Opinion: Cannabis is agriculture—and B.C. is finally treating it that way

Written by Orville Bovenschen, president of Village Farms Canadian Cannabis.

Since legalization, cannabis has been treated like the plus one at a party nobody really knows. They’re invited, but no one really knows where they fit in. Last year, British Columbia quietly fixed that. By moving cannabis to the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, B.C. became the first province in Canada to formally recognize what many of us have known for a long time: cannabis isn’t a novelty product or a social experiment.

It’s agriculture. And it’s big business.

Let’s put this in plain terms. In 2024, Canada’s legal cannabis sector generated nearly $29 billion in total economic output, contributing approximately $16 billion to national GDP. B.C. punches well above its weight within that picture, contributing nearly $2 billion. In fact, cannabis now leads the ranks among B.C.’s top agricultural crops, more than doubling total farm receipts from the entire fruit combined.

But if this were blueberries, no one would blink.

For much of its early legal life, cannabis was governed cautiously, often treated more like a project than a mature agricultural sector. But in B.C., the Ministry of Agriculture saw the opportunity first. Even before the file formally moved, they engaged with producers, opened doors to programs, and recognized the economic potential taking shape in real time. The recent transition of cannabis oversight to agriculture simply formalizes what was already clear: cannabis isn’t adjacent to agriculture. It is agriculture.

The Ministry move changes the tone, and more importantly, the trajectory for cannabis.

Agriculture policy in B.C. actually works. It understands exports. It understands food systems, land use, labour, and long-term investment. It knows that crops don’t grow on quarterly timelines and that rural jobs don’t survive on pilot programs.

Cannabis fits squarely in that world.

This sector supports more than 230,000 jobs across Canada, with B.C. accounting for roughly 20 per cent of that employment.1 Many of those jobs are year-round, highly technical, and rooted in rural communities looking for economic stability. At Village Farms, we’re one of the largest agricultural employers in the province, with over 600 people on-site every day in Delta, operating greenhouses that run 365 days a year. That’s not a pop-up shop. That’s industrial agriculture.

The irony is that B.C. is uniquely good at this.

We’re world-class at controlled environment agriculture. We lead in plant science, crop protection, environmental controls, and sustainable energy use. We’ve built a global reputation around quality — wine, berries, greenhouse vegetables — all tied to provenance and trust. Cannabis belongs in that lineup.

International markets already see it that way. Canadian cannabis exports continue to grow as more countries open regulated programs, with several our BC-grown cultivars ranking among top-performing cannabis strains in key international markets. When buyers look for quality, consistency, and regulatory credibility, B.C. producers stand out. And you don’t earn that reputation by pretending cannabis is anything other than a crop.

This shift isn’t about loosening rules or changing public health policy. It’s about economic alignment. When a sector is producing billions in GDP, supporting thousands of jobs, and exporting globally, policy should help it function efficiently.

Bringing cannabis into agriculture won’t fix everything overnight. But it opens doors to programs like Buy BC, exports, agri-tourism, research funding, and serious conversations about land use and farm classification. It also aligns cannabis with manufacturing sectors, industries that B.C. actively supports through workforce development, productivity investments, and export growth initiatives. It tells investors, workers, and global partners that B.C. is done treating cannabis as an exception and ready to treat it as an asset. And that matters.

Because stigma is expensive. It shows up as inefficiency, underinvestment, and missed opportunity.

I’ve lived that stigma personally. For the first couple of years after legalization, it was often easier to tell people I worked in construction than to say I worked in cannabis. I understood the hesitation in the room before anyone said it out loud. Depending on the audience, we would adjust how we described what we did.

That’s not how mature industries operate. No one feels the need to downplay that they grow blueberries or produce wine. We shouldn’t either.

That’s why this change matters. It signals that cannabis no longer needs to be explained away or spoken about in half-measures. It can stand on its own—as agriculture, as manufacturing, as big business.

And frankly, we’re here for it.