MARCH 2017 • COUNTRY LIFE IN BC Rent surprise


Feds seek massive rent hike for UBC dairy centre


by DAVID SCHMIDT AGASSIZ – Agriculture and


Agri-Food Canada is threatening to charge the UBC Dairy Education and Research Centre (DERC) annual rent of $200,000 or more to use land at the Agassiz Research and Development Centre. After AAFC announced plans to shut down its dairy research program at Agassiz in the mid-90s, a concerted lobby by the BC dairy industry resulted in UBC and AAFC reaching an agreement for UBC to merge its research herd at Oyster River on Vancouver Island with AAFC’s research herd at Agassiz. “Our arrangement was we


would build the centre and in turn we would get a lease on the land we need to feed our animals,” explains UBC DERC director Jim Thompson. “Our second 10-year lease was set to end March 21 but AAFC has now extended that lease to the end of August,” says DERC director Jim Thompson. While previous leases gave UBC the land rent-free, AAFC now intends to charge DERC


rent. “This is a change in federal


treasury department policy,” explains BC Dairy Association director of producer relations and communications Trevor Hargreaves. “They are looking to charge market rent on all their properties.” The lease extension is intended to give both sides time to come to an agreement but Hargreaves says intensive lobbying by the BCDA doesn’t appear to be swaying the federal government from its position. “Government is trying to


find a workable solution but we have been told the days of free rent as it’s currently structured are over,” he says. Thompson notes UBC, with


strong funding support from industry partners, including the BCDA Dairy Industry Research and Education Committee and the Mainland Milk Producers, which each committed $50,000 for the recently-completed student residence, has spent more than $13 million on infrastructure at Agassiz “and that’s not counting what we spent to buy quota.” The


Family planning done well! Scotiabank’s national head of agriculture Janice Holzscherer, left, presented the new Scotiabank Champion of Agriculture Succession Planning award to the Penner family of Abbotsford at the BC Ag Gala in January. Janet Penner and her daughter, Candace Hagen, accepted the award on behalf of the second and third generation poultry farming family. CATHY GLOVER PHOTO


result is a world-renowned commercial dairy research centre.


That should count for a lot,


Hargreaves says. “The federal government should be participating in the centre and finding ways to utilize it further, not finding


ways to nickel and dime it,” he states.


UBC currently leases about about 155 hectares of land from AAFC, which Thompson says is enough to meet the needs of its herd. That herd totals about 500 cows, calves and heifers, including about


270 cows in milk at any given time.


He admits UBC was a little


naïve in building the new student residence before securing a new long-term lease for the property. It has now put UBC over a barrel with the federal government.


19


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