Blueberry farmer Ray Blin of Silver Valley Farms in Pitt Meadows told BIV last week that high land prices continue to make it challenging for farmers to expand their business.
For the blueberry sector, he said, “it’s still not viable to buy land today, plant and hope to gain a return in 10 years.”
He noted that B.C., where the per-acre price of land costs anywhere between $75,000 and $100,000, remains one of the most expensive places in North America to grow blueberries
“To give some perspective, a farmer in Washington state, which is the next most-expensive place to grow blueberries, is buying their land at $20,000 an acre. If you go to Michigan, which is the biggest growing region in the world, land prices are $4,000 to $5,000 an acre.”
Blin blames land speculation associated with the possibility of removing land from the agricultural land reserve as the primary cause of the issue.
“If we want to protect farming, we have to get land prices back down, and this is me speaking as a land owner, who could profit very well from selling of the land at these levels.”
Blin plans to expand his blueberry operations, but hopes to lease bare land so he can plant new varieties of blueberries that consumers are looking for. He said industry trends make it difficult for him to acquire other farms.
“Customers are looking for newer varieties, which have been planted in other regions of North America. We are just starting [to plant them] here,” he said. “So, even if a farm became available tomorrow and it’s at a good price and made sense economically, if it’s got the wrong variety, I probably still wouldn’t buy it.”
More insight into the blueberry sector and agricultural financing is in this week’s issue of Business in Vancouver (issue 1076; June 8-14).