger our farms become,
the more our rural municipalities experience a demand to manage their impact
on neighbours. My freedom ends where your toes begin!

Ontario agriculture must turn away from the big technology, megabarn model
of U.S. livestock production. It is the only way to maintain a working
relationship with our increasing number of non-production neighbours? It
won't be easy. If we do not adopt the latest, biggest technology, how will
we maintain our competitiveness in the North American marketplace?

That is the challenge that a new vision for rural development must define in
this new millennium. The present pattern won't hold.
_________
Elbert van Donkersgoed is the Strategic Policy Advisor of the Christian
Farmers Federation of Ontario, Canada. Corner Post can be heard weekly on
CFCO Radio, Chatham and CKNX Radio, Wingham, Ontario. Copyright 2000 Terra
Coeur. Send requests to print, post on a website or circulate electronically
to elbert@terracoeur.com. Corner Post is archived on the website of the
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