**Charles Stevens, owner of Wilmot Orchards . / WILMOT ORCHARDS PHOTO**

Charles Stevens, owner of Wilmot Orchards near Toronto, rejected a $16-million offer for his 66-hectare farm and instead placed an easement on the property ensuring it can only be used to grow food for the next 999 years.

“I want my younger generation and the generations down the road to not have to buy their blueberries from Panama or some foreign country that may not feed us,” Stevens told CBC.

Canadian farmland is shrinking, with the 2021 Census of Agriculture reporting a 3.2 per cent decline in total farm area since 2016, while the Canadian Federation of Agriculture estimates losses of more than five million hectares since 2001.

Tyler McCann of the Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute said there is “no debate” that Canada is farming less land, as urban expansion removes productive farmland from agriculture and makes the food system “more precarious.”

Ontario is seeking to strengthen food security partly by restricting foreign ownership of farmland, although McCann said farmland prices are driven largely by farmers buying neighbouring farms rather than foreign or institutional investors. Rising land prices are also making it difficult for young farmers to enter the industry, with fewer than 23,000 young farm operators in Canada and an average farm-operator age of 56.

Stevens warned that Ontario is losing about 319 acres of farmland daily, saying, “When that happens, in 100 years time there will not be any farmland left in Ontario if that isn't stopped.”