2003/04 – 2005/06 SERVICE PLAN Provincial Agricultural Land Commission

Strategic Context

This Service Plan sets out a three-year plan for achieving the Agricultural Land Commission's goals and objectives and for monitoring progress, in accordance with the Budget Transparency and Accountability Act.

Vision

A provincial agricultural land reserve system that fosters economic, environmental and social sustainability.

The Agricultural Land Reserve provides a sustainable agricultural land base that supports, and creates opportunities for, a safe and secure source of food and other agricultural products. The protected land base provides for agricultural expansion and compatible economic activities. It helps build healthy and sustainable rural and urban communities.

The Commission's vision is consistent with the Ministry of Sustainable Resource Management's vision of a vibrant economy supporting the social and environmental values of British Columbians.

Mission

Preserve agricultural land and encourage and enable farm businesses throughout British Columbia.

The Agricultural Land Commission is the provincial agency responsible for administering the Province's land use zone in favour of agriculture — the Agricultural Land Reserve. In pursuit of its vision and mission, the Commission adjudicates change of use applications, reviews plans and bylaws to ensure consistency with provincial objectives; and works with local governments and others to encourage and enable farming of agricultural lands. The preservation of agricultural land and encouragement of farming is a provincial interest that has widespread public and industry support.¹

Values and Principles

The Commission is committed to the following values to guide its activities and the delivery of public services. These values complement the Ministry's Governance Principles for Sustainable Resource Management.

Integration — Policies and programs foster long-term sustainability by considering a range of economic, social and environmental values for the benefit of present and future generations.

Accountability and fairness — The Commission sets performance standards and implements mechanisms for compliance, auditing and reporting on progress. The Commission acts fairly and in the public interest.

Transparency — The Commission establishes open decision-making processes and the basis of all decisions is public information.

Science and knowledge — Agricultural Land Reserve boundaries and decisions are based on biophysical criteria, local knowledge and site specific circumstances.

Responsiveness — The Commission, in carrying out its responsibility to protect the provincial interest in agricultural land preservation, considers the needs of farmers, landowners, applicants, First Nations, local governments and others.

Shared Responsibility — The Commission is aware that its decisions affect others, and that others share in the responsibility for making decisions. The Commission strives to develop working relationships with local governments, First Nations and other communities of interest and to ensure consultation with stakeholders in all of its decisions and activities. The Commission works towards delegating some decision-making to interested local governments and public agencies.

Certainty — The Commission makes clear and timely decisions within a predictable and understandable regulatory framework.

Planning Context

Trends

The Agricultural Land Commission operates in a dynamic environment that is affected by many external trends and events. These may be global, national, provincial or wholly within the agricultural industry. The Commission's response to these will determine, in part, its success in accomplishing its mission and implementing new government directions.

International trends and events may affect the utilization and economic importance of BC's working agricultural land base. For example:

• rising populations, increasing competition for land and water in other countries and provinces, and BC's reputation for high quality food products may result in larger export markets for BC farm products, as well as a larger domestic market;
• rising living standards within many nations may result in an increased ability to buy BC farm products, as well as create additional demand as daily caloric consumption per capita increases; and
• global trade policies and international agreements may affect BC's agricultural industry.

Within BC significant trends that affect the land reserve system and the use of agricultural land include:

• population growth, particularly in the Fraser Valley, Okanagan and Vancouver Island, increases the development pressure on agricultural land, increases competition for water resources, and creates other demands on the working land base;
• advances in technology have the potential to increase the sustainable productive capacity of agricultural land and enable farmers to adapt quickly to changing market forces and to respond to market opportunities;
• increasing public environmental awareness continues to highlight the importance of agricultural land for other values such as wildlife habitat and recreation, and contributes to public demands for more sustainable farming practices by industry;
• increasing awareness by the general public of global food issues affects decisions about what foods to import, and uncertainty about foreign farm practices increases support for retaining our ability to grow food in BC; and
• growing public demand for organically and locally grown produce may result in changes in the way agricultural land is utilized.

The ALR — a success story

Most urban regions in North America are faced with growth pressures and rising land servicing costs. BC has achieved success in limiting sprawl in part because agricultural lands are protected.

A recent study by Northwest Environment Watch and Smart Growth BC entitled, "Sprawl and Smart Growth in Greater Vancouver" credited BC's Agricultural Land Reserve for achieving compact development and for limiting sprawl in greater Vancouver. The study measured trends in urban density in the Vancouver and Seattle metropolitan areas between 1986 and 2001. It showed that greater Vancouver, which almost doubled its population in this period, significantly increased urban density while protecting agricultural land and green space.

In contrast, Seattle's weaker zoning and other protections led to rampant sprawl and an associated loss of farmland and open space. The study noted that "if Vancouver had grown the way Seattle did over the last century, all remaining developable land in greater Vancouver, along with four fifths of the remaining agricultural land, would be covered with tracts of suburban housing". Clearly, despite population growth in the Lower Mainland, the provincial land reserve system has helped shape more efficient development and reduced the infrastructure costs associated with urban sprawl.

Strengths

The agriculture industry is a strong and growing contributor to the provincial economy and provides tens of thousand of direct jobs in farming, ranching, food processing, distribution and retail sales, together with many more indirect ones. Strengths of the industry include²:

• Agricultural sector revenues based on total farm sales were $2.2 billion in 2001; BC's growth in this sector has outpaced the national growth rate over 10 years
• In 2001 the industry directly employed 26,000 people;
• The decline in number of BC farms is the smallest in the country at 7.1% (20,290 farms in 2001) compared to a 10.7% decline nationally;
• The value of agri-food exports from BC in 2001 was $1.5 billion, an increase from $1.1 billion over 1996;
• The total farm area in BC has increased by 2.3% since 1996;
• BC produces a greater variety of products — more than 200 commodities — over a wider range of geographical and climatic conditions than any other area in Canada;
• BC agriculture operates within a protected land base, an advantage most of our competitors do not share;
• The industry is less affected than other resource sectors by downturns in the economy. Agriculture has a stabilizing effect on rural communities because economic returns and jobs have remained relatively stable over the years.

The success of this industry is dependent on many factors, including activities of both the public and private sectors and also trends within and outside of BC. Nevertheless, a protected agricultural land base is a contributing factor to the success of BC's agri-food industry, one which enjoys a significant potential for future growth across the province.

Challenges

The Commission operates within rapidly changing social, political and economic environments that present many challenges. These include:

• The transition to new core services and business processes, which must be completed with fewer financial and staff resources;
• The changes in other ministries and agencies which may impact on the Commission's ability to deliver core services;
• The reluctance of some local governments to assume more land use decision-making responsibility within the ALR, and the preference of many for the status quo;
• Continuing development pressures on agricultural lands near urban areas and the importance of protecting farmers' right-to-farm in the ALR;
• Fluctuating agricultural commodity prices and demand for lands to diversify the economic base of communities, which may result in continuing and possibly mounting pressure to release lands from the ALR;
• Public demand for the protection of environmental values on private agricultural lands, which directly affects agricultural viability and requires innovative solutions to balance competing values on the same land base;
• The First Nation treaty settlement process, which will involve large tracts of land designated as Agricultural Land Reserve; and achieving balance between the preservation of agricultural land and the needs of First Nations; and
• The competing demands on Crown ALR land for forest production, environmental protection and wildlife habitat preservation which can make significant areas unavailable for agricultural development.

Opportunities

In addition to challenges, the Commission has identified a number of opportunities:

• Increasing support by local governments, farmers, the public and others for securing foodlands which will result in more opportunities for partnership and collaborative governance;
• Other government initiatives that will result in opportunities to strengthen the land reserve system and to deliver services more efficiently and effectively;
• New opportunities for diversified economic growth, particularly in rural areas, which will help strengthen rural economies;
• The re-structuring of government, which offers opportunities for partnerships, streamlining and enhanced access to data and information to support the delivery of services; and
• Policies and programs that are in progress to make Crown ALR lands available for agricultural economic development through an improved lease, license and purchase program.

Highlights of Changes from Previous Plan

During the period following the adoption of the 2002/03 Service Plan, a number of significant changes were made to the Commission's mandate and its way of doing business. In Spring 2002 government passed new legislation and regulations focusing the Commission's purpose on agricultural land preservation and streamlining procedures. The Commission was successful in reducing regulatory requirements by introducing new results-based processes and broadening uses permitted in the Reserve. However, during this time the Commission also experienced an increase in the number of applications.

The target of 'deciding 80% of applications within 60 days' was not met within the six-month period April to September 2002. With the appointment of six Commission panels in May 2002, the focus became improving liaison with local governments and stakeholders through an increased number of meetings around the province. As resources decrease in fiscal 2003/04 it will become even more challenging to meet some performance targets. This plan revises the target for timely response to 'deciding 80% of applications within 90 days'. This revised target provides for a transition period when the emphasis will be on negotiating delegation agreements with local governments and public agencies. Once agreements are in place the number of applications to the Commission should decline and timeliness improve.

The target of delegating partial decision authority to 20% of local governments in 2002/03 was not met. All local governments have been offered the opportunity to assume delegated responsibility for land use and subdivision decisions within the ALR. However, there was a clear reluctance on the part of some local governments to take on this role, especially during an election year. Some viewed delegation as downloading while others may have been awaiting the outcomes of the Community Charter initiative.