Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Tradingpost" <tradingpost@gilanet.com>]

Corner Post #369

Farm & Countryside Commentary by Elbert van Donkersgoed

 

Late last year, two bulky reports about watershed-based source protection
planning were posted for comment on the website of the Environmental Bill
of
Rights Registry. The Technical Experts Committee has 128 recommendations.
The Implementation Committee made 133. Together, they propose a detailed
process for drinking water source protection.

 

I found it helpful to be part of a Roundtable for farm leaders sponsored by
the Ontario Ministry of Environment last week. I can now discuss with some
confidence this new planning scheme: Source Protection Boards, Source
Protection Committees, watershed characterization, threat identification,
the assessment report and finally the Source Protection Plan and its
implementation by local authorities.

 

It was also helpful to hear MOE staff confirm that the core principles of
this new planning process are all about: collaboration, partnerships,
public
participation, transparency, sustainability, integration, cost
effectiveness
fairness and results-based.

 

 

Our discussion quickly zeroed in on Farm Water Protection Plans. How can
they be coordinated effectively with voluntary Environmental Farm Plans -
27,000 done to date - and mandatory nutrient management plans currently
being phased in? Are farmers going to complete three different plans? MOE
staff heard a resounding message that three different plans is not an
option, especially if this new process is rooted in a prescriptive
regulatory approach rather than the self-help culture of the our
countryside.

 

Just last week, the Provincial Council of the Christian Farmers Federation
adopted a policy that proposes a complete redesign of the regulations that
encourage agricultural stewardship. CFFO has concluded that prescriptive
rules for the business of farming is the opposite of collaboration,
partnerships and sustainability. We need practical, affordable and
meaningful rules.

 

To that end CFFO is proposing a stewardship framework for
agricultural-environmental regulations with five major features:

1.  Do more with land use planning. Encourage municipal bylaws that help
farm developments physically fit the local environment and community. That
way, fewer rules about the management of farms will be needed.

2.  Repeal the Nutrient Management Act and replace it with an
Agricultural-Environmental Standards of Operation Act and use it to create
a
few province-wide standards.

3.  Establish one environmental risk and opportunity assessment that is
comprehensive by including off-farm factors such as: quality of water in
streams and proximity to recharge areas.

4.  Encourage all farmers to develop action plans for specific reductions
in
risks through physical or management changes. All such plans should be
cost-shared by the public.

5.  Establish whole-farm annual environmental payments for the ecological
services that farmers deliver in addition to an abundance of food.

 

A complete change in approach is necessary to avoid a clash between the
prescriptive regulatory approach and the self-help countryside.

__________

CFFO's complete policy statement on a Stewardship Framework for
Agricultural-Environmental Regulations can be found at: 

The final report of the Technical Experts Committee on Science based
decision making for protecting Ontario's drinking water resources: a
threats
assessment framework is located at
www.ene.gov.on.ca/envregistry/024326ex.htm.

 

The final report of the Implementation Committee on Source Water Protection
is located at www.ene.gov.on.ca/envregistry/024324ex.htm.

 

Elbert van Donkersgoed P. Ag. (Hon.) is the Strategic Policy Advisor of the
Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario, Canada. Corner Post is heard
weekly
on CFCO Radio, Chatham and CKNX Radio, Wingham, Ontario. Corner Post has an
email subscriber list of more than 3,500 and appears regularly on
Agriculture Online/Views at www.agriculture.com/ag/views/ and as "Letter
from Ontario" on The New Farm website at www.newfarm.org. CFFO is supported
by 4,300 family farmers across Ontario. Corner Post is archived on the CFFO
website:
www.christianfarmers.org/sub_news_commentaries/sub2_news_com_corner_post/new

s_com_corner_post.htm.

 

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