On April 25, Provincial Agriculture Minister Lana Popham took a phone call from the middle of a field in the Comox Valley.
It was the third of four days the Minister was spending in the community, as part of a tour of the area to see how local farmers are feeling going into the new growing season. While the farmers had the usual trepidations about the season — mostly weather-based — there are a few new threats on the horizon this year.
"Well, it's spring, so everybody has that spring hopefulness at this point," Popham said.
So far, it has been a good spring too. Things are getting busy for local farmers, and so far, the weather has been beneficial as well.
"But there's the things in the background, I think that they're concerned about," she added. "What will the water situation be like this year? Water is a pretty heightened concern around the province as we've been experiencing droughts over the last couple of years.
"We had an, I think, almost two and a half hour meeting at the Farmers Institute on Wednesday night (April 23) where a lot of those concerns came forward. So we're going to just make sure we keep circling back as a ministry to see how people are doing, but they know how to contact us directly as well," she said.
While the ministry can only do so much about weather and climate-related issues — and there is work that can be done, for example, the government's climate change policy can help mitigate long-term threats to food security — there are other concerns that Popham's ministry can have a more direct hand in solving.
With turmoil south of the border, a new zeal for locally produced goods, and a newly elected federal government that has promised to open up interprovincial trade, the pathways for food grown in the Comox Valley have changed.
"Given what's happened with the tariffs, a really interesting part of that work for us as government is that we had to be a bit careful at the beginning because there was some concern that we were going to be infringing upon trade agreements like TILMA," Popham said, referring to the Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement signed between Alberta and B.C. in 2006, which lay the groundwork for NWPTA or the New West Partnership Trade Agreement, which added Saskatchewan to the free trade zone. "And so now that trade agreements are kind of in question, so to speak, understatement of the year, we feel that we can be much more strong at directing policy and regulation instead of just suggesting people take on a policy direction.
"I think it's, although a very difficult moment for our country and our province with the Trump administration, it's also going to give us a major opportunity to move the dial even more," she said.
Under the TILMA agreement, government procurement policies have to be open and non-discriminatory between signatories to the agreement. That means they must be open to tender for organizations from all over within B.C., Alberta and Saskatchewan, provided they are over a certain value threshold. While that promotes inter-provincial trade, it makes it hard for governments to prioritize local producers. The province has directed local health authorities to buy BC Food when possible, and is now looking to expand that guidance to other forms of government.
"That was one of the problems with directing health institutions to buy B.C. food, grown and processed, because the TILMA trade agreements would definitely put us in a difficult legal position. But now I think we are all — everybody, every province, every Canadian — is like 'buy local, buy Canadian. So we were pretty big cheerleaders from 2017 and until now, which has worked, but now we have the chance to move it into policy, which is great."
In March, the City of Courtenay directed staff to support the "Team Canada" approach, and to "prioritize the purchase of Canadian-made goods and services wherever possible in response to U.S. tariffs, and is encouraging the efforts of residents and businesses to buy Canadian as well."
"According to staff, the vast majority of the goods and services the City buys are Canadian, and many of these are local suppliers as well,” said Mayor Bob Wells. “When dollars are spent locally, more of that money gets reinvested in our community.”
Popham met with the City Council and the Comox Valley Regional District board, who are also pursuing a similar strategy, saying that "they're doing what they can at the moment, but those conversations are just, I think, starting.
"Because we've already done so much work on the ground setting up the system of how you procure, specifically for food, but it can be used for other the the premise of it can definitely be used for other things. It's going to be much easier to be able to help local governments do the same thing," Popham said. "It was almost an impossible feat when we first started with the health authorities because there was no distribution set up, there was no communication set up. We really didn't know what health authorities needed. And so that was probably the most difficult problem to solve over four years."
Distribution and procurement are only one of the nuanced and complex factors farmers are facing. Like many other Canadians, increased costs have affected farmers' bottom line. The Comox Valley is home to a few farmers who are attempting new methods to make money and support their food production.
Popham visited with Shorewolf Farm, whose owner Jill Lamberts is part of the Comox Valley Farmer Collab, which partners with local restaurants as an end-point for Comox Valley food. She also visited Smith Lake Farm, which has been expanding its operations to include ecotourism activities like disc golf, which supports the farm through admission fees.
"They're really trying hard to find ways to support their farming operation," Popham said. "They've come across some complications with the land use, but I have to say after touring it, I was really impressed. We understand as government, that times have definitely changed and farmers often need other ways to create income on top of farming. And so we're really looking at what does that mean for land use policy? What does it mean for policy changes? So we're hearing from young farmers that yeah, they really want a farm, but they need to have something else on the farm.
"I believe the ALR was one of the most important land use tools that we've ever had in B.C., it's really allowed our province to maintain this really important agricultural land base," she added. "There's things that people are telling me who are farming that they would really like to see ... I am taking all of that input to heart and hopefully over the next year we'll be able to come back to say 'hey, these are the things that we're thinking that might help you out.'"
Popham is planning some other trips up to the Valley to speak with farmers, the next of which will be in June.
