BCFGA calls for five commitments to keep family farms viable across B.C.’s Southern Interior
KELOWNA, B.C. — October 07, 2026 — With British Columbia’s provincial election underway, the BC Fruit Growers’ Association is asking every political party and every candidate a straightforward question: what will you do to make farming viable in B.C.?
For six years, B.C. tree fruit growers have faced successive extreme weather events, crop losses, drought, wildfire, skyrocketing costs, labour pressures and major market disruption. Growers have continued to adapt. BCFGA says the policy environment around them now needs to do the same.
“Food security starts with a farm that can stay in business,” said Deep Brar, President of the BCFGA. “This election, we are asking every party to get agriculture on the agenda and tell farmers clearly what they will do to make farming viable in this province.”
BCFGA is asking for five commitments from B.C.’s next government:
- Fund Agriculture for the Future.
- Commit to a multi-year plan to increase the Ministry of Agriculture and Food budget to $500 million annually, with sustained investment in agricultural water infrastructure, climate resilience, extension and research, market development and farm competitiveness.
- Honour the Province’s existing commitment of $70 million for replanting, with affected industries directly involved in determining how remaining funds are best used.
- Establish a provincial response mechanism for extraordinary agricultural losses where government decisions, water restrictions or other emergencies leave producers without adequate protection under existing programs.
- Fix Business Risk Management Programs.
- Producers have called for meaningful BRM reform for more than a decade, yet too many farms continue to find that existing programs do not respond when they need them most. BCFGA is calling for a full, independent review of B.C.’s Business Risk Management programs, including AgriStability, Production Insurance and provincial investment in BRM. Producers must be directly involved, the review and findings must be public, and the government must commit to funding and implementing the resulting reforms. The review should be completed within the first year of the next government.
- Give farmers access to affordable working capital.
- Immediately establish a B.C. Commodity Loan Program, supported by a provincial guarantee or contingency backstop and provincial interest support, to provide farmers with additional interest-free operating advances that can be repaid as their crop is marketed. Farmers should be able to finance production without being forced to sell at the wrong time or rely on high-cost commercial debt simply to get through a season.
- Reduce the cost and bureaucracy of farm labour.
- Exempt primary agriculture from B.C.’s temporary foreign-worker employer registration requirement while maintaining worker protections.
- Establish a refundable B.C. Farm Labour Credit on eligible wages paid to Canadian and permanent-resident workers employed in primary agriculture, recognizing the significant cost of maintaining a skilled domestic agricultural workforce.
- Make the ALR Work for B.C.’s Family Farms
Protecting agricultural land must also mean protecting the economic viability of farming it. Commit to meaningful reforms to ALR policy and related provincial and local government rules that constrain legitimate farm investment, diversification, value-added activity, infrastructure and succession. Require decisions affecting agricultural land to consider farm profitability, productive capacity and access to essential services such as agricultural water, and strengthen provincial standards so local government bylaws support rather than undermine working farms. The objective should be clear: keep farmland in agriculture by making it possible for farmers to build viable, profitable businesses on it.
“We are not asking for yet another short-term patch,” said Brar. “We are asking for a policy environment where a good farmer running a good business has a fair chance to succeed.”
“Protecting farmland means very little if we lose the farmers or the ability to farm it. If British Columbia wants food-producing land protected for future generations, we also have to make sure the people farming it today can access water, manage risk and earn a living from that land.”
BCFGA is asking all provincial parties to respond directly to these five priorities before advance voting begins and will share those responses with growers.
Get Ag on the Agenda.
Ask your candidates where they stand on the future of farming in British Columbia.