OMAFRA’s Guidelines on Permitted Uses in Prime Agricultural Areas provide guidance to support implementation of the Provincial Policy Statement (2014) with regards to agricultural, agriculture-related and on-farm diversified uses. This research will assess the effectiveness of these guidelines including measures of their performance in terms of supporting farmland protection, assessing if the policy/guideline have increased the numbers of new businesses, and benefits and costs for farmers and municipalities. The research will also identify/evaluate best practices for land use planners to achieve policy objectives for agriculture-related and on-farm diversified uses.
Specifically the research will do 5 things:

1. It will provide a literature review and jurisdictional scan of best practices (with examples from North America and Europe).
2. It will survey all upper tier municipalities to identify the range of policy and strategies used to encourage agriculture-related and on-farm diversified uses.
3. It will evaluate the specific effects of policy on individual farmers within different policy regimes (using a Case Study methodology).
4. It will apply an evaluation framework to determine the relative merits /effects of different policy.
5. Based on the above, best practices for policy framework/development and implementation will be identified (evidence based policy for municipalities and the province).