| Jul 28, 2011


Several years ago John Campbell bought a 200-acre farm on the Willis Armstrong Road, a little bit north of Hwy. 7 in Central Frontenac. The farm had been run by the Young family until age and modern economics held sway. Like so many properties in Frontenac County, and in rural Ontario generally, the efforts made over 100 plus years to clear land, and raise crops, livestock and families in a sometimes forbidding landscape had fallen by the wayside.

John Campbell purchased the property with a view towards renovating the farmhouse or building a new home on the property, but that plan proved not to be viable. Campbell lives close by, in a house near Sharbot Lake, but his interest in the old farm remains strong.

Several creeks run through the property; there are remnants of hay fields remaining, along with a significant amount of mixed forest as well. It is hilly and varied, and filled with vistas. The effort that was required to turn some of the grassier pockets of land into viable farm fields must have been particularly onerous.

“It's a piece of property that has value, I think. Not just the economic value from the potential lumber, but value as a landscape as well,” Campbell said.

John Campbell, joined the Ontario Woodlot Association a number of years ago, and he has been doing work on the land at his property, and cutting trails into some of the bush with a view towards harvesting lumber at some point. He has also been learning a lot about how forests work, and the impacts of wind storms and ice storms on woodlots.

While the entire enterprise has not been without expense, one thing that has helped Campbell out is some tax relief offered by the Ontario government.

In 1997, the provincial government established an incentive program for rural landowners to pay more attention to forested lands that are part of their properties.

Through the Managed Forest Tax Incentive Program (MFTIP), woodlot acres are taxed as if they were active farmland, a savings in property taxes of 75%. The savings do not affect the amount of taxation charged for the house and the one acre surrounding it, so the ultimate savings are relatively moderate, in the $100 to $200 per year range for a lot of smaller scale landowners, but it can add up for larger 200 to 500 acre properties.

“What the MFTIP does for me is give me a bit of incentive to invest some money into improving my property,” said John Campbell.”

The first thing a property owner must do under the program is complete an inventory of their property, for which Campbell hired an arborist.

The arborist provided a map of the property that split it into different pieces to go along with its different geology and soil conditions, and helped Campbell identify the different stands of trees and fields. From then on it was up to him what kind of a plan he wanted to implement.

It could be a limited plan, based on basically letting nature take its course, or it could include thinning the bush to promote certain species, as John Campbell's plan does.

In doing some thinning and building trails into the bush with a view towards doing selective harvesting in the future, the continuing impact of the 1998 Ice Storm on the forest has become clear to John Campbell.

“A lot of crown damage set rot into the trees that is only now becoming apparent as winds knock some of these trees down,” he said, pointing to a trail that he cut just this spring that is now littered with fallen trees.

John Campbell does not expect an immediate return for his investment of time and money into his property, but the Managed Forest Program does give him some support as he tries to improve some of the prospects for his land.

In 2007 the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) summed up the municipal perspective on MFTIP in a position paper.

“MFTIP is a voluntary program administered by the Ministry of Natural Resources that provides lower property taxes to participating landowners that agree to conserve and actively manage their forests. It provides a 75% discount on property taxes to landowners who agree to manage their forests, including commercial forestry operations – shifting the property tax burden to others in the community.

“While the total costs of this program are not extraordinary, the principle of forcing municipalities to subsidize a provincial forest management program is bizarre and unaccountable.”

AMO has not had any luck in convincing the provincial government to take these costs on or to compensate municipalities for any of their lost revenue.

 

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