Farm the land, don’t fill it
Editor:
Re: “New farm operators seeking to ‘improve the land’,” and “Council has already addressed the fill on ALR lands issue,” Jan. 25.
For the first time in my life, I am speaking out to the public on an issue.
As a fourth generation member of a family that have been farming in Richmond for the past 120 years, and which are still farming productively, I resent that the people opposing the fill project at the Farm on 9360 Finn Rd. are being referred to as ill-informed ALR idealogues.
I have read the report submitted to the Agricultural Land Commission by the project consultant, and found that it has so many errors, and misleading information that are so obvious as to be laughable, if not for the fact that this is such a serious issue. Because of this, I find myself in full support of the farmers, and my neighbours protesting this project.
I don’t have a degree, or high-paying government position, but I do have an attachment to this land, and I know what it is capable of. I’ve seen this land producing bumper crops since I was a boy in the 1950s and for this consultant to say that this land needs 48,000 cubic meters of fill to make it productive is an insult to all real farmers.
Having to put fill over this farmland to, as they say, make it productive, will in reality destroy it for future food production. It is idiotic and makes no sense as to increasing crop production, but it does make economic sense when it comes to dump fees for fill!
B. McKinney
Richmond
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