One of the most meaningful moments in my research was the interview I conducted with Mr. Harold Steves, a farmer, former Richmond city councillor, and one of the founding voices behind British Columbia’s Agricultural Land Reserve.

In this audio recording, he shares how his family’s experience—watching farmland disappear under suburban development—led him to push for the creation of the ALR. It’s a deeply personal story that shows how one family, and one determined individual, helped change not just their community, but the course of provincial history.

Listening to his voice, I understood why the ALR was not just a policy, but a moral response to real loss. It made the creation of this legislation feel not only necessary, but inevitable.

And yet, throughout many other interviews I conducted, I heard another side—farmers who feel constrained, disheartened, even haunted by the very system that was meant to protect them. Their stories reveal how a well-intended policy can evolve in ways that drift away from its original promise.

This website exists in that tension: between what the ALR was meant to do, and what it has become for those living under its rules.

• 🎙️ Click here to listen to the full interview with Harold Steves

Note: a few sections regarding personal information have been deleted. Use and publication of this interview record have been consented to by Mr. Harold Steves.