*Evans
says provincial policies are destroying small farms* Cariboo
Press Thursday 07 Feb 2008
Nelson-Creston MLA Corky Evans says provincial regulations are stunting
the local food movement and threatening the production and availability
of local food.
Evans is calling on the provincial government to follow the lead of
consumers and shift direction on a number of agricultural policies.
"Despite the fact that British Columbians have shown strong support for
the 100 Mile diet, the government has chosen to take another path that
defies public opinion. It is completely arrogant and misguided
governance," he says. "Supporting local food production is paramount to
healthy living and sustaining a green environment. Sadly, we have a
government that is more interested in selling off the province than
investing in it."
He says changes to regulations for slaughtering animals and selling
meat
are just one step in a process that will lead to the demise of
thousands
of small farms in B.C. and could lead to the dismantling of the
Agricultural Land Reserve. "The long-term effect of this particular
legislation is quite horrific in that there are 20,000 people who make
enough money in B.C. to call themselves farmers within the ALR, and
those people defend the ALR," he said.
He points to a nefarious motivation for the change in farm regulations,
saying that if enough small and hobby farmers are unable to meet
threshold income levels necessary to qualify as a farm, they will lose
farm tax exemptions and be forced to pay higher rates. If this happens
on a large enough scale, Evans says it will erode support for
the ALR altogether, and wonders if the new meat regulations are part of
an attack on the land reserve system as a whole.
Following trade deals in the '80s and '90s such as NAFTA, Canadian
governments were pressured to reduce agricultural subsidies, something
Evans says were implemented more drastically here than elsewhere,
"Canada and British Columbia wiped out most of their historical
supports
for the family farm faster than any other country in the world other
than Australia," he says.
He says new meat regulations are driven with corporate profits in mind,
ignoring the interests of small farmers, "I think what's driving it is
the really large companies out of
got scared in BSE and they saw that the one advantage that they could
take out of it is when people are afraid, they could stop smaller
producers from raising meat. So, they went to the Campbell government
and said, make a law against Corky raising a cow and selling meat to
[you], and the province agreed and made it a criminal act for me to
raise a chicken and sell it to you," he said.
He says that hundreds of local butchers around the province are now out
of business or effectively criminals as a result.
"I spent two years trying to convince the government to change the law
to allow person to person farm gate sales," He said he lobbied for
sales
between private individuals, either slaughtered by the farmer or a
third
party, but not for retail sale. "We would leave the supermarkets to the
big companies and the feedlots and the Albertans, but the local sales
we
would allow, but I lost that fight."
He says the efforts of the Slocan Valley Abattoir Collective to
establish a facility are vital for small, local operations to survive,
"We have to have something up and running next fall or producers will
liquidate their herds and stop farming. I'm hoping that it will become
a
large cooperative venture with many members and it will open its doors
next fall. That would be my dream," he said.
One idea that was proposed to get around the regulations was the
creation of mobile abattoirs, but Evans feels they are still too
experimental and not viable in the local area, though he feels they may
work in other regions, such as the Cariboo, where there are larger
herds.
Evans is calling on the provincial government to take a number of steps
to help prevent small farms from disappearing from B.C. culture.
One specific thing Evans is calling for is the return of the Buy B.C.
program.
The Buy B.C. program arose in 1993 as a non-subsidy way to increase the
profitability and market share of B.C. agricultural products by
promoting B.C. agricultural products. Evans says it increased B.C.
market share each year through the '90s, saying a 1998 independent
analysis found 20,000 jobs were created in farming in the province
alone. "Because British Columbians trust B.C. food to have less poisons
on it than food from
product for safety reasons, some people bought it to support the local
economy, some people bought it for its freshness and the lack of
distance it travelled from its point of origin."
He said by 2000, 70 per cent of B.C. consumers said they recognized and
understood the Buy B.C. branding. "It was so successful that European
countries came to B.C. to study it, and American states, and Canadian
provinces and it is now being replicated all over the world," he said.
He said the average expense for the program was $1.7 million per year,
which leveraged between $3 and $4 million in private money from the
agricultural industry, "That $1.7 million average is more than made up
by the income tax value on 20,000 jobs."
In addition, Evans says B.C. was the only province to increase the
number of farms and commodities produced during the '90s. "So, they
didn't kill it because it wasn't working. ... It was something
ideological that they didn't like."
He says with a billion dollar budget surplus, there is no financial
reason not to support the program. "They can simply use a fiscal reason
and they won't have to answer for anything about why they took it away."
Another idea Evans is proposing is the finalization of the
Created in 1974, the Agricultural Land Reserve had an initial period of
two years to finalize what would be included in the reserve, but
subtractions (and additions) continue to this day. "Personally, I
think,
that's enough. We should now just say, as they do in
agricultural land, you can't use it, the map is done. You can farm that
land, and we will promote and help you farm that land, but you can't
build highways and roads and houses on it."
He says the trend, especially seen in the Lower Mainland, is that the
rules have been relaxed because of competition for development land.
"Farmland ought not be forced to compete with urban development prices
and developers, so I'm arguing the time has come," he says, "Just do
it.
Just make it permanent."
He says it's not a proposal the NDP is making at this time. "No, but I
am," he said.
Another step he's calling for is the implementation of anti-dumping
legislation for B.C., saying that the province is effectively being
used
as a dumping ground for
south of the border. Evans says that provincial government has the
jurisdiction to enact anti-dumping laws that would prevent dumping
below
production costs.
Using lettuce as an example, he says it is difficult for B.C. farmers
to
compete with
below-cost products from
He says the current government's position is based on and ideology,
"Campbell's government, more than anything, I think you'd have to say
they are globalists, and their position is whatever you can get cheaper
somewhere else, get it somewhere else. So, they have an ideological
position that we will not defend Canadian producers if it results in
cheaper lettuce."
Evans says another worrying trend for small farms is changes to the way
properties are being assessed. He says the B.C. Assessment authority is
interpreting the rules differently than in the past and points to
recent
cases in the
directly farmed have been reassessed under residential classifications.
In some cases the farmer was using it as a grazing area, woodlot, or as
a buffer zone, but it didn't change the assessment. "The [BC]
Assessment
authority is saying, if you're not producing something on that square
footage over there, we're going to tax it at a residential rate, and
that's just interpreting the laws to break the small farmers," said
Evans.
The assessment changes are part of a focus on real estate development,
says Evans, "It's because
the development industry, and they're calling the shots, and it doesn't
matter whether they're historically in the farming business or ranching
business or logging business. They're being driven towards land
development."
According to Evans, in his experience fighting against the new meat
regulations, he's seen the writing on the wall for more drastic changes
in the future, "Various provincial and federal officials have said to
us, oh well, you don't like the meat regulation, you'd better get use
to
it because we're going to do it with farmers markets and fruits and
vegetables, too," says Evans. "And farmers markets are being inspected
and traditional baked goods and anything with dairy products and eggs
in
it, they're starting to stop people from selling their home production
at farmers markets. It's my fear that if we don't stop this stupidity
quickly, the meat regulations will just be the first step and we will
then see -- under the guise of health regulations -- we'll see local
producers shut down all over the place. Who are they serving? They're
serving agribusiness and the supermarket chains. They're trying to shut
down the local production of foods. And people prefer local food --
it's
healthier. It's less sprays, it's less travel: it's what they want. And
rumours have it that the province wants to shut down that, too."
Evans says the changes could be made simply enough, "All they have to
do
is what they did with meat. Just pass a regulation that says there has
to be some certification program before you're allowed to sell bread to
your neighbour, or jam or what have you -- apple juice," he said, "I'm
not saying that we're there yet but I am saying that people should
beware and communicate with the provincial government that they are not
afraid of their neighbours' food and they are afraid of food that comes
from somewhere [where] they don't know what's in it, and they want to
be
allowed to buy local goods."