The Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR) created in British Columbia 1972 is a protectionist spatial product. Unlike typical spatial products that create - or are created in - zones of exclusion from local conditions in order to take advantage of the global financial, informational and material flows, the ALR is an exclusion from the local conditions in order to impede the action of global forces. Map 1a is a simple description of this space at the scale of the GVRD. The driving motivations behind the maintenance of the ALR are both pragmatic (safeguarding future food security) and political (protecting and encouraging farming as a viable way of life in B.C.). As the relative value of agriculturally productive farmland is decreasing due to lower transportation costs allowing foreign food products to underprice local products the relative value of developed land is increasing due to continuing immigration into the GVRD. This situation is particularly clear in Richmond, B.C. where the rapidly growing City Centre Area abuts 55 hectares of class 4 - but currently unused- agricultural land. Maps 2a and 2b describe this conflict in greater depth. Map 1b provides the context by exposing the pressure applied by these global forces on the GVRD ALR as a whole through pinpointing parcels for which applications for exclusion from the ALR have been made although not necessarily approved. Overall, the ALR can be considered a manifestation of those cultural forces that are opposed (at least in part) to the deregulated operation of the global flows on local space.

map 1a

map 1b

map 2a

Map 2b

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