How can we protect prime farmland and the farming economy outside of the Greenbelt?

- severe leapfrogging pressure in areas such as Kitchener-Waterloo, Guelph-Wellington, Brant, Simcoe, etc.

- How do we encourage young people to go into farming?

- Organic market farming - providing local food to nearby communities - creates numerous on farm jobs and immediate revenues

- The role of food in healthcare - food can be an integral part of medicine

- Food and agriculture in the new economy

- Land values both inside and outside the Greenbelt - threat or opportunity?  Why is industrial land valued so much more than food production? 

- Is our food production and distribution system secure and resilient enough for the future?

- Can we move rapidly enough to a more frugal system?

- Quality of life for Ontario residents

- The image of the farmer - positive or negative?

- We don't know enough of where our food comes from - magically appears in grocery store - a fundamental disconnect.  Nobody questions where it comes from, how or at what hidden costs?  No idea what has or hasn't gone into it.  We cannot live without food yet farmers are peasants and one of the lowest professions in our society.  Our notion of farmers.

- Expensive food vs. inexpensive food.  Europe - heavily subsidized food.

- Food has always been a priority in Europe - the Europeans have faced numerous famines and know what it is like to starve - therefore viable agriculture has always been a priority.  Compensation and notion of farming is very different in Europe.

- Proactive healthcare - better diet is essential to better health - yet diets are seemingly getting worse due to rushed culture and focus on fastfood.

- Should we be providing compensation to farmers for providing environmental services - ALUS - i.e. protecting water, providing clean air, growing more sustainable crops that sequester carbon, etc.

- renewalbe technologies - it was the farmers who come aboard with solar and wind - a new cash crop for them - in particular Eastern Germany - large collectives.  

- how do we keep the farmers on the land - ALUS - encouraging farmers to provide environmental benefits - New York City - pays farmers upstream to farm sustainably to protect the water sources for the city saving billions in water treatement and clean-up facilities.  Proactive vs. reactive.

- Can farmers create more jobs - organic farms, local markets, farmgate sales

- Extend the Greenbelt - make sure there are enough benefits so farmers and landowners want to be included in the Greenbelt - make it more enticing. 

- The public has to open their wallets at times i.e. pay more for organic but also realize that sustainble is always cheaper in the long run.  Healthy farms and healthy environment, better health saves massive clean-up costs, huge medical bills, treatment costs and countless other costs.

 - Political will and leadership needs to occur.  We need to make better decisions and have different priorities now so that we will have a better, more sustainable future.

- Nature Deficit Disorder - how can we get more youth to connect with nature and the land.  Too many urban teenagers have never seen a cow let alone interned or worked on a farm.

- Education - new funding needed for environmental and agricultural education and cirriculuum for everyone.  Finally being re-introduced in Ontario Education system this year - Roberta Bondar initiative.  Need to get more kids out into the Greenbelt and Northern Natural areas.

- Proactive land-use planning - community needs to plan together not let developers decide - where do we want to grow and focus infrastructure, where do we want to protect?  How do we have a balanced, well planned future.

- NIMBY - everyone wants wind and solar power but nobody wants to have to see the "visual pollution" of wind turbines or have one towering over their house.  Everyone wants growth directed into the urban cores and not on primeland but then object when an apartment building is proposed for their street.

- How can we guide things through proper incentives - carbon tax, local food pricing more attractive than imported food.  Lower carbon footprints.

- Conclusion - education, political-will, change is required.  Are we willing to change our priorities on food, agriculture, what we are willing to pay for etc.  We can't let developers decide what our communities are going to be - we need to work collaboratively to determine what we want our future to be.