It's a quiet day at Ian Paton's East Ladner hay farm.
With the exception of airplanes overhead from the nearby airport's flight schools, the farm at the end of 88th Street, started by his grandad John Paton and later operated by his dad, Agricultural Land Reserve advocate Ian Paton Sr., is an almost postcard-like setting.
While his barn cats casually walk about and eagles perch on poles waiting for a meal, Paton is eager to get inside his barn and get talking about what's on his mind. Since Delta is still considered a farming community, despite being nestled within a growing Lower Mainland, Paton's farm is a scene similar to elsewhere in South Delta, but perhaps not for the long-term.
A civic councillor who regularly provides a Delta Farmers' Institute perspective at Delta council meetings, Paton opens up a 2014 Delta planning department map on a table to show the Optimist what's been bothering him: large swaths of prime farmland in South Delta potentially being converted for industrial uses.
It's a hot-button issue that's been much talked about in recent years, but Paton says the map is particularly troubling as it makes that possibility all too real, despite that land supposedly under the protection of the Agricultural Land Reserve. "I smell a rat that a lot of this farmland is going to be converted," he says.
Paton's concerns are heightened as Port Metro Vancouver recently warned yet again that demand for Canadian trade is growing and container traffic through Canada's Pacific gateway is expected to nearly double over the next 15 years.
Trade-enabling industrial land will be required to meet that demand or the region will miss out on economic opportunities and the costs of goods may rise, the port warns. Emphasizing the importance of consultation with communities, the port has suggested the need for a mechanism whereby a swap of farmland near ports can be negotiated for potential farmland elsewhere.
If it's a question of priorities and values, Paton says, then things in Delta could be going the wrong way. With the potential for a second container terminal at Roberts Bank, Terminal 2 could open the floodgates to all kinds of new warehouses and logistics centres on farmland, Paton fears, pointing to a 144-acre parcel in west Ladner owned by the Musqueam First Nation that has survey stakes in the ground.
Not far away is the Tsawwassen First Nation, which has hundreds of acres of industrial land that has already been pulled out of the ALR, as well as a large tract land it owns immediately adjacent that Paton notes is being covered with sand, perhaps for some future development to complement the port.
Further east are large tracts of land that have been optioned by an industrial developer for potential logistics development, although such redevelopment would require an application to the province to remove those lands from the ALR.
Then there's hundreds of acres at Brunswick Point in proximity to the port, which are currently farmed but have a future that's as murky as ever.
In 1969, the province sent 37 Delta farmers expropriation notices in what had been described as "a land grab" of about 2,000 acres for a proposed mile-wide industrial and service corridor along the Roberts Bank rail route. At the time, W.C. Mearns, B.C. Harbours Board chairman, said the deep sea port would likely require another 20,000 acres to meet future requirements. That industrial development never occurred and, by the late 1990s, many of the farmers that had lost their lands, but were allowed to remain and lease them from the province, were given an opportunity to buy them back. However, the Tsawwassen First Nation, in its treaty settlement, was granted the right of first refusal to purchase the Brunswick Point lands if they were to go on the market.
The Delta map, Paton points out, shows it's mostly still in provincial hands, which makes things uncertain as concern resonates the TFN, which embarked on major commercial and industrial development, could end up with those properties. "Do you really think they will be growing potatoes there?" he asks.
Paton says it would be a shame to lose the Brunswick Point farmland, noting its excellent quality. He says putting land elsewhere in the province in the ALR wouldn't be much compensation for what's lost.
"My opinion is if (Port Metro Vancouver president and CEO) Robin Silvester wants to develop all this land in South Delta for port use, the TFN was already given a huge piece for industrial, so why not use their two big pieces right now for port expansion, instead of using up good farmland? And as you know, up on River Road, Delta has a huge new industrial area we reclaimed. There's all kinds of sites up there perfect for industrial warehousing." Longtime farmland advocate and Richmond city councillor Harold Steves, who helped create the ALR when he was a New Democrat MLA in the early 1970s, says if the TFN grabbed control of Brunswick Point, it's "game over" for farming. And if the optioned farmland was sold to the port, it would likely use the argument the land falls under federal jurisdiction, so it does not have to abide by municipal or provincial regulations. The port doesn't own land in Delta, but does own the 230-acre Gilmore Farm in Richmond, where that city has been embroiled in a bitter war of words over its future. The port gave the farm a new "special study area" designation, but Silvester recently admitted development is an option. He also said he didn't think the port is bound by the ALR because, as a federal body, "we have supremacy." Saying the port doesn't, and certainly shouldn't, have such power, Steves says, "The big prize for Port Metro is Delta farmland that will fall like dominoes. The port wants another 2,500 acres. Ironically, scientists from the B.C. Ministry of Agriculture told us we need to add 230,000 acres (92,000 hectares) of irrigated farmland, largely in this region, but it's ignored."
Roger Emsley with Against Port Expansion (APE) told the Optimist he's concerned how the port sees itself as beyond ALR rules, saying the new federal government needs to live up to its mandate and focus on science and the environment. Noting the $3.5 billion bridge to replace the George Massey Tunnel will add further pressures, Emsley says a multilevel government task force is needed to look at the farming and environmental issues, and that a moratorium on port development and ALR transfers is needed now.
"Delta is a gateway, not a doormat," he says. Delta South MLA Vicki Huntington, who caused a stir a few years ago when she brought attention to the private optioning deals, echoes those concerns, saying, "Yes, the port is not tied by the provincial designation. Too much power in the hands of a non-elected entity, which in my humble opinion must absolutely be dealt with by the federal government."
She says she's disturbed by Premier Christy Clark's apparent support for the port when it comes to Richmond's Gilmore Farm, noting those who questioned it were accused of not supporting the economy or jobs. An industrial land reserve must not come at the expense of agricultural land, says the independent MLA.
Citing food security concerns, the Delta/Richmond chapter of the Council of Canadians has also complained about the port's "gross insensitivity to farmland and natural world values."
As far as land being added to the ALR elsewhere in the province to make up for acreage being pulled out of Delta and Richmond, James Vercammen, a professor of Food and Resource Economics at UBC, says it's his understanding that all "good" farmland in B.C is already in the ALR, so any non-ALR land that is brought in would be much more marginal relative to the land that is developed.
"Many of the other parts of the province are best suited to grains (Peace River) and cattle. There is limited potential for these regions to be a major supplier of consumer-oriented local food such as fruits and vegetables," Vercammen says.
On the flip side, some like the Fraser Institute question the need for having the ALR at all. In a 2009 report, the Fraser Institute concluded, "This regime is made all the worse by its false promises about sustaining agriculture and improving nutrition and food safety, as well as its failure to deliver most of the other benefits offered as justification for the ALR by its architects. The Agricultural Land Reserve has not encouraged family farming. It has not nurtured a new generation of farm operators. Nor has it shielded the farm sector from changes in agriculture experienced across Canada and around the world." Silvester and the port haven't gone so far as to make such statements, although in 2012 he caused a stir by suggesting at a Metro Vancouver board meeting the ALR was emotionally but not economically important to the region.
Calling for the creation of an industrial land bank, the port, which has gone on a land buying spree over the past few years, and Silvester continue to warn how a shortage will pose a major hit to Canadian trade and the economy.
Last December, the port released the findings of a study it commissioned that found the current supply of trade-enabling industrial land in the Lower Mainland will likely be exhausted within the next 10 years. Noting 23 per cent of jobs in Metro Vancouver happen on industrial land, Silvester told the Optimist a conversation is needed now with everyone at the table, since it's not just a port issue or a municipal issue, but a regional issue.
"What we need are two next steps that are kind of related: protection of the industrial land that's left. We've got to stop this process of loss of industrial land... The second step is we've got to have a forum to have this regional conversation. It's not a conversation about one farm in Richmond. It's not a conversation about a set of options in Delta. It's bigger than that."
