Rocky View County’s Agricultural Master Plan (AMP) is nearing completion and several residents offered opinions to councillors about the draft document at a public services meeting, Nov. 15.
Harvey Buckley, founding director of Action for Agriculture and former County councillor, said the document was very comprehensive and an excellent foundation.
“I am pleased with the tone,” he said. “Hopefully this is a living document that will have to be capable of changing because the industry is changing.”
The AMP, created by County staff with help from a number of stakeholders including local farmers, is a long-term vision and policy framework for agriculture and land use planning in rural areas within the County.
The plan’s vision is to support both existing agricultural operations and provide farmers with new opportunities for diversification.
Buckley raised concern about several points in the draft AMP, including concessions given to farmers for first parcels out. The document gives farmers the right to divide larger parcels for agricultural use and smaller parcels for residential. The current policy allows only smaller parcels for residential use.
“First parcel out does fly in the face of protecting our ecosystems,” said Buckley. “So I think we need to look at it in that light. First parcels out really fracture the eco-systems.”
According to Rocky View’s Agricultural Fieldman, Tim Dietzler, the new policy was intended to give farmers more flexibility.
Springbank-area farmer Joe Zink said the plan should recognize differences across the county.
“The plan recognizes… that we need to talk about agriculture beyond food production,” said Zink. “We are talking about land, water, open space, ecology and other business that might take place on agricultural lands.”
Zink said more than 5,000 acres of farmland in the county has been lost over the past 20 years just to annexation. With land costing between $70,000 and $100,000 per acre in Springbank, many of the area farmers are selling out. (See related story page 20).
Zink suggested other solutions could be found to entice farmers to stay in the business, such as providing operators money for doing environmental projects.
“We need to make plans and programs available for farmers in some areas or else they will play the real estate game and just check out,” he said.
Farmer and development consultant Larry Konschuk said the plan shouldn’t limit future farming innovations by controlling the size of agriculture parcels.
“We have to realize that in some places in the world, four acres is a ranch,” he said.
“Don’t try to predict the future, things are changing fast.”
Councillors directed staff to prepare a report summarizing the main issues raised by the public before bringing the document back to council, with any necessary changes, for final approval on Nov. 29.
