Niagara is “one of the most productive areas in Canada with the unique ability to support crops that cannot be grown elsewhere in Canada,” says a Niagara Region report.

Niagara is “one of the most productive areas in Canada with the unique ability to support crops that cannot be grown elsewhere in Canada,” says a Niagara Region report.

The sweet scent of grapes on vines. The golden glow of apricots and peaches ripening in tender fruit orchards. Cows lazily grazing in a pasture.

They’re feel-good things the roughly 98 per cent of Niagara residents who don’t farm can take pleasure in before heading back to their sprawling subdivisions and cookie-cutter homes.

But they’re much more than visual and olfactory distractions. Behind the pretty picture of farming in Niagara is the reality that agriculture plays a vital role in the region’s economy, generating hundreds of millions of dollars a year and employing thousands of people.

Just how big that economic impact is became clear in 2003, when the region released a detailed study of the sector it commissioned.

Consultants hired to do the study estimated farming generates $511 million in sales annually, but indirectly the industry has an economic impact of $1.8 billion.

That’s because many non-farming jobs rely on farming. For instance, the study found 33 construction firms employing 1,792 people and 42 equipment firms employing 1,763 people provide agricultural services. Likewise, 29 transport companies employing 1,000 people and a number of warehouse operations also provide agricultural services, the study found.

The study painted a picture of an extremely diverse sector in the region, and one that is without equal in Ontario in terms of financial productivity per acre. While the average gross farm receipts generated per acre was only $674 on average province-wide and $995 in southern Ontario on average, in Niagara that figure soars to $2,195.

What became crystal clear in the study is that Niagara’s agricultural lands are among the most unique in Canada, and that they are a resource that must be protected.

With the modifying effects of two great lakes and the Niagara Escarpment, its soil types, its southern location nestled in-between the Greater Toronto Area and the huge U.S. market combining to create a unique micro-climate, Niagara is “one of the most productive areas in Canada with the unique ability to support crops that cannot be grown elsewhere in Canada,” the report said.

Almost nowhere else can sensitive vinifera wine grapes and tender fruit such as peaches be grown on a commercially viable scale.

While only five per cent of Canadian land is considered prime agricultural, the Canada Land Inventory classifies the majority of Niagara land as prime agricultural acreage.

Like other areas, though, farmland is facing development pressures and ever-changing markets. Past decisions such as the construction of the QEW right through prime tender fruit lands and decisions at the local level have taken many good acres of farmland out of production.

Ontario Street in St. Catharines once exemplified that city’s motto as the Garden City and was home to a paradise-like collection of farms. The last remaining farm there was paved over in the 1990s to make way for yet another strip plaza.

Over a 30-year period from 1971 to 2001, the number of farms in Niagara fell by 1,926 — a 49 per cent reduction, the regional study found. That’s an even higher percentage than the provincial decline of 42 per cent over the same period.

But much of that can be attributed to a province-wide trend toward larger and larger farms, which for some types of farming can be more cost effective. Over the 30-year period, 19,727 acres of farmland in Niagara went out of production.

That’s a decline of 7.8 per cent, compared to the province-wide decline of 15 per cent and a four per cent decline in southern Ontario, the report found.

While farmers continue to grow, produce or harvest everything from eggs and milk, field crops such as barley and corn, hogs and beef cattle, and grapes and tender fruit, the greenhouse industry has emerged as the powerhouse of Niagara’s agricultural sector — in large part because the potted plants grown in the greenhouses are within a day’s drive of a market of 120 million people.

As recently as 1986, poultry and egg, and fruit, were the two top commodity groups in Niagara in terms of gross farm receipts, while the greenhouse industry ranked third with 18.6 per cent of sales.

While poultry and eggs still had the largest gross farm receipts by 2001 in Fort Erie, Port Colborne, Wainfleet, West Lincoln and Niagara Falls, and fruit production was top dog in Niagara-on-the-Lake and second in St. Catharines, Lincoln and Grimsby, overall the greenhouse industry was first. By 2001, that industry accounted for 42.6 per cent of gross farm receipts and it remains the fastest-growing agricultural industry.

But it isn’t all about dollars. The regional report said agriculture has many other benefits for Niagara, including quality of life. For example, the various farmers’ markets along with events such as PoultryFest in Smithville, the Niagara Wine Festival, the Lincoln County Fair and Taste Niagara help urban dwellers — a growing number of whom may never have set foot on a farm — to gain an understanding of rural life, the report said.

Indirectly, the backdrop of agricultural land — whether it is grapes ripening on the vine in the fall or the explosive colour of cherry blossoms in the spring — helps to market and promote Niagara, the report said.

Certainly, agriculture in Niagara has its share of challenges and crises. The recent closure of the Cadbury Schweppes plant in St. Catharines eliminated the market for many grape juice farmers in Niagara and the closure of the CanGro canning plant in St. Davids has left many fruit growers with possibly nowhere to sell their fruit.

But new opportunities to diversify the industry may also soon exist. Brock University plans to open up a $90-million bioscience centre by 2012.

Professor Vincenzo De Luca, who holds a Canadian Research Chair in plant biotechnology at Brock, said the new centre will help combat such societal scourges as diabetes and obesity by helping to create new types of crops that will be healthier and more nutritional.

Brock president Jack Lightstone foresees scientifically modified plants being used as factories, from which materials can be extracted for pharmaceuticals.

Undoubtedly, Niagara farmers could play a key role in all of that. In turn, Brock officials say, the bioscience centre could help to create spin-off companies to produce and market the innovations created at the centre, which could help to convince some of the brightest young minds in Niagara to remain here.

“The diversity of the agricultural industry in Niagara speaks well for its future,” the regional report concluded.

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Fast facts

• In 2001 there were 3,335 farm operators in Niagara, a decline of 655 (16 per cent) since 1996.

• Lincoln, Niagara-on-the-Lake and West Lincoln generated the highest gross farm receipts.

• Fort Erie, Niagara Falls and Welland had the lowest gross farm receipts.

• Niagara is the largest chicken-producing region in Ontario.

• Agriculture has a net benefit on the municipal tax roll: studies in the U.S. found that for each dollar of farmland property tax collected, municipalities spend 77 or less to service those properties. For each dollar of residential taxes collected, an average of $1.14 was spent on taxes.

Source: Regional Agricultural Economic Impact Study, 2003

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Click here to download a graph of Agriculture Statistics by Municipality.