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stoufjville suntribune thursday march 30 2006 13 pay me fairly for crops or let me sell land farmer from page 1 vocabulary there was no need for buzz words his was a farmers life in keeping with tradition mr holtrop planned to spend his old age where he spent his youth on the farm now approaching 60 mr holtrop has good reason to re think his plan within the next 25 years york regions population is slated to increase from 920000 to 15 mil lion farmers cant help but notice the 600000 more people and wonder where theyll go todays key agricultural ques tions are will farm lands be sacri ficed to accommodate people and will anyone be able to afford to farm in 2031 does it make any sense to build up the nutrient values and humus content of the soil when in a decade or two it might be stripped of top soil because of development crop rotation today is often corn wheat and then houses that third rotation is perma nent mr holtrop pointed out most farmers are torn depressed pricing has knocked the wind out of the industry nationwide resulting in many farm bankruptcies even though the industry has a 95billion impact on canada the farms in serious trouble while many farmers predict the industrys problems will even tually threaten the availability and quality of our food governments dont seem to be listening if the agriculture problem cant be fixed development could be an option for us mr holtrop said but with the greenbelt legis lation in place why should i as a farmer have to take the hit on value its basically stealing our land if people want the rabbits and other wildlife why cant they at least pay me for what im pro ducing we as a society have to learn how to value our land and our food production and be pre pared to pay for it were not ask ing for megabucks just let us make a living of course every level of gov ernment has its hand in the pie many of york regions 1000 farms making up about 175000 acres are now protected under both the greenbelt act and the oak ridges moraine act meanwhile the provincial places to grow act targets markham vaughan richmond hill and newmarket as areas where growth will be intensified during the next 25 years bryan tuckey the regions planning and development commissioner said the more we intensify the less countryside and farmland will be used for housing mr tuckey stressed development will be in compact higher growth areas where there is existing development still neither mr tuckey nor john waller the regions director of longrange planning can guar antee farms including those in keswick will not eventually be lost to development still neither mr tuckey nor john waller the regions director of longrange planning can guar antee farms including those in keswick will not eventually be lost to development farm numbers are going down already in 1991 there were 1210 farms in york region while in 2001 the figure dropped to 1020 agriculture continues to be a critical part ofyork regions econ omy government officials main tain look at our horse industry alone mr waller said with about 20000 horses on 1500 equestrian farms york region has the highest concentration of horses in ontario staff photomike barrett john holtrop sees urban development closing in on his georgina farm dont let your dreams go up in smoke quitting saves more than your life calculate how at cancerca i kefs helpline cnaian cafclr soc1etv 1877 5135333 this message brought to you as a community service of the economist sunsuntribune vvrv hi e s flj 8d bessx i contest details and entry ballot inside envelope cover available beginning march 21st at contestsmetrolandcom call your local boiwspm representative 9055134717 economist sun suntribune