Fragmented ag lands

Sharon McLeay
Times Contributor

 

As new housing developments pop up across former farm land, there is a perception that urban sprawl is overtaking valuable crop land.
Jason Cathcart, from Alberta Agricultural and Forestry, is looking for municipality input to determine the facts on conversion and fragmentation of farmland.
“Conversion is thought to be a precursor to fragmentation,” said Cathcart. “This is not a new issue.”
He filled in Wheatland Council about the history of past measures, like guidelines in the Municipal Governance Act given for land use bylaws, taken to address public concerns on the preservation of agricultural resources. He said studies have not been updated since 2009 and the government is attempting to gather new information.
“With this process, we are trying to bring balance to perceptions,” said Cathcart. “Sound data leads to sound policy.”
He said the government is asking for input from 72 municipalities across the province because they realize that local input gives quality data.
“People who work and live in these areas can better answer these questions,” said Cathcart.
The government has begun surveys and audiences gave feedback about their concerns. They found urban respondents were concerned about fragmented landscapes and rural respondents were concerned about fragmentation leading to inefficient agricultural production. The older farm respondents did not want to see government interventions and worried about impacts to their retirement options, with the limitations placed on subdivision criteria. Younger farm owners commented on how speculative land purchases led to overpricing or devaluation of farm land.
Other concerns noted were about the effects climate change will have on agriculture, ensuring food security and creating incentive to keep land in agricultural production.
Alberta agriculture has over 50 million acres producing agricultural commodities, with 35 per cent of those products exported to other countries. It generates $9.7 billion dollars in income. So preserving this valuable resource and addressing its issues is important.
Cathcart said they looked at various data sources to generate accurate data bases and settled on the Alberta land title system as the best to provide statistics. He said interpretation of the figures is in the early stages and some parts of the process are being refined. Cathcart agreed that there are still some grey areas to work out.
Land deemed to be in Ag production are pieces between 10 and 240 acres. Once the parcels are divided to less than 10 acres they are thought to be out of agricultural use. This doesn’t include anomalies of specialty food production, land reserves, property owned by the department of defence, road allowances, water bodies or grazing lands.
Preliminary data suggests that the annexation of property by urban centres is a major factor leading to decreased farmland. From 1996 to 2009, there were 200,000 acres taken out of production. The corridor between Calgary and Edmonton was the heaviest hit, with spikes in population growth comparing to fragmentation.
An offset to the decrease was the increase of productive land in northern Alberta, with the sale of approximately 27,000 acres of public lands to private owners.
Wheatland County saw a spike in fragmentation from 2011 to 2013, but currently shows less than .06 per cent fragmentation. The current land-use bylaw guidelines have encouraged subdivision development around towns and villages and encourage the preservation of agricultural lands.
Cathcart hopes that municipalities will work with the government to refine and develop the data, so it can be used as a valuable tool in decision-making processes at all levels of government, thus preserving agricultural resources in the province for the future.