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The Rural Voice, 1980-05, Page 26Rural News in Brief Farmers share hydro decisions Ontario Hydro has finally been put in its place by the recommendations of the Porter Royal Commission on Electric Power Planning, according to spokesmen for the farm community. "For more than six years we've been saying that Ontario Hydro planning and decision-making is lousy". said Lloyd Moore, Chairman of the Food Land Steering Committee. "Food land has been ignored and big mistakes have been made. But now we have been vindicated." Porter has recommended a joint plan- ning process and that real decision-making authority should be shared with farmers. The Food Land Steering Committee is an umbrella group for seven farm organi- zations including the Ontario Institute of Agrologists, the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, the National Farmers Union, and the Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario. "It's a break -through for us," said Elbert van Donkersgoed, Secretary - Treasurer of the Committee, and the Committee's representative at many of Porter's hearings throughout the 5 years of the Royal Commission's life. "Porter has taken a careful look at the decision-making process of the past and found that the concerns for food land and of the farming community have been ignored. The only way to change this is to have joint planning and shared decision-making. The Food Land Steering Committee met near Listowel to review the Porter report the day after it was released. "We've agreed," said Elbert van Donkersgoed, "to seek an early meeting between ourselves, senior Ontario Hydro management and Dr. Porter. Porter recommended that more initiative be left to citizen representatives. "We've decided to take the initiative" said uan Donkersgoed. "We want to work out the details of this joint planning and shared decision-making immediately. No more Ontario Hydro projects should go forward without the new decision-making process being in place:" Farmers were pleased that Porter is predicting a much slower growth in electricity needs than Ontario Hydro's predictions in the past. This confirms the views of farmer spokesmen throughout the hearings that Hydro's forecasts were PG. 24 THE RURAL VOICE/MAY 1980 unrealistic. Spokesman for the Huron Power Plant Committee, also participants in the um- brella group, were pleased with the strong recommendation against another power plant along Lake Huron. Economists complete study on land use Two University of Western Ontario economists have concluded the "rhetoric" about the province's disappearing farmland isn't supported by fact. M.W. Frankena and David Scheffman, who completed a study on Ontario's land -use policy for the Ontario Economic Council, said only one per cent of the province's good farmland has been urbanized in the past decade, while the rate of cropland converted to rural non- farm residential use is even lower. The two economists said when cropland was converted to residential use, it was usually lower -quality farmland. The men also disputed claims made in the last election that the province is losing 26 acres of farmland an hour. The economists said that figure, in fact, relates to a decrease in improved acreage, but doesn't take into account the fact agricultural production has increased drastically trom 1951-1976. When the economists started their study, they hadn't planned to focus on rural and agriculture land use, but felt they had to sort out a number of studies done on the subject. They concluded that provincial guidelines advocating the preservation of all prime farmland and ill : channelling of urban developmr nt. .nto poorer farming areas is "naive". The economists said common sense and economic analysis aren't being used to determine whether society's needs are better served by farming a pie •e of land or using it for something else. Mr. Frankena said, for example, if a plot of prime farmland is near a city, and the value of that land for housing or industry exceeds its agricultural worth, then it should -be converted. The study prepared by the economists also said. . " there is a significant discrepancy between what the government claims its policy is and what it has actually done to influence the allocation of land in the province." They found despite provincial re- strictions, there is still a considerable amount of rural non-farm residential development in the province. Proof of this is the situation in the Niagara escarpment, the economists said, where development continues to whittle away at the fruitlands despite a provincial commitment to pre- serve this land. The economists also recommended a change in restrictions on non-farm residential development near working farms. Their study recommends that zoning controls, rather than a flat re- striction on development, be used to separate farm and non-farm land uses. The study also supports a push to give more planning autonomy to municipal councils, which runs counter to many recommendations in the government's White Paper on proposed new planning legislation. The economists concluded that much of the "cataclysmic rhetoric" surrounding the issue of disappearing farmland is unfounded. "If we're only losing one per cent of the land and simultaneously increasing the production of the remaining acres, we're not in bad shape," M.W. Frankena said. Nuclear plant layoffs affect farmers Mary Schwass, a rural sociologist, recently predicted bankruptcies and community breakdown will result when 5,000 men are laid off at the Bruce nuclear plant when construction ends in 1985. Mrs. Schwass told the Ontario Institute of Agrologists' annual meeting that the farm population in the area may face severe financial hardship since many farmers took work in construction or other related activities at the plant. She said a Bruce farmer's average income from farm work has dropped since 1969 from $3,000 per year to $2,800, but the general standard of living has gone up, and the sociologist is concerned about the consequences when construction ends. The sociologist said the effects of booming employment however, weren't all bad. Many sons were able to buy out their father's farms for example, without borrowing as much capital. Also, many installed modern equipment and built new barns and storage sheds with income earned off the farm.