Time for a moratorium on ALR decisions


The perfect storm of runaway oil prices, scarce food grains and adverse weather converged last month, focusing a spotlight on the fragility of global food supplies. At the same time, the decidedly linked issues of food security and on-going exclusions from the Agricultural Land Reserve collided head-on. While the world-wide media spewed warnings of impending global famine and the perils of converting food producing land into fodder for biofuels, closer to home the Agricultural Land Commission (ALC) launched a review of subdivision approvals within the Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR) granted by the City of Chilliwack since the mid-1990’s.
We live in a dangerous world in which a sovereign nation cannot have food security without the capacity to grow its own food. And you certainly can’t grow food if the very land upon which you depend for food security is nickled and dimed away to special interest groups, developers, or government settling native treaties disputes. This scenario of excluding land from the shrinking ALR is all too frequently played out in this province. The ALC review comes as a result of, but is not part of, an RCMP investigation into one or more land developments in the Fraser Valley.
By happenstance, the developments involved companies owned by Chilliwack-Sumas MLA John Les. Les’s innnocence or guilt is not the issue here. That is for the justice system to decide. The issue is that there may be loopholes – alleged or otherwise – whereby the system can be played for all its worth, and damn the consequences of rich agricultural land lost forever under Fraser Valley estate homes and roads.
At the same time, we are learning – much to the chagrin of the politically-correct eco-crowd – that subsidizing the conversion of food crops into biofuel is looking like the voyage of the Titanic. The promise of energy independence and limiting carbon emissions has turned out to be hollow. Time magazine called it, bluntly, a “scam.”
British Columbia itself is funnelling up to $10 million over three years to push biofuel production, and is committed to implementing a five per cent average renewable fuel standard for diesel. This province has also announced it will increase the ethanol content of gasoline to five per cent by 2010. .
According to a report by the B.C. Ministry of Agriculture and Lands, agriculture is “growing” in Abbotsford, but in reality it appears the ALR is “shrinking.” Since 1973, the report says, the ALR in Abbotsford lost 1.2 per cent of its land base to exclusions and another 4.8 per cent has been alienated from farming due to temporary or permanent non-farm use. The author of the report, David D. Hull, executive director for the Abbotsford Chamber of Commerce, says the real concern is even though the land is protected under the ALR, there are no specifications for what the farmland must be used. For example, “gentlemen farmers” have bought many smaller farms in the region and built homes replete with swimming pools and tennis courts, converting them into country estates. It is time to put an end to this madness. This government must suspened all ALR decisions until the RCMP investigation has been conducted and the ALC review is completed. The loopholes must be plugged before our food security ship sinks.

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