We cut down a lot of trees and drained a lot of wetlands to create Ontario’s agricultural landscape. With so few natural spaces left, and as economic pressures continue to push crop producers toward maximizing every available acre, I’m increasingly convinced legislation to protect nature from ourselves is a necessity.

Aside from the environment, there are practical political and economic reasons to support hypothetical restrictions on the removal of woodlots, fencerows, tallgrass prairie and the like. If we are proactive, there is opportunity to lobby for frameworks that support our bottom lines as well as nature.

Not doing so means that one day, we face a higher chance of regulations that burden more than they reward.

The rapid expansion of Essex County’s greenhouse vegetable and cannabis industries have had many positive impacts, and follow trends established throughout the area’s long affiliation with greenhouse production….But like anything, only highlighting positives can mask the less savoury characteristics associated with the injection and movement of large amounts of cash.

Social media is undermining our shared reality, and those of us in the agriculture sector need to take better note of the trend.

Why? Because not doing so could result in a continued separation between rural and urban Canada – as well as one another.

…Develop an understanding of where other people are coming from. It’s critical in the democratic process, and besides, it actually helps make you more effective at arguing your own perspective.

Talk to your MP, whether you like them or not. Talk to colleagues, whether you like them or not. Rebuild and continue fostering community relationships with those in and outside rural cultures.

Show them camouflage clothes are not scary. Try your utmost to be respectful and calm — even when the other party is being unreasonable. You will not succeed all the time (none of us do), but we have got to try, at least more than we are now.

This is a “both sides” argument. Whatever your political orientation, put a face to what is now, more than ever, an unknowable other.

Many of us have lost friends because of a lack of understanding and critical thinking. Let’s all give our heads a shake and stop this madness.

No one likes hard times. Growth and stability are in no way guaranteed, and bring problems of their own.

Do we truly understand how deep investments in ag-tech must go in order to transform any system?

What’s the actual hub of the farm debt treadmill?

A bit more meta-cognition might go quite a ways.