The Agricultural Land Commission Amendment Act, 2018, introduced on Nov. 5, 2018, took effect on Feb. 22 under Bill 52.
The act will bring three main changes in an effort to help enhance food security from B.C.’s Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR) through introducing increased penalties for the removal of soil, dumping of construction debris as well as other harmful fill on agricultural land. It also reunified the ALR as one single zone and addressed mega-mansions and property speculation.
While Marvin Monical, president of the South Cariboo Cattlemen’s Association (SCCA), agrees that two of these changes are good for agricultural, he’s not so sure about the unification of the zones.
“I do believe that the two zone criteria were the better one for the ranching and the land commission to deal with the Cariboo because we do deal with different aspects of agriculture,” he said.
One aspect, he said, was the population density of the Lower Mainland means towns and cities grow around agricultural land, whereas in the Cariboo the population density is located around towns and lakeshore residences rather than the ranch lands.
“We’ve got way more grazing land up here than we do farming land,” said Monical, addressing another aspect. “Where in the Lower Mainland, you’re dealing with [the] more farming aspect of growing crops than you are grazing cattle.”
According to the act, the reunification would ensure consistent rules and strong protections for all provincial ALR land.
Overall, Monical said Bill 52 doesn’t really pertain to the Cariboo but said it had some “good teeth” in it with reducing the size of mega-mansions in the Lower Mainland.
However, the ALC has the authority to authorize and approve additional residences to large families for farm use.
B.C. Minister of Agriculture Lana Popham said the ALC was “supporting larger families by ensuring that those who need extra living space to support their farming operation have a path forward at the ALC to build a larger home,” in a news release.
Pete Bonter, the former president of the SCCA, said it also offers young people a chance to get involved in agriculture.
“One of the biggest things that threaten our young people’s start-ups is that the fact that we’re becoming a large business society where all of the agriculture seems to be large or getting large and that’s just too daunting of a task if not impossible for young people to get into,” he said.
Monical also said he agreed with the stronger penalties for dumping construction debris, harmful and damaging substances on agricultural land and the removal of soil, which are all illegal.
