PRESS RELEASE

New Report Calls for Nova Scotia to Protect Diminishing Farm Land as Global Fuel, Food Prices Rise

Nova Scotia can potentially feed its own population, but it can’t afford to lose any more of its best agricultural land. That’s the conclusion of a new report on the province’s land capacity released today by GPI Atlantic, the Nova Scotia based non-profit research group that is constructing new measures of progress for the province.

According to report author, Jennifer Scott, “sharp increases in global fuel and food prices, higher transportation costs, land speculation, and commodity price fluctuations have rekindled interest in healthy local food systems and encouraged many jurisdictions to look at reducing dependence on imported food supplies.”

Scott estimates that Nova Scotia farmers need to access nearly half a million hectares of crop and pasture land to feed all Nova Scotians. The province once had about twice that amount but it is not known how much of this land has already been converted to residential, commercial, industrial, and other uses, or how much of the land is overgrown because of the high cost of farming.

The province has just over 400,000 hectares of land presently in farms. The GPI report estimates the real estate value of provincial land presently in farms at more than $560 million—which makes it tempting to farmers to sell off land when they can’t get enough money from farm products to make a living.

The GPI Land Capacity report warns that the highest class of farm land in Nova Scotia—used for growing high value crops—is in very short supply, particularly in the Annapolis Valley, where increased competition with housing and commercial developments threatens to shrink rather than expand available farm land.

“What’s really in high demand is good farm land that’s continuous rather than fragmented,” says Scott. “You need decent sized blocks of good land close to other farms and farming infrastructure in order to farm efficiently.”

Scott points out that conversion of farm land for purposes other than farming is of particular concern in Kings County, where most of the best farmland in the province is located.

“I am worried that rezoning agricultural land will set a troubling precedent to convert scarce fertile land at the very moment when people are becoming more aware of the importance of buying locally-produced food,” says Scott. “As global food, fuel, and transport prices skyrocket, we need to preserve what we need to grow food—such as land—more than ever.”

The GPI report recommends that the best and most threatened working farm land be removed from the speculative or real estate market by purchase of development rights. That’s because good farm land is needed to produce food—an essential human need— and therefore should not be subject to real estate markets that often price the best land out of reach of farmers.

According to the GPI report, buying development rights—or purchase of Working Land Conservation Easements—would guarantee the land’s continued use for farming while compensating farmers for potential losses incurred by being unable to sell it for other uses.

The study calculates the average provincial value of such conservation easements at $1,339 per hectare, based on the difference between the real estate value of fertile land and its productive value (the ability of the land to generate net income for farmers).

The GPI report points to a precipitous and ongoing decline in Nova Scotia’s farm land area. The provincial land area in farms dropped by nearly 80% between 1921 and 2006. While most of that decline occurred before the 1970s, there has been a further 18% decrease since then. “We simply can’t afford to lose any more good farm land,” says Scott.

The study also examines the quality of Nova Scotia’s farm land and notes that it is much more susceptible to water erosion than most agricultural land in Canada, especially from autumn to spring, due to the high proportion that is sloped.

Thus, 84% of Nova Scotia’s cultivated agricultural land (compared to just 13% in Canada as a whole) is assessed as severely vulnerable to water erosion if left bare, indicating that it should be kept in pasture, hay, orchard, agroforestry, or other perennial cover options in order to avoid this serious risk, and requiring Nova Scotian farmers to take extra care to maintain soil quality.

Some of the structural weaknesses of soils in Nova Scotia are naturally occurring, due to being acidic and low in soil organic matter and nutrients. But other weaknesses (particularly compaction) are due to using heavy machinery on moist, fine-textured soils during wet periods in the spring and fall. For more information on soil quality and productivity, see GPI Atlantic’s earlier soil report.

The full GPI Land Capacity report for Nova Scotia released today can be accessed here.

For interviews or questions on this report, please call the report author, Jennifer Scott, at: 902-757-1640 (email: jen@ns.sympatico.ca).

GPI Atlantic Executive Director, Ronald Colman, can be reached at 902-489-7007, (email: colman@gpiatlantic.org).

GPI Atlantic gratefully acknowledges funding towards this study provided by the Province of Nova Scotia and the Organic Agriculture College of Canada.