Growing Concern over Loss of Canada’s Best Farmland

“The way farmland is managed in British Columbia and across Canada is being put under the microscope in a three-year study that will involve nine researchers from six different universities,” writes Mark Hume.

“The biggest cities in Canada are where the best farmland is, said David Connell, an associate professor of environmental planning at the University of Northern British Columbia in Prince George, and that has led to constant and increasing pressure to develop agricultural land for golf courses, condominiums and shopping malls…”

Over the past four decades nearly 12,000 square kilometers of prime agricultural lands have been lost, much of this in Southern Ontario where ongoing urban expansion continues to threaten some of the country's most productive farmlands.