Greenhouse Initiative Launch: Farming and Farmland!!!
Posted: November 8, 2017
Categories: Food in the News / GoodFoodBites / News from Sustain Ontario
We are now well into the fall season, and Sustain Ontario has some exciting news as some, but not all, garden beds get put to rest for the colder months. With gourds and winter greens to look forward to, we turn our attention back to not only the farmlands in Ontario that support these products’ growth, but also to the increasing number of farmers in the province.
Sustain Ontario is happy to announce that the ‘Farmland and Agriculture’ resources in the Food Initiatives Greenhouse resource sharing library is up here now!
The launch of this initiative stream will host 30 resources: reports, brochures, presentations, strategies, and pamphlets addressing the farming and foodland situation in Ontario. We also want the Sustain Ontario community to contribute there knowledge and wisdom! You can learn how to upload a resource here.
A central theme and point of interest is The Greenbelt Plan, which seeks to protect against the loss of agricultural land in the region, work in partnership of Ontario urban planners, and provide resources for various economic and social opportunities that can be taken on by the rural communities. Many reports examine the Greenbelt Growth Plan, looking at the expansion of the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), and its effects on agricultural land within the Greenbelt region, as well as strategies of curbing and mitigating foreseen effects.
Some examples of the innovative initiatives in place are things like:
- Expanding agriculture into the Northern regions of Ontario to make use of the soils and possibility of not only expanding product diversity, but of reaching a new market while still providing food security and sources for urban regions in the province.
- Diversifying crops to take advantage of a diversifying product demand
- Preserving unharvested agriculture land, and transforming them into food hubs
- Capitalizing on soil carbon sequestration
- Engaging youth
- Bringing education to schools and to the public
Apart from farmland preservation, another big theme across farmland and agriculture, is the growing number of new farmers entering this field of work; many of whom are new to farming (have not grown up farming), or are new members in our society, looking to keep practicing their skills in farming. Here will be presented different forms of sources speaking to this emerging movement in agriculture. News reports of youth heading back to the fields, farm safety workshops, gardening tips, land value surveys, organizational support directed at helping new farmers, and debates surrounding the agriculture internship are just some of the emerging information and resources to be found in the Greenhouse library!
And the Greenhouse is not just limited to the GTA and Ontario regions; internationally we see reports and strategies coming out to deal with the issues concerning farmland and agriculture. Across our nation, different solutions are being implemented, and we can examine them to see the areas where we can learn from each other.
All this and more is located in the Farmland & Agriculture section of Sustain Ontario’s Greenhouse site!