How to get a Farmgate or Farmgate Plus licence

Three legal ways to slaughter meat you sell

All meat and poultry sold in BC has to be slaughtered under a provincial licence. You can take your animals to a licensed abattoir, where an inspector checks every animal before and after slaughter, or slaughter on your own farm under a Farmgate or Farmgate Plus licence, where no inspector checks each animal. That difference is why the farm licences have yearly limits, and why their meat is labelled “Not Government Inspected”.

Farmgate is the entry-level licence for low-volume producers. Farmgate Plus is for small producers who also want to sell to shops and restaurants, or to slaughter a neighbour’s animals. The ministry suggests that anyone slaughtering larger numbers, or wanting to focus on custom slaughter, look at becoming a licensed abattoir instead. None of this meat can be sold outside BC under any of the three.

How much you can slaughter

The limit is live weight, not a head count. An animal unit is 455 kg (about 1,000 lb) of animals weighed alive, whatever the species: Farmgate allows 5 a year, Farmgate Plus 25.

The weights are examples; the limit counts what your animals actually weigh.

• The year runs from the date your licence was issued, not from January.
• Every animal slaughtered on your site counts, including a neighbour’s you slaughter for them under Farmgate Plus.
• Animals you take to an abattoir or to another Farmgate Plus site don’t count, and neither do animals slaughtered only for your own household.
• The limit can’t be raised. Outgrowing it means a different licence.

Where the meat can be sold

Farmgate meat goes straight to the people who will eat it, from one of two places: a store or stand on the same property as your slaughter site, or a temporary food market — a farmers’ market, for example — in your regional district or within 50 km of your farm. Nobody may resell it, so shops, butchers and restaurants can’t buy it.

Farmgate Plus meat can be sold anywhere in BC: to consumers, to shops and restaurants, at markets, and shipped to customers within BC. A shop or restaurant that resells it must tell its customers in writing that it isn’t government inspected — on the package, a sign or the menu.

Selling also needs Island Health. The place you sell from needs a food premises approval, and selling at a farmers’ market means applying to Island Health at least 30 days before your first market.

How to apply, step by step

1. 1

   Register a Premises ID

   Free, from the Ministry of Agriculture and Food. You need it before you can get into the licence course, and it can serve as the ID number on your labels.

2. 2

   Take the SlaughterRight course

   The ministry’s online course, run with Open School BC since November 2025, is required of every new applicant and again at every renewal. You have up to a year to finish it and need 100% to pass. It comes with the food safety plan you will submit — your procedures, sanitation and a humane slaughter plan — and you need one for each species.

3. 3

   Read the Code of Practice

   It sets out what the site needs: surfaces that are smooth and easy to clean, hand washing with hot and cold running water, sanitizing water at 82°C or hotter, cooling to 4°C, and any outdoor slaughter done in daylight.

4. 4

   Get your zoning confirmed in writing

   Your municipality or regional district confirms the site is zoned for it. On ALR land, slaughtering is a farm use local government can’t prohibit when at least half the animals are raised on your farm; below that, you need the Agricultural Land Commission’s approval for a non-farm use.

5. 5

   Test your water

   A lab report showing your water is safe to drink: no fecal coliform and no E. coli detected in 100 mL, from a lab approved by the Provincial Health Officer.

6. 6

   Farmgate Plus: write a feasibility study

   Consult every licensed abattoir within 100 km and your local governments, and show the need for your site — including whether animals would otherwise have to cross water to reach an abattoir, which matters on the islands. The regulation asks this of every Farmgate Plus applicant, while the ministry’s FAQ says only of those within 100 km of an abattoir; ask which applies to you.

7. 7

   Send the package to FrontCounter BC

   By email to FrontCounterBC@gov.bc.ca, or by mail or in person at a FrontCounter BC office.

8. 8

   Site visit, then the licence

   Meat Inspection Program staff review your SlaughterRight workbook and food safety plan, then visit the site. The licence is issued after a successful visit.

The ministry publishes no fee for the licence, no processing time and no price for the course.

Running it: records, cooling, inspections and waste

• Keep a record for every animal: where it came from, and the owner’s name, address and phone number. Poultry and rabbits can be recorded by flock.
• Keep records of who you sold to — federal traceability rules require them, and the Code of Practice includes a template.
• Post your licence and your food safety plan where they can be seen, and review the plan at least once a year.
• Cool carcasses until they are 4°C inside, and store them at 4°C or colder. If the cooler is off the farm, it should be within 30 minutes and never more than 60.
• Expect an inspection at least once a year. No inspector needs to be there while you slaughter.
• The licence lasts five years and can’t be transferred to a new owner. Renewing means taking SlaughterRight again, and adding a species means a new food safety plan.

Keep inedible and condemned parts away from the meat, and remove the specified risk material from cattle as federal rules require. A farm slaughtering less than 5 tonnes of red meat or 1.5 tonnes of poultry (live weight) a year may bury or compost its own animals’ waste on the farm under the agricultural environmental code; at or above those amounts, the provincial Slaughter Code’s registration and waste rules apply. A full Farmgate year of red meat stays under that line, but a full year of poultry, or a full Farmgate Plus year of anything, goes over it.

Labels

Packaged meat carries the name and address of the slaughter site, what is in the package, the net weight, and your ID number (your establishment number or Premises ID), followed by the words your licence requires:

• “Not Government Inspected” goes on the front, next to the product’s name and as prominent as it, in letters at least 1.6 mm high, and not combined with any other claim.
• A whole carcass sold to one buyer comes with a note in writing: the slaughter site’s name, address and ID number, and the carcass’s net weight.
• Meat you slaughter for another farmer can go out under their brand or farm name, as long as the label carries all of the above.

Cutting, wrapping and sausage

The slaughter licence covers slaughter only: halving or quartering red meat, and taking the head, wings and legs off poultry. Cutting steaks and chops, wrapping, making sausage and selling all happen in a food premises approved by Island Health. That can be on your farm, but it is a separate approval, and the ministry doesn’t approve cut-and-wrap rooms.

A cut-and-wrap shop that takes uninspected carcasses keeps them apart from inspected meat — in a separate cooler or behind floor-to-ceiling screens — and must not resell Farmgate meat.

Chicken and turkey: the marketing boards still apply

A slaughter licence doesn’t replace the marketing boards. Selling chicken needs a BC Chicken small-lot permit (up to 2,000 birds a year) or quota; the 200-bird exemption covers only birds eaten at home. Turkey needs BC Turkey’s Direct Vendor licence (up to 300 poults a year), sold only at the farm gate, farmers’ markets, independent butchers and independent restaurants. Ducks and geese aren’t covered by either board.