Read this story from the Globe and Mail about a new plan for national parks to allow farming within their bounds to boost food security in neighbouring urban centres. (July 15, 2011)
National Parks near urban centres to add food production
Category Archives: Food
Simply No Need for Deltaport Terminal #2
Oh No! The port propaganda machine is back and here we go again with a barrage of falsehoods. Consultants are being paid megabucks to convince us that another expansion is needed at Deltaport, Roberts Bank, involving a new terminal with 3 new berths in order to double container capacity.
Increased container capacity expansion at Deltaport is not needed. Port Metro Vancouver has never done a proper “needs assessment”. Credible “feasibility studies” were not part of the process for the last Deltaport expansion or the South Fraser Perimeter Road. Port Metro Vancouver justified construction of the Third Berth at Deltaport – completed in 2010 – with mythical forecasts of increased container traffic. Even the lowest case prediction of 2.8 million TEUs for 2010 was not realized. The total for 2010 was just 2.5 million TEUs.
Now the spin-doctoring is back. We are told we need a new terminal at Deltaport because Vancouver container traffic will triple to 7.5 TEUs by 2030. Well guess what? B.C. already has enough potential to handle this increase in container traffic if we include the Port of Prince Rupert. Port Metro Vancouver has the potential to handle 6.7 million TEUs with efficiency improvements and without a new terminal at Deltaport. Prince Rupert has the potential to expand and handle 5 million TEUs. That would more than quadruple our current container traffic.
Expansion at Prince Rupert is cheaper for taxpayers as the infrastructure for moving containers across B.C. is already in place. In addition, expansion at Prince Rupert does not threaten farmland, migratory birds of the Pacific Flyway, resident orcas, and critical Fraser River fish habitat.
The current world economy makes it anyone’s guess just how the container business will unfold. Canada does not need the Roberts Bank Terminal 2 – now, or anytime in the foreseeable future. B.C. container ports have capacity to handle container volumes for years to come without damaging the habitat at the mouth of the mighty Fraser.
Port Metro Vancouver is still dreaming about its proverbial ship coming in. Meanwhile, the managers proceed to build and expand without accountability to the economy, the environment or the public. You may ask why this is happening. The answer is simple. Port Metro Vancouver, associated crown corporations, and government-friendly corporations are accountable to no one. They plot, lobby, and make deals with our governments to use up public assets and taxpayers’ dollars. Unlike real businesses, they do not suffer losses because it all falls on the taxpayers. If the business doesn’t materialize, they lose nothing. In fact, they make huge profits from contracts, lucrative land deals, rezoning and real estate developments that are associated with port expansion. Once cooperative politicians and bureaucrats leave their jobs, they find themselves well situated on various Boards and in associated private companies.
In 2009, B.C. Rail spent $15 million of taxpayers’ money to purchase large tracts of the Agricultural Land Reserve along the Deltaport corridor. This was six years after B.C. Rail had been sold. A government-friendly non-profit organization has strangely managed to acquire four properties of the Agricultural Land Reserve along the Deltaport/South Fraser Perimeter Road corridor. One property appears to be a great location for a future rail yard. Also, the Emerson Group, which specializes in industrial properties, has been purchasing options on Agricultural Land Reserve properties near the Deltaport corridor. Put all of this, and Tsawwassen First Nation plans, on a map and you will find a blueprint for transforming the Agricultural Land Reserve into an industrial, commercial and residential corridor stretching from Deltaport to the waterfront.
The federal and provincial governments are involved in all these sweetheart deals. In 2006, the B.C. Government removed environmental protection from 2,852 acres of crown waterlot at Roberts Bank and gave the property to the federal government to be managed by Port Metro Vancouver for port development. Previously, this environmentally sensitive property surrounding Deltaport was earmarked to become part of the Roberts Bank Wildlife Management Area. Other give-aways of crown waterlots for port development at Roberts Bank bring the total to well over 5,000 acres. There are plans to remove another 665 acres of protected waterlot for Terminal 2.
The federal and provincial governments cooperate by paying lip-service to environmental assessment laws. They offer assistance to crown corporations and ignore excellent reports by government scientists. Emails from 2004 reveal that lawyers from the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans advised Port Metro Vancouver how to avoid an Independent Review Panel of port expansion at Deltaport. Government agencies are supposed to facilitate an independent assessment, not conspire with proponents. Thanks to their assistance, the port held a lesser type of environmental assessment. Concerns raised by the public and government scientists were then easily ignored.
The rubber stamp came out again for the environmental assessment of the South Fraser Perimeter Road. Both levels of government failed to disclose the important fact that the project would be built on federal lands with species at risk. This is in contravention of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act and the Species at Risk Act. The implications are far-reaching as the public was denied due process and Environment Canada was denied any decision-making powers. Also, in a highly irregular process, an additional environmental assessment addressing the issue of species at risk on federal lands took place six months after the project was approved.
Mitigation is a joke undertaken by contractors. Government permits for construction are easily acquired. Compensation money goes to government-friendly organizations who dabble in environmental improvements which are based on little or no science. They do not begin to make up for the loss of salmon, orca and migratory bird habitat. They do not begin to address concerns raised by government scientists during the environmental assessments of the Deltaport Third Berth.
There are no substantive advantages to these developments. Maybe they will create more jobs but how many of them are temporary jobs paid with money borrowed by taxpayers? The provincial Liberal Government increased taxpayer-supported debt for transportation by 80% between 2001 and 2010. Obligations for contracted transportation projects which are taxpayer-supported and supposedly self-supported (i.e. fees, toll, etc for taxpayers) add up to $16 billion.
Further port expansion at Deltaport is a bogus deal that will be lucrative for a few and expensive for taxpayers. How can we, in all conscience, do this to the Fraser River estuary where we had plans to protect Canada’s major stopover for millions of migratory birds of the Pacific Flyway? Despite recognition of the Fraser River delta as the most Important Bird Area in Canada and despite signing three international bird habitat conservation treaties, our governments are willing to forfeit this international treasure and hand over public treasures to be destroyed by unaccountable crown corporations and their friends.
Are we, the people, going to allow this disgrace?
Susan Jones in a longtime resident of Tsawwassen.
Lantzville lawyers up in farm fight – Seeks to stop landowner from selling produce
From the Nanaimo Daily News – June 18, 2011
by Walter Cordery
The District of Lantzville has threatened Dirk Becker with legal
action if he doesn’t stop using his 2.5-acre farm as a commercial
enterprise.
The district has hired Victoria law firm Staples,
McDannold, Stewart to help enforce its residential zoning bylaw. People
can grow food for personal consumption, but they cannot sell the food
for profit, according to the district’s bylaws.
Lantzville has
tried to accommodate Becker by bringing in a temporary use permit bylaw
but he has refused to apply for one to allow him to continue farming
on his Fernmar Road home.
“Initially we gave them 90 days to apply for a TUP and then we
extended it to 180 days,” said Lantzville administrator Twyla Graff.
“He
hasn’t applied, (so) we have no choice but to pursue litigation as
Compassion Farm is in a clear violation of our zoning bylaw.”
Becker’s
farm is zoned “residential 1” and does not allow the use of the
property for other than those permitted under the existing bylaws,
states a letter from the district’s lawyers to Becker.
“You have
been made well aware of the violations of the bylaw, which include
using the lands for agricultural and commercial purposes.”
The
law firm goes on to say “please be advised that we have been instructed
to take legal action as may be necessary for court order requiring
that the use of the lands be brought into compliance with the bylaws of
the district without delay.”
The letter warns Becker that if he
doesn’t comply with the bylaw in three weeks, the law firm will
commence legal proceedings without further notice.
“You should
be further advised that if legal steps are required to be taken, we
will seek to recover legal costs expended by the district.”
Becker has no intention of shutting down his farm nor any intention of applying for a temporary use permit.
“When
council held a public community meeting last March to discuss TUPs,
the vast majority of those in attendance were opposed to them,” said
Becker.
“The problem with TUPs is that they are just that temporary and council can revoke them whenever they want.
“Also
Nicole (Shaw) and I sought legal counsel and we were told not to apply
for one as that could legitimize them. After eight months, we are
feeling harassed and tired.”
The district’s decision to threaten litigation irked Lantzville resident Glenda Barr Allard.
A
member of the Friends of Urban Agriculture in Lantzville, Barr Allard
is furious “the district is willing to spend scarce resources to hire a
law firm to take Compassion Farm to court.”
“The district, in my
opinion, has not listened to the community and are steam rolling over
the wishes of people in Lantzville.”
Read original article
Site C Would Destroy Prime Farmland, Fuel Fracking & Tar Sands
At a recent event in Vancouver, biologist and Peace Valley Environment
Association representative Diane Culling discussed the enormous
consequences of the proposed Site C Dam – including the flooding of
prime farmland at a time when the province faces major food security
challenges. Culling also pointed out that much of the electricity
generated from the project would go to fueling destructive shale gas
development in northeast BC, and, by extension, the Alberta Tar Sands. (3 min)
Manitoba Premier Selinger launching campaign to save the Wheat Board – article & video
From the Winnipeg Free Press – June 13, 2011
by Staff Writer
Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger is trying to enlist the
public’s support in protesting Ottawa’s plan to eliminate the Canadian
Wheat Board’s monopoly on grain.
The federal Conservative government will introduce legislation this
fall that will effectively end the Winnipeg-based grain-marketing
monopoly by Aug. 1, 2012, Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz announced two
weeks ago, fulfilling a long-time pledge by his party.
The plan has proponents among wheat and barley producers, especially
those closer to the Canada-U.S. border, as well as among industry giants
such as Viterra. Other producers and industry groups oppose the plan.
Selinger launched a campaign to “save the Canadian Wheat Board” in
the lobby of the board’s Main Street headquarters this morning. The
premier was joined by Wheat Board chairman Allen Oberg and Doug Chorney,
president, Keystone Agricultural Producers.
Mayor Sam Katz, who is attending a conference in Israel, has not commented on the pending loss of the Winnipeg-based entity.
Read original article and watch video
Aid Agency Warns Food Prices Set to Double
From The Toronto Star – June 1, 2011
by Arthur Max – Associated Press
AMSTERDAM—As food costs spike for the second time in three years, an international aid agency predicts the price of some staples such as corn will double in the next 20 years amid a permanent crisis caused by rising demand, flat crop yields and climate change.
The report by Oxfam released Tuesday said the demand for food will grow 70 to 90 per cent by 2030, without factoring in the impact of climate change. Increasingly frequent droughts, floods and changes in agricultural patterns from global warming will add pressure to what the agency calls an already broken system.
“The food system is buckling under intense pressure from climate change, ecological degradation, population growth, rising energy prices, rising demand for meat and dairy products and competition for land for biofuels, industry and urbanization,” Oxfam said in its report, “Growing a Better Future.”
It said 925 million people — one out of seven — are hungry, and the figure is likely to surpass 1 billion by the end of this year.
“If you think we have a crisis here, in 30 years it will be a cataclysm if the status quo remains,” said Gonzalo Fanjul, a policy adviser for Oxfam.
The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization says food prices are higher than they have been in the last 20 years, surpassing the 2008 price spike that set off food riots in cities around the world. Instability fueled by high oil prices is likely to continue, the Rome-based FAO said.
“Prices will never come back to the levels of the 90s, but there will be ups and downs,” said Fanjul.
Oxfam’s report assigned part of the blame to commodities traders, saying three companies control 90 per cent of the trade in grain. It urged greater regulation of speculation in the international food market.
But the system that controls global food production and requires reform is far broader, it said. It includes large-scale landowners in poor countries, farm lobbies and seed manufacturers in wealthy countries and high-carbon industries blocking action on climate change.
“For too long governments have put the interests of big business and powerful elites above the interests of the 7 billion of us who produce and consume food,” Oxfam’s executive director Jeremy Hobbs said in a statement.
The report called for building a multilateral system of food reserves, ending biofuel subsidies so more crops go toward edibles, and more investment in the 500 million small farms in developing countries that support 2 billion people.
The long-term problem is that the growing number of people on Earth and their increasing demand for an animal-based, Western-style diet is outstripping the growth in agriculture. Oxfam said global crop yields grew an average 2 per cent between 1970 and 1990, but then dropped to 1 per cent and are still declining.
“The dramatic achievements of the last century are running out of steam,” it said.
Read original article
Harold Steves – BC’s Patriarch of Farmland Preservation
Harold Steves, co-founder of BC’s Agricultural Land Reserve, was honoured recently for his unparallelled contribution to protecting BC’s food security. Harold’s discovery in the late 1950s that his farm in the Richmond community of Steveston (named for the Steves family) had been secretly rezoned to residential – along with the bulk of Richmond’s farmland – spurred him on to a lifetime of work in the political arena to protect the rest of the province’s agricultural land. As a young MLA in 1973, Harold successfully brought forward the idea of the Agricultural Land Reserve – the first of its kind in the world. After a stint in the Legislature, Harold joined Richmond City Council, where he continues today as the province’s longest-serving municipal politician. At a time when BC’s food security is more imperiled than ever, one can only imagine where we’d be without the leadership, vision, and dedication of Harold Steves. Thank you to Harold for over half a century of standing up for BC’s farmland!
Forbes Was Wrong On Monsanto. Really Wrong.
From Forbes.com – April 21, 2011
by Robert Langreth
Forbes made Monsanto the company of the year last year in The Planet Versus Monsanto.
I know because I wrote the article. Since then everything that could
have gone wrong for the genetically engineered seed company….has gone
wrong. Super-weeds that are resistant to its RoundUp weed killer are
emerging, even as weed killer sales are being hit by cheap Chinese
generics. An expensive new bioengineered corn seed with eight new genes
does not look impressive in its first harvest. And the Justice
Department is invesigating over antitrust issues. All this has led to massive share declines. Other publications are making fun of our cover story.
In this video, Forbes senior editor Matt Herper (co-author on the
orginal story) and I argue over whether Monsanto stock has a shot at
making a comeback. Matt argues that if the company opens up its
research, and comes up with some new hits that appeal to consumers (not
just farmers) it has a chance at making a comeback. It is working on a
new soybean seed for example that has naturally high levels of omega-3
fatty acids. That could appeal to health-conscious consumers.
But I’m worried that the situation is more like the one when Forbes
made Pfizer company of the year in 1998. The company had
just introduced Viagra to worldwide acclaim and it seemed like nothing
could go wrong. Then everything did. Since then it has been all
downhill. Despite a series of mergers, buying Warner-Lambert, then
Pharmacia, then Wyeth, and now King Pharmaceuticals, the company is
struggling to deal with looming patent expirations and pipeline drugs
that keep blowing up. Like Pfizer in its field, Monsanto is destined to
remain the dominant bioengineered seed company for some time to come.
But unless it comes up with a hot new product, its growth years could
all be behind it.
Read original article and watch video
Shades of Green: Food, Glorious Food
The unfolding food crisis on the planet is a convincing argument for protecting local agricultural land, for encouraging small farms and for establishing backyard gardens. Indeed, global food security seems stressed as never before. And a partial solution to this crucial problem is the utilization of all the local resources.
The importance of local food sources is defined by the global situation. The cost of food, as measured by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization Food Price Index, is at its highest value ever – the 2008 record index of 224.1 for 55 essential food products has reached 231. Crop failures caused by extreme weather in several primary grain producing areas – Russia, Ukraine, Australia and Canada – have combined with rising oil prices – about 40% of industrial fertilizer comes from oil – to lower supply and raise prices. While costlier food is a burden more easily absorbed by affluent countries, expensive food creates havoc in poor ones.
Although the estimated 700-900 million of the world’s poor suffer in silence, food shortages have recently caused riots in Bolivia, Peru, Mozambique, Haiti, Indonesia and India. The recent political upheaval in Tunisia was sparked by a food riot. And the fact that Arab nations are the world’s largest single importers of grain causes a vulnerability and tension that is connected to the current paroxysms of unrest passing from country to country across North Africa and the Middle East.
Population growth presents its own challenges to food supplies. Within 40 years, global food production will have to increase by at least 40 percent to feed the additional 2.5 billion people who will then inhabit a planet endowed with just 11 percent arable land. This challenge is complicated by rising affluence that increases per-capita food consumption, by threatened water shortages that impair crop growth, and by widespread soil erosion and degradation that is reducing arable land at a rate of about 10 million hectares per year.
The so-called Green Revolution provided a temporary solution to the food shortages of the 1960s and ’70s. But it created other problems. It increased water consumption beyond sustainable levels, caused a false sense of food security, and lower price of food ended research for further innovation and productivity.
In anticipation of food shortages, some cash-rich countries are now buying agricultural land in poorer countries. Future political tension is likely to be caused by the more than $100 billion spent on this “agrarian-colonialism”. South Korea has a 99 year lease on 1 million hectares of Madagascar. Saudi Arabia has acquired 500,000 hectares in Indonesia. Kuwait and Qatar are buying land in Vietnam. Nearly 20 percent of Laos has been signed over to foreign owners. Even Ukraine and Brazil are target properties. As China’s own agricultural land suffers the multiple effects of erosion, depletion, contamination and desertification, its need for food security is inspiring heavy investment in fertile swaths of Africa, Russia and the Philippines.
Meanwhile, the decision of affluent countries to convert food crops into bio-fuel is increasing the stress – about 30 percent of edible corn has been diverted to ethanol production. Speculation in the global financial markets adds further costs to those who can least afford to buy sustaining nutrition.
Nick Cullather argues that agricultural policy since the 1930s has created other problems (Globe & Mail, Jan. 26/11). Both Germany and Russia began to isolate the “agricultural sector” from the larger economy in their quest to give priority to industrial growth. Food production was degraded to a secondary consideration. The new function of rural regions was to provide a “reservoir of cheap labour” for urban centres. This thinking became so widespread by the end of the 1930s that, according to Rebecca West, all communist, fascist and capitalist countries had adopted “the insane dispensation which pays the food-producers worst of all workers” (Ibid.). The consequences of this absurdity persist today in boom-and-bust food production, badly manages soils, abandoned farms, impoverished farmers and social unrest.
As Cullather reminds us, all civilizations are founded on food. His solution is to pay farmers what they deserve. He believes that the agricultural sector is extremely responsive to economic incentives and, if it were elevated from its “subordinate status”, the ingenuity and resourcefulness of farmers could do much to address the challenge of feeding a rising population in an age of climate change.
Meeting this challenge could be aided by elevating the status and income of farmers, by changing tax structures to favour the protection and use of agricultural land, by eliminating the subsidies that deflate the market value of crops, and by encouraging local food production and processing. Farmers’ markets, community gardens, backyard vegetable plots and urban farming can do much to diversify production, provide fresh produce, offer healthy recreation, furnish rewarding employment, reduce transportation costs, create independence from imported crops, and relieve food stress.
If predictions are correct, the challenge of producing enough food for a growing population on a shrinking planet is only going to increase. Surely this prospect should induce us all to think more seriously about food. After all, there’s nothing quite like it.
Southlands Video Debacle Raises Questions of Public Process and Free Speech
I grant that people have bigger things on their minds today – amid Japanese tsunamis and nuclear meltdowns – than a video about farmland in BC. Nevertheless, I feel it important to comment on a recent incident that raises real concerns for me as an environmental filmmaker about public processes and free speech in BC.
A couple of weeks ago I attended the opening evening of Delta Council’s hearings on updating the Tsawwassen Area Plan (Tsawwassen being one of three communities that make up the municipality of Delta) and a proposal to return the Southlands property to the Agricultural Land Reserve. The Southlands is a 500 acre parcel of farmland in Tsawwassen that has been the subject of intense debate for years. Over the past three decades, successive owners have pushed to build thousands of homes there against the will of the majority of the community, which would prefer to see it preserved for agricultural use and as habitat for the millions of migratory birds who pass through Delta every year on the Pacific Flyway.
I had just produced a short documentary (scroll down to see) with the support of a number of Tsawwassen citizens examining the Southlands issue in the context of our region’s mounting food security crisis (we produce less than half our own food in BC today and many readers will have seen recent headlines about dramatically rising food prices). We wanted to screen the film at the hearing and formally submit it to council along with other written submissions.
I arrived with several of these citizens hours before the event to speak to municipal staff about playing the film. We connected with the technical team and provided the film in a format that suited them – we tested it and it was all queued up to play during the hearing. Two of us also signed up to speak in succession early on in the hearing – our intention was to allocate our respective five minute slots to playing 10 minutes of the film. What ensued that evening and in the following days would have been comical if it didn’t raise some serious questions about our ability to plan a sustainable future for the region and province.
When my five minutes came about, I began to introduce the film – amidst considerable heckling from audience members supporting Southlands owner Century Group’s plans to build 1,900 homes on the property. Council then spent close to 10 minutes debating whether a 10 minute film could be played, eventually deciding to allow just the first five minutes.
The question of whether a video can be submitted in lieu of standard oral comments was a subject of heated debate amongst council. The municipality’s chief administrative officer George Harvie suggested it was unfair to those who supported the development as they didn’t have time to prepare their own video (we spent 6 months preparing ours – apparently the developer lacked our foresight). The idea that a developer who has clearly spent large sums of money promoting and lobbying for a billion dollar housing development could be outmatched by a citizen video is of course laughable. And council eventually backed down when a member of our group pointed out that the developer had been allowed at past hearings to make audio-visual presentations. So we played five minutes of the film – after which the world, remarkably, appeared to be turning as usual.
It was the following night, during round two of the hearing, that things got downright bizarre. In my absence, one of our group attempted to submit the second half of the film to the proceedings. Not only were they denied that request, but Delta Mayor Lois Jackson informed the audience the film would not be allowed even as a submission to be viewed by council outside of the public meetings. Having said the night before they would watch the full film on their own time, they had now changed their minds.
According to the Delta Optimist, “Jackson read a statement noting council had received legal advice from municipal solicitor Greg Vanstone, who said the remainder of the video should not be viewed by council ‘due to potentially defamatory or inaccurate statements.'” What were these statements? Council couldn’t know because, after all, they hadn’t seen them. We were directed to ask Mr. Vanstone just what these allegedly inaccurate and defamatory statements were – but he told us he couldn’t divulge specifics on account of attorney-client privilege.
So council impugned my name and work through spurious innuendo. But they went even further than that. Mayor Jackson added, “I would request that anyone who wishes to display another video immediately provide a copy to Mr. (George) Harvie so that it may be reviewed by our solicitor to ensure that it is appropriate for display.” So from now on, anyone who wants to present a video to council must gain prior approval from bureaucrats.
As a filmmaker concerned with environmental and public policy issues in BC, this incident raises a couple of important questions:
- Why should a video be treated any differently than a verbal or written submission? In this day and age, people increasingly turn to video to express themselves, mainly because it’s such an effective communication medium. I suggested this to Delta Council – that a lot of time, energy, and resources went into creating a film that clearly and concisely expressed the way a group of citizens and experts feel about this issue. We’re proud of what we created and hoped it could help inform council’s deliberations on this important matter.
- Does pre-screening a video not open the door to doing the same for other types of submissions? And why should any submissions or comments be vetted prior to a public hearing? The implication from council’s position is that they could somehow be liable for comments made in a public forum – which is pure hogwash. If someone stands up to the microphone and slanders a company or an individual, is council liable? Of course not. How is a video any different?
Public processes should be engineered with one main purpose in mind: maximizing citizens’ opportunity to express their concerns to governments and regulatory bodies. Everything should be oriented toward that goal – and creative expression and modern technology should be encouraged if they help further it. Instead, what we often find – whether it’s a rubber stamp environmental assessment meeting to do with a private power project or municipal hearings like this one in Delta – is an adversarial environment geared towards controlling, obstructing and restraining public expression at every turn.
At the end of the day, it’s simply foolish for council to attempt to hold back a film like this. Within days of the debacle at the hearing, we had it on youtube. And of course, the implied allegations made by council have proven to be a bunch of baloney. All we did is present an accurate assessment of BC’s food security challenges and a positive vision for the Southlands property within that context.
What worries me is that this is far from the first time this situation has arisen at a public hearing in BC. Filmmaker Susan Smitten’s film “Blue Gold” was met with fierce opposition from Taseko Mines at the federal review panel hearings on the proposed Prosperity Mine. After much wrangling, the film was finally played. And the controversy only heightened the focus on the film – just as happened recently with the Southlands hearing. Inasmuch as free speech is integral to good public policy, we can’t allow processes that limit this essential Charter right.
When they do, there’s always youtube.