As Farmers gathered in Victoria for the annual Ag Day meetings at the end of October, to speak to government on issues that are impacting Agriculture, another group of Farmers came out to protest the NDP government’s land-use policies. Bill 52 and Bill 15 were pushed through by the BC government as a radical approach to curb speculation and “protect farmland.”
But not all farmers agree with the approach taken by the government or its intended goals. These two bills limit more than the primary residence on farmland. Land use restrictions will impact secondary homes, farmworker residences, as well as other legitimate uses. The changes were introduced without proper consultation and rammed through the legislature. As a result, there has been a lot of confusion both at the ALC and Municipal levels.
After seeing so much opposition from farm groups, the Province has initiated after the fact consultation with the farming communities across the BC to fine-tune and patch up the flawed legislation.
The real irony has been that BCAC, the umbrella organization representing BC Agriculture, had originally endorsed Bill 52 as part of its appeasement policy, but a year later (2019 Ag Day), BCAC has made land use a priority for BC farmers. A move that is considerably late to have any real impact on legislation that has been already enacted. Had BCAC represented the interest of the membership originally, the chances of making improvements to the Bills would have been much better.
Even a year later, the BCAC doesn’t get it. Farmers can protest all they want. To be effective, an organization has to be able to respond to the issues that matter to its grassroots. It has to speak to the needs of the membership, not cater to elitist interests.
The reality is the Province has introduced a number of aggressive initiatives that have undermined the competitiveness of non-supply agriculture. The berry sector has become almost unviable. Rapid minimum wage increases, payroll health tax, and the new land use policy are all government-imposed costs that BC agriculture can neither absorb or nor pass on.
The real message for Ag Day should have been that agriculture is struggling in BC. Revenues are declining and costs are rising. While the government is busy imposing urban solutions for what are rural problems, the Farmers are left wondering how to pay the bills.