How rural growth can widen the cultural divide

To the homebuyer yearning for lower costs and a change of pace from the urban bustle, a bedroom community outside city limits looks idyllic.

The homebuyer drives out. They’re impressed with the area. They can envision raising their family in the cosier — but still conveniently commutable — small town. They break ground on a new house or take charge of a new set of keys.

Then, their farming neighbours hit the first agricultural busy season. Seeders are running at 3 a.m. or there’s harvest dust blowing in the open window. They come home to an odour wafting over from the nearby field the first time their neighbour spreads manure.

The situation is hypothetical, but to Mayor Chris Ewen of the RM of Ritchot south of Winnipeg, it strikes close to home.

“We’re seeing city people moving out here and building a beautiful $600,000 to $1 million home in these new developments and then three years later they don’t like the smell of the hog barn or it’s dusty during crop season, whatever the case may be,” he said. “The reality is we see it all the time.”

The RM of Ritchot is one among several rural areas that have enjoyed significant growth in the last decade, either as a bedroom community region to a population centre like Winnipeg, or because of commercial and industrial growth drawing new jobs to the region.

The population of Ewen’s RM jumped 21.9 per cent between the 2011 and 2016 census, according to Statistics Canada, several magnitudes over the provincial average of 5.8 per cent.

Elsewhere in the province, the city of Winkler grew 16.6 per cent, growth that also spilled out into the surrounding villages. In the town of Neepawa, home to one of the province’s major pork-processing plants, population grew 26.6 per cent.

For municipalities, that growth is a good news story — vibrant expansion and prosperity rather than contraction and decline.

But while the growth is welcome, unintended culture clash that pits new residents against the farming critical to the culture and economy of an area, is not.

The pork sector has been a highly visible example of those issues due to barn and manure odours. At the same time, some of the most highly dense hog-producing areas of southeastern Manitoba are the same areas that have seen some measure of expansion.

Cam Dahl, general manager with the Manitoba Pork Council (MPC), believes that the province does have a balanced approach between resident concerns and the priorities of agriculture.

For one thing, he said, the province’s Farm Practices Protection Act shields normal ag practice from official sanction, while leaving room for residents to bring up issues and ensure that farms are operating within the rules.

Under the act, anyone using normal farm practices that do not violate provincial law or regulation, “is not liable in nuisance to any person for any odour, noise, dust, smoke or other disturbance resulting from the agricultural operation.”

Furthermore, they “shall not be prevented by injunction or other order of a court from carrying on the agricultural operation because it causes or creates an odour, noise, dust, smoke or other disturbance.”

Complaints must be submitted in writing to the Manitoba Farm Industry Board. If that application is accepted, the board can investigate, make a decision on what counts as “normal” practice for that farm and try to resolve the issue between the parties.

Still, Dahl admits, even if there’s no official impact, it never feels good for a farmer to hear that they are the subject of a complaint.

“I think this is where a second part comes in too,” he said. “All of us involved in agriculture really do need to continue to convey what modern agriculture is about and to communicate with the public the care that’s given to protect the environment and enhance our environmental footprint and the standards for animal care.”

Communication is critical to stopping those issues before they ever make it to an official hearing, he said.

Agriculture’s economic impact should be part of that advocacy, he added, noting that many urban jobs are tied to farming.

Dahl also noted the role of local councils, as the ones handing out conditional use permits for new hog barns. That hearing process opens another chance for public concerns to be aired, he said.

It is, however, important that the conditional use process is predictable, given the scale of investment for each new barn, he added. MPC estimates the cost of a new hog barn at around $7 million to $10 million.

Wayne Caldwell, a professor of rural planning and development of the University of Guelph, is well familiar with this type of conflict in areas such as southeastern Ontario.

Eventually, Caldwell suggests, those conflicts may branch out beyond odour and dust and into more ideological points of contention — such as the use of GMOs.

“I think there’s probably multiple things that you do,” Caldwell said. “First of all is education and communications and that, in many ways, falls on the farm community and it falls on municipal councils to make sure that people are aware of the situation that surrounds agriculture. There are odours. There is dust. There is noise — all of those things that are part and parcel of much of the farming activity that goes on.”

With the exception of odours, he noted, most of those irritants are short lived.

“The second thing, I think, is to acknowledge that sometimes dispute resolution processes are required,” he added.

The farm community must also not forget that those new residents have savings tied up in property and therefore also have a financial stake in the region, he added.

Development planning

Proper development plans are also critical, Caldwell noted.

In the RM of Ritchot, agriculture features heavily in development planning, according to Tanya Waddell, administrator with the Macdonald-Ritchot Planning District.

Among the policies on paper, the RM lays out a size guideline of 80 acres for top farmland, something meant to avoid small sections being carved out and switched to any use but agricultural. That same prime and “viable lower-class” farmland cannot be developed for non-ag use, and a “full range of agricultural activities must be allowed,” subject to provincial law and regulation, Waddell said.

While growth has been explosive in some parts of his region, Ewen also noted that much of that growth has been in areas specifically tagged for that sort of expansion. He added that both his council and their predecessors have been cautious about moving land away from farming, since once farmland is gone, it often never returns to ag use.

Caldwell also argued that the type of agriculture is important, in the context of the area’s history.

The hog sector, for example, may reasonably expect less push-back in an area where residents historically, and still primarily, are linked in some way with agriculture, he said, while maintaining a pork foothold may be more difficult in areas bordering Winnipeg.

Dahl, however, doubts that is impacting where and how new hog barns are going up.

There are, however, unrelated factors impacting the sector’s geographic growth pattern, he noted.

“There’s proper spacing when it comes to things like biosecurity,” he said. “There’s a need to ensure that there’s available land for environmentally sustainable manure application.”

About 30 new barns or barn expansions have been approved province-wide in the last five years, according to MPC.

Industry efforts

There are also things that agriculture can do to avoid issues from cropping up in the first place, Dahl said.

Ag Action Manitoba, for example, has funding for on-farm projects through the beneficial management practice stream. Among those, the document lays out programs for things like barn odours, manure storage upgrades or other sustainable agriculture projects.

In the hog sector, Dahl argues that new barn design is also much improved from decades ago.

“There’s significant changes in ventilation,” he said. “Some new facilities have manure storage below the barn floor, for example.”

At the same time, he highlighted things like the proper site for a new barn and other additions like shelterbelts.

Buyer beware

In Ewen’s view, and in a perfect world, resolving these types of conflicts would happen long before newcomers break ground on a home or start moving in boxes.

Having a former career in real estate, Ewen stressed the importance of homeowners being aware what they’re signing up for when relocating to the countryside. Agriculture is a thing that happens in the area, and Ewen said the RM has little interest in curbing those operations to avoid interactions that newcomers might find unpleasant.

“The truth of the matter is that the farmers, the agricultural land, was there first and the appreciation of having agricultural land around you should be considered when you’re purchasing a home,” he said.

Part of the buck also stops with the realtor, he argued.

“The realtor has a responsibility to ensure that the buyer or purchaser, the person building the home, has to understand where they’re building, has to understand what the municipality has to offer and also has to understand what has been there before them,” he said.

That kind of conflict might also be headed off by more regional and integrated development planning, Bill Ashton of Brandon University’s Rural Development Institute said.

He pointed to projects like Plan 20-50, a regional development plan that merges 18 urban and rural municipalities in the Winnipeg Metropolitan Region. The plan was submitted for approval in June 2021.

The relationship between local councils and neighbouring Indigenous communities form yet another key point when it comes to development, he also noted, pointing to the growth of urban reserves, as well as the nuances that come when municipal planning intersects with traditional land.

The province also has a role when it comes to helping communities deal with exponential growth, according to him.

About a decade ago, RDI studied rapidly growing areas in Winkler and Morden, as well as the Neepawa area with the expansion of the HyLife Foods plant.

Much of that growth, Ashton noted, was driven by provincial immigration policy, which then reflected into the changed needs for the community as populations grew.

At the time, RDI recommended that the provincial government introduce more interdepartmental co-operation and special assistance for municipalities adapting their services and infrastructure to sudden population surges.

— Alexis Stockford is a reporter for the Manitoba Co-operator. This article originally appeared in the Nov. 25, 2021 edition; click here to view the digital edition.