First Living Wage certified farm in BC.

Sieffert’s Farm Market, Lazo & Tyee Farm Ltd have become the first farm in BC to certify as a Living Wage Employer committing to pay its staff and contracted workers a Living Wage.

The family owned farm in the Comox Valley have a farm market, as well as taking commercial orders for wholesale and grocery stores. They currently farm a wide variety of crops including potatoes, carrots and onions.

“We are very pleased to join the employers in B.C. and the Comox Valley that have become living wage employers. We feel that this is an important component of meaningful employment. Our staff are the reason we are able to do what we love and we enjoy the opportunity to get to work with them. This is one way we can ensure we are demonstrating to them how much we value that they choose to work with us.” Char and Bob Sieffert and Chris Edwards, Lazo & Tyee Farm Ltd

The living wage is the hourly amount a family needs to cover basic expenses. The calculation is based on a two-parent family with two children – the most common family unit in BC – with each parent working full-time. The Living Wage for the Comox Valley is $16.44 an hour.

Many children growing up in poverty in BC live in families with at least one adult working full-time, full-year. In other words, child poverty in BC is very much a low-wage story. For most of the past decade, BC’s child-poverty rate has remained at one in five children living in poverty.

“We’re delighted that Sieffert’s Farm Market, Lazo & Tyee Farm Ltd has committed to paying their staff and contracted workers a Living Wage. We are excited to see how the Living Wage movement has grown in the past year. There are now nearly 350 Living Wage Employers in BC, including 16 businesses in the Comox Valley committed to tackling working poverty by paying a Living Wage. We invite other farms to join the Living Wage movement,” said Anastasia French, Living Wage for Families BC

Certifying as a Living Wage Employer is a voluntary commitment employers make to invest in their communities and local economies.