Fence line

Judging by the long lineups of folks waiting for the sweet taste of freshly boiled maple syrup at many Prince Edward County venues over the weekend, Maple in the County was another brilliant success in 2013. Rarely do the woodlots and farm lanes host so many folks young and old as they do when the sap is running and the track is muddy.

It seems an appropriate time to think about our trees and the way they’ve become entangled in our lives—in ways we may not otherwise consider. We are blessed in Prince Edward County with many and varied woodlots and abundance of species that have found purchase in this soil.

But as the snow recedes from a long winter we are beginning to see a changing landscape— one with fewer trees. Prompted by high commodity prices for soy beans and other crops and encouraged by rich tax write-offs, landowners across Ontario have been busy clearing fence lines and cutting into woodlots and wetlands.

Across the County, too, excavators and bulldozers have been erasing miles of fence lines. North and west of Wellington, fullscale logging is underway—shrinking further a once robust upland forest.

For the farmer it isn’t just about claiming more tillable land and the additional yield that can be harvested, but rather it is that modern efficient farming requires bigger equipment. Bigger equipment works better in bigger fields—with less turning. It helps that farmers can write this expense off as land improvement—producing a significant tax savings.

But not everyone considers it land improvement. Joan McKinlay is a farmer and president of the Ontario Soil and Crop Improvement Association. She observed in a story in Rural Farmer magazine last fall, “It’s a bad time to be a tree.”

As commodity prices for beans, corn and wheat climb and the value of farmland rises, trees invariably give way to cash crops. The pressure is too great. In some parts of western Ontario, farmers are ignoring local bylaws that protect woodlots and trees—choosing to pay a fine rather than give up the rich potential of the land that lies underneath the trees.

Woodlots and fence bottoms aren’t simply pretty landscape features to walk through or drive by. They play a critical role in controlling soil erosion and containing water runoff. It was in the lifetime of many County residents that overly aggressive land clearing contributed to the decimation of millions of acres of land in this country in the ’30s.

While modern farming practices of no till, or minimum till, make this kind of widespread devastation less likely—soil erosion on a smaller scale remains a real problem. Particularly when farmers ignore crop rotation as they chase the rich prices of corn and soy. The soil is already thin in much of the County—permitting any of it to blow away seems shortsighted.

Removing fence lines and field corners is also changing drainage patterns. Rather than a couple of weeks, spring runoff disappears in a couple of days. The soil is unable to capture and retain this needed moisture; meanwhile, creeks and rivers swell up too quickly, causing flooding problems downstream.

Fence bottoms also play an important role in maintaining a healthy wildlife habitat. Much of the region north of the village of Wellington was a rich diversified forest. All but pockets remain— most of these in low or wetland areas. The animals and creatures that once inhabited this forest retreated to smaller and smaller enclaves.

The fence bottoms became connecting links between these otherwise isolated patches of trees. Without these connecting links the gene pool is often too small. Many species surely died out—but many endured. With every disappearing fence bottom their survival, however, becomes a bit more precarious.

Commodity prices are good. Land prices are rising. Farming has rarely been as lucrative as it is right now. This is good. Good for them, good for our local economy.

Our government, however, need not continue to provide a tax write-off for landowners to clear trees. Our government should eliminate this financial incentive to clear fence lines and nip away at shrinking woodlots.

It’s a poor use of tax dollars and runs counter to sensible management of our natural heritage.

If the senior levels of government won’t act—and they’ve demonstrated an acute deafness to rural issues lately—local government should move to protect these trees and habitat.

Most farmers are sturdy guardians of their land. Not all, but most. They know better than anyone they have an obligation to their ancestors and a promise to the next generation to manage the land during their tenure in a responsible, sustainable and balanced way.

But the current economics of farming is artificially rigged against trees, fencelines and woodlots because out-of-step tax policies reward destruction of habitat and important ecological features. It’s time we fixed this before the last fence bottom/lifeline is swallowed by shortsightedness.

rick@wellingtontimes.ca