A familiar face returned to head up the Ministry of Agriculture and Food in November 2024 as Lana Popham accepted the role she left in 2022 when she moved over to the Ministry of Tourism, Arts, Culture and Sport.
Popham formerly held the top spot in B.C.’s agricultural ministry from 2017 to 2022, and her roots as a small- scale farmer made the portfolio her favourite. She’s never been shy about telling people that she’s passionate about food, farmers, wine, B.C. products and especially bees.
Having grown up as a B.C. islander on Quadra Island, she returned to island life (albeit on the much larger Vancouver Island) when she settled in Saanich South in 1996. Here, she got her fingers into the soil and embraced fermentation when she co-founded Barking Dog Vineyard. Her journey began veering toward politics when she gave her advocacy and communication skills a workout as a participant and board member of several local and agricultural organizations including serving as president of the Vancouver Island Grape Growers Association.
With food security and the desire for locally, sustainably-grown food staying front-of-mind, Popham’s record from her previous term illustrates her potential to support growers’ interests. She launched Grow BC, Feed BC and Buy BC at the beginning of her 2017 term and saw the inclusion of vertical farming in the Agricultural Land Reserve. She also introduced a controversial policy around the number of homes and home sizes on the ALR and established various supports and policies around agriculture’s resilience when facing climate change challenges.
Orchard & Vine caught up with her by phone to discuss her plans for the future.
O&V: What is your overall vision for the agriculture sector this term? How do you plan to support B.C.’s agricultural growth and sustainability?
Lana Popham: Mostly, the focus will be on supporting farmers to be as resilient as possible in the face of climate change. Farmers need tools, to be able to continue on. They need to be profitable. Making sure that farmers have the supports they need just to do their everyday farming jobs. Making sure that we’re paying attention to markets, obviously with our U.S. partners, our biggest trading partner.
That includes tying down… the next partnership with the federal government to make sure we’ve got business risk management programs in place. Making sure we’ve got investments that we can make in dealing with water storage and delivery. Supporting farmers that want to try and transition to different varieties and different types of crops given the growing challenges we’re seeing.
Overall, we’re looking at just how to make farming successful and the programs that are needed to do that.
O&V: Specific to climate change, what do you see being incorporated to adapt to things like wildfires, drought and extreme weather?
LP: We’re making investments in emergency planning and preparedness. There’s $20 million going into that. That’s allowing farmers to get through plans on how they are going to be able to withstand some of these difficult, difficult things.
I don’t think we’re not going to see a season where we don’t have drought. There’s a $100 million investment for irrigation, water storage and delivery. We’re going to have to continue to work with the federal government on resources for that.
Business risk management is becoming so critical because as we see these kinds of failures going into the growing season, farmers need to be able to have the resources to plan for the next year. We continually try and work with farmers to get them signed up for things like AgriStability and any other types of business risk management programs that will allow them to have a softer landing when things go sideways.
And, with these extreme weather challenges, we’re seeing damage to crops, and crops that just don’t make it anymore. So, looking at how to replant some of those fruit trees and any of the types of crops that may have had different types of research done on them to give us new varieties that have a different type of growing season, faster ripening, withstand cold snaps.
We want to make sure farmers have the tools no matter what hits us.
Finding tools to combat extreme weather events like the flooding in late 2021 is a key aspect of Popham’s platform of agricultural support.
O&V: When we’re looking at some of the direct impacts to agriculture — like water storage and labour — that fall under other ministries, how are you making sure your ministry has that very essential seat at the table?
LP: The profile of agriculture and food security has risen to a different level. And as these climate events continue to hammer us, the public becomes even more aware of how important it is to have sound food security. So, the support around the cabinet table for agriculture is very high.
Like other jurisdictions, we’re vulnerable. We have to grow as much as we can because places like California are facing their own difficult times. We have to make sure that we’re growing more and more food here so that we can sustain ourselves and also have opportunities to supply other jurisdictions when they’re in need.
With climate change also comes economic opportunities. We’re really focused on the fiscal situation within agriculture. So, any of these investments that we think [farmers] should be making… we need to be able to come and meet them and support them.
We’re opening a program called the Tree Fruit Climate Resiliency Program. That’s going to help fund things like wind machines, orchard heaters, cover crop systems and any other ways that can help protect crops during these times of crisis. There’s $100,000 that each farm can access.
(Editors: Tree Fruit Climate Resiliency Program will provide 80 percent cost-share funding of up to $125,000 of eligible costs for eligible projects, up to a maximum of $100,000 per farm business.)
O&V: What steps can your ministry take to ensure that support is accessible to all who need it?
LP: Not everybody does apply for the replant program. Contact us if you’re interested in it. We like to have an open-door policy so anyone can contact us at any time. We don’t see the entire replant funding going out to farmers, so we have to do some more work there. We do have the funds there to help people out.
We opened [the program] up and increased the funding so that it would include the wine grape sector because we know they are facing a very difficult challenge that’s really going to affect us for the next few years. They’ve been quite good about the uptake on that program and I think we’ve seen a lot either has gone into the ground or will be going into the ground.
When you see a brand-new vineyard starting out, it just has so much promise and right now, there’s that opportunity to switch out varieties. Grapes are a long-term commitment. Some of the opportunities with new varieties and different varieties are exciting. So, we’re going to see kind of a renewal of some of these vineyards that have been around for a while.
O&V: Given what happened with BC Tree Fruits cooperative, do you anticipate a change in the way the ministry will be involved in agricultural associations?
LP: This is a really difficult time, obviously, specifically for apples. We have to have a close partnership with the associations as they try and figure out what the future is, but I’ve had some really great meetings with apple growers.
One of the things that was brought forward by the BC Fruit Growers’ Association was the possibility of trying to implement an apple marketing commission. This is something that’s been talked about for years. That’s something [apple growers] would have to decide on their own to pursue, but if they did, I’d be very supportive. It would really help zone in on how to improve the industry from the ground up: apple quality, pricing, processing — all of that.
O&V: Labour challenges are an ongoing conversation. What kinds of steps are you anticipating?
LP: Labour challenges. We’re seeing them across many sectors, but notoriously it’s been across the agriculture sector. Temporary foreign workers are part of our solution right now. Mexico is the biggest partner we have, as well as Guatemala. We’re making sure we’ve got really good relations with those consulates set up in Vancouver. We receive about 12,000 workers from Mexico. We need to make sure those workers are treated well and that they want to return to British Columbia.
That doesn’t necessarily solve our long-term problem with labour, but it’s certainly a really important tool.
O&V: The ag industry is made up of both small-scale farmers and larger commercial-scale farmers. How are you planning to support both sides of that very necessary audience?
LP: In B.C. we have so much variety. That’s what really sets us apart from some of our neighbours in Canada. There’s not a day that goes by that we are not talking to multiple farms where multiple types of products are being grown. It’s easy for me to be able to make sure that everybody’s getting the attention they need. For one thing, I absolutely love it. I love talking to those people. But they’re also extremely important. They’re all part of our B.C. food puzzle.
O&V: What kinds of initiatives do you see going forward to promote British Columbian food and strengthen local food systems?
LP: We’re continuing with the Buy BC program and there’s an intake that’s happening right now to make sure that the strength of the Buy BC marketing label is used far and wide across the province. We know that other jurisdictions look for that label.
Feed BC, we started that in 2017, where institutions are buying more B.C.- grown and processed food. We’re going to have some really excellent positive numbers coming out that are showing that… the dial has really moved and we are seeing more money into the pockets of farmers because of it. So, hospitals, long-term care and now post-secondary is involved and so many other areas where procurement is used. We’ve developed a good system now.
O&V: Reflecting on your work as minister two years ago, what initiatives are you most excited to build on now, and what progress during the interim excites you?
LP: I went over to Tourism, Arts, Culture and Sport, but I kept a close eye on agriculture at the same time. I’m working with farmers on different ways that they can create an income and one of those things is agritourism. Now that I’ve dipped my toe into the tourism file, I know what the possibilities are.
We hear a lot about the European model of going from farm to farm, doing farm stays and experiencing local fare, so, I think there’s some work that can be done there and I’m excited about that.
But, I’m really just excited to get back to the three pillars we started in 2017 which were Grow BC, Feed BC and Buy BC and each of these represent such significantly important parts of what creates our food system here in B.C.
We have these different regions that grow different things. Taking a look and assessing what they grow. What does that region need to be more sustainable, resilient? The work has to be done now because agriculture doesn’t change overnight. I used to say in 2017, it’s like turning a giant cruise ship around, but once you get that momentum, it’s hard to stop.