Who Gets to Farm? - Just Food | The Hands That Feed Us: On Tour - Ep17

Just Food - Ottawa, ON

Who gets to farm when farmland is too expensive for farmers to afford — and what happens when we take the market out of the equation?

Farmers, agricultural advocates, and community members gathered in Ottawa, Ontario, and at the heart of the conversation was a question with no simple answer: since the market is no longer a viable way for farmers to access land, the ways in which people gain access to this way of life and line of work is increasingly challenging and complex. Looking at Ottawa’s Greenbelt and the farmland managed by the National Capital Commission, the discussion examined the gap between protecting land from development and actually ensuring that it is being farmed well.

The conversation moved from individual farmers’ experiences with uncertain leases to bigger ideas about what public farmland could accomplish. Examination of how public land could create pathways into farming for young and new farmers, while giving farmers a meaningful role in governing the land they work was a focal point of this discourse. It also explored the possibility of treating food production, community benefit, and long-term stewardship as measures of public farmland’s value — not simply its financial return or market price.

“How are you going to decide who gets to farm and what they’re going to do? And it sounds like these government agencies don’t know the answer to that.”

If farmland is a public resource, who should decide what it is used for, and who gets to farm it?

Listen to the recorded discussion in Episode 16 of The Hands That Feed Us On Tour, entitled “Who Gets to Farm?” to discover more.