Parched farms in B.C. Peace to keep tax status

Drought-ridden farms in British Columbia’s Peace River region that fall short of minimum production and income requirements will still be considered farms for tax purposes.

The B.C. government announced Tuesday it will waive the farm income and production requirements for the 2011 property assessment roll in that specific region, which has been hit with three straight years of drought conditions.

“We want to make sure farmers are not unduly burdened with higher taxation levels associated with residential land as compared to farmland,” Surrey-area MLA Stephanie Cadieux, the province’s minister of community, sport and cultural development, said in a release.

Severe drought has prevented some Peace River region farmers the specified amount of ag-related revenue to maintain their land’s farm status, the province said.

The province has invoked section 6.1 of its regulatory standards for classification of land as a farm, to allow Peace farmers to keep farm status for their properties, even if they haven’t met the income criteria.

Said section allows the provincial cabinet to temporarily suspend the production and income requirements for farm classifications under “exceptional circumstances.”

The regulatory relief is meant for farmers “impacted by widespread situations” such as the Peace region’s drought or, say, an outbreak of avian flu such as the “low-path” H5N2 that hit an Abbotsford-area turkey farm in 2009.

Generally, to keep their farm status for tax purposes, properties in the province must have at least half their land in or contributing to farm production beyond a set minimum income, or at least 25 per cent in production at a higher threshold.

Otherwise, such properties can be classified as residential or in a split residential-farm classification and taxed at a higher level — unless they’re within the province’s Agriculture Land Reserve and not used for non-farming purposes.