Increasingly shrill cries are heard throughout our fair land: “But this (or that) land is not being farmed now. That makes it eligible for a free-for-all, carte blanche, open season on it for other purposes, right ?”
The fact that some land can be farmed sometime is the point – past, or present and (hopefully) future – at least if it’s undegraded/undamaged land. Whether it’s farmed now or in the future is beside the point, immaterial, irrelevant, and nothing more than a school of red herrings and murky smokescreen.
Hands up: How many believe that arable (able to grow crops) farmland is plentiful in B.C.? (It’s approximately four per cent of B.C.’s land area.) How about whether it’s increasing in B.C. (Ask ever-rampant development that one.) Or, that food prices are going to decrease, and food availability is going to always increase in the future? (Check any retail outlet.)
Perhaps the human population is going to decrease and decrease its food-demands in the process? (No evidence in sight.)
Finally, hands up, again: How many believe that the Shuswap, B.C., Canada, and the whole planet are balanced, unchanging, and will be just the same today as they were yesterday, and will be tomorrow ? (Oops! Wait, the Earth is without limit and able to satisfy our every demand for food and toys forever, right? (A disconnect writ large!)
Tom Crowley