In Defense of Soil: an Ontario Greenbelt Regeneration Strategy
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Date
2022-02-10
Authors
Coulter, Shaina Anne
Journal Title
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Volume Title
Publisher
University of Waterloo
Abstract
Ontario’s prime agricultural soils are in distress. Degraded by decades of intense conventional agricultural practices and threatened by the advancing footprint of suburban development, the once abundant layer of topsoil has been abused and exploited to produce ever-higher yields of commodity crops intended for export overseas instead of for consumption by Ontario communities. As legislation lacks requirements for sustainable farming practices on government-owned lands, farmers use harmful agriculture practices to yield the most results during their lease. Located within the Ontario Greenbelt, the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve is an agricultural land area owned by the provincial government where farmers do exactly that. In Defense of Soil asks: how could the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve support a repository of exemplary regenerative agricultural knowledge that is specific to Ontario’s agricultural landscape, which orients the products of Ontario’s farms towards local markets instead of global exports? This thesis realizes Ontario’s only designated agricultural preserve has the potential to become a landscape mosaic of healthy, diverse, and aggrading ecosystems that provide energy and life to surrounding communities.
This thesis seeks to explore a series of landscape transformations that increase crop production in combination with practices that restore natural ecosystems. The regenerative strategies used in the design of the agricultural preserve aim to evoke a sense of place which challenges conventional notions of today’s degraded rural landscapes—a place which upholds nourishing, ecological, and human-scale farming techniques.
Through drawings, illustrations, maps, and data visualization, this thesis will propose a design for the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve to demonstrate the key regenerative impacts this work could have on the landscape above, the communities nearby, and the soil below. Working to address the needs of both the community and the environment, this vision for the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve exemplifies regenerative agriculture practices for Ontario, advocating for the land itself and we who rely on it.
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Keywords
regenerative, agriculture, landscape infrastructure, community engagement, soil, honourable harvest, Indigenous, architecture, Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve, Pickering, Ontario, Greenbelt, agroforestry, phytoremediation, planning