A new ag plan for British Columbia will direct millions in provincial funding to strategies that promote locally grown food, including a provincewide “food miles” awareness campaign.
Agriculture Minister Pat Bell rolled out the new B.C. Agriculture Plan on Friday in Abbotsford, describing the document as setting “a new direction for the agriculture and food industry in British Columbia, to take advantage of new and existing markets and ensure that agriculture in B.C. meets the changing needs of our environment, our health and our local economies.”
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Among the plan’s key points are:
- Promoting B.C. ag products, supporting B.C. farmers in supplying “fresh, healthy” food directly to consumers, and developing the “food miles” program to create awareness of how far food products have been transported, and the effect of that travel on greenhouse gas emissions;
- Shifting farm practices to turn ag residues like plant material and livestock waste into renewable energy, and investing in environmental farm planning that covers the impacts of livestock, fertilizer, farm buildings and engine emissions;
- Addressing B.C.’s farm labour shortage, and supporting development of “sector-specific” strategic plans for farms’ economic sustainability;
- Establishing a program to certify First Nations food products, as well as a “local foods for healthy eating” program for First Nations, which will include community gardens;
- Increasing funding for “agriculture in the classroom” programs, intended to “reconnect children with the source of their food;” and
- reviewing zoning bylaws and farm use bylaws, “to ensure the regulatory structure supports the sustainable growth of farming in B.C.”
To those ends, the B.C. agriculture ministry plans to flow $16.8 million over three years out of existing funding to back a branding campaign for B.C. food and agri-food products; increase extension services for farmers across the province; and support delivery of 4-H and agriculture in the classroom programs with an extra $100,000 in funding each. This reallocation also includes $500,000 in ongoing annual funds to hire more extension staff and $200,000 to expand crop trials and demonstrations.
The plan also calls for the province to seek authority to fund a “food miles” program with $3 million over three years.
“More understanding”
“We need to re-establish the essential link between agriculture and society as a whole for the millions of people in B.C. who consume food every day but don’t understand the importance of local food production,” said Agriculture Plan committee leader Val Roddick, the MLA for Delta South, in a release Friday.
“There was once a great distance between ‘the city’ and ‘the country,’ but increasing urban populations and sprawling suburban development have brought the city’s borders right up against the farm and past it,” the report says. “The differences in attitudes, lifestyle and priorities of the urban versus the rural, which is commonly referred to as the ‘urban/agriculture divide,’ has become a big issue in agriculture.
“The more the public is aware of the importance of agriculture to their own economic and physical health, the more understanding there will be of the needs of local farmers.”
The ministry said it will also seek another $2 million to $3 million to boost adoption of environmental farm plans (EFPs) on B.C. farms, over and above the 1,994 completed to date.
Other ministries’ plans are also expected to support the Agriculture Plan’s goals, such as the $25 million Bioenergy Network, for investment in B.C. bioenergy products and technology, and $10 million in planned funding over three years toward biodiesel production in the province.
An agreement with Ottawa also allows for leveraging up to $6 million in federal funds per year for three years to go with the province’s $4 million toward its agriculture zone wildlife program, to help farmers “adversely impacted by wildlife.”
The plan also calls for the B.C. government to take on responsibility for delivery of the federal/provincial AgriStability ag income stabilization program in the province. The federal government had delivered AgriStability’s predecessor, CAIS, in B.C. as well as in five other provinces and the Yukon.
