Though two more than the originally proposed seven consolidated regional authorities, many questions remain on how the move will impact programming and governance.

WHY IT MATTERS: Farmers are the largest landowners in the areas influenced by conservation authorities.

Ontario currently has 36 CAs based on watershed boundaries, which operate as separate entities. With consolidation plans being made public in October 2025, farm and conservation groups lobbied for some 19 authorities in the new system — again based on provincial watersheds.

Ontario’s environment minister Todd McCarthy made the announcement on March 10, providing further detail on how the government intends to operate the amalgamated regions, and the additional costs incurred during the transition. McCarthy said consolidated regional CAs “would reduce administrative duplication, redirect resources to front-line conservation and modernize permitting to help the province deliver on its plan to protect Ontario by cutting red tape.”

Lower-tier community participation restricted

Under the government’s new structure, the nine consolidated authorities will operate under the Ontario Provincial Conservation Agency — created as an oversight body in 2025. Additionally, the provincial agency will administer $20 million, plus an additional $3 million annually, to facilitate the amalgamation process.

Each existing CA will provide representatives for transitional committees.

The new system will also feature watershed councils within each of the consolidated regions. These councils will, as the press release describes, “help identify local priorities for watershed-based conservation programs and services.”

“Regional conservation authorities would remain municipally governed, with regional municipalities, counties and cities appointing members to conservation authorities. Lower-tier municipalities in counties, such as towns and townships, will no longer be participating municipalities of a conservation authority under this approach.”

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a source within Ontario’s conservation sector said the government’s latest moves are not surprising — they had been anticipated for some time — but appear to be adding complexity rather than reducing bureaucracy.

Streamlining application processes and development requirements across regions could have been accomplished without consolidation, they said, and the establishment of another higher governance seems unnecessary if local structures remain more or less the same. Not allowing towns, townships and other similar communities to participate in governance is also a concern. Speaking more generally, they said the now-released details indicate many recommendations provided during the now-passed consultation period were ignored.

“The whole process will come at the expense of taxpayers,” said the source, adding it’s not entirely clear who will hold responsibility for source water protection — a central purpose of CAs — under the new system, given the Clean Water Act currently says local board of directors hold that responsibility.

“Nine is better than seven, but it’s not 36. Our comments are not reflected in what they’ve done.”

A statement from Hamilton Conservation Authority — an authority mentioned by minister McCarthy in his address as an example where overlapping jurisdictions cause development headaches — said the amalgamation plan is similarly not what conservation staff and board members advocated for.

“We support modernization, but dismantling a high-performing authority that is already meeting provincial objectives does not advance that goal,” Credit Valley Conservation (CVC) chair Michael Palleschi said March 19 in a separate release, noting CVC’s current average processing time for development permit applications.

“Transitioning to a new regional bureaucracy would almost certainly slow approvals while staff, systems and governance structures are reorganized.”

‘Serious concerns’

The Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario (CFFO) published a response on March 11, indicating the organization’s disappointment the advice provided by farm organizations had little effect.

“CFFO is disappointed that the government did not take the advice of the farm organizations in Ontario to align authorities with the 19 watersheds in the province. We believe this would have been a much more logical plan.

“Making these changes so we can get shovels into the ground faster for building homes and more infrastructure, doesn’t justify such a change. CFFO believes a less disruptive and more productive approach would have been more beneficial allowing each watershed to address their own regulations.”

The National Farmers Union – Ontario (NFU-O) published a strongly worded response two days later, saying the organization is “dismayed” at the government’s plan.

“This reduction is driven by a government mandate to support the building of new homes and infrastructure, and follows years of continued attempts to limit the reach of CAs. This, coupled with recent laws and policy changes like the More Homes Build Faster Act (2022), and Protect Ontario by Building Faster and Smarter Act (2025), illuminate a short-sighted approach that does not compensate for long-term environmental compromises and ultimately fails to implement best practice methodologies as defined by experts.”

While the revised proposal now requires regional CAs to establish watershed councils with Indigenous representatives and stakeholders from agriculture, the development industry and other local sectors, there will still be a 75 per cent reduction in the number of authorities, and NFU-O said “serious concerns around transparency, supports for farmers, and the integration of localized knowledge in decision making remain.”

Speaking March 12, Ontario Federation of Agriculture president Drew Spoelstra reiterated OFA’s support for streamlining regulatory processes, but disappointment with the province’s overall plan.

“We had put forward a proposal to see a watershed-based model with 18 or 19 authorities instead of nine,” Spoelstra said. “Now we’re turning our attention to making sure farmers’ voices are heard. We’re virtually the biggest landholder, farmers are, across the province.… Farmers own a lot of that landscape conservation authorities are working on and regulating.”

“The other piece is around stewardship programs. We don’t want to see that effort lost either. I think there’s a lot of good things we can take from the former system, the current system, and migrate that into the new system.”

Legislation to enact the government’s CA consolidation plan will be tabled once the legislature is back in session.

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The area is in high demand due to its proximity to the Highway 401 corridor and growing industrial hubs such as the Greater Golden Horseshoe and the Greater Toronto Area and there are lessons to learn as Ontario urban areas continue to grow into farmland.

WHY IT MATTERS: Significant pressure to grow housing and industrial areas comes into conflict with the need to maintain high-quality farmland.

In February 2024, the County of Wellington launched an urban boundary expansion review and received settlement area boundary expansion requests totalling more than 973 hectares.

One of the most affected municipalities within the county is Centre Wellington, home to the communities of Fergus, Elora, Belwood and Salem.

According to Township of Centre Wellington data, the municipality is expected to grow to a population of 58,200 by 2051, with total employment reaching 25,100. The majority of this growth will take place in the Fergus and Elora–Salem urban centres.

Under the More Homes Built Faster Act, the government of Ontario has mandated a residential construction acceleration of 1.5 million new homes in 10 years across the province.

The province has stated that, to accommodate the land needs assessment for this area, a settlement area boundary expansion of 398 hectares of residential and employment lands will be required in Centre Wellington.

In a community with a strong history of opposing rural development, farmers and politicians are making their concerns known to the province. A social media campaign has been launched to raise awareness of the risks of expanding into prime agricultural lands.

Land on the brink of development

Janet Harrop owns Harrcroft Acres with her husband, Ian, and their family just north of Fergus. She is also the past president of the Wellington Federation of Agriculture.

Harrop was among the participants in videos shared on Facebook. She believes that once land is rezoned for future development, investment in that land declines significantly.

“When farmers are unsure how long they will be able to rent land, they are less likely to invest in drainage or other improvements that would increase the land’s agronomic value,” she said.

She is concerned that land around the edge of Centre Wellington already approved for inclusion within the urban boundary, along with several parcels developers are seeking to include through the Ontario Land Tribunal, consists largely of prime agricultural land.

Harrop notes that only 0.5 per cent of Canada’s total land base comprises Class 1 soil, the highest quality classification. She adds that Wellington County accounts for three per cent of Ontario’s prime agricultural land.

She fears the expansion will affect more than access to farmland, driving up both land costs and rental prices.

“If farmers have a long-term lease with certainty, they are more willing to pay more for the land. Parcels next to the urban boundary will be viewed by the development community as long-term investments for future development and will inflate farmland values,” she said, adding that municipalities must plan a “buffer” when expanding urban boundaries.

Harrop believes the plan will not only fragment farmland but also introduce non-farming residences through surplus farm dwelling severances or additional severances on secondary agricultural land. She said this can disrupt farm equipment movement, limit future expansion due to minimum distance separation (MDS) requirements and increase conflicts with non-farm neighbours.

Also, she says, this type of expansion places strain on communities that lack infrastructure to support large-scale development.

The value of Wellington County’s soil must be recognized to keep farmers in the area, she says, noting the loss of quality farmland will drive up prices and threaten generational farming.

Harrop said growth can instead be managed through intensification.

“For example, a four-storey apartment building with 40 units versus 40 homes built on 0.5-acre lots would save 20 acres of farmland,” she said. “There also needs to be weighting based on the type of farmland being developed. Prime agricultural land should not be used to grow homes; it should be used to grow food.”

Protecting land a “societal responsibility”

Bronwynne Wilton is the Ward 5 councillor in Centre Wellington and a rural-urban planning consultant. Her ward includes one of the largest areas of farmland in the township.

She says protecting farmland should be a societal responsibility, noting residents in mixed urban-rural communities may not fully understand the impact of expansion.

Wilton acknowledges farmers face moral and financial pressure from developers.

“To ask a farmer to turn down a fairly lucrative offer is difficult,” she said, noting much farm equity is tied to land rather than the operating business. “I think a lot of farmers struggle with it, but on the other hand, that’s probably their retirement income — something passed down to their children and grandchildren.”

Wilton notes municipalities’ hands are often tied because urban boundary expansion guidelines are set by the province, including farmland classification systems that may not align with local priorities.

In a community known for civic engagement, Wilton believes awareness of farmland risks is strong.

“I think people are recognizing that we do have really good farmland, and many feel a connection to the farm community in one way or another,” she said. “People are realizing that we can’t just keep paving over farmland.”

Mike Schreiner, leader of the Green Party of Ontario, has been closely monitoring expansion plans in Wellington County. He has lived in Guelph for many years and says municipalities are pushing back against what he calls “the Ford government’s sprawl agenda” because of costs and farmland loss.

He argues the province has increasingly intervened to force boundary expansions that benefit developers.

“Wellington County is one of the Ford government’s targets despite strong local pushback,” he said. “I’ve spoken with planners, farmers and residents who want to see farms and the agricultural sector protected from expensive sprawl.”

Schreiner added that amid global trade instability, protecting rural economies is essential to safeguarding jobs and food security.

“As I developed the Protect Our Food Act, experts, planners and farmers all agreed that loss of farmland is more than just loss of land. It threatens food sovereignty, jobs, prosperity and access to fresh local food,” he said. “We need to build more affordable homes in the communities people love — and it is more affordable to do so without paving over farmland.”

He noted previous rules required comprehensive reviews before settlement boundaries could be expanded, but said the provincial government has weakened those safeguards and overridden local decisions.

“To protect Ontario’s precious farmland, this government needs to reintroduce stronger checks and balances, make it easier to build within existing urban boundaries and allow public servants to do their jobs without ministerial interference,” he said.

Schreiner added that his bill has already received support from the Township of Centre Wellington, which he says demonstrates municipalities “do not want to see their farmland paved over for expensive, low-density sprawl.”

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For technology developers in Ontario, a diverse economic environment and comparatively large pool of expertise have helped make the province one of many artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics development hubs.

Daniel Bath, research scientist in horticultural automation at Vineland Research and Innovation Centre, considers the influx of innovation as the next wave in agriculture’s long history with automation. Though the nature of horticultural crops has made mechanization historically challenging, recent advances in robotics and AI have generated momentum for fruit and vegetable technology.

Why it matters: A lack of local support and understanding of the Ontario farm landscape is a criticism commonly levied at ag-tech companies trying to make market inroads. Supporting locally derived innovation could help alleviate such issues.

Field validating new technologies is a critical step. Like many companies and institutions, Bath highlighted the importance of independent validation studies to provide reliable evidence for growers to assess the subject’s business case and inform their decision to invest.

Long-standing research programs from the Ontario government and academic institutions like the University of Guelph, private companies like Haggerty Creek Ltd., and research consortia like Niagara College’s Greenhouse Technology Network, are among Ontario’s strengths.

The province also has a wide diversity of crops, and a comparatively high population, he adds, which helps the province attract investment from tech companies.

To help coordinate more targeted research that will find the successes and identify potential flaws in autonomous equipment, Haggery Creek Ltd. recently formed an autonomous working group comprised of researchers from the University of Guelph, OMAFRA, and equipment manufacturers.

One of many development nodes

Ontario is not unique, though. Bath highlights the range of advances emanating from other parts of Canada, and not every company has set up shop locally. Nexus Robotics and Neupeak Robotics, for example, are based in Quebec and British Columbia respectively. Overall, the activity within Ontario represents a wider accumulation of knowledge and technological advances.

“I think we are in a wave of autonomous development, particularly in horticulture,” he says.

Ontario’s relatively large and concentrated population has also proven beneficial for Sougata Pahari, co-founder and chief executive officer for Oshawa-based robotics company Korechi Innovations. He targeted the Greater Toronto and Hamilton areas in particular when he first moved to Canada in 2016, Pahari says.

“There’s a major population and industry. Lots of talent, which drives more talent,” he says, adding the support Korechi and many other companies receive from government and research institutions has been critical.

“Government has done a good job of setting up many regional innovation centres to help us get started. They basically make it very straightforward to bring in a helpful pool of experts in key areas. It makes the barrier to entry a lot less.”

Support for commercialization needed

From Pahari’s perspective, the diversity of industry within Ontario has also allowed his company to expand into new markets.

What started as a robot for golf courses, for example, became the foundation of a new agricultural robot designed for Haggerty Creek. Speaking more generally, he says Canada has advantages over the famous Silicon Valley, specifically when it comes to development of AI.

“Canada is where AI really started. Calgary, Toronto, Montreal. Much of the research was initially done here. This is one of those gold rush, technology rush, that was very fruitful.”

Ontario isn’t without disadvantages, however.

Pahari says scaling AI programming is not a challenge since the coding does not have to change. The same can’t be said for production of products. The time and cost involved in production is less attractive for new companies, if not completely impractical from an investment point of view.

“We’ve been blessed with generous funding from the region and the federal government. We wouldn’t have survived without it. The current strategy is there isn’t much funding for commercialization. Most funding is for research,” he says, citing the $60 million venture capital fund Emertech as an example that could be used to model a wider program.

“We need to put funds towards commercialization…I would be thrilled if the government started putting in investment. Not free money but better than a loan at eight per cent interest.”

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The Ontario Federation of Agriculture’s (OFA) advocacy and awareness campaign is now one year old, and is beginning to gain traction around responsible land planning policies that acknowledge the importance of preserving farmland to support the production of local foods, fibres, fuels and flowers.

Brekveld expects the Ontario election to focus heavily on housing and the environment and partially on food, but all are intertwined.

“Since the pandemic, there has been an alarming expansion of low-density housing, warehouses, factories, and other non-agricultural land uses on land previously in agricultural production,” said Brekveld, OFA president.

“This is added pressure Ontario farmers simply don’t need.”

Cities like Hamilton, which have initiated a build-in-and-up, review-and-renew land planning strategy, or Halton, where intensification is a priority, indicate sprawl can be slowed, if not halted.

Brekveld said Waterloo had led the way in creating a land-use model that matches growth and housing needs to what and where building occurs to maximize space efficiency and minimize environmental impacts.

“There are some really amazing things happening,” she said. “We are doing a great job of connecting with the values of people who are not just farmers, but also people who live in bigger communities and care about where their food comes from and the impact that the farming community has.”

The election allows farmers and consumers to push candidates in all regions, rural and urban, to share their platforms for protecting Ontario’s farmland and food supply.

“There are some great opportunities at this time, especially an election time, to meet and engage with candidates who either will be elected and make great decisions – we hope,” Brekveld said. “(Or) who are already recognized as community leaders, engaged people in their communities and making a difference. Those conversations beyond this election period will have lasting impacts.”

The Home Grown campaign has generated 31,500 signatures of support, which continues to grow and has engaged more than 1.5 million people with their digital ads, which could heighten the pressure put on the Ontario government to take the crisis of disappearing farmland seriously, said Brekveld.

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