Good morning.
First of all, thank you for having us here and thank you for being here.
The BCYF is a young organization in more than one sense. We're a newly formed group that started in 2008 in response to the lack of a young farmer community. Our slogan is “Keeping farming alive with the next generation”.
We're an association of young, enthusiastic farmers across B.C. We are supported by the BC Agriculture Council, we're members of and sponsored by the Canadian Young Farmers Forum, and we have a diverse board that is made up of 11 young farmer volunteers and former industry officials.
Our goals are to provide business training workshops, communication sessions, human resource development, development planning, leadership training, and industry networking. Past events have been on political debate, money management, and family versus business succession planning. We've hosted eight events in the past two years, participated in CYFF events, and had several meetings with provincial and federal ministers.
We have a membership of over 200 young farmers. Keep in mind that the majority of these young members do not own the farms. They want to get involved with farming, or their parents own the farms.
We have a number of issues facing young farmers in B.C., starting with costs. I'll go through a few of the issues and then talk about them. The issues are land, labour, the price of machinery and construction materials, cost of living, fuel costs, plants, feed, transportation, and carbon tax.
I'm sure you've heard over and over again about land costs. As a young farmer, why would you go into farming if you have to pay $100,000 an acre and basically lose it after a while?
As for me, I used to lease 300 to 400 acres. I'm a cold crop farmer, and I have a greenhouse as well. It's hard to find land now. More and more, people who have money from other trades are buying land, whether it's construction, truck drivers who want to park their trucks, or someone who wants to build a nice house and put a few horses at the front.