Pave the Pasture & Pay the Price

I have always considered farm land to be a tremendously valuable asset, it enables one to have some degree of self sufficiency whether that be as an individual or as a country. My work takes me all over Canada, with most of the travel being by air (that is why my carbon foot print is so embarrassingly huge). While flying I spend a lot of time looking out the window. Flying South from the "almost arctic" where I am now We go over tundra, boreal forest, commercial forests, farm land and finally city. There are some spectacular views in Northern Quebec. With my geology background I get quite absorbed just staring into the landscape. Although Farms are not a natural part of the landscape I really enjoy seeing the long thin cultivated fields that seen to make up the agricultural landscape in southern Quebec. I don't know how long this land has been cultivated, maybe 200 or 300 hundred years, by Europeans at least, some of it perhaps longer by native people. Eventually the farm land passes into city, this is my least favorite part of the journey. I see once productive fields that for generations provided a home and source of income for a families and food for 1000s or people, being dig up, paved over and built on. Not with tidy little houses, but stupidly big places, perhaps 2 or 3 per acre in some cases. The worst examples I have seen are actually in Ontario, I was going to use an example from google earth, but my connection is too slow. have a look around Brampton Ontario.
I grew up on a farm, so seeing a farm destroyed upsets me more than I would like to admit, while this is probably an irrational attachment I have due to fond memories of growing up on a farm there is also a practical side.
Farms are not just nice places for kids to grow up, they provide us with food, take a look at any meal you eat, unless it is fish, caught in the ocean or wild game of some sort, it had to be grown by someone somewhere. In our global economy it may well be more cost effective to ship food from distant sources to meet our demand, most of your next meal will probably come from over 1000km from your kitchen.
What if our changing climate leads to crop failures where our feed is now grown, what if the fuel used to ship our food runs out, or becomes too expensive (financially, or environmentally) What if we find our selves at war with our food supplier or shipping routes are disrupted by war??? If all our arable land has been built on where are you going to get food from? It might be possible to bring new land into production, or even reclaim land from suburbia, but it takes many years to convert a section of wild land into productive farm land. If, or when it comes to a crunch and we need farm land we will not be able to bring it into production fast enough to meet the demand, just think of the consequences - not good!
What is the solution? It is not good enough to just stop building on farm land, There is a reason it is being built on. In our present short sighted economy the land is worth more with houses on it than with crops. The land only becomes available to developers if the farmer sells up, so we need to figure out how to keep the farmers on the land. If a farmers can make a decent living they will most likely keep the farm and keep it in production.
We all love to pay less for food, more money for other stuff right? Food is probably cheaper now than it has ever been if you take into account inflation. One hours pay will probably get you significantly more than you grandfathers hours pay when he was your age. The fact is someone somewhere, some when someone is paying the price. Somewhere, would be where ever your food is grown now - it is cheep because the people growing it are not paid a fair price for their work, or at least not what you would expect to be paid. Some when, well who knows when, but every time we purchase cheep food from outside our country a farmer in our country looses a few bucks and gets a few step closer to selling up to a developer. once that land is gone, it's gone for good.

Fortunately there are some obvious answers to this problem.
-Buy local, the 100 mile diet is something that has been talked about a lot recently, while this may be impractical in many parts of Canada, the idea of how far your food has traveled is something that is worth considering, both from an environmental aspect and in supporting local growers. About 10 years ago My family decided to purchase locally grown vegetables when they are available, which is now most of the year. While these vegetables may cost a little more than those from a supermarket I think it is worth it, the Vegetables taste better, I have no evidence to support it, but I feel they are better for us as well, and we actually get to meet the person who grows them.

Another thing to Consider it the value of Farm land to the country, because it gives us a better chance of supporting our selves in the event of changing climate or war, it offers us a significant degree of (that much loved word) "Security". Just like a well trained military I think Farm land should be considered a strategic asset and just like a well trained military it must be maintained, even during peace time. Just as the military is funded by tax dollars, Farms should be entitled to more funding in the form of government agricultural subsidies. Currently Canadian farmers receive a fraction of that received by US farmers. I am not suggesting that we should be trying to boost or exports to the US, but Canadian farm products should be able to compete with US goods on the Canadian Market

I am sure there are some more solutions, but I have been trying to post this blog for over a week now, so I will just post it now. You can comment if you wish.