Ontario has been facing a steady decline in its agricultural land base since the early 1970s. The total amount of land on farms in Ontario has decreased by 11.5% from 1986 to 2016. The amount of land actively in use for crops and pasture has decreased by 8.9% over the same period (over a million acres). Only 5% of the national agricultural land base is considered prime agricultural land (classes 1-3). This trend is especially problematic in Ontario, where 51% of Canada’s prime agricultural land is located. Despite this abundance, Ontario only uses about 7% of its best quality (class 1) farmland, with the remainder increasingly being converted to urban development . In total, Ontario saw a 7.2% reduction in the available farmland between 2006 and 2016 , which is a yearly rate of loss equal to a quarter the size of Toronto. Ontario is also seeing a decline in farmland accessibility, where socioeconomic pressures of agricultural production (i.e. farm debt, input costs, commodity prices, and farmland values) are increasingly rendering farmland inaccessible to farmers. The challenge of keeping farmland in agricultural production requires addressing both the protection of farmland from conversion as well as ensuring that farming on such land remains viable.

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