Ontario farmers raise concerns of dwindling farmland at rural expo

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.

Lowrick's mother-in-law lives inside the area the region is targeting and is being pressured to sell, he said.

About two dozen farmers from Wilmot, Ont., within the Waterloo region, drove three hours to display their displeasure and silently held up protest signs when Premier Doug Ford spoke at the opening ceremonies.

"Fight for Farmland, say no to expropriation," the signs read.

Economic Development Minister Vic Fedeli has said the province is against expropriation.

Ford said he loves farmers and his party won "every single farming community" in the province in the last election.

"I just want the region to treat them fairly," Ford said of the Wilmot farmers.

Kevin Ferguson came down to the event from his farm south of Ottawa. He believes Ford's Progressive Conservative government is doing a good job, generally.

"There's a lot of common sense moves that we like," he said.

But Ferguson believes the government has one big problem.

"The biggest concern coming from a farm background is losing good farmland to build when they could have other choices," he said. "It needs to stop."

Catherine Fife, a New Democrat who represents the riding of Waterloo, said the province can show they care about farmers by not funding the land assembly in her region.

"There has been not one public meeting, not one fiscal report to to the general public, and now there's just a finger pointing exercise between the regional government and the PC government, whereby they're blaming each other," Fife said.

"But at the end of the day, it is Doug Ford who is funding it, and so he is driving this whole process."

She said the secrecy behind the project is "flat-out undemocratic."

Ontario Liberal Party Leader Bonnie Crombie said she opposes the land assembly in Wilmot.

"There are other options," she said of where a large industrial site should go.

Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner, who grew up on a farm in Kansas, said farmers are telling him all the time that prime farmland needs to be protected.

"We can't pave over the land that contributes $50 billion to our economy, employs over 871,000 people, and feeds our communities," Schreiner said.

"We can build homes, develop things for industry, but not on prime farmland."

Political party leaders later hopped on tractors in an effort to plow straight furrows during the annual expo.

Ford received a cool reception at the event last year after the explosion of the Greenbelt land-opening scandal, a move farmers opposed because it would have meant developing prime agricultural land. Ford ultimately reversed his decision and returned parcels of land to the Greenbelt, but the RCMP are conducting an investigation.