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20 THE RURAL VOICE
predominant way to get around and
the air quality in Vancouver has
improved in the last 10 years despite
a near doubling of the population,"
he said.
Farmland preservation and the high
urban densities are also being
adopted in some U.S. regions.
However, rather than a legislated
mandate, an incentives -based
approach is being taken.
Tom Daniels, with the
University of Pennsylvania,
said nearly a billion acres in
the U.S. has been protected with
Purchased Development Rights
(PDRs). These are often used at the
state level and municipal level in the
U.S. northeast. There's a broad
range of incentives, including grants
and tax breaks, attached to the PDRs.
"If we're able to create large
contiguous blocks of preserved
farmland, what this does is create
stability for members of the farming
community," Daniels said.
Bob Wagner, with the American
Farmland Trust organization,
believes there needs to be incentives
attached to make farmland
preservation work, especially in the
northeast where few USDA subsidy
dollars are spent.
There can be benefits for both
farmers and city dwellers with the
approach.
In the Catskills region of New
York State, for example, farmers are
being paid by New York City to
adopt practices that protect
groundwater resources the city draws
upon; Wagner said. It's a far more
economical approach as compared to
the cost of building additional water
treatment facilities.
Farmers in other areas are
encouraged to expand or diversify
their operations and often develop
direct -to -consumer sales, Wagner
said. Knowing that their property will
remain as farmland helps.
In Quebec, there is a trend to
"mixed usage" in some jurisdictions,
according to Christopher Bryant of
the University of Montreal. "Multi-
functionality is one of the biggest
ways to protect agricultural land," he
said.
On land that has been protected
from urban development, farmers at
Laval and St. Hillaire have been able
to incorporate tourism and 'direct
sales into their operations, Bryant
said.
Farmland preservation measures
are even being pursued in Alberta,
along the Highway 2 corridor
between Calgary and Edmonton, the
most highly populated area of the
province. Lori Enns with Alberta
Agriculture and Candace Vanin, with
Agriculture and Agri -Food Canada,
described Alberta's Information
Management Framework for
Agriculture Regions (AIMFAR). The
program seeks to balance the needs
of agriculture with other players,
including the forestry and oil
industries and urban centres, through
informed land -use planning.
In Ontario, farmland preservation is
led by the municipalities in the more
rural areas. Gary Davidson, a planner
with Ontario
Smart Growth,
said rural
severances are
limited while
residential,
commercial and
industrial
development is
encouraged in
towns and villages
Ron Bonnett: where it's felt to
agriculture be more
intrastructure must appropriate.
remain intact. "A lot of the
counties, espec-
ially in Southwestern Ontario, have
been protecting farmland and
protecting it well for the past 25
years," Davidson said.
A more prescriptive approach to
farmland preservation was introduced
by Bob Rae's NDP government in
the mid-1990s, according to Paul
Klopp, a Huron farmer and former
MP who attended the conference.
The program began with the Niagara
Region but there were plans to
extend it across the province.
It was cancelled, retroactively,
when the Mike Harris Conservatives
came to power, Klopp said.
A more recent approach to
farmland preservation has been the
establishment of farmland trusts. The
Ontario Farmland Trust, established
as a province -wide body, was only
formally established on June 28. A
15 -member board was named during
the Guelph Conference.
The volunteer organization was