Tackling Transitions: Informing a New Food Systems Planning Strategy for Ontario

Like mentioned up top, there are more farmers over the age of 55 than there are under 35, and there are more farmers leaving the sector than are joining it (McMichael, 2014; Statistics Canada, 2017). Issues such as rural decline, lacking land protections and land availability, and increasing corporate pressure in agriculture are contributing factors to the current situation (McMichael, 2014; Desmarais & Wittman, 2014; Qualman et al., 2018; NFU, 2017). Historically, farms and farm businesses have been passed down within successive generations of the same family. This didn't need any government intervention or policy to maintain. However, this is no longer the case, and in order to address the crisis and the health of the sector moving forward, succession will have to be defined differently. Rather than focusing on the maintenance of individual family farms, this approach focuses on maintaining the overall number of farms, the amount of food grown, and the amount of farmers in Ontario, through a variety of strategies and arrangements. This approach to succession will allow diverse communities to participate more in agriculture, which is an opportunity to strengthen the agri-food system (Levkow & Ekers, 2017; NFU, 2017; Igbavboa & Elliott, 2019).

 

I think that a systemic approach to farm succession, informed by the experiences of farmers across career stages, backgrounds, and farming systems, will help solve the succession crisis while also supporting climate action and food security goals.​ For my research, I will be interviewing farmers. I use the terms “retiring farmer” to refer to those in the process of leaving the sector, “new farmer” to refer to those who have recently entered the sector, and “aspiring farmer” to refer to those who are seeking to develop a farm business of some kind, regardless of how close they are to that goal.​

 

I approach these issues of rural and agricultural decline and the (un)sustainability of food systems through the lens of food sovereignty. There are many definitions of food sovereignty, the most common of which comes from the international peasant and farmworker organization, La Via Campesina (LVC): “the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems” (La Via Campesina, 2021). As a framework, I employ food sovereignty as a democratizing process for reimagining and restructuring food systems around ecological, social, and economic sustainability which meaningfully includes the perspectives and needs of farmers in the planning processes.​Using methods based in a food sovereignty framework, my research will identify and examine issues contributing to the succession crisis by connecting farmer perspectives to broader systemic data and literature.

 

Through semi-structured interviews with retiring, aspiring, and new farmers, focus groups with farmers and urban planners, and conversations with non-governmental food and farming organizations, my research will contribute to the significant body of food sovereignty and systems literatures that have been drawing attention to this crisis for years. Through my research, I will also seek to contribute to urban and regional planning literature and practice by connecting the seemingly rural issue of farm succession with related urban challenges, such as food (in)security, sustainability, and equity.