Overview

Ontario has an abundance of natural resources – trees, water, aggregates and productive agricultural land. Aggregates are the sand, gravel and stone underneath the soil, and are often found beneath some of the best and most productive farmland in Ontario.

We all depend on aggregates for building and maintain roads and bridges. But productive farmland is also a strategic resource that must be preserved. Once land is disturbed to extract aggregates, it is rarely rehabilitated to the level necessary to become productive agricultural land again.

The Ontario government recently proposed amendments to the Act under Schedule 1 of Bill 39, the Aggregate Resources and Mining Modernization Act. Read OFA’s submission here.

OFA Position

OFA advocates for amendments to the Aggregate Resources Act to ensure farmland is preserved, and pits and quarries are rehabilitated back to agricultural land.