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Originally published:

MARCH 2020
Vol. 106 Issue 3

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Stories In This Edition

Going solo

Perfect sleeper

Province pares ag budget

Government slow to act on trespass legislation

Seeing is bee-lieving

Editorial – The old normal

Back Forty – Biosecurity no stranger to Canadian farmers

Viewpoint – Food trends challenge farmers to keep pace

Fruit growers grapple with third year of losses

Sidebar: Ambrosia and the future

Provincial task force charts a path forward

Cutting edge

Second health authority signs on to FeedBC

Sold-out gala honours the best of agriculture

Island farm takes long view on climate change

Broader mandate boosts hort memberships

Islands show puts emphasis on small-lot farming

Ag initiatives lack support across regions

Got her goat

Strong dairy demand underpins bright future

Farm groups weigh in on climate change

Wine grape council charts R&D priorities

Institute forms action plan

New round of traceability funding available

Island farmers briefed on new ag waste regs

Robotic milkers make life easier for dairy farmers

Selective grazing provides options to fertilizers

Cariboo cattlemen take steps with 20-year plan

Wildfire risk increases need for preparation

Small-lot ranchers can benefit from certification

Celebration

New toolkit aids with farm flood preparation

Hazelnut research focuses on water use

Sheep at risk next to popular island trail

Good nutrition makes for a good future

Cater to chefs

Sidebar: Sage advice

Research: Bumblees prefer low-fat, low-sugar diet

Agroforestry entrepreneurs need to plan ahead

Where milk really comes from

Value-added marketing critical to success

Growing degree days not just for tree fruits

Farm Story: Duck antics provide late winter amusement

Good ditches are critical for good drainage

Accounting, entrepreneurship for small farms

Land to Table forum focuses on food access

New location for Langley’s spring break Farm Camp

You are the farm’s most important asset

Woodshed: The jig is up for Junkyard Frank’s love scheme

Jude’s Kitchen: Spring for greens

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1 month ago

It’s been four years since the last tulip festival was held in Abbotsford, but this year’s event promises to be an even bigger spectacle than ever. Spanning 27 acres along Marion Road, Lakeland Flowers will display more than 70 varieties of the spring blossom, including fringe tulips and double tulips, the first of six months of flower festivals hosted by the farm. Writer Sandra Tretick spoke with Lakeland Flowers owner Nick Warmerdam this spring to find out how the floods on Sumas Prairie in 2021 have had an impact on his business plan as he transitions from wholesale cut flower grower to agri-tourism. We've posted the story to our website this month. It's a good read.

#CLBC #countrylifeinbc #tulipfestival
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Tulip grower makes the shift to agritourism

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ABBOTSFORD – On a bright sunny day in early April, Nick Warmerdam points out his office window at No. 4 and Marion roads to a spot about half a kilometre away across the Trans-Canada Highway.
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Omg 🥹 Jared Huston let’s go pls

1 month ago

Farming, like any other job.. only you punch in at age 5 and never punch out 🚜 ... See MoreSee Less

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Easton Roseboom Levi Roseboom🚜

1 month ago

The province is allocating $15 million to be administered by the Investment Agriculture Foundation of BC. for a perennial crop replant program benefitting tree fruit, hazelnut, berry and grape growers. The program aims to cover 100% of plant removal costs and 75% of replanting costs. Funds are also available for sector development. The new program replaces a suite of sector-specific replant programs and recognizes the importance of sector adaptation in the face of market, disease and weather challenges. ... See MoreSee Less

The province is allocating $15 million to be administered by the Investment Agriculture Foundation of BC. for a perennial crop replant program benefitting tree fruit, hazelnut, berry and grape growers. The program aims to cover 100% of plant removal costs and 75% of replanting costs. Funds are also available for sector development. The new program replaces a suite of sector-specific replant programs and recognizes the importance of sector adaptation in the face of market, disease and weather challenges.
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1 month ago

Just a week after the Canadian Food Inspection Agency officials revoked the last primary control zones established in the Fraser Valley to control last fall’s outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza, a new detection on April 29 at a commercial premises in Chilliwack underscored the risk of a spring wave. This is the first new detection since January 22, also in Chilliwack, and brings to 104 the number of premises affected since the current outbreak began April 13, 2022. The disease has impacted 3.7 million birds in BC over the past year. ... See MoreSee Less

Just a week after the Canadian Food Inspection Agency officials revoked the last primary control zones established in the Fraser Valley to control last fall’s outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza, a new detection on April 29 at a commercial premises in Chilliwack underscored the risk of a spring wave. This is the first new detection since January 22, also in Chilliwack, and brings to 104 the number of premises affected since the current outbreak began April 13, 2022. The disease has impacted 3.7 million birds in BC over the past year.
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Any other details for FVN and chillTV please? radiodon11@gmail.com

1 month ago

The province is contributing $3.2 million for upgrades to the Barrowtown pump station in Abbotsford that was overwhelmed during the November 2021 flooding on Sumas Prairie, part of a collaborative approach to flood mitigation in the region. During a press conference at the BC Ministry of Agriculture and Food offices in Abbotsford today, the province said a collaborative approach that includes First Nations is needed as Abbotsford pursues a comprehensive flood mitigation strategy due to the potential impacts on Indigenous lands. Agriculture's interests will be represented by technical teams within the agriculture ministry. ... See MoreSee Less

The province is contributing $3.2 million for upgrades to the Barrowtown pump station in Abbotsford that was overwhelmed during the November 2021 flooding on Sumas Prairie, part of a collaborative approach to flood mitigation in the region. During a press conference at the BC Ministry of Agriculture and Food offices in Abbotsford today, the province said a collaborative approach that includes First Nations is needed as Abbotsford pursues a comprehensive flood mitigation strategy due to the potential impacts on Indigenous lands. Agricultures interests will be represented by technical teams within the agriculture ministry.
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I sure hope part of that money is to educate the people in charge of the pumps and drainage system! They just relayed on computers and weren’t even physically monitoring the water levels. I’ve lived in the Fraser Valley my whole life and the old guys managing that system know how to do it. The new generation just sit behind computer screens and don’t physically watch the water levels. That system works very well when you do it right. The Fraser river levels are very important. The system is designed to drain the Sumas Canal (the part that runs thru the valley) into the Fraser. When they let it get backed up it put pressure on the dyke and the weak part burst. Simple science. And yes, the dykes need to be worked on too. Abbotsford has not been maintaining properly for years.

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Ag initiatives lack support across regions

BC faces a pressing need for extension specialists, food hubs

March 4, 2020 byTom Walker

DUNCAN – A six-member panel at a full-day event prior to the Islands Agriculture Show in Duncan on February 6 highlighted the complex and challenging nature of supporting local agriculture.

Expanding the Influence of Regional Agriculture Support, organized by the Alberni- Clayoquot Regional District, attracted 50 people to the Cowichan exhibition grounds for a morning panel discussion and afternoon workshop.

The event grew out of the regional district’s Systems Change project that seeks to develop a model for regional agriculture support.

The panel featured six representatives from the Kamloops Food Policy Council, Kootenay & Boundary Farm Advisors, Capital Regional District Food and Agriculture Initiatives Roundtable Society (CRFAIR), Lillooet Agriculture Food Society and the BC Ministry of Agriculture sharing their local experiences.

The discussion made clear that policies aimed at supporting local agriculture depend on a diverse set of individuals with grassroots connections in their communities and a variety of financial sources. There is no continuity in the support available across the province.

Heather Shobe, agricultural support worker with the Alberni-Clayoquot Regional District, chaired the event.

“At the regional level, these organizations that have come about have developed a high level of expertise and knowledge,” she says. “People want to work together, but they haven’t connected with one another very well.”

Part of the problem is a lack of core funding to support networking, says Shobe. Groups that have core funding have drawn it from a number of sources, either from their local governments, various provincial ministries, ministry-supported programs such as the BC Climate Action Initiative or the Young Agrarians.

Project-specific funding organizations include the Vancouver Foundation, Columbia Basin Trust and the BC Real Estate Foundation.

“Core funding allows that sort of networking and connections to happen more easily than specific project funding,” says Shobe. “It also provides a continuity to the local program. It is hard to make long-term plans if you are only working with contract funding.”

This lack of connection was one of the gaps identified throughout the day.

“We need to create a kind of home to do that,” says Shobe, noting that events like the Islands Agriculture Show are good opportunities to draw in people. “But we do see an opportunity for a person in a bridging role.”

Speakers outlined the wide variety of their work. Some are heavily involved in policy planning while others offer an advisory service. The majority focus on food systems work, including community food events, networking opportunities, how-to workshops, research, feasibility studies, agritourism development, supporting value-added opportunities and developing infrastructure such as aggregation systems.

All regions identified extension support as a pressing need.

“I hear a lot of farmers who just want someone to come onto their land and advise them,” says Linda Geggie of CRFAIR.

Searching for a unicorn

But finding an extension worker on a farm can be like searching for a unicorn, quipped Michele Bates, a land use planner from the East Kootenay Regional District.

“We first advertised for an agriculture liaison officer to provide business and technical support for everything from our cherry growers through to the cattle ranchers,” says Bates. “It wasn’t a surprise that we had no applicants.”

Dropping the business component, they re-wrote the competition into what is now the Kootenay & Boundary Farm Advisors program. It has logged more than 2,000 producer connections providing free technical support since it began two years ago.

“We heard that farmers don’t want to spend two hours on a website,” says Bates. “They want producer-to-producer connections with local expertise.”

A second need the group spoke about was aggregation services, specifically a food hub or a cooperative packing facility.

“I am seeing a number of small mixed farms in the Capital region making good money in direct sales,” says Geggie. “But they do not have a means of moving up to the next level.”

Alberni-Clayoquot Regional District has developed a food hub, but it’s focused on seafood. Kamloops is also running a food hub pilot.

Michelle Tsutsumi, communications lead with the Kamloops Food Policy Council, said the city has the oldest policy council in Canada. It operates many projects including Gleaning Abundance, a volunteer program that harvests local fruits and vegetables that might otherwise go to waste, and Pop Cycle, which delivers fruit pops, made when the gleaning project has too much fruit, by bike and trailer to the Kamloops Farmers’ Market and various festivals around the city.

Lillooet is looking at building a “Lillooet Grown” brand and setting up a cold storage facility and a permanent home for its farmers market.

The Capital Regional District has had a land-matching program for a number of years, Geggie says, and has run the successful Flavour Trails Program that brings about 3,000 visitors to 25 local farms through a weekend of activities each year.

“Everyone is just doing their best to cobble together whatever they can to take these things forward,” notes Geggie. “I admire the work that regional agrologists do, but there is so much more opportunity for greater collaboration between organizations that are supporting agriculture.”

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