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Abstract
This paper examines the impact of Ontario’s Greenbelt legislation, a land use policy
that permanently protects over 1.8 million acres of land from non-agricultural development,
on farmers’ exit and investment decisions. A farm-level panel data set for
32,512 farms in Ontario is used to perform two econometric estimations: a correlated
random effects Probit model of farm exit and a dynamic unobserved effects Tobit model
of farm investment. The Greenbelt policy is found to have influenced both farm exit
and farm investment decisions, with the impact varying depending on location within
the Greenbelt. In particular, the results indicate evidence of a negative impact on farm
investment, which is contrary to one of the objectives of the Greenbelt policy.