The agricultural land reserve’s (ALR) restrictive rules have turned dozens of B.C. farmers into outlaws.
This according to Citizens for Agricultural Land Reform, a group of residents, farmers and ranchers that have joined forces to convince the Agricultural Land Commission that hay, wheat and barley crops alone can’t make ends meet for many families across northeast B.C.
“I’m willing to guess there’s at least 200 or more businesses in the northeast that are working from farmland that are illegal,” said Paul Gevatkoff, a spokesman for the group.
The commission, an independent provincial agency, is responsible for protecting B.C.’s 4.7 million hectares of ALR, or land set aside for farming.
The problem, said Gevatkoff, is that many farms in northeast B.C. don’t make enough money to stay afloat, forcing owners to set up secondary businesses that serve the booming oil and gas industry.
But those secondary businesses, if located on the farm, contravene ALR rules designed to protect the land for agricultural use.
“So a guy might be farming a section of land and he’s got five or 10 acres he using for a non-farm-related business … so in the eyes of the Agricultural Land Commission he’s a criminal.”