VANCOUVER – Harold Steves didn’t choose to be an urban farmer.
When the city moved out and houses surrounded his farm on the edge of Richmond, B.C., he became one.
He jokes that he’s either the last rural farm in the city or the first urban farm.
It’s a situation in which many farmers in British Columbia’s Lower Mainland may find themselves.
Half of the province’s population lives in the greater Vancouver region, which has about 1.5 percent of the total farmed land.
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Province-wide, 80 percent of the agricultural production value comes from three percent of the land, where 80 percent of the population lives.
Farming has a long history in the region because of the rich soil of the Fraser River delta and a mild climate. But it’s also an attractive place for non-farmers to live. Land-use pressure is a tremendous concern.
In the early 1970s, British Columbia was losing 14,800 acres of farmland to development each year.
Recognizing that something had to be done, the provincial government in 1974 established the agricultural land reserve, or ALR, to prevent non-farm uses of the land. The reserve covers five percent of B.C.’s land base, or about 11.6 million acres.
But not all of it is prime farmland and not all of it will stay protected. People who want to develop the land for non-farm uses can apply to the Agricultural Land Commission for exclusion.
Ione Smith, of Smart Growth BC, an organization dedicated to responsible land use and development, said legislation doesn’t guarantee the land remains agricultural. It just puts more hurdles in the way.
“Seventy percent of applications are successful,” she said, and the rate of applications increases each year.
One of the problems is that land can remain in the ALR but doesn’t have to be farmed.
“People come in and build a big home on 10 acres thereby removing it as agricultural land,” said Kim Stansfield, who farms at Summerland, B.C. “It’s not being taken out (of the ALR) but it is not being used for farmland. It’s a big issue.”
Some suggest if things keep going the way they are, the ALR will be lost in 10 years.
Steves, a Richmond city councillor who also heads the Greater Vancouver Regional District agriculture advisory committee, said he worries about that.
“I think we’re right now on the verge of winning or losing,” he said. “The next two to three years are crucial.”
He said cities have had 30 years to adapt their planning processes and shouldn’t need ALR land for development, yet developers continue to push.
Two recent decisions to keep significant pieces of land in the ALR were important. Had the decision gone the other way, he suggests it would have been the end of the ALR.
Steves keeps about two dozen cattle on his 15 acres in Richmond and has a larger ranch at Cache Creek. The Richmond location, Steveston Stock and Seed Farm, has been in the family since 1877. In addition to commercial beef, the farm grows for the Heritage Seed program to preserve heirloom and endangered seeds.
His land is not in the ALR but has an even more protective designation due to its ecological sensitivity.
While he is able to continue farming because he was there first, Steves said as farmland is taken over, cities will have to look at producing more of their own food.
Food exports from the United States could dwindle as that country’s population grows and Mexico could stop exporting its food and feed its own people, he said.
“To be self-sufficient in food is going to be very hard to do” in the greater Vancouver area, he said. If trucks bringing food stopped running, there would only be enough available for a three-day supply.
“Cities are going to have to depend more and more on urban farmers,” he said.
It will be left to the Prairies to supply grain and large livestock producers to supply cities with meat. Residents who tolerate and even welcome fruit and vegetable farms would never accept livestock, Steves said.
Even dairies are having difficulty. In some areas the available farmland is not bigger than about 75 acres.
“To start a dairy, you’re very constrained,” said agrologist Kim Sutherland.
Dairy is giving way to the fruit and vegetable industry, which is easier to manage on five to 10 acre parcels close to or in cities.
In Langley, Patrick and Lee Murphy turned 10 acres from an abandoned dairy into Vista D’Oro Farms, a culinary agritourism spot.
Patrick Murphy said they had to look at other options when they bought the land at 20856 Fourth Ave. in 1997.
Lee is a chef and the property had fruit trees. They built a cooking studio, began growing heirloom tomatoes and other crops and now produce artisanal preserves in combinations such as peach and lemon verbena with champagne.
“We still don’t feel like we live in the city,” Patrick said.
