Switching focus to keep the farm going
Turn to berry production and beekeeping as less land available
Metro Vancouver farmers are showing more interest in the birds and bees, as rising land costs and shifting markets make it harder to keep a herd of dairy cows in the urban centre.
New data, based on a statistics from the B.C. agriculture ministry and the 2011 Census, suggest traditional farm animals like cows, sheep and pigs have been on the decline in Metro Vancouver since 2001.
On the other hand, poultry, including 4.5 million chickens, and bee colonies are creating quite the buzz in the fast- growing region. Richmond Coun. Harold Steves, whose family traded in their dairy herd for bees, said it all comes down to available land.
In the past, there were mixed farms with dairy cows, grain and even potatoes being grown on a big plot of land.
But that’s been shifting with higher costs and shrinking agriculture land, with most of the farmland now confined to Langley, Delta and Surrey.
And as dairy herds are moved to bigger pastures in the Fraser Valley or further inland, farmers have turned to monoculture, growing single crops such as blueberries or cranberries.
This in turn has created a push for bee colonies.
“It’s been a shift over the last 50 years or so in the types of agriculture production,” said Steves, who sits on Metro’s regional planning and agriculture committee.
“We’re trying to change that back now but it’s going to be small farms that we’re going to see.”
The committee had asked for the report to find out how much farmland was left in the region. Turns out, Steves said, that it’s not enough. The region estimates it needs another 90,000 hectares to feed itself by 2025, but there is only 15,000 hectares available.