Letter to the Editor, Surrey Leader,
Published: August 20, 2009
In the Aug. 7th issue, H. Thomson claims that farms (assuming blueberries) have
been here long before “residents” moved in.
This is totally wrong.
I’ve been right here since 1974, since Clover Valley Road (now 176 Street) was
a gravel path from 96 Ave. to Fry’s Corner.
All the other real farmers have since moved or sold out to land speculators, or
subdivided ALR land into 20-acre mini-estates with palatial houses.
All the farms in the Clover Valley that I used to buy hay from are now taken up
by such uses as the ever-widening traffic sewer of 176 Street, monster
greenhouses and now, in the last decade, blueberry farms.
Why blueberries? Because if you are holding the property until your friends in
government can do away with the ALR so that you can build a Wal-Mart, you plant
blueberries because with that, you are allowed farm tax rate for seven years
before you have to show a farming profit.
Before the seven years are up, the ALR will be gone and so will the “farmland”
in Surrey.
Blueberry “farms” did not come first, they are yet another recent and
industrial, not agricultural, use of the land.
The use of cannons is no different than someone setting up a kennel – kennel
owners have to get permission from their neighbours because of the barking.
The mechanical barking from the cannons should be treated the same.
And of course, the effect on the wild bird population stops at the edge of the
blueberry “farm”.
Every ploughing of a peat soil releases huge amounts of greenhouse gasses, and
their use of wood-waste mulch violates rules against dumping of wood waste on
land.
At the very least, the growers owe every resident who has to listen to their
industrial noise a box of berries.
R. M.
Surrey
