DCHP-2

foodland foodlands, Food Land DCHP-2 (July 2016)

• n. — Agriculture

  land with food-growing potential; farmland.

  Type: 5. Frequency — The term foodland is used to describe land that has the potential for growing edible crops (see Gage-5, s.v. "foodland"). Foodland is most often used in the context of initiatives to preserve farmland threatened by urbanization or development (see the 1981 and 1987 quotations). The term is most often used in Ontario (see Chart 1). It is likely that the term was popularized by Foodland Ontario, a provincial farm preservation plan implemented in 1978 (see CIP: 18). The earliest attestation of the word is from an Ontario source only two years prior to the program's beginning (see the 1976 quotation). The term appears to be one of several terms that originated in Ontario and then spread to other parts of Canada (see, e.g. cube van). The term is most prevalent in Canada overall (see Chart 2); the high frequency in Australia, New Zealand and the US is primarily because it is the name of a grocery store food chain, "Foodland".
  See also Gage-5, which does not give a Canadian label, yet offers a Canadian example, COD-2, s.v. "foodland", which is marked "Cdn".

  • This term is commonly used in the plural form.
  • Agricultural land reserve expresses the same concept.