Agriculture Minister Lana Popham (middle) is shown with Delta South MLA Ian Paton and Sharon Ellis of Westham Island Herb Farm during a tour Monday. Photograph By Adrian McNair
Making sure the Agricultural Land Reserve is growing food is a top priority for the new provincial minister of agriculture.
In an interview with the Optimist last week, Lana Popham, the longtime New Democrat agriculture critic who was named minister this summer, talked about some of the initiatives her government is undertaking that could have impacts on the farming community in Delta.
Popham, the MLA for Saanich South, said she had her “training wheels on for almost a decade” as agriculture critic and that her mandate has been developed from her work in the opposition ranks.
One of the initiatives is a program called Grow B.C., which will focus on farmers and policies to make them more successful. It also focuses on the Agricultural Land Reserve, which will be made even stronger to ensure it remains for food production and not as a land bank for development.
“Our mandate is really focused on encouraging young farmers to get into farming and from my travels around the province the last eight years, I’ve noticed young people really do want to get into farming but they can’t afford the land. So we’re focusing on how do we get people onto the land base so that they can become farmers. There’s farmers from a different generation that are retiring and we want to make sure there’s energetic young people in their place. We’re working with stakeholders to figure out the best way to make that happen.”
Another initiative Popham described as “a game changer” for food production in this province is Feed B.C., focused on government procurement contracts that mostly deals with the hospital system and extended care facilities. The government aims to increase the amount of B.C. grown food that’s purchased for those institutions to about 30 per cent, a figure that includes local processing as well. She said the move will help open doors for processing companies to set up shop and use B.C. products.
“It’s really going to open up economic development possibilities in rural B.C. that they haven’t seen before. I can tell you that everybody across the province, and it doesn’t matter which political party you belong to, is excited about this idea. The amount of energy we’re going to be putting into this is enormous,” Poham said.
As far as the Agricultural Land Commission and the changes made to it under the previous Liberal government, Popham noted the mandate of the ALC is to protect agricultural land and encourage farming, so the government will look at the way it’s operating to ensure that mandate is fulfilled. The current regional panel system, which Popham noted could be subject to political interference, will be reviewed to see whether a single panel is a better way to go.
Noting she enjoyed working with former independent Delta South MLA Vicki Huntington, who raised concerns about farmland speculation in Delta, Popham said an erosion of the ALR over the last 16 years has led to the implied idea by speculators the reserve is a land bank for other purposes.
“As I was saying publicly since I became minister, I expect the Agricultural Land Commission to uphold the mandate to protect agricultural land and encourage farming, and that the Agricultural Land Reserve is not a land bank for industry or housing development. It is a land bank for food production.”
Delta South MLA Ian Paton, the Liberals’ co-agricultural critic, said Popham appears the most knowledgeable among the NDP-Green coalition to become minister given her years as agriculture critic. Paton said he has a few concerns, including the potential scrapping of the current ALC panel system. It could result in someone from the Lower Mainland without any knowledge of conditions elsewhere making decisions for the rest of the province, he said.
Paton also noted he’s concerned the government will eliminate a farmer’s ability to draw extra income.
“When you’re farming in Arizona or California or Mexico, you’re farming 12 months out of the year. Up here, guys for months are sitting, looking out the window at the rain, so they’re struggling to make a living out of farming. Why shouldn’t they supplement their income with some sort of added revenue?”
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