For about the first time in its history, the Agricultural Land Commission is generating talk among the condo-dwellers in dense Vancouver.
The agency - set up in 1973 to guarantee there would be enough farmland to actually feed the people in the province - has suffered a few bruises this week.
First we learned Agriculture Minister Pat Pimm was violating provincial rules by directly lobbying the ALC to reconsider a constituent's request to yank his Fort St. John land out of the reserve to make it a rodeo ground. Then we learned the owner had already gone and built it anyway.
Then the coup de grâce: the province is considering eliminating the ALC's arm's-reach decision-making power and just folding it into the body in charge of oil and natural gas.
The rationale seems to be that, while the ALC is a good idea, maybe the market has something more lucrative in mind in the short term, say, a gas field or another sprawling suburb.
But the entire point of the agricultural land reserve was to protect the land from shortsighted thinking that results in long-term problems. Giving in to market demand for that land is akin to giving in to a toddler's demands to eat ice cream all day. Gratifying at first, but we ought to know better. Talking about eliminating the ALC is like walking the same toddler by the ice cream parlour every day.
This isn't to say that every tract of undeveloped land ought to be used for farming. But the province is charting a dangerous course by permanently deprioritizing agriculture.
