Kudos to Rocky View County and community members for the work they have put into the Agricultural Master Plan, now in draft form.
Their vision and goals are grandiose, ranging from promoting the importance of the agricultural industry to allowing new and innovative ideas and opportunities.
It seems the farmers, councillors and Rocky View staff members thought long and hard about what to include and the outcomes appears to address most of the concerns producers shared.
However, this document does little to address the real difficulties today’s farmers face: low returns, escalating costs and increasing government regulations.
Many local farmers are nearing retirement and are sharing concern over who will take over their family farms.
Other issues include recent changes to Provincial legislation, such as the Land Stewardship Act, which has created an atmosphere of fear and government loathing and environmental regulations that could stifle farmers’ access to environmentally sensitive land and cost them thousands of dollars.
Although the County’s plan appears to provide a good framework for policy makers, we are concerned local documents, no matter how well written, may be overridden by sweeping Provincial legislation, rendering them useless.
The answer may be an organized protest demanding property rights and freedoms be added to our constitution.
Or, alternatively, we could sell the land to large commercial farming operations, making family farms - and their more than a century’s worth of economic contributions to our communities - just another part of our area’s history books.
