4 Good intentions Both the federal and provincial governments see agriculture as a vibrant


segment of the economy. While the BC NDP hasn’t adopted the BC Liberals’ goal of boosting agri-food


revenues to $15 billion by 2020, it continues to target markets at home and abroad in the interests of creating jobs in BC. When the federal government invited applications for funding under the new Canadian Agricultural Partnership last month, it mentioned how the program would help grow Canada’s agri-food exports to $75 billion by 2025. So when Victoria boosted the BC Ministry of Agriculture’s budget to $93


million for the coming fiscal year, the BC Agriculture Council applauded. The move made good on the sector’s long-standing wish that the province back up its commitments with cash. On the downside, the province’s budget estimates show that agriculture


remains a tiny ministry in terms of spending. It’s sandwiched between the Ministry of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation at $99.5 million and the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources at $60.3 million. The only smaller ministries are labour and mental health and addictions. However, agriculture was among the ministries that actually got a boost as


the province wrestled with how its spending plans would play out in the court of public opinion. The ministries that took cuts in favour of agriculture tell a bigger story about the government’s priorities. Jobs, Trade and Technology – the ministry that spearheads international


market development – saw its budget decline 11%. Municipal Affairs and Housing even took a hit, despite its responsibility for housing issues. Set against these cuts, agriculture seems even more of a winner. How the money actually gets spent is another question. The budget has


few details, and the public consultation on the future of the Agricultural Land Reserve point to a penchant for initiatives with broad appeal but stripped- down delivery. It’s unfortunate that landowners are denied face-to-face meetings with the committee charged with making decisions affecting their future.


Government needs to ensure that the new funding is spent in ways that build public trust in agriculture. Confidence in the food supply must be matched by trust in how government manages the sector. Everyone must be at the table, not just those who support government’s vision.


Fires, floods and earthquakes: are you ready? At approximately 1:30 am on January 23, a


magnitude 7.9 earthquake occurred off the coast of Alaska. News of the event arrived in our house a little before 2 am when our son in Tofino


The Back Forty BOB COLLINS


phoned to say there was a


tsunami alert. First responders were being mustered and a general evacuation was underway. At 3 am, tsunami warning sirens began sounding in the Alberni Valley. Our very first response was to turn on the radio: first to CBC for general confirmation of the quake size and location, and then to the local station for the predicted ETA. Tsunami response in the Alberni Valley is


informed by recent memory. On March 27, 1964, a magnitude 9.2 earthquake in Alaska triggered a tsunami that arrived at the head of Alberni Inlet five and a half hours later. There were six waves in all in 1964. The last came


ashore at 6:45 the next morning. The first and second waves, at 2.4 and three metres, did most of the damage. Boats were washed inland and houses floated off their foundations. Logs from broken booms became battering rams surging through low lying areas, then smashed their way back to sea as the water receded. There was no warning of any kind. At Hot Springs Cove, north of Tofino, the First Nation village of Hesquiaht was destroyed. There


were similar incidents all along the outer coast. Miraculously, no lives were lost in BC. The tsunami


killed 124 in Alaska, Oregon and as far away as Crescent City, California, where the city centre was destroyed and 12 people died. The tsunami threat is real on our farm. We live on


the river that runs into the head of Alberni Inlet. The southwest corner of the farm is four kilometre from salt water. Most of the land is between eight and nine metres above sea level and is well within the 20-metre inundation zone. The highest elevation on the property is nearly 30 metres. Because we operate a campground on the non-


ALR portion of the farm, we have a tsunami response protocol in place. It involves opening the café and office as a muster point, then making verbal and visual contact with everyone on site. Animals can then be evacuated from the barn to the riding ring. The earthquake turned out to be a strike-slip and did not generate the tsunami that a thrust earthquake would have. The warning was cancelled at 4:30 am. A post mortem of the event left us satisfied that


we could have enacted our protocol and evacuated all the people and livestock on site with time to spare.


But there is another scenario that doesn’t play out


as well: the inevitable mega-thrust earthquake off the coast of Vancouver Island. Such quakes are a recurring event along the


Cascadia fault. Reliable evidence indicates that magnitude 9 quakes have occurred on the Cascadia fault regularly for more than 3,500 years and the last


Publisher Cathy Glover


The agricultural news source in British Columbia since 1915 Vol. 104 No. 3 . MARCH 2018


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one was in January 1700. To understand what that could mean, we have only to look at the 2011 magnitude 9 Tōhoku quake in Japan. The shaking from the quake caused extensive damage to buildings and infrastructure and signalled that a devastating tsunami was on the way. That tsunami reached land in as little as 10 minutes, was over 40 metres high in some places, and washed as far as 10 km inland. 16,000 people died and damages exceeded $40 billion. Extrapolating similar effects to a similar quake on


the Cascadia fault creates a much different reality than we dealt with in January. There would be immediate and widespread physical damage to buildings, roads, bridges, utilities and communications. Panic would probably set in as people realized a tsunami was only minutes away. A 40 metre wall of water would easily reach our farm and would probably submerge all of it. Depending on how many customers there were and how calmly they reacted, there is a good chance they could be evacuated to adjacent higher ground. The animals would probably have to be abandoned to their fates.


The positive take-away for us is that this event has initiated a reconsideration of our planned response. While our experience turned out to be a dry-run, many ranchers and farmers in the province have recently had their own plans tested in a devastating trial by fire. Wildfires and tsunamis are only two of a long list of potential disasters that might assail us. A well-considered and well-communicated


response plan is something every farm and ranch needs to have.


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