For the first time, all of Ontario’s major farm organizations, representing some 52,000 farms and 78,000 farmers, have come together to urge the province to to stop urban sprawl and protect farming in the Greater Golden Horseshoe (GGH).
OFA President Keith Currie says the province needs to impose real boundaries on urban expansion not more restrictions on farming.
The OFA is joined by fifteen other agriculture organizations including the Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario (CCFO), National Farmers Union-Ontario, and the Golden Horseshoe Food & Farming Alliance.
The agriculture groups say that the province’s recently proposed changes to the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe and Greenbelt Plan fail to protect the majority of farmers and farmlands in the region from ongoing and poorly-planned urban sprawl.
An area of prime farmland 1.5 times the size of the City of Toronto is in the process of being converted residential and retail.
The Greater Golden Horseshoe is home to one of North America’s largest agricultural and agri-food industry clusters.
