TWU professor takes on agriculture project

Posted by admin on Nov 18, 2009 in News | 0 comments

Tracy Stobbe, assistant professor at Trinity Western University’s School of Business, has started a new project in conjunction with University of Victoria’s environmental lawyer Deborah Curran. The duo, which was selected out of many applicants to conduct this consulting project, will discover how to promote and sustain active agriculture in Metro Vancouver.

As an economist with a passion for the environment, Stobbe’s work will benefit many. According to the Report for Investment Agriculture Foundation of British Columbia, in 2008 95% of BC residents favoured policies that preserve farmland.

The institutional background that Stobbe’s project relates to is the Agriculture Land Reserve (ALR). ALR is zoning policy for BC, simply meaning that people can privately own land but they are restricted with what they can do with it. Her project, however, doesn’t work directly with the ALR

In the summer, Stobbe started this project, which is presently in full gear. “We’ve been hired by [Metro Vancouver] to look at ways in which can support active agriculture…there’s a problem in that a lot of ALR land is not being used for farmland,” said Stobbe. “Part of the purpose is to promote active agriculture, not just to have no activity there at all.”

An example of this is refraining people from buying large amounts of land just to put a house on it and not using the land for its worth, such as farming.

“My role is to look at the quantitative data and also to analyze the data and contribute to the economic analysis,” said Stobbe.

Stobbe and Currun have several strategies for this consulting project; one is figure out what’s being done elsewhere in North America and Europe to sustain active agriculture and apply those techniques to BC.
Stobbe’s project should be completed around the start of the Winter Olympic Games. “One of our last stages is to hold a meeting [with the public],” said Stobbe. The public meeting is expected to have a large attendance and is aiming to be held in January to get feedback, luckily the Olympics won’t be interference.

To play a role in sustaining active agriculture is simple. Just by buying locally or purchasing fresh foods from farmers markets, Stobbe believes it can make a difference.