This article was published in Powell River (now named qathet) Living Magazine’s “Home Grown” insert, page 23, spring 2021.
People have farmed the earth for thousands of years. Soil has been built up, depleted, nourished, starved, understood and misunderstood in a quest for food. With plants packing a punch of nutritious energy, how do we protect those lands and the food they provide into the future?
In the 1970s the BC government initiated the Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR), an unusually progressive action in North America. Urban sprawl had been chewing up the land. So, 4.7 million hectares, roughly 5% of the province1, were set aside for food sustainability, and the ALR designation has protected those lands for 50 years. However, nothing is perfect.
A small proportion of currently farmed land is within the ALR. Other farmland is held by families, or receives agricultural zoning by a local municipality. Farmers pass on, farms pass on, and there is little one can do, except cross fingers, to ensure that food-growing history continues. Little, that is, until a conservation covenant is placed on the land.
Imagine you need to sell your farm. This farm has been worked by your family for 60 years and the soil is rich. You’ve built it up and tended it with your bare hands. You’ve grown a vast variety of produce each year and sold it to your own community at the farmers’ market. You’ve toured people around, teaching them where their food comes from. Now you’re wondering what will happen after you leave.
You can create a legally-binding document that details your wishes. You can designate that a portion or all of your farm remains in food production, suggest the type of farming that can be used and provide a statement of agricultural values. This becomes your conservation covenant.
The covenant is placed on the title of the property and “runs with the land”, legally binding the future owner to abide by your wishes. If the property is within the ALR, the covenant cannot restrict agricultural potential, sits below the ALR on the title and permission from the Agricultural Land Commission needs to be sought. In this case, the covenant provides a second layer of defence to maintain agricultural integrity should the need arise.
Westcoast Environmental Law created Greening Your Title2, a wonderful resource should you be interested in protecting your property. Contact your lawyer, and work with a land conservancy or local government. Know that preserving your farmland protects food security for generations to come.
Janet Southcott
Malaspina Land Conservancy Society
1. https://www.alc.gov.bc.ca/alc/content/alr-maps/alr-history
Malaspina Land Conservancy Society 
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