Prince Edward Island is rapidly losing valuable agricultural land to residential development and the provincial government is failing to act, warns the P.E.I. Federation of Agriculture.
Executive director Donald Killorn said this has been a problem for years, and farmers are increasingly frustrated about the province’s lack of action.
“It’s becoming harder for them to grow their operations. It’s becoming harder for them to empower the next generation of farmers with farmland, and they increasingly see good farmland lost,” he said. “This is growing into a crisis.”
Alarming rate of loss
The federation previously told CBC News in 2023 that the Island has been losing farmland at a dangerous rate. Between 2016 and 2021, P.E.I. lost 12.3 per cent of its farmland. At this pace, the Island could lose half of its farmland by 2050.
“There’s nothing to suggest that there’s been any change to the rate of loss. We’re still seeing conversion of good agricultural land,” Killorn said.
He said the federation has been urging the provincial government to impose a moratorium on residential development in areas without a land-use plan.
“It’s clear that this government does not have the appetite for real land use planning. You know, we’ve had the same government for six years. We were not in a meaningful place around land use planning. The moratorium, it could happen today if they had an interest in actually doing it,” he said.
In an email, P.E.I.’s Department of Housing, Land and Communities said it would not be able to respond to the federation’s comments this week.
Impact on future generations
Killorn pointed to the “ribbon development” across rural areas — long stretches of houses built along roads, not within actual planned neighbourhoods — as a significant issue.
