JANUARY 2019 • COUNTRY LIFE IN BC


Popham pursues ambitious agenda


as 2019 arrives Positive changes outweigh pushback


by PETER MITHAM VANCOUVER – Becoming


agriculture minister was a dream come true, Lana Popham said during her initial interviews as BC’s top farmer. But making her dreams a


reality has continued as she’s worked to give attention to underserved farm sectors and advance a mandate designed to Grow, Feed and Buy BC – and, above all, keep farmland productive. “There’s so much the


ministry has been doing,” she said during an in-person conversation in Richmond on November 30, a day focused on BC’s farmers’ institutes. “I had tons and tons of ideas that maybe weren’t necessarily part of the mandate but were able to be fit into the mandate – smaller scale things and larger scale things – and just to see some of them come into action is pretty incredible.”


The gathering of farmers’


and women’s institutes was one example, as was the Every Chef Needs a Farmer, Every Farmer Needs a Chef event earlier in the month, both of which focused on building connections aimed at growing the province’s farm sector. “A lot of it is just about communicating,” she says.


“You’re really trying to support the farm base – not just the land base, but the farmer base.”


The institutes conference


brought together 45 people from around the province for less than $14,000, a small drop of her ministry’s $93.1 million annual budget. “I’ve got a bigger budget than there’s ever been, historically, in the province, so I’m able to put money into bringing people together in ways that haven’t happened before,” she says. “I feel like I’ve been able to connect urban BC and rural BC in a way that hasn’t happened for a really long time.” Those connections are important, and not


something that happens in every jurisdiction. With the federal election approaching later this year, Canadian Federation of Agriculture staff want to make sure that urban politicians recognize the importance of rural issues. A former organic farmer


herself, Popham gets it, and she thinks many others in BC do, too. “This is the moment for


food. There’s a will of the public to revisit food culture as well as sustenance,” she says. “I don’t think you could have had my mandate 15 years ago and been


7


Lana Popham speaks with John Buchanan of Parry Bay Sheep Farm. BCMA PHOTO


successful with it. It would have been much harder.” But those consumers don’t


always have it right, as public trust initiatives the BC Agriculture Council is


pursuing show. Consumers may trust farmers, but they don’t always trust farming systems. BCAC executive director Reg Ens notes that whatever


concerns some consumers have about domestic practices doesn’t stop them opting for cheaper products


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