In the process of updating its 2003 Regional Growth Strategy (RGS), the CRD learned that food and agriculture was a high priority and a topic of growing public interest and concern.

During the public engagement phase of the RGS update, stakeholder groups and members of the public expressed the greatest interest in food and food systems out of all nine sustainability topics. Initially treated as two separate topics, food security and agriculture were brought together as inseparable elements for the ongoing planning process.

The Capital Regional Food and Agriculture Roundtable (CR FAIR), Peninsula Agriculture Commission (PAC), Victoria Food Funders Network, Victoria Foundation, Island Health, Ministry of Agriculture, First Nations communities and municipalities with agricultural interests are all working together to foster a healthy local food and agricultural economy.

The region’s food and agriculture sector is influenced by:

• The fundamental role of food and agriculture in the long-term sustainability, resilience and health of the region and its human communities
• A supportive system, from production to transformation and distribution to waste recovery
• The global food system's preference for cheap food over local and healthy food
• Food and agricultural enterprises, and the lands and families that create and support them, that are economically tenuous
• The current inability of the provincial agricultural policy framework to give food production preference over other forms of agriculture
• The Province and local government's limited ability to undertake regional approaches benefiting food and agriculture: e.g. the acquisition and management of agricultural land, economic development, management of problem wildlife and invasive species, watershed management, provision of affordable water services and local economic development approaches
• First Nations Douglas Treaty rights “to hunt and fish as formerly” on unoccupied lands throughout the region
• Predicted changes in climate, energy costs, water availability and agricultural production have drawn attention to the ongoing resilience of the region’s food system

The draft Regional Food and Agriculture Strategy applies to the portion of the CRD on Southern Vancouver Island only. The Salt Spring Island and Southern Gulf Islands Electoral Areas each have their own food and agriculture strategies.

A healthy, place-based local food and agricultural economy is a matter of regional interest. Food and agriculture, as a fundamental human endeavour, is critical for the future health and wellbeing of our community. The cultivation and provision of healthy food and the long-term development and care of local farms and farmland - regardless of whether farmland is currently used to grow food - contributes to the development of a healthy culture and a liveable, resilient, secure and sustainable community. There is growing expectation and interest in more CRD involvement. Issues related to food and agriculture are predicted to increase and will continue to require a regional approach.

Regional districts, municipalities and electoral areas do not have a specific mandate over food and agriculture. However, the food and agriculture sector is impacted by CRD services such as water delivery, environmental protection and conservation, watershed education and drinking watershed protection and management, liquid and solid waste management (including rural septic programs), invasive species eradication / native plant restoration, and more recently, wildlife (deer, geese, beaver, bullfrog) management. The draft RFAS identifies how these services relate to food and agriculture and provides recommendations.

Food and agriculture are generally considered to be the sole responsibility of the Province and the Federal government. However, the Province and the Federal government have been unable to provide the level of attention and support required to see the integration and growth of a healthy, place-based local food and agricultural economy within a developing region like the CRD. There also appear to be gaps in the current responsibility framework in areas such as the management of wildlife within developed areas, locally focused economic development, and long-term agricultural land protection.

The Capital Regional Food and Agriculture Initiatives Roundtable (CRFAIR) has come to represent the agricultural community in the region. For more information, www.crfair.ca provides resources to buy or grow local food and to support the local food movement.