Editor:
Re: Family business derailed by overpass, July 12.
Thanks to Peace Arch News reporter Dan Ferguson for exposing anti-agricultural practices of the City of Surrey.
152 Street isn’t the only place the City of Surrey has put an agricultural business out of business for highway expansion – they also put out of business the King George Boulevard farm market in the Serpentine Fen area. That particular farm market is now a truck parking lot for business vehicles. Illegally.
But without any opposition on council, talking to the city has become like talking to a brick wall.
Under Mayor Dianne Watts and her ‘Surrey Burst’ team, the city has turned its back on farmland protection and food security, ironically even as it wrestles with a rapidly growing homeless problem.
• Illegal truck parking has flourished under Watts. While communities like Richmond are addressing identical problems head-on, after an initial noble start the City of Surrey has basically turned its back on the problem;
• Watts’ road-building party has cost the city hundreds of acres of prime farmland and wildlife habitat.
• Dumping/landfilling on farmland is virtually unchecked, and I shudder to guess as to the amount of farmland that has been robbed of its agricultural capability because the city doesn’t want to lose the votes of the Indo-Canadian community that dominates our local trucking population and that of ALR owners.
• Monster houses on ALR have flourished under Watts.
• On virtually every serious farmland threat, Watts has refused to take advantage of the expertise of the city’s agricultural advisory committee. This is astounding, given she was such a critic of her predecessor for doing the same with his environmental advisory committee.
Last week’s news that the U.S., the world’s largest corn supplier, is losing a third of its crop to global warming-induced drought is a harsh reminder of how fragile food security is, and the importance of protecting agriculture.
We appreciate Watts’ personal commitment to homelessness, but there is a serious disconnect in her approach. Simply throwing taxpayers’ money at food banks and homeless shelters is a Band-Aid approach that is not sustainable given the global food-security crisis.
Each year the city spends tens of thousands of dollars on advertising and public relations campaigns, like the Stewart Farm agriculture festival, intent on creating the impression that the city is dedicated to agriculture and food security and environmental sustainability.
Groups like the Farmland Defence League and Fraser Valley Conservation Coalition don’t have the resources to achieve similar communications reach, so articles like Ferguson’s are critical to providing some truthful balance in the information that voters and taxpayers receive.
Donna Passmore, Farmland Defence League of BC
