SILENT DEATH OF AGRICULTURE IN METRO VANCOUVER – When Farmland Protection is not Enough: “My dad is a professor and researcher. When I told him my thesis title, he said you cannot make that your title. That is too dramatic! And in reply I said, but the topic is dramatic. It demands a dramatic title,” stated Christina Gemino, graduate of School of Resource and Environmental Management at Simon Fraser University
“You can build warehouses and industrial stuff pretty well anywhere you have a piece of property. You cannot build a farm by bringing in soil. That is what we have to protect. We have to find other places for this other stuff. Food security is at risk. The non-sanctioned expansion of industrial use on agricultural land was a factor that drove my research. These uses can forever change the agricultural land base. In Metro Vancouver, there was a 121% increase in ALR parcels with industrial use from 2016 through 2022. It should be ZERO percent,” stated Christina Gemino.
