Dannielle Alan explains the ABCs of the ALC

By Abigail Popple, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, RMG

B.C. residents hoping to develop land in the Agricultural Land Reserve face a labyrinthine process of documentation and applications for anything as simple as filling a hole or subdividing their property to building a house. The Agricultural Land Commission, a 19-person committee appointed by the Minister of Agriculture, vets every application to ensure any land in the reserve can remain productive for farming after being developed.

To learn more about the Agricultural Land Commission and how its decision making process works in northern B.C., The Goat spoke with Regional District of Fraser-Fort George director Dannielle Alan.

The process begins with sending an application to your local regional district. The Regional District doesn’t have final say on applications, Alan said – it chooses whether or not to pass the application along to the Commission, and can choose to include a recommendation on whether to approve the application. However, there are steps applicants can take to ensure their application has the best shot at being approved, according to Alan.

The first step is to familiarize yourself with the Commission’s guiding priorities, Alan said.

“Look at the Agricultural Land Commission and the Land Reserve’s mandate, and make sure that your application falls within that mandate,” she said.

The Commission exists to preserve large tracts of land, and keep them suitable for farming in the future, Alan said.

That means the Commission might bristle at someone hoping to subdivide their land into two tracts, according to Alan – but the Commission could approve the project given the right framing. Making sure that the rationale for a project is based in agricultural production or food security makes for a more compelling application, she said.

“If that person said, ‘Okay, let’s build a market case, we’re going to divide this property in half and use the money to intensively invest in agriculture…’ and have a well thought-out business plan to say, ‘This is how it’s going to benefit farming and food security in the Robson Valley if we split this parcel in half,’ they might have a better shot,” Alan said.

When the Agricultural Land Commission makes a decision on an application in the RDFFG, the decision is sent to the Regional District board and included in the “for information” section of board agendas, Alan added. This means that people hoping to improve their applications can look at previous decisions – and see the rationale for approving or declining them – at rdffg.ca/BoardMeetings.

Additionally, the Regional District’s planners are available to help residents with their applications, Alan said.

“The rules and regulations within the ALR are quite significant. That’s why our planners are really familiar with them, and they’ll guide someone through [the process],” she said.

But despite the amount of hoops Alan sees residents jump through, she worries the regulations aren’t applied equally. She says she’s concerned that it’s easier for large corporations based in the Lower Mainland to have applications approved than it is for small-scale northern farmers.

“Their mandate is admirable. However, their lack of enforcement, their lack of resources that don’t allow them to adequately defend against big developers, and the pressure put on the Province for these mega projects makes it so that where they do have authority and control, they exercise it like crazy,” she said.

While the Commission strives to keep land usable for agriculture, this doesn’t automatically mean its decisions contribute to making that land productive, Alan said. This means that companies can buy land in the reserve and let it sit empty.

“When farmers in Dunster were trying to fight against the land grab by Fraser River Holdings and saying, ‘Well, it’s in the Agricultural Land Reserve. Why are you allowing these vast tracts of land to be held by a foreign hedge company?’ The Agricultural Land Commission’s response was, ‘It doesn’t matter, as long as they’re not subdividing land or wrecking it so that it can’t ever be used for farming,’” she said.

On top of enforcement issues, the Commission has the last word on an application – if an application is denied, there’s no higher body to which one can appeal, Alan said.

With new advancements in greenhouse technology every day, Alan says there is potential for northern B.C. agriculture to boom. But she worries that without changes to the Commission, it may be difficult for local farmers to thrive.

Alan says she and her fellow board members advocate for northern B.C. to have more access to agricultural land at every turn.

“We participate in every information gathering session,” she said. “I think that there’s tremendous opportunity for agriculture and agricultural production up here… building in these opportunities to let people do that is tremendously important for agriculture, food security and food sovereignty.”