By MPP Bobbi Ann Brady
Throughout my 26-year career in government, this time of year has always been affectionately known as farm meeting season. It’s when coffee shops, community halls, and banquet rooms across rural Ontario fill with producers and farm leaders, coming together to reflect on the year behind us, compare notes on current market pressures, and look ahead to what the next season may bring. These meetings are more than a tradition—they are where the real conversations about the future of agriculture begin.
At many of these meetings, I’ve been asked to speak about Bill 21, the Protect Our Food Act—or as you may also hear it called, the Foodbelt Bill. My colleague, MPP Mike Schreiner, and I have grown tired of watching the province fly blind when it comes to our most important resource: our most productive farmland. At a time of global uncertainty and mounting pressure on agricultural land, we believe Ontario needs a clearer picture, a stronger plan, and a firm commitment to protecting the land that feeds us.
On Thursday evening, it felt particularly apropos to highlight this need before a large crowd gathered for the 85th annual meeting of the Norfolk Soil and Crop Improvement Association—an organization dedicated to the responsible economic management of soil, water, air, and crops through innovative farming practices. Their work is a living reminder that stewardship and productivity are not competing values, but complementary ones.
There is much talk about ‘protecting our borders’ or ‘securing our economy.’ We look at the stock market, the tech sector, and the housing market. But we rarely look down. In Canada, we don’t just live on our land; we live off it. Yet, we treat our most vital resource—our soil—like it’s just ‘dirt.’ It’s time we start treating it like the national treasure it is.
I’ve been accused of being dramatic on this subject; however, a massive, two-year investigation by the Senate of Canada, titled Critical Ground, is the most comprehensive look at our land in a generation and is proof I am far from dramatic. Led by The Honourable Robert Black, the committee spoke to over 150 witnesses—farmers, scientists, and Indigenous leaders—to map out exactly how much trouble we are in, and more importantly, how we can fix it.
The last time Canada did a deep dive into soil health was 1984—forty-two years ago. That report warned us that we were ‘mining’ our soil rather than managing it. The Senate Committee concluded that not only were policymakers ignoring those warnings, but they also realized the situation was growing significantly worse. Critical Ground is essentially a ‘code red’ for the Canadian landscape.
Canadian agriculture isn’t a hobby, rather a $140 billion powerhouse with an engine running on low battery. Healthy soil is a natural capital asset. When soil is healthy, it holds water like a sponge and feeds plants naturally. When it’s degraded, farmers must spend billions on fertilizers just to break even. We are in actuality forcing our farmers to buy back the nutrients that healthy soil used to give us for free. In 2022, Canadian agricultural exports totalled nearly $93 billion, all of which came from the top few inches of our land.
When we pave over our Class 1 farmland or let it erode into the waters, we are losing the pharmacy and the grocery store of the future, we are losing our best defence against natural disaster, and we are jeopardizing the future of our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
We are currently paving over our best Class 1 farmland at an unsustainable rate and unfortunately, it takes centuries to build an inch of topsoil, but only one bulldozer to destroy it forever.
Next week we will dive into how Ontario could set the bar and become a leader in Canada when it comes to protecting and preserving our best land and ensuring food security for the future. Continue to follow along!
Bobbi Ann Brady is the MPP for Haldimand-Norfolk