How the Little Field was named

How big does a vegetable plot need to be to be called a field? With the average farm size in BC being about 350 acres, the field where we currently grow our vegetables clearly falls in the category of “little field”.  (In case you were wondering, there is no “big field” on the Commons.)

By way of comparison, the smallest regulation-size soccer fields are 50 yards by 100 yards, or 1.03 acres. 

The Commons Farm, which has 26 acres, with only a few acres under cultivation, falls in the most common farm size in British Columbia (about 37% or 7,250 farms).  Some 27% of BC farms have fewer 10 acres,  with many of these smaller farms located in the lower mainland, southern and eastern parts of Vancouver Island, and parts of the Okanagan in the southern interior. Only about 18% of BC farms have more than 240 acres.  

While total gross annual revenue generated by BC farms in 2016 was over $3 million, on average just under half of all farms earn less than $10,000 annually, and less than 6% generate a gross annual revenue of over $500,000.