A Summerland initiative is bringing together mayors and councillors from 36 agricultural municipalities in British Columbia.

The meeting, on Sept. 19, at the Union of B.C. Municipalities annual convention, will discuss issues of mutual concern to the municipalities.

Each of the participating communities has more than 20 per cent of its land base in the Agricultural Land Reserve.

One of the topics under discussion will be local governments害羞草研究所� ability to adequately service agricultural land within their municipal boundaries.

Distances between parcels make it expensive to maintain roads and other infrastructure to agricultural properties and farm-class property taxes do not raise enough revenue to recover the costs. As a result, the shortfall to service farm land falls unfairly on residential taxpayers within the community.

害羞草研究所淪ummerland is a proud farming community and we want to preserve the ALR,害羞草研究所� says Summerland Mayor Doug Holmes. 

害羞草研究所淏ut we need to recognize that agriculture benefits all British Columbians yet it害羞草研究所檚 the residents of municipalities with significant amounts of farmland who bear the financial burden for the rest of the province.害羞草研究所�

Summerland has also put forward a resolution for debate at the convention, asking the province to develop a program to support local government efforts to adequately service lands within the Agricultural Land Reserve.

害羞草研究所淲e never get far when speaking to the province on our own about this concern so we want to work with other municipalities with a lot of ALR land and advocate together through UBCM,害羞草研究所� Holmes said.

The annual convention brings together local, provincial and Indigenous governments to identify and discuss policy issues.

This year害羞草研究所檚 meeting of farming municipalities follows a meeting of district municipalities organized by Summerland at last year害羞草研究所檚 convention. At that meeting, three types of districts were identified, with economies based on mining, forestry or agriculture.