Appendix 1. Strategic Context

Vision, Mission and Values

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.

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 provincial 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.²

Values

The following values describe how the organization and its employees interact with clients and with each other.

• Integration — Policies and programs foster long-term sustainability by considering a range of economic, social and environmental values.
• Accountability and fairness — The Commission sets performance standards, monitors compliance and reports on progress. The Commission acts fairly and in the public interest.
• Transparency — The Commission establishes open decision-making processes; the bases of all decisions are public information.
• Science and knowledge — Agricultural Land Reserve boundaries and decisions are based on biophysical criteria, local knowledge and site specific circumstances.
• Responsiveness — In carrying out its responsibilities, the Commission considers the needs of farmers, landowners, applicants, First Nations, local governments and others.
• Shared responsibility — The Commission strives to develop positive working relationships with local governments, First Nations and others and to ensure consultation with all stakeholders in its decisions and activities.
• Certainty — The Commission makes clear and timely decisions within a predictable and understandable regulatory framework.

Planning Context

In developing this service plan and making decisions, the Commission has considered the following strengths, challenges and opportunities.

Strengths

• The ALR provides the land base necessary for ongoing and expanding farm and related forest production, which are important contributors to the provincial economy.
• A protected land base provides the opportunity for developing new markets in agriculture, and also provides a competitive advantage, as most other jurisdictions have fewer powers and programs for the protection of farmland.
• Agriculture is an important contributor to the BC economy in terms of jobs, income generated and other steady, non-cyclical contributions. BC's growth in agriculture has outpaced the national growth rate over ten years and in 2002 generated revenues of more than $2 billion.
• BC agriculture is diverse, produces a wide range of commodities and takes advantage of the province's varied topography, soils and climate.
• During the past ten years employment and production in agriculture have remained constant or continued to grow when other sectors have declined or lost market shares.
• The Agricultural Land Reserve has been in place for more than 30 years, and provides an important and consistent foundation for the planning of both rural and urban areas.
• The consistent, long-standing protection of agricultural lands has led to the development of more compact communities, with associated savings in road and infrastructure costs.

Challenges

Ongoing challenges for the Commission include:

• The continuing reluctance of the vast majority of local governments to assume more decision-making responsibility within the ALR.
• Continuing development pressures on agricultural lands, particularly near urban areas; and the increasing importance of protecting farmers' rights-to-farm in the ALR.
• Fluctuating farm commodity prices combined with the demand for lands to diversify the economic base of communities, which results in continuing and sometimes mounting pressure to release lands from the ALR.
• Public demand for the protection of environmental values on private farmlands, which directly reduces farm income and business viability.
• Public demand for the recreational use of farm and range lands which often negatively impacts farm and ranch operations, and the lack of sufficient funds to appropriately mitigate these impacts.
• Competing demands on Crown ALR land for timber harvesting and environmental protection make significant areas of Crown land unavailable for agricultural use.
• Uncertainty around the treaty settlement process, and the potential for treaty settlements to include large tracts of land designated as ALR.
• The need for an internal cultural shift and the transition to new business processes including results-based regulation, and the availability of fewer resources.

Opportunities

• Continuing support by local governments, farmers and the public for protecting farmlands will result in additional opportunities for cooperative partnerships.
• Increased awareness by local governments of the need to plan for agriculture, and an improved rate of development and acceptance of agricultural and rural area plans.
• Other government initiatives will result in opportunities to strengthen the land reserve system and deliver services more efficiently and effectively.
• Policies and programs are being implemented that make Crown ALR lands available for agricultural development and expansion through an improved lease, license and purchase program.

Highlights of Strategic Shifts and Changes from Previous Service Plan

The Commission achieved the strategic shifts directed by government in fiscal 2002/2003. During this period government implemented new legislation for the Commission — the Agricultural Land Commission Act — which re-affirmed the Commission's purpose and provided it with some additional tools to preserve agricultural land and enforce compliance with the Act. Since May 2002, the Commission has operated with six panels, appointed from and making decisions in six regions of the province. Together with several other changes, this has made the Commission more regionally responsive to community needs and has improved operational efficiency and accountability.

The Commission and government continue to work towards phasing out the Forest Land Reserve. Legislation to implement a new results-based process to regulate forest practices on private forest lands was passed on November 6, 2003. The Private Managed Forest Land Act provides for the establishment of a new council (whose members will be appointed by both government and private forest landowners) which will assume, in 2004, responsibilities and duties for forest practices regulation now performed by the Commission.

The Commission is on track to achieve the key components outlined in the 2003/2004 to 2005/06 Service Plan published last year. Changes from that plan now incorporated in this plan include:

• Further development and refinement of the Commission's performance management system;
• Modifications to the Application Tracking System (ATS) have provided some baseline data for 2003/2004 to help measure results for the current plan and determine trends;
• Elimination of the performance measure and targets for the percentage of applications approved for compatible uses; this measure was unworkable as many of the compatible uses are now allowed outright in the ALR and thus cannot be statistically tracked;
• Revision to the performance measure and targets for the number of delegation agreements negotiated with local governments to reflect the lack of interest in assuming delegated decision responsibilities by many local governments;
• Elimination of the performance measure and targets for the workload measure (number of applications) to reflect the fact that many factors outside the Commission's control influence the volume of applications submitted to the Commission; and
• Introduction of a strategy to implement the government-wide risk management system.

Consistency with Government Strategic Plan

The Agricultural Land Commission's objectives and strategies are aligned with two of the three government goals outlined in the 2003/04 to 2005/06 Government Strategic Plan.

Government Goal 1: A strong and vibrant provincial economy.

The Agricultural Land Commission, through its management of the ALR, provides a secure land base that is a prerequisite for a strong and expanding agriculture industry in BC. Successful agriculture is further enabled by broadening the range of farm uses and compatible economic activities that are permitted in the ALR. A strong agricultural sector contributes to the economic health and vitality of rural and regional economies, and is also a significant and steady contributor to the provincial economy.

Government Goal 3: Safe, healthy communities and a sustainable environment.

The Agricultural Land Reserve contributes to this goal by helping to:

• maintain productive soils in a working landscape;
• promote the orderly development of communities, both urban and rural;
• encourage farming, which contributes to the reduction in greenhouse gases, thus mitigating climate change concerns; and
• provide environmental benefits such as habitat and water conservation functions on farmland.