Episode 52
A corporation is buying up this BC community's farmland
Today on the show, listener submissions about the permanent time change announcement, and then we head to the central interior, where residents of Dunster, a rural community in the Robson Valley along highway 16 south of McBride, have been grappling with a decline in population that some say is connected to a single corporation having bought up a substantial amount of the farmland there. You’ll hear from two residents of the region who are part of an organized effort to advocate for policy change that might help communities like Dunster grow rather than contract.
Info about the online forum on March 25 mentioned in the episode:
The Dunster Community Association is holding an online forum with communities across B.C. to discuss and understand how land speculation, non-farm development, corporate interests, and Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR) policies are impacting agricultural and community development. If you’ve encountered similar issues or are making efforts to address farmland loss or corporate acquisition in your area, we invite you to share your perspectives so that we can gather to address these challenges. This online meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, March 25th 6:30 pm to 8 pm.
If you want to reach out to Dunster Community Association about this issue/project before the online meeting, please connect with Rashmi Narayan (Dunster Farmland Project Coordinator) at dunsterfarmland@gmail.com.
Mentioned in this episode:
Submit Your One Idea for Government Spending on the Ag Sector
On May 27 I’m planning to release an episode about Canada’s Next Policy Framework for Agriculture, which will greatly influence how the ag sectors of BC and Canada get funded. For that episode, I would really love to hear from some of you. What’s your one big insight or idea about how our governments should invest in agriculture that they’re either not currently doing or doing wrong? I’m interested in both your grand ideas but also just little tweaks to funding that you think would improve our sector. To share your idea, you can send me a voice recording, or invite me to interview you for 5 minutes. Either way, visit farminginbc.ca/submit to quickly and easily get hold of me.
