Remove pot facilities from ALR farmland

Evergreen Medicinal Supply is planning to build a large medical-marijuana production facility in the Martindale Valley, potentially the largest in B.C. At present, the manufacture and processing of medical marijuana is an allowable use of Agricultural Land Reserve farmland.

Note the terms “manufacture” and “processing.” This is not farming, it is an industry, and as such, belongs in an industrial park or other non-residential area. Locating this industry on prime farmland with huge food-production value is shortsighted.

Construction of the greenhouses would make the land unusable for future farming. Farmland in the ALR represents only five per cent of our land base, and needs to be protected in the interests of local food security.

Protection of farmland for food crops and fodder was the original mandate when the NDP implemented the Agricultural Land Commission in 1973.

Unfortunately, the tax-revenue potential of cannabis has allowed the industry to use ALR-designated land.

We hope that the minister of agriculture, and the ALR review committee, seriously consider the future of food farming and local food security in their review of greenhouse cannabis production.

We strongly urge the ALR review committee to remove cannabis production as an acceptable use of ALR farmland in B.C. Kathy and Gary Wolfson Saanichton