Mixed messages


Not long ago, the City of Vancouver enacted a bylaw allowing residents to keep chickens in their backyard. Last month, we reported on Maple Ridge council’s endorsement of an application to remove the Pelton acreage from the Agricultural Land Reserve. Recently, Kwantlen Polytechnic University came out in favour of a proposal for an urban development complete with community gardens on Tsawwassen’s Southlands property (and got its knuckles rapped for it). Now the District of Pitt Meadows is in the process of passing a bylaw banning commercial production of (legal) medical marijuana on farmland. At first glance, none of these things seem related. Look again. We believe that when looked at together, they indicate a growing move by urbanites, suburbanites and even some farmers and their organizations to drastically alter agriculture as we know it.
We have nothing against chickens. In fact, we are ardent supporters of B.C.’s poultry sector as we are of all commercial agriculture in this province. But we want to emphasize the word “commercial.”
At the same time as approving backyard chickens, Vancouver and some of its neighbouring municipalities are demanding that eggs only come from free range and not caged hens. Do we even have enough backyards to accomplish that? In its support of the Southlands proposal, Kwantlen is citing the community gardens it will include. While a select few may welcome the gardens, we imagine most residents will tire of the work involved rather quickly. In the meantime, the vegetables those gardens will produce will further cut into the “sustainability” of local vegetable producers. Kwantlen continues to reiterate their support of sustainable agriculture, having even created an Institute of “Sustainable” (our quotes) Horticulture. But we worry their idea of sustainable simply means backyard gardens. That’s not what we consider sustainable agriculture. With all the rules already in place and more on the way, it seems the only place we don’t want to see agriculture is on agricultural land.

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