To the editor:
Though saddened, I鈥檓 not surprised the Christy Clark government is further chipping away at agricultural land in B.C. First it was the weakening of the Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR) in the top half of the province, and now there鈥檚 the change to allow weddings on farm land.
On the surface, when you hear about it the idea seems fine. It鈥檚 very similar to allowing RV parking on a portion of the land. However what people fail to understand is that only five per cent of land in B.C. is in the ALR.
If we accept climate change to be real, and as politics around the world shift to a more national focus, can we always count on the US, China and Chile to supply us with food? If only five per cent of our land is used for agriculture, but we set aside portions of this for weddings, how much land will be left for future generations?
And make no mistake, while it鈥檚 now capped at 10 weddings per year, and no more than 150 guests, in a short while a savvy lobbyist will have the ear of the government and it鈥檒l be amended. I pity the farmer trying to run his farm beside one with a wedding in progress.
We need to look no further than the Sonoma Valley in California to see what a mess has been made out of the agricultural areas down there due to lack of foresight.
Moni Schiller, 琉璃神社
