The purpose of the proposed project is to evaluate the effectiveness
of Investment Agriculture Foundation’s Local Government Agricultural
Planning Program (LGAPP). Has the
program made a difference? Have the funded
agricultural planning processes influenced how municipalities view
agriculture? Since 1999 IAF has funded
the development of Agricultural Area Plans (AAPs) to assist local governments and their agricultural
communities work together to develop a shared vision for the future of agriculture. As the funding program moves forward and as
the demand for developing AAPs grows, it will be important to know what
projects have been able to deliver the most significant value and which ones
encountered the most problems.
The
primary benefits of AAPs are to reduce urban/rural conflict, improve local
economic activity from farming, establish consistency with provincial policy
and legislation, and help build sustainable communities with balanced economic
diversity. With these potential benefits
in mind, the aim of the project is to evaluate what has been
accomplished by and as a result of the funding program and how the development
of future AAPs might be improved: Has
British Columbia’s agriculture benefited from the creation of AAPs? Has the creation of AAPs influenced or
affected agricultural land uses, such as the Agriculture Land Reserve (ALR) and
urban/rural interfaces?
OBJECTIVES
The broad objective of evaluating the LGAPP funding program
is to improve the development of future AAPs in order to strengthen municipal
planning processes and protect the importance of agriculture to
communities. This broad objective is
consistent with the Ministry of Agriculture and Land’s Strengthening Farming
Program, which helps to secure farming and ranching in the communities of British Columbia,
supports sustainable and economically viable agriculture, and promotes the use
of normal farm practices. Within this
broad context, the specific objective of the project is to acquire and assess
the intended outcomes and impacts of the IAF funding program against
information about what has been achieved.
The aims of
the project are to investigate whether the funding program caused demonstrable
effects on specifically defined target outcomes and to assess the overall
effects, intended or unintended, of the program as a whole. The information collected will help to assess
the following areas for each AAP:
What processes were used to develop the agriculture plans (e.g.,
who was involved and to what extent)?
What outcomes were achieved (e.g., were the AAPs officially
approved or adopted as part of the Official Community Plan)?
What impacts, both quantitative and qualitative, have AAPs
had on local agriculture and communities (e.g., to what extent, if any, have
AAPs helped farming)?
To what extent were the intended benefits (e.g., reduce
urban/rural conflict, improve local economic activity from farming, establish
consistency with provincial policy and legislation, and help build sustainable
communities with balanced economic diversity) achieved?
Provincially, the information collected will also help to
assess the extent to which the agriculture sector has benefited from the
creation of AAPs and whether the creation of AAPs has influenced or affected
things such as the ALR in the province.
Evaluating this information will help improve our understanding of what
has worked well (and not so well) so that future plans for agricultural land
uses can be improved.
