Ontario Provincial Police are on traffic alert, as convoys of the province's farmers drive their protest onto the steps of Queen's Park.

Exactly one week after thousands of farmers converged on the Ontario legislature, another group drove their tractors into downtown Toronto Wednesday.

Organized by a number of Ontario agricultural groups led by the Lanark Landowners Association, the day's protest is designed to focus attention on a range of issues from mad cow to land use restrictions and safe water legislation.

But for many in Canada's biggest city, the message was heard most clearly on the streets.

One convoy travelled from the Oshawa-Whitby area to the east, another approached from the north along the Don Valley Parkway, and the third from the west, along the Gardiner Expressway.

Major morning rush hour traffic was spared, however, as the group's planned departure time came after most morning commuters completed their journey.

But that still meant snarled roads for the commercial and commuter traffic that make the highways through Toronto Canada's busiest.

One of the protesters, Bill Argue, said drivers' frustration is a small price to pay for drawing attention to farmers' issues.

"People don't seem to realize they are not paying the total cost of the food when they go to the store," Argue told CTV News Toronto, wishing Ontarians valued his work more highly.

"And when the government gives us money they call it a subsidy. It's really not a subsidy, it's wages."

That is just one of the messages on the agenda for the afternoon rally expected to wrap up before 3 p.m.

And that means Toronto commuters can expect slow-downs on their drive out of the city, as the convoys of crawling tractors and other farm vehicles begin their return journeys in time for rush hour.

Protest organizers have said their intention is not to disrupt traffic, and agreed to limit their procession to a single lane on the busy highways.

A week earlier, Queen's Park played host to another farmers' protest. That demonstration, representing thousands of farmers from all sectors of the industry, spurred a meeting with the Agriculture Minister Steve Peters.

But in his comments, Premier Dalton McGuinty was careful to point out that the issue wasn't entirely in his purview.

"What we've got to do is continue to work together to find ways to support farmers so that we can help them ride through this, but let's face it, this is a national issue, it affects farmers from coast to coast," McGuinty told reporters.

With files from The Canadian Press