The Rural Voice, 1978-10, Page 23Peter Hannam of Guelph, president of
the Ontario federation of Agriculture. said
the biggest problem in land -use planning is
the impact of scattered development along
farm lands.
After an industry or home is built near a
farm, the farmer is limited in how many
farm buildings he may erect, what hours he
may run his machinery and where he may
spread manure.
Hannam said he believes more rural
communities now have official plans which
recognize the preservation of farm land
and "more people are aware of the
problem and concerned about it."
"The loss of farm land appears to have
slowed but who knows really what's
happening because of the lack of inform-
ation?"
Determining the amount of farm land in
the province and how fast it is vanishing has
been a source of confusion.
A spokesman for the agriculture ministry
said all kinds of a statistics can be
produced—including different sets for
each of the province's three political
parties.
A researcher for the federation said the
lack of good data is one of the biggest
problems in the debate.
Newman okays joint board
Agriculture Minister Bill Newman
recently announced that he has accepted
the recommendation of the Farm Products
Marketing Board to amalgamate the
OntaricTender Fruit Growers' Marketing
Board and the Ontario Fresh Fruit
Growers' Marketing Board.
The new board will be known as the
Ontario Tender Fruit Producers' Market-
ing Board and will be responsible for
marketing Ontario peaches, pears, plums
and cherries.
Jim Rainforth, secretary -manager of the
Tender Fruit Growers' Marketing Board,
said that the poor turnout of voters (only
ten per cent of eligible voters cast a ballot)
in the opinion poll might be misleading
because of the small proportion of full-time
commercial growers mong the eligible
voters.
Rainforth explained that unlike apple
and tobacco growers, who must cultivate a
certain minimum acreage in order to be
eligible to vote, there are no similar
restrictions for tender fruit growers. For
this reason, it is likely that many of the
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growers who did not vote were either
part-time or diversified growers who have
little interest in the future of the marketing
boards.
Consequently, Rainforth estimated that
50-60 per cent of the actual tender fruit
acreage was represented by the growers
who voted in the recent expression of
opinion poll.
Producers make use of
advance payment act
Producer groups across the country are
taking advantage of the federal govern-
ment's Advance Payments for Crops Act.
The Act. administered by Agriculture
Canada, provides eligible producer groups
with guaranteed interest-free loans to
make advance payments to their members.
The individual producer can then store his
crop instead of selling at harvest time when
returns may be lower than later in the
season.
The program is open to any producer
organization that can show it has the
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THE RURAL VOICE/OCTOBER 1978 PG.23