Editor:
One thing that is misunderstood is that the ALR doesn't save farmland, farmers save farmland.
This is obvious because our family has been using the same ground for over 100 years and yet all around us government has been buying up land it so nicely reduced in value and removing it from the ALR.
We have been growing crops here many years and things have changed, such as three highways crisscrossing the land we use, making it very difficult to get from field to field.
Other changes over the generations include going from a dairy herd to fresh market russet potatoes. When that didn't work, we then went to processing potatoes until Nalley's left B.C.
Then we went to seed potatoes and growing corn and beans for Snowcrest Packers, until it was bought out by Bonduelle that closed the plant here, leaving Lower Mainland growers with 2,000 less acres of peas, corn and beans.
We continually look into other commodities to produce.
The only reason we are still here is after the disaster years the government gives you just enough subsidies to keep you from going broke.
Crop insurance covers about 50 per cent of your basic inputs. This would be like destroying your car in a crash, but the auto insurance company saying it will only pay 50 per cent of the cost to fix it.
The original intent of the ALR is obvious now: it was to manipulate and devalue the land so it could be bought cheaper in the future by the province for roads, the port and other uses.
They should have named it the PLB or Provincial Land Bank.
A report I read stated that ALR officials have allowed government entities to remove twice as much property from the reserve as landowners.
At the time of the land freeze, the farmers were told all you can do with your land is produce food, however there was no accompanying legislation to force the public to have to buy the food. They can buy food grown in Mexico, China or anywhere it's cheapest.
We live in a free country, not a communist country where you have no rights to any land. The moral thing to do is to return the rights to the farm families that had them wrongly taken away without compensation from them through legislation (ALR).
Time to correct the wrongdoing!
