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Stewards all
Most of us recognize that farmers are the best stewards of the land,” argued Janice Maynard. It was a rather sweeping statement, meant to discourage her fellow council members from even considering the benign protections offered by a proposal to protect treelines and fencebottoms before them last week.
The proposed Official Plan wording presented to council was closer to a wish list than legislation. More aspiration than actual restriction. Mostly, it was a statement that all agreed reflected their collected values. To the land. To the natural ecosystem. And the cultural heritage of our community.
But the Ameliasburgh councillor argued that farmland owners were the best folks qualified to balance their own commercial needs and these broader collective values. That it certainly wasn’t her role or that of council to weigh in—even in the form of bland ambition.
The Ameliasburgh councillor’s caution worked. Council sent the Official Plan words back. To remove any references to agriculture—in a proposal aimed at protecting vanishing treelines and fencebottoms.
Despite repeated assurances that none of these words would have an impact on farming practices, nor would any such restriction be permitted under provincial policy rules in any event, Maynard and a majority of council members remained skeptical that this or future councils were qualified to govern farmland.
It was too risky, according to Maynard. It would set up expectations that someday in the future, another council would assert authority to suggest that this was one fenceline too far.
Others repeated the self-defeating principle— farmers are the best guardians of the land. And therefore beyond the oversight and governance of this elected body.
All farmers? All land? Really?
Never mind that council regularly applies restrictions to all manners of activities from burning leaves, to the colour of your building on Main Street in Picton. But on farmland the farmer is the sole authority? Because he or she always knows best? Is, that really the principle we wish to establish?
What about fallow farm land? Or land to be severed for residential or commercial development? Should council, Shire Hall, continue to maintain a hands-off approach? Not permitted to encourage preservation of such wildlife corridors?
Is it simply the ownership of farmland that bestows this unassailable wisdom? Does this same principle apply to absentee landowners? Corporate farmland owners? To make choices that alter the ecosystem and cultural landscape forever? Unfettered? Without rules?
In no other form of land ownership would we grant such a hands-off approach. Should we cede the stewardship of our natural assets to miners? To foresters? To oil companies? To industrial wind turbine operators? To residential development? Ownership ought not grant anyone unfettered rights. This isn’t the wild west. Council has a role to play, and it needs to assert that role.
In the same meeting last week, council rejected staff’s recommendation to drop a program to offset some of the cost of rising property taxes of new and young farmers. Faithful readers will remember this was the compromise council struck in 2018 when council refused to tinker with the farm tax ratio—a means to relieve certain farmland owners of the increased tax burden payable due to the rising value of their land.
Council had been uncomfortable granting a broad-based tax relief in favour of farmland owners as a class, to be paid for by every other property class in the County. So, it devised the Farming Grant for New and Young Farmers to dispense cash to young and new farmers. Earlier this year it dispensed $12,300 to five new farmers and 15 young farmers. The program was renewed for 2019 during budget deliberations in January.
But in March, John Thompson was back, once again appealing to council for lower taxes across the board for farmland owners. His patience was rewarded. Council agreed to reduce the tax ratio payable from 25 per cent of residential to 23 per cent. For all farmland owners. Big, small, old, and young. Corporate or individual.
With broad-based relief in place, Shire Hall suggested it was appropriate, therefore, to unwind the targetted Funding Grant for New and Young Farmers, since it was, in effect, a form of double dipping.
The mere suggestion was a slap in the face. Equivalent to breaking a contract, said Thompson. He demanded that council show respect for new and young farmers and continue this grant program. Yes, it was true these folks were double dipping (deriving financial from two municipal directions for the same purpose), but surely staff could add fresh new pages to the County’s tax code to recover this “small amount”.
It is another stark reminder that when governments hand out money—even under the best of intentions— this relief becomes an entitlement, and painfully difficult to claw back. Even after the original premise has evaporated.
But the bit I want to draw attention here is this: the driver of higher farmland tax payable is not a function of the municipal tax ratio, but rather the fact that farmland values are rising. Across North America. It is not a local phenomenon. Nor did it call for a local solution.
Nor are rising asset values a bad thing. Higher land values improve the farm balance sheet, operational leverage and net worth of the farmland owner. Yes, in the short term it means higher property taxes. But that is the way property taxes work. When the land is worth more, the higher proportion one pays.
This trend, however, also makes treelines and fence bottoms vulnerable. Bigger fields means improved productivity. Better margins. More incentive to erase wildlife corridors.
Perhaps farmers are the best stewards of the land, but they are not the only stewards. Nor are their interests the only ones at stake is this discussion.
One day, this or another council, or perhaps provincial government, will understand that we share some collective rights, and obligations, over the natural landscape. Perhaps then, they will conclude the shrinking ecosystem borne by isolated woodlots and fencelines that link them are worthy of some rudimentary protection.
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