A Farm and Foodland Owner’s Guide
In the next six years, over half of farmers in British Columbia are due to retire. And yet only one in twelve farmers has a formal succession plan.
A new generation of farmers and foragers are interested in building sustainable food networks and enabling regional food security. Unfortunately, with the real estate value of farmland at an all-time high and reluctance among landowners to provide long-term tenure, they face a host of problems.
The Foodlands Cooperative of BC provides an option for landowners to contribute to land access and security by putting their land into trust. Land in trust is removed from the speculative real estate market and returned to the ‘commons’ as a community asset.
However, landowners wishing to put their land in trust must wade through layers of government regulations from multiple agencies and bodies. Navigating these legalities has been a barrier to the donation of land and other innovative trust arrangements.
This guide provides an introduction to the available mechanisms of land preservation in BC. It is our hope this publication will help to alleviate many of the challenges of planning farm and foodland trusts, and lead to greater community access for farming and foraging forever.