Pitt Meadows backs lobbying effort for provincial funding to support farming communities
Pitt Meadows is backing a growing push to convince the provincial government to create a new funding program for agriculture-focused municipalities, arguing communities that shouldering infrastructure costs far exceed the taxes they collect.
The proposal, dubbed the Agricultural Municipality Initiative (AMI), was presented to council by District of Summerland Mayor Doug Holmes, who is visiting 12 agricultural municipalities across B.C. to build support ahead of this year’s Union of British Columbia Municipalities convention.
Holmes said the initiative could mirror the province’s long-running Resort Municipality Initiative by providing dedicated provincial funding to help small farming communities build and maintain infrastructure that supports agriculture and food security.
“We’re very much like Pitt Meadows, just a little bit smaller,” Holmes told council. “By working together, I think we can demonstrate to the province that small municipalities like ours have a role in providing their agricultural infrastructure, and we just want them to recognize that”
B.C. ‘s supply of agricultural land in the Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR) is tightly regulated by the province, and taxed significantly less than commercial or residential lands.
Municipalities with a large supply of ALR land often find their tax bases constrained, with fewer opportunities for growth that would otherwise broaden their coffers.
Pitt Meadows is one of the most agriculture-focused municipalities in Metro Vancouver. About 78 percent of the city’s land base (around 6,356 hectares) is agricultural land within the ALR, ranking sixth among B.C. in agricultural production.
Holmes used Summerland’s experience as an example of the financial imbalance facing farming communities.
Last year, Summerland collected about $12.5 million in property taxes across all property classes, but only $660,000 came from ALR properties. Of that amount, just $64,000 was generated through Class 9 farm taxation.
Meanwhile, the municipality spent roughly $2 million maintaining infrastructure serving ALR lands — up from $1.9 million in 2024 and $1.6 million in 2023.
“Basically, for every $1 in property taxes that we collect from the ALR, it costs us more than $3 to service those properties,” Holmes said.
Because Summerland has little industrial tax base, he said those infrastructure costs are largely borne by residential taxpayers.
In Pitt Meadows, farmland generates just 2.4 percent of the city’s total tax revenue, which amounts to less than $800,000 annually according to Mayor Nicole McDonald.
“The ALR is imposed on us, therefore we can’t densify, we can’t add any variety to our taxation,” she said.
Looking to a successful provincial model
Holmes said Summerland has spent years trying to convince the province to address the funding gap, with little success despite a resolution endorsed at the Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM) 2024 conference.
Momentum began to build after a meeting last year with Brenda Bailey and Minister of Finance Brenda Bailey, who invited the municipality to submit a proposal.
That led Summerland to study the Resort Municipality Initiative RMI, which has provided funding to 14 B.C. resort communities since 2006 to help offset infrastructure demands created by tourism.
“The challenges facing those resort towns aren’t really that different from our challenges, because farming puts this strain on our infrastructure beyond what our local tax base can support,” Holmes said.
Under the RMI, eligible municipalities submit development strategies every three years outlining how provincial funding would be spent.
Holmes said a similar program could work for agricultural communities.
He suggested eligibility could be limited to municipalities with populations under 35,000 that contain more than 2,000 hectares of land within the ALR — criteria he said currently identify about 12 communities across British Columbia.
While a funding formula has yet to be developed, Holmes said the concept has already received support from the BC Agricultural Council and the BC Fruit Growers’ Association.
He also met with Minister of Agriculture Lana Popham in April, who he said was supportive of the concept and agreed to meet with a coalition of municipalities during this year’s UBCM convention.
Although Popham cautioned provincial finances remain tight, Holmes said even a modest initial program would provide an important foothold.
“It’s much harder for any new government to scrap an existing program than it is to say no to a new one,” he said.
Pitt Meadows sees direct benefit
Coun. Bob Meachen said he supported the proposal in principle, particularly because it does not call for increasing taxes on farmers, which have been facing significant increases in fertilizer and fuel costs
He added funding should come through the Ministry of Finance rather than reducing the Ministry of Agriculture’s existing budget.
“In the long run, we are not only sustaining small communities, we are sustaining the ALR,” he said, warning that underfunded agricultural municipalities face increasing pressure to seek development on protected farmland.
Holmes agreed, noting that other provincial funding programs already recognize extraordinary infrastructure demands in resort and resource communities.
“I think we need to frame it in the same way as these others,” he said. “The resource municipalities are getting something because we recognize the impact on their infrastructure, resort municipalities are getting something because of their impact on their infrastructure, but what about agriculture and food security?”
Coun. Alison Evans called the proposal “quite innovative” and said the parallels with tourism funding made sense.
“It really could be quite impactful here in Pitt Meadows,” she said. “We’re very proud of our farming history, and we’re very protective of our farmland, but it is hard to balance that quality of life for our city.”
Mayor Nicole McDonald said the issue extends well beyond individual municipalities.
“This is a provincial and a regional issue,” McDonald said. “When we hear the provincial government talk about food security, food sovereignty, needing independence, (that’s not going to happen) if we don’t start nurturing these small communities that are producing 80 percent of the agriculture.”
Chief administrative officer Mark Roberts told council staff can prepare a tax-versus-cost analysis similar to Summerland’s to quantify how much Pitt Meadows subsidizes agricultural infrastructure.
McDonald closed by pledging the city’s support for the initiative as it moves toward UBCM discussions with provincial ministers.
“You have our commitment for UBCM, and that advocacy as we continue to move forward,” she said.
