Editor, The News:

Re: Debate gets heated on agricultural plan (The News, Nov. 4).

We have watched with interest council’s recent deliberations on the draft agricultural plan and would like to reiterate our unqualified support for the vision and recommendations proposed.

We believe that the plan is a forward-looking approach designed to assist Maple Ridge in achieving the resilience that will allow its citizens to thrive in an uncertain future and will strategically position the municipality to support the dense urban centre on its doorstep.

The changes that accompany overuse of resources and climate disruption are underway: water shortages – as experienced by California and Australia this past year – arising from depletion of aquifers and rivers and loss of glacial melt desertification of food-producing lands; rising temperatures that inhibit growing capabilities; rising sea levels and storm surges that eliminate vital foodlands, as in Bangladesh; and the growing demand for increasingly scarce cheap petrochemical inputs required for large-scale food production.

These changes are profound in their effect on global food production and, considering that half of the produce that graces our local tables comes from California, underscore the urgent need to secure our ability to feed ourselves.

The preservation of farmable land is as essential to the longer-term survival of our descendants, as is the preservation of water and air quality, for we all must eat.

As a society, we long ago embraced the responsibility of government to assure access for its citizens to clean air and water, but seem still to struggle with the notion that such responsibility should extend to the protection of an adequate food supply.

Senior governments have established the structures for farmland preservation and have mandated actions to secure the food supply through various ministries and agencies, but it has largely fallen to local governments to support and execute these strategies on the ground.

We respectfully ask that council reflect upon this responsibility to present and future citizens when considering the recommendations contained in the agricultural plan.

In its role connecting food producer with food consumer, the Haney Farmers’ Market is a critical element of the food production system in Maple Ridge.

It has seen significant growth in the breadth and quantity of food supply and demand over the past five years and in 2009 has experienced an increase in market sales of 75 per cent over 2008.

Additionally, there has been strong growth in the demand for community garden plots, several food-producing school gardens have been established or are underway, and backyard food production has increased dramatically, according to garden centre sales.

These are persuasive indications that there is an unfolding awareness in Maple Ridge and a desire to grow and buy food locally.

The time is right to demonstrate our commitment to the future by endorsing a plan that provides the pathway.

We believe that the draft agricultural plan is just such a plan.

Paula J. Panek

Paula Panek, director

Haney Farmers’ Market board

Can’t eat money

Editor, The News:

Re: Debate gets heated on agricultural plan (The News, Nov. 4).

I find troubling the many accounts of our council’s reactions to agriculture in Maple Ridge.

I have read a recent article from the Wall Street Journal about agricultural workers in the Central Valley of California who are suffering more than ever before because drought has caused seriously reduced production.

This is just the canary in the coal mine.

A few considerations.

• All ALR land may not be suitable for all crops, but land would not have been identified as agricultural land if it were entirely unsuitable for agriculture.

• One of our councillors has suggested that a farm should be moved if it is in a place that is considered by some to be better for development; this isn’t the way farming works.

• One of our councillors has suggested that developers are important because they provide jobs and homes; they are important, but they provide short-term jobs. Once the house has been built, the job is done; once a farm has been established, the job continues.

• We are all involved in agriculture because we all eat, and those in favour of not preserving farmland should remember the Cree prophecy:

Only after the last tree has been cut down,

Only then will you find you cannot eat money.

Sheila Pratt

Maple Ridge