When you stand on Sutherland Road near Highway 7 at Hamersley Prairie and look east, you see a grass-lined tributary meandering through flat, rich farmland. Swivel 180 degrees to the west and you see a completely different landscape: the tributary is gone, encased now in a field-wide culvert, covered over with soil, and the farmland overtop planted in blueberries.
Detmar Schwichtenberg, chair of the Fraser Valley Watersheds Coalition and co-owner of a family dairy farm, says conversion to blueberries is a common trend in the valley.
“It raises the value quite substantially compared to pastureland.”
Larry Pynn – Vancouver Sun – June 9, 2014
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