What a fantastic stretch of weather we are enjoying! I have been making every second day trips to North Delta of late to maintain local school farms and I have watched the crops along Highway 10 grow from seedlings into healthy maturing fields. Corn, potatoes, cabbage, peas and an assortment of other goodies will be harvested in the coming weeks that will hopefully end up on your dinner table.
Early in the morning, or late in the day, you may see those giant tap sprinklers spraying the crops with their massive watery plumes.
You don't see these on the Southlands because the farmer who is leasing some of the land to grow potatoes and corn on that property doesn't have access to irrigation infrastructure. The centre of the property was under water just a few weeks ago and the little
run-off from the hills to the south have essentially halted, leaving the crops dry and probably needing some rain soon to avoid percentage failure.
I keep hearing people say the Southlands is some of the "best farmland in the world" and that its soils are "prime." Just last week a letter writer described the lands as "ideal for soil based organic farming." This is simply not true.
Where do people come up with these unduly broad generalizations? Farming is a difficult business. Farming requires deft skill in managing arable land to maximize production efficiencies so people can eat food and farmers can get paid to ensure we get to eat in the future.
There have been several reports on soil classifications for the Southlands from Century, the Corporation of Delta and other private firms. The majority of the Southlands fall into Ag Canada soil classifications of 3 to 5. Here is a description of Class 4 soils from Agriculture Canada to give you a hint: "Soils in this class have severe limitations that restrict the range of crops or require special conservation practices, or both. The limitations seriously affect one or more of the following practices:
timing and ease of tillage, planting and harvesting, choice of crops, and methods of conservation. The soils are low to fair in productivity for a fair range of crops but may have high productivity for a specially adapted crop."
Yes, there is potential to make all of this land arable and bring the soils up the scale to 1 and 2 but that costs money. There is "potential" to do anything at all.
A regular piece of farmland on the scale of the Southlands would cost about $300,000 to $400,000 to properly drain and irrigate. Delta has determined that, for a variety of reasons, the Southlands would cost $13 million or about 40 times the cost of a "regular" piece of farmland.
The developer and the Corporation of Delta are discussing how to do this and Century Group has committed to funding about half of the $13 million required.
Opponents to the Southlands community proposal use phrases like "you can't pave over farmland" and "we need to feed ourselves." A community built around agriculture is a sensible and prudent idea, so let's do it.
If we want soil based agriculture to happen on the Southlands, let's fix the soil.
