B.C.’s Agricultural Land Commission (ALC), which is responsible for protecting over 4.6 million hectares of farmland in the province, has announced it will be making staffing reductions amid funding challenges.

The chair of the ALC says that, even as the workload increases at the agency, its funding has stagnated since 2019 at $5.5 million.

Farmers and an academic argue that the staffing cuts — which come as the provincial government operates with a forecasted $13.3-billion deficit — could lead to an erosion of the independent agency that protects vital farmland under the Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR).

Jennifer Dyson, the chair of the ALC, said some of the approximately 42 full-time equivalent roles at the commission may be cut even as it faces increasingly complex permit applications.

“This is really cutting off limbs,” she said.

“We don’t have any fat, we have no vacancies and we have an insane workload that never ends.”

Dyson says that the commission is responsible from anything as simple as approving a greenhouse on ALR land to permitting on major projects like the Massey Tunnel replacement and cracking down on illegal dumping.

“If we’re looking at compliance and enforcement … it’s a process of evidence that has to be collected and that is staff time. It’s a long game,” she said.

For the longtime farmer, who has operated in the Alberni Valley for nearly 40 years, she says the work of the commission is critical at a time when some are suggesting that the ALR be modified to allow for more processing facilities on farmland.

Dyson fears that the next generation of farmers won’t have access to affordable land.

Academic, critic express fears

Chris Bodnar, an agriculture professor at the University of the Fraser Valley, said the staffing cuts would result in challenges for anyone who is waiting for a permit decision.

“If there’s reduced capacity to either process applications or to enforce non-compliances in the Agricultural Land Reserve, then it erodes our farm base, like our land base dedicated to agriculture,” he argued.

“The biggest fear is that an agency like this will end up imploding upon itself, because there’s no capacity to do the work that it’s been mandated to do,” he added.

Ian Paton, the Conservative critic for agriculture and a dairy farmer himself, said the ALC’s staffing cuts don’t come as a surprise given the provincial budget deficit and cuts to the public sector.

“This is a terrible end for what’s happening with farming in B.C.” he said of the job cuts.

Mayor argues there’s duplication

Central Saanich Mayor Ryan Windsor, who grows grapes in his Vancouver Island community that is full of protected ALR land, argues that there was occasionally a duplication of duties between municipalities and the ALC.

He said the commission is still vital in its role enforcing provincial standards and cracking down on illegal dumping, for instance, but that it doesn’t need to get into the “nitty-gritty” of applications that a municipality could review.

“I look at accessory dwelling units, and how those new forms of small residential housing on farmland are being adjudicated both by municipalities and the ALC, and where that may be creating duplication or friction,” Windsor said.

Agriculture Minister Lana Popham said in a statement that compliance and enforcement staffing would not be changing at the ALC.

“It’s my expectation as minister that the ALC continues to carry out its important role and remains firmly committed to supporting B.C.’s farmers, food security, and food economy,” she said.