Image: A quiet farm located in Chilliwack. / Fraser Valley Today staff

By Fraser Valley Today Staff

Agriculture support

Chilliwack mayor calls for province to modernize the Agricultural Land Commission

Nov 28, 2024 | 3:12 PM

CHILLIWACK — Chilliwack Mayor Ken Popove is calling for the province to get with the times and cut the red tape facing farmers in the Fraser Valley and allow them to farm more freely. He made the comments to Glen Slingerland during his weekly appearance on 89.5 JR Country Thursday morning.

Popove and the mayors of Abbotsford, Mission, and Pitt Meadows met this week to discuss the issues facing agriculture in the region and the need to modernize the rules that the Agricultural Land Commission (ALC) must follow. “We’re losing farmers because of the bureaucratic red tape that these guys have to go through,” said Popove.

The Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR) is a designated provincial zone in British Columbia that protects farmland for future use. The ALC is the governing body responsible for reviewing applications related to the ALR. Its primary role is to safeguard the ALR and ensure the land is used for agricultural purposes.

“We’re the breadbasket of the Fraser Valley, but we’re so constricted in what we can do,” said Popove. “You can’t put food processing on ALR land, but you can grow cedars? You can’t eat cedars.”

Popove says Pitt Meadows Mayor Nicole MacDonald, Abbotsford Mayor Ross Siemens, and Mission Mayor Paul Horn all had similar concerns and agreed to work together to present a united front to the provincial government.

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Mayor Popove says Chilliwack is in the centre of the poultry farming production in the Fraser Valley. However, the closest poultry processing plant is located in Surrey because of ALR restrictions. “So we’re adding congestion on the highways,” said Popove.

The thoughts from the meeting will be pulled together and combined with input from producers and processors before it is taken to the Agricultural Land Commission (ALC). The plan is to convince the government to make changes to catch up with the times.

Popove said the mayors talked about how the flood in 2021 opened everyone’s eyes to the fragility of food sovereignty. Climate change could also lead to a change in the crops grown in the region, and even the way crops are watered. “I think the first 50 years of the ALC were productive in protecting ALR land,” said Popove. “But the next 50 years? I really think we need an ALC 2.0.”