British Columbia's Agricultural Land Commission (ALC) has come out against the province's proposal to scrap the rule requiring food processors that set up inside the Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR) to source at least half their ingredients from BC growers.

"The proposal represents a significant policy shift that has not been supported by evidence demonstrating the need for change or showing that the proposed change would increase agricultural production, improve farm viability, or enhance food security within British Columbia," ALC chair Jennifer Dyson wrote to agriculture minister Lana Popham on 21 August.

By creating a new industrial-use entitlement on protected farmland — even if limited to Class 4 to 7 soils — the proposal runs against the goal of encouraging primary production, Dyson argued, noting that the minister's own staff have pointed to the range of crops lower-class soils can grow. "The Commission is alarmed not only with the immediate impact of the proposal, but also with its cumulative effect on the agricultural land base," she wrote; it "would contribute to the ongoing reduction of land available for primary agricultural production". The unanswered question, in her words: "How does allowing facilities that may source up to 95 percent of their inputs from outside British Columbia and Canada materially help British Columbia farmers grow more food?"

The BC Agriculture Council and other farm organisations have also raised concerns, and the council plans to set out its position before the 18 September deadline for feedback.

Popham, for her part, sees opportunity — a chocolate factory in the ALR, for instance, giving hazelnut growers a market. "[Hazelnuts] wouldn't be their main ingredient – but they would use BC dairy, they would use BC hazelnuts. It literally could take all the hazelnuts that they grow," she said. She acknowledged that 5% is not a high bar and invited submissions to AF.Minister@gov.bc.ca until 18 September: "Look at the idea, come up with your opinion, then prove it to me."

Source: Country Life in BC