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Farmers pressure Doug Ford government to reverse course on housing plan

Under pressure from farmers, Premier Doug Ford's government is considering backing off from proposals that would allow more housing to be built on Ontario's dwindling farmland, CBC News has learned.

Leaders of a range of farming and agricultural groups met with senior government officials last week to raise their concerns about proposed changes to provincial land-use policy that Ford and his ministers have said will spur new home construction. 

The contentious proposals are part of the government's overhaul of Ontario's land-use guidelines, floated last month by Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Steve Clark. At the time, Clark called his plan "housing-focused" and said it would create more homes in both urban and rural communities.

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Trending Video

How American Farmers Harvest 1.15 Billion Pounds of Sunflowers

Video: How American Farmers Harvest 1.15 Billion Pounds of Sunflowers

Across the open plains of North Dakota and South Dakota, sunflower fields turn the American landscape into a sea of gold. In this farming documentary, we go inside modern sunflower farming to see how farmers plant, grow, harvest, clean, dry, process, and transform sunflower seeds into valuable products used every day.

In 2024, American farmers harvested about 1.15 billion pounds of sunflowers. This video follows the full journey from warm spring planting to combine harvesting, seed cleaning, storage, oil extraction, refining, roasting, packaging, and animal feed production.

You will see how sunflower seeds are processed into cooking oil, roasted snacks, bakery ingredients, birdseed, livestock feed, and useful byproducts. From golden fields to modern processing plants, this is the story of how a beautiful flower becomes one of America’s important oilseed crops.

Watch until the end to discover how sunflower farming connects farmers, machines, factories, food production, and sustainable agriculture.