Editor:
The price of food is going up and up, particularly for vegetables and fruit. One culprit, the Californian drought price hike, has now been further inflated by the low value of the loonie. B.C. grows 46 per cent of its produce and imports most of the rest from the U.S. Fresh vegetables and fruits are up 20 per cent and 13 per cent respectively. Even more specifically, lettuce was up 18 per cent, apples 16.5 per cent and tomatoes 12 per cent over the previous year. Why are we not growing our own food?
Farming land just off Highway 29, Colin Meek and his parents Blane and Maryann won the Top Yield Award – 57.3 bushels per acre, for canola production in the B.C. Peace Valley. Peace Valley crop yields rival and better the Fraser Valley. Potato yield in the Fraser Valley averages around 10 tonnes per hectare while the Peace, because of its unique east-west setting and microclimate, yields 13 tonnes per hectare. Tragically, if the Site C Dam goes ahead, that land will be under water. Destroying what could feed millions of current and future B.C. generations for a fossil fuel speculator’s blind vision is criminal stupidity. The irony is best understood by Peace farmer Colin Meeks himself, who told Alaska Highway News: “I came back to work on the family farm from the oilpatch because I realized that I’ll never be able to eat oil, drink liquefied natural gas or breathe electricity, but ... I can help feed the world and clean the air with the food I grow.”
In a time of increasing concerns regarding climate change and food sovereignty, why are we destroying rich farmland to supply the LNG industry with taxpayer-funded infrastructure?
Neil Bryson, Halfmoon Bay
