Guiding farmers through agricultural planning applications

From the Best Practices in Land Use Planning for Food and Farm businesses in the Golden Horseshoe project, several research questions present themselves. Key finding #1 found that there was no short guiding document related to agricultural planning processes, but 1) why isn't there a short document that guides farmers through agricultural planning applications? If it is known that wait times are a problem as demonstrated by key finding #2, 2) what is being done about wait times for agricultural planning applications? It is clear that from a regulatory perspective, the agricultural sector has been inundated with plan after plan and new regulation after new regulation. So, 3) what do ag. businesses think of how planning regulation impacts their business? Is there a way to address this simply? The above-mentioned research questions provide a foundation for the qualitative research project reported on in the paper to follow. Deliverables for said research project include: a) a report on the project that addresses the above research questions, including sections on the key informant interview methodology employed; b) the report will also include sections that introduce the short document deliverable described below, including reference to key informant interviews; c) a short (one page, double-sided) document that guides farmers through planning applications delivered to the GHFFA, who are funding the research.