Intensive Farming
Although the number of farmers in Ontario has declined over the past few decades, agricultural production has grown in the province during that same time, and the size of the average farm is increasing dramatically. Today, one-quarter of Ontario farms account for three-quarters of total farm revenues. While small family farms can still prosper in Ontario, new farms are often high-investment intensive operations, with very large numbers of livestock. Farms with 3,000 or more pigs or 1,200 cattle are increasingly common. The Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA) suggests that one definition of an intensive farm might be a facility with over 10,000 pigs or 1,500 dairy cows. As this new form of farming spreads, environmental laws created when small operations were the norm may not address the associated environmental risks that come with more intensive farm operations.
The management of nutrients, particularly from manure, is one of the major sources of environmental risk in agriculture. When manure is incorrectly stored, handled, or spread onto land, it can harm soil, water, and air quality. Raw manure is traditionally spread onto farm fields as fertilizer, and this can be a reasonable environmental practice as long as farmers have sufficient acreage to absorb the manure of their livestock. But new large-scale farms produce vast quantities of manure, and often do not have correspondingly large areas of farm land. Ontario currently has over 3.4 million hogs (approximately 400,000 in Huron County alone), and altogether they produce as much raw sewage as the province’s 10 million people.
Excess manure application can result in run-off to streams or leaching of nutrients from the soil into groundwater. The run-off spurs additional growth of algae and other aquatic plants, which may make water unusable for drinking or swimming. As well, excess aquatic plant growth reduces oxygen levels in the water, leading to fish-kill incidents. Excess nitrogen (as nitrate) can make groundwater unsafe to drink, particularly for infants and the elderly. Ammonium nitrate and ammonium sulfate emitted to the air from animal housing can be harmful to human and animal health.
Epidemiologists have also recently published research that showed that Ontarians living in rural areas with high cattle density have elevated risk for toxic E. coli infections. The contamination of drinking water with E. coli that killed several residents of Walkerton, Ontario, in May 2000, is suspected by some experts to be related to livestock manure.
Residents in a number of rural Ontario municipalities have complained in recent years about the handling of manure at large livestock operations. Several large manure spills and leaks have increased the public's concern. Citizens’ groups have recently formed in the London area, in Bruce County and also near Peterborough, all focused on problems related to intensive farming and manure management. Within the last two years, numerous counties and townships across rural Ontario have attempted to deal with the issue by passing bylaws which either place short-term moratoria on new large livestock operations or require manure management plans. These municipalities have also urged the provincial government to take action, arguing that municipalities do not have the legislative tools necessary to deal with manure management.
OMAFRA has long promoted a voluntary approach to the management of environmental risks from manure. Since 1993, OMAFRA has provided technical support to the voluntary Environmental Farm Plan Program, which encourages farmers to develop Environmental Farm Plans, including manure management plans. The program has been funded by approximately $15 million federal Green Plan dollars from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. Under the program, farmers with peer- reviewed Action Plans are eligible for up to $1,500 of incentive funds to offset expenses. OMAFRA reported to the Environmental Commissioner in February 2000 that more than 17,000 people have attended Environmental Farm Plan workshops across Ontario, representing an estimated 30 per cent of Ontario’s farm acreage. Farmers have also completed 7,000 environmental improvement projects, with the support of the incentive funds. It is not clear how many of these projects addressed manure management.
OMAFRA has avoided using regulatory measures to deal with manure management. There are no legally binding standards for constructing manure storage facilities or for the application of manure. For example, there are no rules forbidding the spreading of manure onto fields that are drained by tile drains. There are also no monitoring mechanisms to ensure that farmers use best practices for managing manure. Ontario environmental legislation also specifically exempts some aspects of manure management. For example, waste management requirements in the Environmental Protection Act (EPA) do not apply to animal waste, i.e., certificates of approval and manifests are not required. Originally, such exemptions had some merit, in that they intended to protect small family farms from onerous regulation, but with the advent of industrial-scale agriculture, these exemptions have become problematic.
In 1998, the Farming and Food Production Protection Act (FFPPA) strengthened the protection to farmers against complaints from neighbours. The new FFPPA also stipulates that no municipal bylaw can restrict a normal farm practice if the practice is determined to be “normal” by the Normal Farm Practices Protection Board. The ECO’s 1998 annual report noted that as a result of this new law, farm discharges may not be dealt with as vigorously as industrial discharges and emissions. The ECO said it would continue to monitor and report on the impact of this new law.
In fact, the new legislation has already been used to over turn a municipal bylaw attempting to control intensive farming operations in Biddulph township, north of London. In 1998, the township tried to restrict the size of farming operations to a maximum number of livestock, partly to protect local wells that rely on shallow aquifers – in some spots lying within six feet of the surface. The township also planned to require farmers to complete a nutrient management plan, and to own at least two-thirds of the land base required for manure spreading, as determined by the nutrient management plan. A local hog farmer alleged that this bylaw restricted normal farming practice, and the Normal Farm Practices Protection Board agreed after a hearing. The Board decided that municipalities could in principle impose nutrient management plans upon intensive farming operations, but noted that most livestock farmers have informal plans which are rarely committed to writing. The Board also decided it was not a normal farming practice to focus only on land actually owned by the farmer when calculating available tillable acreage for manure spreading. A local citizens’ group is now challenging the decision before an Ontario appeal court, against the farmer and the Ontario Federation of Agriculture.
| An Effective Environmental Registry: Interpreting the EAA Exemption |
|---|
| Ontario residents rely upon the Environmental Registry to provide them with notice of environmentally significant decisions. The consequences of failing to post notice of an environmentally significant decision were demonstrated by a recent decision by the Ministry of the Environment. The ministry issued an Order under the Environmental Protection Act (EPA) to London Hydro, directing the utility to clean up coal tar contamination that was leaching into the Thames River from property it owned. The decision to issue this order was not posted on the Registry. London Hydro is subject to the Environmental Assessment Act (EAA) and the EBR provides an exemption from the requirement to post notice of environmentally significant decisions on the Registry where the decision is part of a larger project that has been approved under or exempted from the EAA.
However, the decision to issue the EPA Order was initiated by MOE and was unrelated to the project by London Hydro that had been approved under the EAA. Therefore, the EBR posting exemption did not apply. After the Order had been issued, London area residents complained that they were not informed of the decision nor given an opportunity to consider alternative remedies. If the decision had been posted on the Registry, the public would have had an opportunity to comment on the proposal. Ministries have interpreted the exemption that relieves them of their duty to post notice of decisions approved under or exempted from the EAA too broadly, resulting in environmentally significant decisions being omitted from the Registry. This undermines the effectiveness of the Registry as a “one-stop” window where residents can obtain information about environmentally significant decisions that may affect them. |
To deal with manure problems, the Ministry of the Environment has in some cases under taken prosecutions and issued orders under the EPA. In 1998, MOE issued a Director’s Order against a hog farmer with 1,000 pigs in Hope Township, requiring him to provide bottled water to seven families whose wells were contaminated. In 1999, MOE ordered the farmer to drill new and deeper wells for each of the affected families. In 1999, a pork producer in the Chatham area was prosecuted successfully under the EPA for a discharge of approximately 1.5 million litres of pig manure, some of which reached a drain and Lake Erie. As well, Environment Canada charged a pig production facility under the Fisheries Act in 1999. It was the first prosecution of its kind in Ontario.
Other jurisdictions, including New Brunswick and Quebec, have created regulatory standards for manure management. In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency has recently announced that large agricultural operations will be required to have permits under the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, as factories already do. Many American states also have regulatory requirements. About half require that farms have manure management plans. Some states also prohibit spreading of manure during the winter, when the risk of run-off from frozen ground is high.
In January 2000, OMAFRA began public consultation on intensive farming operations in Ontario, with the support of the Ministry of the Environment, and with a proposal on the Registry. Six well-attended public meetings across rural Ontario addressed the environmental impacts of intensive farming, such as water quality, damage to land, and odour. Many of the participants at the meetings supported a provincial regulatory system for manure management, and over 400 comments were submitted. OMAFRA received a summary report in April 2000. The Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs has committed to the release of this report and the introduction of legislation on intensive farming by the summer of 2000.
In 1998, OMAFRA removed several environmental commitments from its Statement of Environmental Values, including the commitment to “ensure an environmentally responsible and sustainable agriculture and food system.” The ECO’s 1998 annual report noted that these changes were disappointing, and were not in keeping with the goal of the EBR to promote sustainability. The trend toward agricultural intensification is expected to continue over the next decade, and needs to be dealt with as an industrial pollution problem. The ECO questions why MOE has not been designated the lead ministry to address this issue, since MOE is the lead ministry for regulating and enforcing other environmental regulations. OMAFRA, on the other hand, has been accustomed to using the voluntary approach with its client group, the farm industry, and it is evident that on this issue, the voluntary approach has not been good enough.
Ontario residents have already shown concern about industrial-style agricultural operations, and it is likely that managing the environmental impacts of these operations will be of increasing concern to Ontarians over the next few years.
| Recommendation 7:
The ECO recommends that the regulatory framework relating to large intensive farming operations be equivalent to that of other industries that produce large volumes of waste with respect to approvals, monitoring and compliance mechanisms. |
| This is an article from the 1999/2000 Annual Report to the Legislature from the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario. |
Citing This Article
Environmental Commissioner of Ontario. 2000. "Intensive Farming." Changing Perspectives, ECO Annual Report, 1999-2000. Toronto, ON : Environmental Commissioner of Ontario. 52-55.
