No government cared about farming for 65 years, says Gerry Byrne
Newfoundland and Labrador has lost more than 3,000 farms since Confederation, but the province's minister in charge of agriculture is vowing to reverse that trend.
Gerry Byrne told CBC's St. John's Morning Show on Thursday that it's not a problem the Liberal government expects to solve in a matter of weeks or months, but steps have already been taken.
His comments came in response to a CBC story on Wednesday, where two prospective farmers complained about the difficulty of acquiring farmland in the province.
"For 65 years, there's been almost no attention to agriculture in this province," Byrne said. "We are changing that."
Indeed, the Liberal government has protected around 150,000 acres of farmland in the province by making it available for agriculture leases. With that designation, it assures the land will not be sold off for residential or commercial development.
They've also added an agricultural technology program at the College of the North Atlantic, with hopes to attract and retain new farmers.
In Wednesday's story, 29-year-old Sarah Pritchett bemoaned land costs on the northeast Avalon — which is sometimes listed for more than 10 times the average cost of agricultural land in the rest of the province.
Byrne said her story illustrates the problems created by governments of decades past, which allowed the release of land from agricultural zoning so it could be sold for development.
They removed almost a third of that area zoned almost exclusively for agriculture. - Gerry Byrne, Minister of Fisheries and Land Resources
In the 1970s, there was approximately 60,000 acres of protected farmland in the St. John's area. By the 1990s, that number had been cut in half. More land was freed up since then, including developments on Hebron Way and Kelsey Drive.
"Governments were trying to suggest they were protecting or enhancing agriculture when they removed almost a third of that area zoned almost exclusively for agriculture," Byrne said.
In years since, government ponied up cash to recoup about 4,400 acres, Byrne said, "but at a cost of $21 million which could have been done largely by maintaining that zoning requirement."
Government working through backlog of applications
On Wednesday, 30-year-old Amanda Cull raised concerns about the amount of time she's been waiting for a decision on her application for an agriculture lease. It's been more than two years since she filed her request to get a plot of Crown land on the Bonavista Peninsula.
The Department of Fisheries and Land Resources says it is working to quell a backlog of applications that has built up over the years.
Byrne said they discovered a backlog of 10,000 Crown lands applications when they did a review of the department, "some dating back as far as 10 years," he said.
A big part of the problem, said Byrne, was in the way the department was staffed — 40 per cent of frontline positions were vacant.
There have been 326 agriculture applications in the last two years. Half of them are still outstanding.
Some are more complicated, Byrne said, and require an environmental assessment or zoning issues to sort out.
There will be applications that are processed slower than what we would like and this is regrettable. - Gerry Byrne, Minister of Fisheries and Land Resources
The department has cut through the majority of the backlog and hopes to get to a point where it is only dealing with new applications, he said.
"The problem is not fully fixed. There will be applications that are processed slower than what we would like and this is regrettable," Byrne said. "We are moving all resources to see this to completion. The positive results are already being felt."
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