LETTER FROM ONTARIO
Living the rural life
Today it takes 100 acres just to make a “contribution to family income”

Farm & Countryside Commentary by Elbert van Donkersgoed

January 19, 2005: New technology and farm management practices have resulted in many farm properties, especially the typical 100-acre farm, no longer providing a family income from the business of farming. We’ve observed the pattern for decades. Average farm size in Ontario has grown to well over 200 acres, with a lot of farmers renting additional acreage. Most farmers are part of the refinancing and modernizing that has reduced the significance of land to the countryside economy. Farmers are adjusting to a new reality: in a high-tech and information economy, land is less and less the determining factor in the viability of a farm business.

Farmers are adjusting. Is our countryside?

Yes, in some respects. Take the most obvious accommodation--the farm community’s successful argument that farmland should not be burdened with the same level of property taxes encumbering houses, industries and commercial establishments. That program, which began as a rebate to municipalities of a portion of the taxes levied on farmland, is now enshrined as a property class with a taxation level at 25% of the residential rate.

Not adequately, in other respects. Moderating the tax burden on farmland-–while significant does not deal with the biggest problem caused by the declining importance of land to farming. Half a century ago, most 100-acre farms generated enough economic activity to support a family – often a family with several more children than then average-size family of today. Now it takes 200, 300, 500 and in some commodities--if the farming activity is limited to producing bulk undifferentiated commodities--1000s of acres to support one family.

We face a bigger dilemma--our land is not producing enough economic activity to maintain a strong countryside economy. We have passively accommodated the declining economic importance of the countryside rather than actively revitalizing economic activity on our land.

Stimulating the countryside economy has been a frequent point of discussion in the think tank sessions the Christian Farmers Federation organizes for its members. Support has emerged for some significant changes:

1. The definition of agriculture must be broadened well beyond primary production to include all the value-adding activities that innovative farmers can create: storage, packing, sorting, treating, processing, marketing, or selling.
2. Permitted uses on a farm property must include a full range of economic activities, both industrial and commercial, as long as they are small scale.

The goal is simple: allow enough economic activity on a countryside property to support a family. We know that agriculture has slipped to a “contribution to family income” for more than half of Ontario’s farming families. It is time to encourage a much broader range of economic activities on our farm properties to revitalize our countryside economy.

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