In an effort to strengthen internal planning and policy for agriculture, the City of Surrey funded ISFS to conduct research aimed at strengthening municipal planning and policy for local, small lot agriculture on underutilized ALR lands in the municipality. The overarching objective of this research was to inform Surrey as to how it could:
- Halt further loss of lands from the ALR and A1 zones
- Encourage food production on ALR lands currently underutilized for agriculture
- Enhance the economic viability of production of food for the local market on ALR lands that are currently underutilized for agriculture and position this local scale agriculture to become an economic development and employment driver that flourishes in complement to existing large scale commodity agriculture
- Increase consumption of locally produced and sold fresh fruits and vegetables
View the Full Report or our article published in the Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development.