With the rising costs of land in the Okanagan, new farmers are breaking into the agriculture industry by leasing land instead of owning it.
Maylene Loveland and her husband Robin Scheil of Loveland Acres located in Salmon Arm recently opened their farm on two acres of leased property on Salmon River Road.
Since 2014, it has been Loveland’s goal to own a farm. To achieve it, Loveland and Scheil worked in a Lake Country orchard, before they took the plunge just prior to the pandemic at the beginning of 2020.
“If you want to be a farmer, you want (to get experience first), but you know the wages are low. We were working on this orchard and trying to find our own land and really our only option was to rent,” she said.
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