{"id":565625,"date":"2026-03-28T02:14:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T02:14:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/565625\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T02:14:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T02:14:12","slug":"future-uncertain-for-surrey-potato-farm-as-land-is-owned-by-federal-government-bc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/565625\/","title":{"rendered":"Future uncertain for Surrey potato farm as land is owned by federal government – BC"},"content":{"rendered":"

After 50 years, this could be the final season for a popular Surrey farm.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Every year, the Heppell family grows roughly 50 million servings of potatoes<\/a> and other crops on a 220-acre parcel near 192nd Street and 36th Avenue.<\/p>\n

The land is owned by the federal government and is leased to the family on a year-to-year basis and is not part of the Agricultural Land Reserve.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis piece of field is one of the most important parts to our food security here in the early parts of the season,\u201d farmer Tyler Heppell told Global News, explaining that it gets the perfect amount of sun, soil and drainage.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat combination makes it one of the best pieces of farmland in all of Western Canada,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Tyler Heppell\u2019s grandfather first turned the former military site into productive farmland 50 years ago and since then, it\u2019s been a major part of their potato business<\/p>\n

Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n

For about 15 years, they have been hosting Ugly Potato Day<\/a>\u00a0for anyone who wants to come down and receive a few potatoes and squash that they cannot sell to the stores.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Click<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t2:02
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFirst Nations seek return of land housing well-known B.C. potato farm\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

But now, Heppell said, they fear their lease may be ended to free up the land for other purposes.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Get<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tGet breaking National news<\/p>\n

Get breaking Canada news delivered to your inbox as it happens so you won’t miss a trending story.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s been talk about making this into an inland container terminal, putting warehousing here,\u201d Surrey city councillor, Mike Bose, said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve heard of housing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMore on Politics
\n\t\t\tMore videos\n\t\t<\/p>\n

In addition, three First Nations have requested that a parcel of land within their traditional territory be returned to them.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/The Katzie, Kwantlen and Semiahmoo (KKS) nations said the land, called k\u2019\u02b7eq\u2019\u0259n\u0259q (Kwek-en-nek) and known as Campbell Heights North in Surrey, should be returned to them to support their cultural and economic future.<\/p>\n

The Heppells have launched a petition to save the farm<\/a>, which more than 86,000 people have signed.<\/p>\n

Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n

The federal government told Global News it would respond to our request next week<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Heppells are focused on getting the spring crop of Warba potatoes in the ground, which will yield millions of servings in the coming months.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re able to plant the first potatoes of the year and harvest the first potatoes of the year, which shuts off our reliance on the United States,\u201d Heppell said.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After 50 years, this could be the final season for a popular Surrey farm. Every year, the Heppell…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":565626,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194299],"tags":[49,48,295,218049,218048,714,160949,87674],"class_list":["post-565625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-surrey","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-environment","tag-heppell-family-farm","tag-heppell-farms","tag-politics","tag-potatoes","tag-surrey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=565625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/565626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=565625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=565625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=565625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}