Consideration of the environment: An approach for rural planning and development

Excerpt

Rural agricultural communities in Canada face increasingly difficult economic Rircumstances and ever threatening environmental constraints. These issues promise not only to alter the composition of the rural economy and society, but also to threaten the existence of some communities. These threats suggest that rural communities need to focus on economic and environmental issues in agriculture. While there has been a focus on the municipal role in responding to agriculture's economic difficulties, little attention has been directed towards the municipal response to agriculture's environmental problems.

For many rural communities there is an inextricable relationship between the welfare of the community and the economic and environmental health of agriculture. As agricultural change has occurred, there has been a corresponding and often negative impact on the rural community. Historically, economic issues have dominated the local agenda, but increasingly agriculture's environmental impacts are being recognized. Issues such as soil erosion, compaction and salinization associated with declining productivity pose a real threat to the future of many rural communities.

Municipalities, as the local level of government, have on occasion attempted to respond to community issues resulting from agricultural change. More often than not, however, municipalities have either considered the …