Login / RegisterNew Vancouver farmers get a hand with Young Agrarians program
Help is on the way for young people who are interested in farming but don’t know where to start. Young Agrarians, a program of the Vancouver-based group FarmFolk CityFolk, is working on a two-part project that will point them in the right direction.
“The first part is we’re going to create a really beautiful interactive map, so that young people who want to go into farming can find all the different resources in one big visual map,” Young Agrarians program coordinator Sara Dent explained in a phone interview with the Straight.
It’s a map of the province that will contain information on things like educational opportunities, websites, bank loans, and networks of like-minded people.
The second part is a land access manual. It will be an updated version of a guide coproduced by FarmFolk CityFolk and the Land Conservancy of B.C. in 2009 that covers different arrangements with landowners, such as leases and memorandums of understanding.
“What we’re basically doing is we’re going to rewrite that so that it’s more youth-friendly, because right now it’s really big and boring,” Dent said. “We’re also going to look around and get some more input from people from different parts of the province to find out what’s happening in terms of bylaws on urban and suburban and rural farming.”
According to the 2009 guide, agreements like leases give people the chance to work on a plot of land without having to purchase an expensive property. It notes that in some areas, farmland sells for up to $100,000 an acre.
In June, the Real Estate Foundation of B.C. approved a grant of $16,000 for the Young Agrarians resource mapping and land-access guide project.
