I’d never foreseen this coming,’ Ken Marshall says about estimated $150,000 loss

An Ancaster farmer estimates he has lost $150,000 worth of crops after a real estate firm wiped them out to conduct an archeological study for a potential land deal.

With a lease agreement until the end of the year, Ken Marshall figured he’d be able to harvest his 24 acres of horseradish come mid-October.

But last week, he caught wind of someone in a tractor spraying his vegetables and the flowers another farmer was growing on the Garner Road East land.

“I’d never foreseen this coming along. I never thought it would get this far,” Marshall said Friday.

The obliteration of the crops, which were also plowed over, amounts to a loss of about $150,000 and could complicate fulfilling a contract with a Toronto food supplier, he said.

“It hits me more there being short — if I’m short,” said Marshall, who is a third-generation Ancaster farmer.

The 56-year-old’s predicament comes amid a potential multimillion-dollar land deal between the longtime owners of the property and a real estate firm with offices in Toronto, Edmonton and Calgary.

One Properties Real Estate Inc. has made a conditional offer for the nearly 90 acres of land at 140 Garner Rd. E., which was listed at $43.5 million. (A parcel that was severed from that land and includes a palatial home is listed separately for $49 million.)

One Properties aims to build a 1.3-million-square-foot warehouse complex on the farmland, which is in Hamilton’s airport employment growth district and zoned for industrial use.

But last month, the Hamilton Conservation Authority’s board of directors rejected One Properties’ plan to fill in a wetland on the land as part of the project after the pitch drew strong opposition from a range of community members.

The firm, which had proposed “creating” a larger wetland elsewhere on the land, is moving ahead with a different plan, senior vice-president Stefan Savelli said this week.

The crops had to be cleared for an archeological assessment that must be done by July 31, according to a contract with the vendor, he said.

Savelli said “numerous” attempts were made to reach the farmer about the upcoming archeological work but there were no responses.

“All that I’m aware of is that the crops need to be removed. How they remove them is not my specialty,” Savelli said, noting he didn’t know about the spraying.

Marshall knew One Properties had called but said he only deals with the property owners who lease to him.

Developer Paul Silvestri, whose parents own the land, said he was also upset about the crop destruction.

“Well, I’m pretty pissed,” he said. “There’s a missed communication there. I’m not very happy with (One Properties).”

Silvestri questioned the decision to go ahead and kill the crop without a response from the farmer before harvest time.

“To me, it’s just not right. I’m not on their side. This is a mistake. Their mistake.”

Savelli, however, contends the contract’s July 31 “timeline” was set by the vendor, not One Properties.

Silvestri, who declined to discuss details of the conditional offer, said his family has never had problems with the farmers during a decades-long arrangement. “They’re gentlemen. The people are fantastic.”

Likewise, Marshall spoke of a “great, great rapport” with the Silvestri family over 25 years of farming on the property.

The farmer whose sunflowers and ornamental wheat were destroyed along with Marshall’s horseradish declined to speak The Spectator.

The tractor didn’t reach the pumpkins Carrie Hewitson and her husband, Ron Book, grow on a subleased section of the land that borders theirs.

“You could see the spray just drifting in the air right next to the wetland that we tried so hard — so valiantly — to preserve,” Hewitson recalled.

“It’s heartbreaking,” she added, noting the agricultural land is teeming with wildlife.

The crops were annihilated for a development that still awaits approval, Book pointed out. “For a proposed sale, they’ve gone and destroyed all of the crops.”

The Hamilton Conservation Authority conducted a “compliance review” of the incident this week, Scott Peck, chief administrative officer, said in an email.

“However, based on our observations, the activity in the agricultural field did not extend into the wetland area nor was there any evidence of damage to the wetland as a result of this plowing activity nor any evidence of damage to the wetland as a result of any alleged herbicide application.”

Meanwhile, Marshall and his crew are busy harvesting 12 acres of garlic.

He acknowledges his farming days at 140 Garner Rd. E. could be numbered with the property up for sale.

“It’s a nice piece of dirt,” he says, with a wistful smile.

But last week’s abrupt exit left him shocked.

“Was I pissed off at first? Yeah, I was angry. Now you sit back and look back at it now, ‘OK, what’s done is done.’”

But he still expects to be compensated, somehow.

“I don’t want to take the loss on the chin and just walk away.”

Correction: This story was updated on July 24 to reflect that land at 140 Garner Rd. E. has been severed into parcels that are listed separately: the property that includes the large home is distinct from the nearly 90 acres that involves One Properties Real Estate Inc.

Carrie Hewitson sat in a folding chair in the middle of the grass pathway near where she and her husband, Ron Book, farm for most of the day and night, dreading the large tractor rumbling down the land, which had been spraying herbicide on all the other nearby crops.

Her nerves were frayed, anticipating what would happen if she had to confront the tractor. She hadn’t be able to sleep over worries about what was to come, but knew she and Ron had to do something and stand up for their farm and way of life.

“The tractor didn’t come down the lane because it was too narrow,” she said. “I still don’t know what I would have done.”

But the spraying had damaged some of their crops.

Carrie and Ron have found themselves on the frontlines of a battle between local developers and farmers who are attempting to protect their livelihoods, as well as their ability to grown local, fresh food for the community.

Ron – who comes from one of Ancaster’s original settlers, the Book family, sub-leases land to grow pumpkins, all varieties, colours and sizes of tomatoes, beans, horseradish, peppers and other fresh, locally grown food.

They have been selling some of their fresh produce at the Ottawa Street farmers market, and they have contracts with suppliers. But that has been put in jeopardy after Ron discovered, after talking with his neighbour Ken Marshall, that the owner issued termination notices to their lease, essentially kicking them off the property by Sept. 15.

“We don’t know what will happen after Sept. 15,” said Carrie and Ron. “We have pumpkins that are ripening in the garden and waiting to be picked. We have other vegetables that will be ready in the early fall. We have contracts to fulfill.

“We want to know what our rights are. Will they kill our crops too? This is the big guy against the little guy.”

Ron said he has not been contacted yet, but is fearful of what could happen in the near future. Ron and Carrie have spoken about what they would do, including the possibility, if they can’t farm any more, of moving out of the city.

“I don’t want to do that,” said Carrie.

The 245 Garner Rd. E. property is located in the airport employment growth district (AEGD) and because of the Ontario Municipal Board decision in 2015, the farmland was redesignated industrial.

Marshall has already estimated he lost about $150,000 worth of crops after a real estate firm sprayed them, wiping them out in July.

One Properties Real Estate Inc. has made a conditional offer for the nearly 90 acres of land at 140 Garner Road E., which was listed at $43.5 million.

The company’s goal is to build a 1.3 million-square-foot warehouse complex on the farmland.

A message left with One Properties was not returned.

Nancy Hurst, an Ancaster resident who has helped to spearhead a local campaign against council to prevent an urban boundary expansion, said the bad decisions made, plus the reality of climate change will only be exacerbated by “all that land paved over” and millions of dollars in lost crops.

“The AEGD is a terrible idea. Building warehouses on prime farmland and leaving vacant brownfields elsewhere in the city to rot is foolish,” she said.

In back of the Book land is a wetland that Carrie points out is loaded with environmentally sensitive plants. It is also the subject of a dispute between One Properties and the Hamilton Conservation Authority. The company wanted to fill in the wetland as part of the warehouse project and “create” a larger wetland at another location, amid cries from local farmers and environmentalists. The conservation authority has rejected the plan.

Where abundant crops used to grow, there was nothing but empty land and weeds.

“I just don’t know how they are getting away with this,” said Carrie. “We are not in this business for the money. It’s (a) good, honest day’s work. And it is essential for the community. But the city is allowing valuable farmland to be ruined by developers. And for what? A warehouse? Who will feed the people?”