| Summary: | In British Columbia, Canada, 80 percent of agricultural revenue comes from the
same three percent of the land on which 80 percent of the population lives. This close
proximity of farmland and urban areas creates a unique context in which agriculture
operates. Many factors that influence the viability of farms on the urban edge aren't
accounted for by traditional land valuation tools that only consider physical
characteristics of the land, such as soil quality, topography and climate. Farmland near
urban areas is also affected by factors such as access to customers, conflict with
neighbours and municipal bylaws. Many of these non-biophysical factors are becoming
increasingly important to farmers due to the growth in direct farm marketing. The goal of
this research is to help improve farmland management by providing information with
which to update planning and land valuation tools. Specifically, the objective was to
assess factors that influence the viability of farmland on the urban edge and expand the
criteria by which agricultural land is valued. To do this, interviews were conducted with
29 farmers in British Columbia.
The results of this study have implications for land management, edge planning,
food security and local food systems. They confirm that a variety of factors unrelated to
land's physical characteristics often determine a farm's success or failure. The results
indicate that urban-edge agriculture is valuable to British Columbia for both economic
and food security reasons, and is characterized by high risks and high rewards. Innovative
planning and government support are needed to keep pace with the evolving face of
agriculture and ensure that farmers can reap the benefits of an urban-edge location while
avoiding its risks. === Science, Faculty of === Resources, Environment and Sustainability (IRES), Institute for === Graduate
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