BALZAC, Alta. Ñ When city councils approve new subdivisions, the impact on agriculture is often the furthest thing from their minds.
“No voter has ever talked about disappearing farmland,” former Edmonton city councillor Allan Bolstad said during the annual meeting of Action for Agriculture on Feb. 25. He was one of 100 people who attended the meeting in Balzac to talk about preserving farmland.
Bolstad said city governments are designed to approve urban development and without regional land planning in Alberta, urban sprawl into farmland is likely to continue unabated.
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Many blame a lack of planning for the lack of controlled development across the province, especially along Highway 2 between Calgary and Edmonton.
“Regional planning is spotty at best and non-existent across most of the province,” Bolstad said.
Regional land planning among urban and rural municipalities could bring the two sides together, he added, but the province needs to show leadership because urban municipalities don’t pay attention to the needs of agriculture.
“A bylaw officer is worried about dandelions. That is his closest connection to the farm,” Bolstad said.
Keith Schneider, head of the Michigan Land Institute, said the farming community is not showing up in the public policy arena.
Groups such as Action for Agriculture need to form a professional, paid activist organization to build a credible campaign and get the attention of policy makers, he added. It must start forming coalitions with other like-minded groups to save viable food-producing land.
“You are not going to be able to do it yourself,” Schneider told the meeting. “There are not enough of you.”
The Michigan Land Institute was established 10 years ago to put urban sprawl on hold. It has grown into a $1.6 million a year organization with six staff members dedicated to land conservation.
“I don’t think it can happen in this province without a staffed professional advocacy group,” he said.
Such an organization needs to host focus groups and define what the problem is and then set no more than three goals to get action.
“You have a sense of urgency and a lot of research defining the problem,” he said.
In the last five years, Alberta has lost five percent of its viable farmland.
Schneider said a professionally run group needs good spokespeople who can stay on the message and speak in plain language to make the salient points.
“You’ve got to stop whining.”
Those involved must understand the debate is not so much about preserving farmland as it is about saving a way of life. Saving the land is not a liberal idea since most of the drive to promote smart growth and save the land comes from the most conservative centres in the United States.
Farmland protection groups exist in 35 states where tax dollars and checkoffs from resource revenue are set aside for farmland conservation. The U.S. farm bill also provides substantial funding for farmers to set aside land for conservation.
Public money could be used to buy development rights from farmers, which means paying farmers the difference between the value of the land if it is used for housing developments and if it used for agriculture.
