Beyond Protection: Delineating the Economic and Food Production Potential of Underutilized, Small-parcel Farmland in Metropolitan Surrey, British Columbia

Mullinix, Kent; Dorward, Caitlin; Shutzbank, Marc; Krishnan, Parthiphan; Ageson, Karen; Fallick, Arthur

doi:10.5304/jafscd.2013.041.005

Cited by 4 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…Indeed, local planning and zoning laws are not sufficient to support farming where farms are shrinking (Akimowicz, Cummings & Landman, 2016;Eagle et al, 2015;Mullinix et al, 2013). In Montpellier, agriculture still covers a significant part of the municipal territory but is weakened by the extension of the urban built environment, leading to contraction of the agricultural basins on the fringe of the municipal territory.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The landscapes of professional farms in mid‐sized cities, France

Scheromm

Soulard

2018

Geographical Research

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In this paper, we provide a spatial analysis of agriculture in three mid‐sized French cities, with a particular focus on professional farms. The existence of important agricultural spaces inside the cities is confirmed. We reveal the persistence of a field‐based, market‐oriented agriculture in French mid‐sized cities, often ignored in studies on urban agriculture, and usually made invisible. Our results highlight the farms' diversity, as well as a diversity of farmers' viewpoints on the relations between urban and agricultural places. We emphasise the importance of three main determinants in the observed dynamics: the cities' geographies; the impact on farmers of land speculation and urbanisation; and the implementation of resistance and adaptation processes by some farmers. These results are discussed in relation to the literature on urban and peri‐urban agriculture.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…More than agricultural zonings, the environmental and controlled designation of origin zonings represent an effective protection of agricultural spaces. Indeed, local planning and zoning laws are not sufficient to support farming where farms are shrinking (Akimowicz, Cummings & Landman, 2016;Eagle et al, 2015;Mullinix et al, 2013).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The landscapes of professional farms in mid‐sized cities, France

Scheromm

Soulard

2018

Geographical Research

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“…Increasing SWBC's food self-reliance could potentially be achieved through shifts in production or in the preferred diet earlier mentioned, or by increasing total farmed area. Underutilization of agricultural land is an issue in SWBC (Mullinix et al, 2013). In 2010/2011, for example, almost 18,000 hectares of agricultural land in Metro Vancouver (a regional district in SWBC), was classified as having potential for farming but not farmed (Government of British Columbia—Ministry of Agriculture, 2014).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Proponents ascribe many potential advantages to local food systems, including social benefits (Halweil, 2002; Connell et al, 2008; Arfini et al, 2012), reducing negative environmental impacts associated with bringing food from farm to plate (Horrigan et al, 2002; Ikerd, 2004), improving community health, nutrition, and food safety (Enshayan et al, 2004; Meehan et al, 2008; Matt et al, 2013; Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health—Center for Health and the Global Environment, 2015) and strengthening economies (Feenstra, 1999; Conner et al, 2008; Hughes et al, 2008; Mullinix et al, 2013). Numerous grassroots and non-governmental organizations advocate for the emergence of local food systems (Fairholm, 1998; Greenberg and Andrews, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A novel methodology to assess land-based food self-reliance in the Southwest British Columbia bioregion

Dorward

Smukler

Mullinix

2016

Renew. Agric. Food Syst.

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There is a growing awareness that climate change, economic instability, resource limitations and population growth are impacting the capacity of the contemporary global food system to meet human nutrition needs. Although there is widespread recognition that food systems must evolve in the face of these issues, a polarized debate has emerged around the merit of global-versus-local approaches to this evolution. Local food system advocates argue that increasing food self-reliance will concomitantly benefit human health, the environment and local economies, while critics argue that only a globalized system will produce enough calories to efficiently and economically feed the world. This debate is strong in British Columbia (BC), Canada, where residents and food security experts have called for increased food self-reliance while the provincial government largely supports export-oriented agriculture. As elsewhere, however, in BC this debate takes place in absence of an understanding of capacity for food self-reliance. The few studies that have previously evaluated self-reliance in this region have been limited in their approach in a number of ways. In this study we use a novel methodology to assess current (2011) status of land-based food self-reliance for a diet satisfying nutritional recommendations and food preferences that accounts for seasonality of crop production and the source of livestock feed, and applied it to the Southwest BC bioregion (SWBC) as a case study. We found that agricultural land use in SWBC is dominated by hay, pasture and corn silage, followed by fruits and vegetables. Fruit and vegetable production comprise 87% of total food crop production in SWBC by weight, and a substantial amount is produced in quantities beyond SWBC need per crop type, representing an export focused commodity with limited contribution to food self-reliance. Results illustrate that SWBC is a major producer of livestock products, but these industries rely on feed grain imports. The production of feed grain could therefore be considered a major constraint on self-reliance; SWBC's total dietary self-reliance is 12% if discounting livestock feed imports or 40% if including them. Results demonstrate that a diet including foods that cannot be grown in the region or consumed fresh out of season, limits potential food self-reliance. Our methods reveal the value of factoring dietary recommendations and food consumption patterns into food self-reliance assessments and the necessity of accounting for the source of livestock feed to fully understand the self-reliance status of a region.

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“…The underutilization of farmland in the ALR is an area of increasing concern in BC. Particularly in peri-urban areas, where agricultural land is highly fragmented, land use competition is intense, and valuation precludes economically viable agriculture (Mullinix et al, 2013;Sussmann, Dorward, Polasub, Mullinix, & Mansfield, 2016). Exacerbating this is the erroneous perception that low input, small lot agriculture is generally a niche endeavor that cannot and/or will not be an important part of our food system (Holt-Giménez, 2017).…”

Section: Foundational Elements Of Regional Food Systems Policy In Bc mentioning

confidence: 99%

Municipal Policy Enabling Regional Food Systems in British Columbia, Canada: Assessing Focal Areas and Gaps

Robert

Mullinix

2018

J. Agric. Food Syst. Community Dev.

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Local-regional food systems are increasingly the focus of community activism and local government planning in British Columbia (BC), Canada. At present, there is no provincial or federal government food system strategy to inform or guide local government policy efforts. To ascertain focal points of local government food system planning, we assessed current municipal Official Community Plans (OCPs) in BC and suggest areas for future policy development to enable regional food systems in the province. In BC, an OCP is the most comprehensive, high-level municipal planning document used to guide future management and land use decisions. We reviewed OCPs from 61

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Beyond Protection: Delineating the Economic and Food Production Potential of Underutilized, Small-parcel Farmland in Metropolitan Surrey, British Columbia

Cited by 4 publications

References 13 publications

The landscapes of professional farms in mid‐sized cities, France

The landscapes of professional farms in mid‐sized cities, France

A novel methodology to assess land-based food self-reliance in the Southwest British Columbia bioregion

Municipal Policy Enabling Regional Food Systems in British Columbia, Canada: Assessing Focal Areas and Gaps

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