Our 120 acres weren't in the

Our 120 acres weren't in the ALR when we bought them in 1975, as "land not suitable for agriculture" but we requested their inclusion and proved it that it can grow a great variety of foods, and animals in a very harsh climate, with strict organic methods.

The governments have done their best in the early years to remove our farm standing, we were dragged in front of tax commissions every year, but we beat them every time.

Their latest gimmick is to try to remove farmland with demanded monetary figures on sales.

The interesting, and corrupt part, is that when we were in the custom furniture business in Vancouver, we used to have tax audits every 18 months and the inspectors never failed to remind us that when we make anything for ourselves, we have to pay the taxes.

Not in farming. Anything people grow for the use of their families is not counted as farm production. Which is a contradiction, but shows their corrupt efforts to ruin farming and make the land "efficient" by building on it.

The so called "conservatives", led by the Fraser Inst. have been doing their best to turn farmland into "developments" for "economic reasons". As the FI put it many years ago;" BC needs no farm production, because we can import all our foods from California and Mexico much cheaper, therefore the ALR is economically inefficient". There were all kinds of articles in the Sun and other papers by "professors of economics", especially from the SFU at the time.

The main "economic advisers" of the present governments, both federally and provincially are the CD Howe and Fraser Institutions, paid to sell the country to "investors".

For the sake of "economic efficiency" of course.

Ed Deak.

In this age where everybody

In this age where everybody is concerned about "Security" no one mentions the basics; like food security or energy security. We should be asking the question to our economic and political elite what would our strategy be with climate change if California and Mexico are no longer our bread baskets?

What a surprise!

"Stakeholders were almost unanimous in expressing their concern regarding the inadequacy of the ALC's funding and lack of resources to carry out its existing work, never mind explore new opportunities," Bullock wrote.

What a surprise! How unlikely is it that the head of a government body would write a report that shows his agency is underfunded? Or that it needs a CEO with all the attending perquisites?

@Fiat lux

You should give tax lessons to the media mogul who tried to reduce the taxes on his Oak Bay estate by declaring it a farm. His basis for doing so was the sale of excess flowers from his garden to a relative. Unlike you, he was unable to beat the taxman because Oak Bay made the mill rate on farm land equal to residential property. Oak Bay was able to do this as there are no legitimate farms in the district. However, other regions with a mix of farms and big residential properties, in particular the Fraser Valley, have a real problem dealing with tax dodgers.

real... I know the media

real... I know the media mogul you mention, used to be columnist for him when he first started and was still small. He still owns the Williams Lake paper and now also a long chain of others.

We learned our lesson during war and post war starvation years in Europe and got out of the city to become self sufficient to the largest degree, as soon as we could.

Humanity is growing by the billions, while the criminal idiot politicians and economists are ruining millions of acres of farmland , all over the world, every year for "economic reasons".

Ed Deak.

Our food is NOT secure

Our small farm (started 29 years ago) has battles to fight each year - grey squirrels, deer, walnut husk fly, newly-reported pests such as the drosophila fly. Then there is the BC Assessment Authority questioning why one whole acre is not being farmed because it is just too wet most of the year...

If it were not for Lana Popham NDP Ag Critic and Richard Bullock of the ALC, we would be conpletely in the cold. We need Extension Services agrologists, who served us well until they were taken away from us in the mid-90s. We need a deer cull, Canada geese eggs addled, we need reasonable prices for water. . . .then we can begin to talk abaout food security.

One year we had about 50 head

One year we had about 50 head of cattle grazing on our land, but none for the winter.

The assessment guy came out when everything was covered under 6" snow in Dec. and the next thing we knew was a reassessment as "improved land" because there was "no agricultural activity".

Of course, we appealed and they were thrown out.

Such idiocies went on and are still going on for years, with the government doing their utmost to kill farming.

Farming is supposed to be the production of agricultural products. This includes food production for the owners, because it makes no difference who uses it, except in the warped minds of politicians. So, why isn't it included, when it is in all other taxation system ?

I've tried to explain this to Bennett when his was minister, but he didn`t get it.

Ed Deak.

Vancouver Island is an

Vancouver Island is an example of agriculture policies gone stupid. Vancouver Island has 4 prime agriculture areas; the Saanich Peninsula, the Cowichan, Comox and Alberni Valleys. Vancouver Island only consumes roughly 6% of the food it grows, the rest comes from somewhere else. What a shame. What stupidity. My mother would have said "it's a crime".

Byzantine Business

So much of BC Liberal policy is minutely integrated with byzantine ulterior motive that tries to conceal, as much as possible, favouritism towards select private interests that support the party. In the ALR's case that would be the real estate industry, for which the Reserve is an obstacle to real estate development, some of it industrial, some recreational, but by and large residential. Since the unpleasantness of BC Rail's sudden, whole-hog sell off, the government instead adopted an incremental approach to hobbling public authorities and services, like it has with BC Hydro and BC Ferries. Chronic underfunding of the ALR is part of the same strategy and has been going on ever since the BC Liberals first gained power ten years ago. This belated and reluctant admission vis a vis the release of Bullock's report can be likened to a parent getting busted for exposing an infant to weather and wild beasts. The sincerity of such a confession is questionable when made only as the culprit approaches the political executioner. The amount of weregelt offered by Minister McRae doesn't nearly make full restitution for a decade of neglect.

One of the integrated BC Liberal policies was ostensibly about food safety which when implemented effectively shut down small abattoirs and farm-gate sales on Vancouver Island, the ulterior goal being to undermine "economic feasibility" of small farms and to substitute this criterion for that of soil productivity, which had hitherto been the basis for including land in the ALR, regardless of lot size or current economic conditions. The idea was to reserve farmland, potentially or actively productive, for when it will be needed. Farm owners are compensated for loss of non-farm opportunity by a variety of land and income tax breaks. Instead, BC Liberals would have "economically unfeasible" small farms eligible for exclusion from the ALR and ripe for real estate development. Taking away farmers' ability to make a living from the land leaves them little choice.

Over the last ten years of BC Liberal government, provincial public investment in agriculture has been the lowest in Canada. Minister McRae's contrition about the half-frozen baby with it's extremities nibbled off, and his cheapskate dime-bag thrown onto the chopping block, is too little, too late.

Land speculators are Pied Piper who stole our children's future

Until we change the way society and gov't as whole treats land, we are doomed to higher & higher real estate prices and less and less land to grow food on.

With this massive demand for lower mainland real estate, it is speculators and land developers who will continue to benefit from this unhealthy situation.

Land speculators are profiting from our children's futures every day and we are just as responsible as they are when we do nothing.

Well this is interesting

"Nothing in government moves as quickly as I'd like it to," McRae said after releasing the report.

He must mean regarding the issues he wants fixed ;)

Government goes to war too fast.
Government stomps out dissenting voices too fast.
Government gives itself raises too fast.
Government spends money with its corporate colluders too fast.
Government uses its monopoly on force too fast.
ETC.

There are all sorts of things I wish government moved much slower on.