Agricultural Land Reserve
18
MENTIONS
6
EPISODES
2
PODCASTS
Search complete. 18 mentions across 6 episodes found for "Agricultural Land Reserve".
Oct 15, 2026
MarkHOST
Yeah, so we have it here.
MarkHOST
If you, if you, uh, belong to the, if you own property in the ALR, Agricultural Land Reserve here, you're allowed to go and buy, like the, the blue, the green gas.
RyanHOST
Yeah.
MarkHOST
They all have different colors.
Robin GillHOST
Let's talk about what the ALR is for people who may not be familiar with it.
Jennifer WoikeGUEST
Well, the Agricultural Land Reserve is something that is very specific.
Jennifer WoikeGUEST
No other provinces in Canada have anything like it.
Jennifer WoikeGUEST
And the Agricultural Land Reserve was put in place approximately 53 years ago to protect agricultural land for the uses of food production.
Robin GillHOST
So what kind of consultation happened before this pledge by David Evey?
Jennifer WoikeGUEST
Well, the consultation, the paper came out in the middle of August and it came out at a time where literally days after the brief dropped on the 50-50 rule, the province was pushed into a state of emergency with wildfire situation happening in the interior.
5 MINS LATER
Jennifer WoikeGUEST
And our concern is that those are guidelines that are put in place.
Jennifer WoikeGUEST
And it's been capped in the current proposal that was put forward.
Lenore NewmanGUEST
There's farming, which is about a $5 billion industry in BC, so it's important, and then there's processing, which is about a $12 billion industry.
Lenore NewmanGUEST
The Agricultural Land Reserve was designed to house both industries, and that was set out right in the beginning, in the '70s.
Lenore NewmanGUEST
And along the way, about 20 years ago, there were some rule changes, but we also started to see activists really pushing to take processors and throw them under the bus and get them off of the ALR, and as we've talked about before, turn it into more of a greenbelt.
Lenore NewmanGUEST
And we've seen that be devastatingly effective.
Lenore NewmanGUEST
And then there's processing, which is about a $12 billion industry.
Lenore NewmanGUEST
The agricultural land reserve was designed to house both industries and that was set out right in the beginning in the 70s and along the way about 20 years ago there were some real changes but we also started to see activists really pushing to take processors and throw them under the bus and get them off of the ALR and as we've talked about before turn it into more of a green belt and we've seen that be devastatingly effective so what the premier is saying is misinformed in that yes technically certain processors can process on the aor i.e if you're very small and to be honest these are so small these processors that they wouldn't really fit the federal programs or if you have a letter of permission from the ALC.
Lenore NewmanGUEST
And those letters of permission have been very scant.
Lenore NewmanGUEST
And we've really only seen one or two large ones over the last seven years.
James DonaldsonGUEST
Yeah, it's a good place to start, I think.
James DonaldsonGUEST
The 50% rule was put into effect within the Agricultural Land Reserve, and essentially...
James DonaldsonGUEST
Food processing is a permitted use within the ALR, but the rule allows, it essentially restricts anybody processing to use for 50% or more of their inputs to come from on that location.
James DonaldsonGUEST
So essentially, if you're a 10-acre blueberry farm, you could put a blueberry facility, a blueberry jam facility on that location, but half the inputs had to come from your farm.
James DonaldsonGUEST
So what that means is, you know, it limits any ability for anyone to scale their business beyond that, because, of course, you know, you want to be able to draw inputs from other places.
James DonaldsonGUEST
We've been talking about it for a long time.
James DonaldsonGUEST
And, you know, we sort of got to the point where when this consultation came out in, I think you said July, you know, we were quite encouraged by that because, you know, it was a lot of conversations, but I think they really struck the balance with the proposed changes.
James DonaldsonGUEST
You know, it restricted the amount of ALR land that could be used for processing to 0.25%.
James DonaldsonGUEST
Yeah, it's a good place to start, I think.
James DonaldsonGUEST
The 50% rule was put into effect within the Agricultural Land Reserve, and essentially...
James DonaldsonGUEST
Food processing is a permitted use within the ALR, but the rule allows, it essentially restricts anybody processing to use for 50% or more of their inputs to come from on that location.
James DonaldsonGUEST
So essentially, if you're a 10-acre blueberry farm, you could put a blueberry facility, a blueberry jam facility on that location, but half the inputs had to come from your farm.