Have you asked yourself these questions lately or ever?
1. Do I eat food?
2. Do I know or care where my food comes from?
Well what if I told you that in the next 15 years 84 000 workers in this industry are expected to retire without being replace in Canada? Can anyone guess what industry I am talking about?
Family farmers and all the jobs that stem from them.
What is this going to do to our economy and the face of our rural community?
Being a nutritionist and a farmer’s daughter and a lover of our country this is a great concern for me. I want to talk to you about the importance in saving our family farms, the importance of farmland and buying local foods. One the greatest concerns for family farmers is how hard it is for young farmers to either get into farming and or making any money to make it worthwhile. So let’s dig a little deeper into this topic and go past the obvious environmental impact and the impact on the quality of our food supply and look into what this means for the rural way of life…shall we?
See I know the true meaning of tits up, and that is a great metaphor for what is happening to our honest hard working and aging family farmers. Raising costs for running the farm and lower market prices to sell their products, who wants to work for free and why would you want to pass that down to your children? You may still be wondering what the true meaning of tits up is, now that I may of offended a few of you. I grew up a farm, cattle/calf, poultry, cash crop and cats (just a lot of cats no we did not eat them only loved them) farm. I remember hearing this phase first from my grandma (the funniest lady ever), when cows got old and sick sometimes they would bloat up and die ( I know I know stay with me) and they will fall down on to their backs and now they are dead and tits up. It is not nice to see, especially after you have named all the animals. But do we want to see our farmers and farmland to go tits up. Do you want to see some of the best farmland in the country be lost to urban sprawl, lose sustainable farming and lose the option to buy local. Family farms help employ a huge work force, far more then the huge corporate farms. Yes farming is a business but it is a great way of life that should never be lost in this great country of ours.
- “Only 0.5 percent of all of Canada's land is considered class 1 farmland (according to the Canada Land Inventory), which means it has no significant limitations for farming and has the highest productivity for a variety of crops. More than half of this land is found in Ontario.
- Despite its obvious importance, Ontario is loosing its agricultural land base at a rapid rate as many farms go out of production every year.
- Urban sprawl and rural non-farm development are contributing to the annual loss of thousands of acres of farmland.
- The demand for flat, cleared, agricultural land is also very affordable to developers who want to accommodate urban growth.
- Most times its more financially profitable in the long term for a farmer to sell his or her land knowing that it may be converted to some non-agricultural land use, than to continue farming.
- · In the (GTA) alone, more than 2,000 farms and 150,000 acres of farmland were lost to production in the two decades between 1976 and 1996.
- This represented approximately 18% of Ontario's Class 1 farmland.
- We know that the amount of farmland in the GTA decreased by at least 50,000 acres between 1996 and 2001 and that Ontario lost at least 600,000 acres of farmland between 1996 and 2006.
- It can take thousands of years to produce one centimeter of the topsoil needed for agricultural production. For this reason, Ontario's farmland should be seen as a limited natural resource, to be managed and protected.” (ontariofarmlandtrust.ca)
Personally as a child growing up in the country and on the farm and even going home to see my parents now, these are my personal reasons why the rural community should be saved and corporate farms should not out number family farms….
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Being 14 and helping a cow give birth, feeding the cows before opening Christmas gifts. Lying in the middle of the lawn naming the stars, waking up at dawn to say good morning to the new calf, hearing the coyotes when you come out of the cattle barn and being able to run faster the Ben Johnson to the house, learning to parrell park between the hay bail and a tractor, learning to downhill ski in the field on cross country skis, learning responsibility of animals and your property, be coming a proud parent to 25000 chickens and one named Albert the runt, 30 cows; 30 calves, one bull named Alaska and million barn cats and learning the value of hard work.
- Preserving farmland helps ensure a continued supply of locally grown
- Direct-to-consumer markets include pick-your-own operations, roadside stands, farmer's markets, direct farm markets and community supported agriculture.
- 92% identify sustainability as an issue
- 79% of Central Ontarian's prefer to buy locally grown food
- 91% would buy more local food if it was made more convenient
- 55% seek out and buy local food at least once a week
- 54% always check labels to see where their food comes from
- The Ontario farm and food processing sector generates over $30 billion in sales - more than 35 percent of Canada's Agri-Food sector gross domestic product - and employs 700,000 people. (http://www.localfoodplus.ca/)
The productivity of Canadian agriculture has soared. W ith technological advances only 3% of Canada's population to feed the remaining 97%, with food left over for export to other parts of the world are helping farmers produce enough to feed more than 11 times as many people today. Compared to the 30’s when one farm fed 11 people.
Farming in Canada is big business. Large farms are as complicated and costly as factories.
To farm these days you need to go the school but some of the knowledge passed down could be lost if the family farms are lost. Did you know my dad only has his high school diploma but he is not only a farmer but a Veterinarian, a Dr, mechanic, and plumber; a builder, teacher, accountant, a meteorologist, nutritionist, forest ranger, scientist, business manager and an engineer. These are invaluable skills that I do not believe can be taught in a school, and family farms require more services and help build a community.
So what can be done because if you are with me; we will not let our valuable farm land, hardworking farmers and our freedom to get fresh local food go tits up.
You can become a farmer
Join clubs
Donate money
Protest or lobby to save our farms
Call your local MP’s and make them work for you
Volunteeron a farm
Teach our children about farming
Or at the very least BUY LOCAL!
Last summer I went on a Field Trip (http://www.fieldtriptoronto.ca) to local organic farms, it is ran by two women that graduated from The Institution of Holistic Nutrition. I was provided with a lot of great information. It teaches city folks about farming and learning where your food comes from. There are also many programs set up to help establish new farmers like Farmlink and Agricultural Gifts Programs.
But there is light at the end of this tunnel, I truly believe that the faces of family farms are changing but for the better. More organic farms will start up, proving healthier, local choices for the consumer. We must not ignore this soon to be reality, the rural landscape is not only important for our environment but for our well being. We never want to have to rely on other countries to feed us, we want to have good jobs all over the country not just in Urban centers, we always want the option to buy local. As a nutritionist I do not want to mask the problem and hope someone else fixes it but I want to get to the root of the problem. If we can help save farmland, know the farmers and have them farm what we demand won’t this be a happier place because no one wants the rural community to go tits up.