Ontario farmers raise concerns of dwindling farmland at rural expo

Oct 02, 2024

Several Ontario farmers raised concerns on Tuesday about dwindling farmland across the province as politicians of all stripes gather at an annual rural and agricultural expo.

Ontario politicians descended upon Lindsay, Ont., as part of their yearly pilgrimage to the International Plowing Match.

Several farmers from the Waterloo region said they are concerned with a massive land assembly of prime farmland in the area that is cloaked in non-disclosure agreements and threats of expropriation.

The Region of Waterloo has said it is trying to assemble a supersite in an effort to lure a massive manufacturing plant. The province is funding the land assembly, but has said they do not have any companies lined up for the site.

Alfred Lowrick, who lives next to the target site, said the entire process has shown a lack of respect to farmers, in addition to the threat of losing 770 acres of prime farmland in southwestern Ontario.

"We don't understand why all of a sudden it came out of the blue," said Lowrick, a spokesperson for the grassroots group, Fight for Farmland.

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Video: Understanding the Basics of the Renewable Fuel Standard

On Friday, April 24, 2026, from 12 noon–1:00 ET, the Penn State Center for Agricultural and Shale Law, alongside the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture’s (PDA) Agricultural Business Development Center (ABDC), presented this webinar in the Understanding Agricultural Law Educational Series, a course designed to develop subject matter literacy and competence on fundamental issues of agricultural law for attorneys and business advisors who work with or represent agricultural or rural clients but may not necessarily specialize in agricultural law:

“Understanding the Basics of the Renewable Fuel Standard”

The Clean Air Act’s Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program requires transportation fuel sold in the United States to contain a minimum volume of renewable fuels such as ethanol, biodiesel, or advanced biofuels. Established by the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and later expanded by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, the RFS is implemented by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in collaboration with the Department of Energy and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

This webinar provides an overview of the legal authority and structure for the RFS program and explain how it works, including the program’s system of Renewable Identification Numbers (RINs) and categories of renewable fuels. Additionally, this webinar addresses EPA annual volume requirement rulemaking and associated recent legal issues.