Farming is big business in this region and the Wellington County Federation of Agriculture (WFA) is asking municipalities to help it continue growing.
Federation representatives Melisa Luymes and John Hollen attended the July 12 Mapleton council meeting to update council on federation concerns and provide an overview of local agriculture.
“There’s big business on your back concessions,” states a fact sheet proved to councillors at the meeting.
“Farming and the local businesses directly supporting agriculture have always been a significant and constant contributor to the rural economy of Ontario. Rural municipalities have a big role to play in nurturing agricultural growth.”
The federation also provided a checklist of ways for municipalities to support local agricultural growth through land use planning, assessment and taxation policies, and support for regional food planning.
The delegation explained that farming has a major impact on the local economy.
“Farmers have to spend money to make money,” said Luymes, noting dairy farmers spend over $5,000 per year per cow, much of it locally, while corn producers spend more than $500 per acre.
The WFA points out that farmers are owners and stewards of 78.5 per cent of the total land area of the county and farm cash receipts for primary commodities in the county totalled more than $700 million in 2013.
Dairy farms in the county accounted for the largest share of that, at $162 million, with cattle and calf (beef) operations generating $122 million, poultry $108 million, hogs $88.8 million, soybeans $52.4 million, corn $46.5 million, eggs, $40.9 million and wheat $22.5 million.
Census data from 2011 shows Wellington County has 393 diary farms, 9% of the total province wide.
There are 423 beef cattle operations (6% of the Ontario total), 120 pork producers (9.7%) and 166 poultry and egg producers (10.3%).
“That’s a really high percentage, especially of the supply-managed commodities,” noted Luymes.
Minto presentation
A similar presentation was made to Minto town council at its July 19 meeting by local WFA director Charles Weber and federation past president Gord Flewwelling.
Weber noted just under half of Wellington County’s farmers generate more than $100,000 in revenue.
“Which certainly tells us that we have a fair number of large farming operations in Wellington County,” Weber said.
“That also tells us that we have 50% that are small farmers that are generating less than $100,000, that are part-time farmers who could be niche market farmers, whatever.
“So when you’re looking at planning and development you’ve got that large farmer, which sometimes we tend to focus on, but we also have that small farmer. So we are a very diverse industry within Wellington County and, again, when we’re planning, we have to take everything into consideration.”
Weber stressed municipalities play a key role in maintaining the strength of the agriculture industry, in part through regulation of land use planning.
“That 78.5 per cent (of county land in agriculture) that sounds pretty good … I think that’s sufficient, but the thing I get from that is where do we set the goal?” Weber asked.
“Where should we be 30 years from now? And I think that’s something that we all need to keep in mind – that we don’t get too far away from 78.5 per cent, and how do we do that?”
