The Agricultural Land Commission cites flattened funding as the primary reason for the reductions
British Columbia’s Agricultural Land Commission (ALC) is letting about 13 per cent of its workforce go.
Six out of the ALC’s 45 staff members who support farmers with applications and land use regulations within the 4.6-million-acre Agricultural Land Reserve will soon be out of work.
The ALC points to insufficient funding as the primary reason for the cuts.
Jennifer Dyson, chair of the ALC, told stakeholders in a March 23 email that though the provincial government expanded the commission’s mandate in 2019, commitments to increased funding didn’t materialize.
“Although additional funding was approved in principle at that time, it was later withdrawn, and leaving the ALC to deliver its expanded mandate within its existing budget, she wrote in the email.
In 2019 the ALC had a budget of $5 million. Each year since then the ALC had a pool of about $5.5 million to draw from.
During that same time period, the Ministry of Agriculture allocated about $600,000 from its budget to support the ALC.
But in January the ag ministry informed the ALC it wouldn’t be providing any more money, leaving the commission with a $600,000 hole.
And despite efforts to cut ALC expenses, salaries and other costs exceed funding levels.
“Continued expansion of statutory responsibilities without commensurate funding directly affects service capacity, processing timelines, and organizational sustainability,” Dyson’s email says.
Farmers are concerned.
Working with the ALC is already slow, and fewer staff will make it worse.
“We need instantaneous response, and it’s been a challenge already,” Bill Zylmans, a potato farmer from Richmond, told the Trail Times.
Another concerned farmer is Ian Paton, the Conservative Party of B.C.’s critic for agriculture and food.
Farmers and B.C.’s ag sector overall needs more support, he says.
“We need to be supporting farm families more, not less. Food security is national security,” he said in a party statement. “We have learned, more than ever in the past couple of years that B.C. farm families are on the front lines when it comes to providing all B.C. families with affordable food.”
“These NDP cuts are going to hurt working farmers and farm families in B.C., that’s the bottom line.”