Food Insecurity and the Loss of Denman’s Farmland By Cylon2036 We/Us
Farmland makes up roughly 4.9% of B.C.’s total land base, protected under the Province’s Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR). B.C.’s geography heavily limits large-scale agriculture, as it is dominated by mountain slopes and forests. Because arable land is scarce, B.C. records the highest average farmland prices per acre in the country, while ranking #1 in farm productivity yields per acre.
Only 3% of the Vancouver Island and Gulf Islands region is designated as usable farmland. The actual amount of land actively farmed is even smaller, at 1.5% of the region’s total land base. Vancouver Island farmland is limited to the southeast coast of Vancouver Island, the Comox Valley, and specific pockets on the Gulf Islands, including Denman Island, where farmland prices keep rising.
Due to the extreme scarcity of arable land and intense competition from development, farmland prices on Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands are exceptionally high. And because usable farmland is so limited, the islands are heavily reliant on food supply chains, with well less than 10% of the food consumed on Vancouver Island grown locally, a vulnerably low level of food security.
British Columbia has lost roughly 1.1 million acres of farmed land, marking an overall decline of 16% in active farmland over a two-decade span. Because the land is prohibitively expensive, it is often bought by non-farmers as real estate investments and for development other than food production. Nearly half of the ALR sits unused for agriculture because aspiring young farmers simply cannot afford to buy it.
Areas like the Comox Valley and Gulf Islands have faced steady declines in farming acreage. Land has increasingly shifted out of food production into other non-farming uses, where a massive cost barrier of island real estate has made it nearly impossible for a new generation of food producers, leading to older farmers retiring, and making any loss of farmland here highly critical, especially for food security.
Farmland loss on the Gulf Islands follows the same downward trend as the rest of British Columbia, but it plays out on a much more fragile, hyper-local scale, and because the islands have such a small agricultural footprint to begin with, even a minor loss of farmland has a major impact. This problem is amplified by the islands’ status as a luxury real estate and retirement destination.
Land values routinely match the highest rates in the Province, with a high percentage of the islands’ ALR land owned by speculative investors or part-time residents. Because these owners do not rely on farming for an income, the land simply falls out of active cultivation, widening the local food security gap.
Several local groups help protect and support food security, like the Denman Island Growers and Producers Alliance (DIGPA), the Denman Farmers Market, Farm to Family Society, the Food Bank, the Gather Farm and Kitchen, with big shoutouts to 2 Roads and Ruby Slipper farms, The Snag, Corland Vineyards and others, for delivering Denman Islanders the valuable gift of delicious local food.
