Marijuana could be a profitable addition to the crops grown in Central Saanich, but a proposal for a huge operation raises a recurring question about the way we use agricultural land.
Why bury perfectly good, scarce agricultural land under greenhouses, which could be built just about anywhere?
Shawn Galbraith proposes to build a 150,000-square-foot, $25-million greenhouse on the Stanhope Dairy Farm, near the point where Lochside Drive turns into the Lochside Trail. He plans a five- to seven-year project with 21 greenhouses on 36聽acres.
The first greenhouse would be twice the size of the Tilray facility in Nanaimo, which is sa国际传媒鈥檚 largest marijuana producer.
Galbraith has experience in the business. He built a Health sa国际传媒-approved cannabis operation in a bunker-like building on Lochside Drive, next to Michell鈥檚 Farm.
The new plan is considerably more ambitious than that eight-person facility. The first greenhouse would employ about 150 people, and that could rise to 1,500 when everything is built out.
The jobs and potential tax revenue will certainly be attractive to many Central Saanich residents and councillors.
鈥淚t鈥檚 an important project. I can鈥檛 emphasize how important it is for the region,鈥� said Galbraith.
鈥淲e began to realize that three-acre site [next to Michell鈥檚 Farm] wasn鈥檛 going to be able to produce the economy of scale to compete in the industry.鈥�
The Stanhope land is in the Agricultural Land Reserve, but cannabis operations do not need approval from the Agricultural Land Commission. The former sa国际传媒 Liberal government decided to allow federally licensed medical cannabis operations to be built on protected agricultural farmland.
That鈥檚 a decision the new government should revisit, because there are better uses for agricultural land.
Galbraith counters: 鈥淲here else would you build greenhouses?鈥�
鈥淚 think this is an agricultural business and in my mind this is an acceptable use of the land,鈥� he said.
He argues that wine grapes and pumpkins are not food, but they are grown on agricultural land.
Frank Leonard, chairman of the land commission and a聽former Saanich mayor, said: 鈥淭he argument in opposition is it鈥檚 not a land-based product. You鈥檙e building a bunker and putting it on prime agricultural land. But the previous government was persuaded that a crop is a crop and [cannabis] is agriculture, which perhaps makes a farm more viable and it should聽go ahead.鈥�
Good farmland is hard to come by in sa国际传媒, where less than five per cent of the land is agricultural. But greenhouses don鈥檛 have to be built on rich soil; they can sit on ground that grows only rocks and weeds.
For regular greenhouses, the argument is made that they need to be on agricultural land to qualify for agricultural tax rates. However, the Liberal government decided that even though it designated cannabis as a crop, medical pot operations are to be taxed at industrial property-tax rates, rather than farm rates.
Galbraith points out that industrial land is much more expensive, and finding 36 acres of empty industrial land in Central Saanich is difficult.
The NDP, which had the foresight to create the Agricultural Land Reserve decades ago and is now in power again, should pay attention to what has happened to its brainchild. Is there a compelling public interest in building massive grow-ops on fertile soil? Can we use regulation, tax incentives or other inducements to attract operators to sites that are better suited to industrial facilities?
With marijuana legalization only months away, add this to the list of unintended consequences. Don鈥檛 build more greenhouses on our irreplaceable farmland.
