In recent years, he told me, the state government, the marketing boards and the courts had been acting swiftly to block any avenues which might allow these farms to remain viable.

With rising costs and increasing taxes, most of the farmers were facing the prospect of either selling out, or declaring bankruptcy.

His best guess was that the development industry had its eye on these mountain valley farms as ideal locations for condo estates and retirement villages. Especially as these farms were all in commuting distance from large urban centres such as New York City.

I thought of this conversation as I read the news reports on the closing of the CanGro operation in St. David's. It led me to wonder how much federal, provincial, regional, and municipal politicians would care if all the agricultural land in the Niagara Peninsula were to disappear tomorrow.

Much of the Niagara Peninsula is prime real estate within commuting distance of Hamilton, Burlington, Oakville, Mississauga, and Toronto. Moreover, the development/real estate/construction industry and its spin-offs is one of the major economic engines of the local economy.

Generally speaking, governments look to make more revenue from development than they do from agricultural uses.

Local governments have traditionally been very development-friendly. And, since the Mike Harris era, when the provincial government downloaded costs to municipalities, local governments have been forced to accept almost any form of development.

Even if they were to oppose a particular project, they would normally lack the power and resources to fight it effectively.

In the last 10 years we have seen wood lots and non-prime agricultural lands disappear all over the peninsula. Considerable incursions have also been made into prime agricultural lands.

It is reasonable to project that, in a decade or two, agriculture in the peninsula will be reduced to hobby farms and adjuncts to tourism.

Since governments have the power to invade agricultural lands with projects such as hospitals, arenas, and highways, it is easy to make farming which is adjacent to urban centres less viable. And, unless upper levels of government provide local governments with the resources to make free and unconstrained choices about development, present trends are likely not only to continue but to accelerate.

So what can be done? No doubt local farmers will do whatever they can with respect to direct sales to the public and local businesses.

Possibly, some form of co-operative enterprise for food processing (similar to those in Saskatchewan in the 1930s and '40s) might be entertained. But the real solution is to get governments off the backs of the farmers and to get governments to stop pushing development into agricultural lands, and the space immediately bordering them.

We need to get to our MPs, our MPPs and local elected officials, and ask them why they think that importing canned fruit from China is such a great idea.

And why they don't see undermining our local agricultural production as a problem.

Kevin McCabe

St. Catharines