Besides volume of acreage, what does Canada lose in agricultural production?
By Andrew Joseph, Farms.com; Photo by Jan Vernarec on Unsplash
Per the Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA), it said that data presented in the 2016 Census of Agriculture from Statistics Canada, Ontario is losing an average of 175 acres of farmland to urban development every day. But what does it really mean?
In terms of actual area, the OFA noted that it’s about the size of 32 city blocks, 135 football fields, 437 hockey rinks or 2,635 tennis courts.
But, as the OFA so poignantly stated, it is so much more.
“175 acres is more than an area, more than a number,” said Peggy Brekveld, President of the OFA. “This is the land where we grow the food we eat, fibres for the clothes we wear, sources for fuel to power our vehicles and flowers to enjoy and brighten our days.”
To break it down into agricultural terms, Ontario farmers can grow quite a lot on 175 acres—and remember, we are losing 175 acres a day.
On 175 acres, we can grow:
- Grape growers typically yield about 2.64 tonnes of grapes per acre or about 349,272 bottles of Ontario VQA wine.
- The average yield of winter wheat in Ontario in 2020 was 83 bushels per acre; over 175 acres, that is the equivalent of 653,625 boxes of bran cereal.
- More than 9 million apples can be plucked from a 175-acre orchard. That is enough for 3.2 million glasses of pure apple juice.
- It will yield enough fresh strawberries (more than 1.2 million pounds) to make 611,800 jars of strawberry jam.
- You can grow 3 million pounds of carrots on 175 acres, which is enough to make 2.6 carrot cakes for every family in Ontario.
- You can have quite the game night watching your favourite team, with enough cheddar cheese for 1.3 million servings of nachos, 273,000 chicken wings and 1 million quarter-pound cheeseburgers.
- More than 532,400 turkey dinners—enough to provide a turkey dinner to 133,000 families of four over the holidays.
- Enough eggplant to make more than 7 million servings of baba ganoush.
- More than 58,000 packages of bacon, the equivalent of providing 4,800 households a package of bacon every month for a year.
How did OFA calculate the 175 acres per day statistic? Between the 2011 Census of Agriculture and its 2016 edition, Ontario lost 320,000 acres of productive farmland; average that over the number of days between those two surveys, and it works out to 175 acres per day.
Go all the way back to the 1996 Census of Agriculture, and Ontario has lost 1.5 million acres of farmland—or more than 200 acres per day.
“Whichever way you look at, it is an unsustainable hit to one of our most valuable, and finite, natural resources,” stated Brekveld. “Domestic food production is vitally important to our communities. It ensures we can support ourselves no matter what is happening beyond our borders. Plus, it is fresh, healthy and affordable.”
The 2021 edition of the Census of Agriculture will be released later this Spring.
Will the rate of farmland acreage lost increase or will it actually go down? The Ontario and other provinces have made inroads—perhaps a poor choice of word—into preventing urban sprawl from eliminating farmland, so there is reason for optimism.
Of course, farmland will continue to be eradicated by urban buildup until it reaches those imposed barriers, so for the foreseeable future, we will continue to see farmland being destroyed but with the caveat—we hope—that the 175 acres per day rate will be greatly lowered.
Based in Guelph, the OFA is the largest general farm organization in Ontario, representing 38,000 farm families across the province. It to represent and champion the interests of Ontario farmers through government relations, farm policy recommendations, research, lobby efforts, community representation, media relations and more. OFA is the leading advocate for Ontario’s farmers and is Ontario’s voice of the farmer. For more information, visit https://ofa.on.ca/.
The OFA also has a public awareness initiative, Home Grown, a campaign to advocate for the importance of Ontario farms as a source of food, fuel and fibre. It seeks to help develop a workable plan to guide responsible development in Ontario, ensuring growth to provide housing and support local tax bases while also protecting productive farmland. For more information, visit https://homegrown.ofa.on.ca/.