The Quality of Farmland Protection in Canada: An Evaluation of the Strength of Provincial Legislative Frameworks

Abstract

Continuous efforts by governments to protect agricultural land has resulted in a mix of interests, policies, and outcomes. Through this paper, our aims are to evaluate provincial legislative frameworks across Canada and to improve our understanding of why some provincial legislative frameworks to protect agricultural land are better than others. In our study, we evaluated and compared the strength of ten provincial legislative frameworks for agricultural land use planning. Our results show that Québec, British Columbia, and Ontario have the strongest legislative frameworks to protect agricultural land, while the rest of Canada’s provinces have only a moderate to weak policy focus. This situation leaves most of Canada’s agricultural land highly exposed to more conversion and non-farm uses. The results also illustrate how key elements of a legislative framework interact, serving to either enhance or detract from overall strength of policy focus, thereby informing a strategic approach to policy development.

Keywords

• farmland protection
• agricultural land use planning
• plan quality evaluation
• policy focus