Land Use

Title: Series 16: Land Use Task Force

Dates of creation: 1981-1984

Administrative history: The Mennonite Conference of Ontario, in response to a proposal from a number of concerned people, created a Land Use Task Force in 1975. Its purpose was to create a brief on the increasing attrition of agricultural land in Ontario, with the goal of making their concerns known to the government of Ontario. The brief was completed in 1976 (see Mennonite Conference of Ontario and Quebec fonds, II-2.5.1).

In 1979, Orland Gingrich, a clergyman and farmer who had been part of the original task force, appealed to MCC Ontario at their annual meeting to take up and expand this work. MCC Ontario's Peace and Social concerns Section gave a land use workshop in 1980 and formed an ad hoc group, under their supervision, to continue dialogue. From 1981-1982 this group, also called the Land Use Task Force, undertook a study focusing on "Mennonite farmer attitudes and practices regarding land use, land conservation, energy conservation and pollution as they relate to their theology" (MCCO Annual Report, 1981).

Dr. Calvin Redekop of Conrad Grebel College led the study. The study concluded with a seminar at Conrad Grebel College in September 1982 called "Mennonites and the Land: Conservation or Exploitation" (see also Conrad Grebel University College fonds, XXVI-14.2 ff. 102-103). Findings were published in an article in the Mennonite Reporter in 1983. The task force was converted to a standing MCC Ontario committee, the Agricultural Concerns Committee, in 1985. 

Physical description: 10 cm textual materials

Custodial history: This series is part of a transfer of records from Mennonite Central Committee Ontario in the early 1980s.

Scope and content: Contains the files of the Land Use Task Force, 1981-1984.

Notes:  Related photographs may be located through the Mennonite Archival Image Database.
Additional related materials may be found by searching the Archives, and in Calvin Redekop's fonds.
Archival description created by Sam Steiner and revised by Laureen Harder-Gissing in 2017.

File list:

Box 1. Land Use Task Force, 1981-84

1. Minutes
2. Correspondence
3. Coding Materials 
4. Summary of Survey 
5. Tables of Results 
6. Label Values
7. Input Data