Surrey councillor wants to protect farmland

Mar 08, 2016

Land could be developed for real estate or other uses

By Diego Flammini
Assistant Editor, North American Content
Farms.com

It’s not every day that a farmer and politician see eye to eye on a subject, but in Surrey, British Columbia that’s exactly what’s happening.

Councillor Mike Starchuk, chairman of Surrey’s environmental sustainability advisory committee and the agriculture and food security advisory committee, is working to keep part of the city’s Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR) in the hands of farmers and protect it from being swallowed up by potential real estate developments.

Currently, approximately 68,000 acres fall under the ALR, with 1,000 hectares declared A1-zoned land; meaning the land can be used for agricultural activities but is also available to be zoned for other uses.

Farmland

Starchuk said he was enjoying a snack when the significance of local farmland and locally produced products dawned on him.

“I open up a bag of snap peas and I’m dipping them into some ranch dressing, and all of a sudden I read the packaging and it says these things come from China,” Starchuk told Business In Vancouver. “I bought them for $1.75; they’re plastic-wrapped and five ounces, and I think, ‘What kind of a carbon footprint did it take to get these snap peas to my kitchen?’”

The City hasn’t given any of the ALR land away and it currently operates under a two-for one method, which means if someone wants to take 15 acres from the ALR, they would have to offer 30 acres of land to be added to it.

Mike Bose, a farmer from Surrey who’s the founder and serves as vice-chair of the agricultural advisory committee to city council, said the real estate and agricultural industries can both fit into the city’s landscape.

“I believe the two can mutually coexist,” Bose said to Business In Vancouver. “That’s the strength of the land reserve. The real estate boom obviously puts pressure on the ALR and it does negatively affect values for people wanting to get into agriculture. But the ALR tempers that so we’re somewhat isolated from that real estate boom.”

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.