Editor:
During the election campaign in British Columbia, food sustainability has not caught the interest of the candidates.
Yet, this may be the most important issue of all.
North America is faced with increasing weather variations with resultant droughts, fires and floods. The huge amount of produce that is imported from California and Florida may become scarce, very expensive or even unavailable.
So we in Surrey are comforted that one-third of our Surrey land base is designated as farmland.
Not so reassuring if we continue to lose pieces here and there to accommodate outdated forms of transportation infrastructure.
Not so reassuring when we take into account that much, if not most, of this land being farmed is for commercial export – i.e. blueberries and cranberries.
Not so reassuring when we note that the crops on most of these farms are sprayed with pesticides. This would render them subject to a time frame of years for remediation should we have need for diverse crops to feed British Columbians.
Not so reassuring the knowledge that mono crops deplete the soil and present further barriers to growing nutritious healthy produce.
I ask all of you who are in a position to influence the course of food sustainability in B.C. to look forward and put into place initiatives to address the future of food for all of us. A food crisis can be prevented.
Dorothy Randall, Surrey
