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鈥� 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.

鈥淪ummerland is a proud farming community and we want to preserve the ALR,鈥� says Summerland Mayor Doug Holmes. 

鈥淏ut we need to recognize that agriculture benefits all British Columbians yet it鈥檚 the residents of municipalities with significant amounts of farmland who bear the financial burden for the rest of the province.鈥�

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.

鈥淲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,鈥� Holmes said.

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

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