Farming and Farmland

The food on your table starts with somebody willing and able to grow it.

That person needs land.

We can build another house. We can build another road. We can build another shopping centre.

We cannot build more farmland.

Once productive farmland is gone, it is gone.

That makes protecting it important.

So does protecting the people who know how to farm it.

Farmers Know How to Farm

Farmers know how to farm.

Policy should be led by farmers, not bureaucrats.

Council’s job is to listen, learn, and make it possible for farming to flourish.

Our current OCP already recognizes this. It calls for protecting ALR and other productive agricultural land from inappropriate development and generally opposes removing or subdividing ALR land unless there is no net loss and a clear benefit to agriculture.

That is a principle I support.

Protecting farmland without protecting farming misses the point.

Farmland Will Always Be Under Pressure

I am not going to pretend developers are currently lining up to pave every farm in North Cowichan.

That is not the point.

Farmland will always face pressure from other possible uses.

A piece of land can be worth more for houses, commercial development or some other purpose than it is for growing food.

There will always be reasons offered for using farmland for something else.

Council needs to remember that those decisions can be permanent.

A building can be replaced.

A business can move.

Once productive farmland is lost, we may never get it back.

When elected, I will protect agricultural land from development that takes it permanently out of farming.

Let Farmers Build Businesses

Protecting farmland does not mean freezing farms in time.

A farm has to work as a business.

Farmers should have the opportunity to grow something here, process it here, sell it here, and build successful businesses around what their land produces.

A cidery.

A tasting room.

A farm store.

A winery.

A bottling operation.

Food processing.

Agritourism.

These can create jobs, bring customers to farms, keep money here and give farmers more ways to make their land economically sustainable.

A subdivision replaces a farm. A successful farm business can help keep one alive.

That distinction matters.

When elected, I will support reasonable farm-based businesses that help the people working our land make the most of it.

It is, after all, their land.

Agriculture Is Economic Development

Farming is not scenery.

It is business.

A farm that adds a processing operation is economic development.

A farmer who creates a product people want is economic development.

A farm that hires five more people is economic development.

A local producer supplying restaurants, markets and stores is economic development.

When we talk about attracting employers and creating jobs, agriculture belongs in that conversation.

When elected, I will treat our farms and food producers as part of our economic future, not simply something to preserve on a map.

Make Farming Worth Doing

Food security begins with the ability to grow food here.

That ability does not survive because Council draws a green line around farmland.

It survives because somebody is willing to farm it.

The best way to protect our ability to grow food tomorrow is to make farming worth doing today.

When elected, I will listen to farmers before making decisions about farming.

I will protect productive farmland from development that permanently removes it from agriculture.

I will support farmers who want to grow their businesses.

I will push back against unnecessary municipal barriers that make it harder to farm, process, sell and employ people here.

Protect the land.

Let farmers farm.

Help farming flourish.