08/16/2026
We keep getting asked the same question:
"Why are you moving?"
BC is the most expensive province to farm, with the most expensive prices for land.
Farm land on Vancouver Island currently exceeds around $100,000 per acre when there is a house on that land, which means a 20 acre property costs over 2 million dollars. With a minimum down payment that brings the mortgage to approximately $10,000 per month. There is interest on top of that, meaning that same farmer would be paying approximately $3.9 mil - $4.6 mil in total by the time that mortgage loan is paid off.
That dollar amount doesn't include utilities, food, insurance, vehicles, gas, repairs, loss, fencing, startup costs, property tax, seed, livestock, feed, vet bills, interest, or property tax.
If that farmer paying $10,000 per month mortgage has one bad month, one bad week, one bad day, they could lose everything.
Their house, their animals, their belongings, and the dream that they worked so hard to keep afloat.
The reality is, young farmers are becoming more and more unable to purchase farm land in BC.
Farm land is disappearing into the shadows and once it's gone it is so hard to get back. When farmers age out and retire they cannot afford to retire without selling their land, and the younger generations cannot afford to buy it.
Every time you buy produce or meat at the grocery store, that store you buy it from is making more than the farmer who grew it while working in the hot sun, rain, wind and snow.
Convenience comes at a cost, and farmers are paying the price.
When farmers can't afford farm land it severely threatens food security making communities dependent on vulnerable ferry or shipping routes and accelerates the loss of active agriculture and shifts land use towards luxury estates rather than food production.
Choosing to buy local meat and produce is a direct investment in the resilience of your own community. Every dollar spent at a neighborhood farm stand or local butcher stays nearby, directly supporting the families who brave the elements, high land costs, and grueling hours to put food on your table. Beyond strengthening local food security, choosing local means enjoying fresher, higher quality produce harvested at peak ripeness and meat raised with care and transparency. When you cut out the long supply chains and middlemen, you do more than just feed your family better food. You help ensure that local agriculture remains a living, breathing reality rather than a memory.
Nothing changes if nothing changes, and staying put means watching our dream get swallowed by numbers that simply don't add up enough to allow us to be happy and enjoy the life we worked so hard to create.
Moving isn't about giving up on our passion, it’s about choosing a path where a farm can actually survive, thrive, and feed people without being one bad month away from losing it all. We love this community, but to keep growing food for the future, we have to plant our roots on different soil so we can properly flourish and thrive long term. It wasn't an easy decision to move 6000km away, but it is the best decision for us and our animals long term to ensure we will always have a home.
- Celina & Nick
