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Originally published:

March 2018
Vol. 104 Issue 3

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Stories In This Edition

ALR sessions closed to public

Kissin’ cousins

Wine spat heads to court

ALR sidebar: Points for review

Budget boosts ag funding for strategic initiatives

AgProud

Editorial: Good intentions

Back forty: Fires, floods and earthquakes: are your ready?

So where do I get a social license

FIRB review pleases commodities

Islands Ag

Dairy outlook faces growing headwinds

Trade negotiations boost grower uncertainties

Chicken price slides despite new pricing formula

Fruit growers elect Dhaliwal president

Growers discuss SVC audits

This little tyke

Orchard app unveiled at BC Tree Fruit forum

Gala celebrates ag leadership

Ag show attendance down from record set last year

Canadian Ag Partnership “open for business”

Weed will be an ag product unlike any other

Sidebar: Crop rich in histroy, controvery

BC MP appointed ag critic

Research money key to berry sector’s future

Sidebar: Weather hurts 2017 blueberry Yields

Cowichan Valley showcases Islands agriculture

Wildfire season offers valuable lessons

Make a plan and get fire smart

Cattle producers must champion codes of practice

Producers need training for disaster response readiness

For the kids

How do I move forward

Pine Butte kicks off bull sales

High-tech grass production showcased on tour

Environmentally friendly weed control

Sidebar: Mixed results

Hazelnut inventory sets industry baseline

Collaboration ups ante in fight against Wireworm

Sidebar: Going for control

New pest game-changers for BC forage producers

Farm safety is a family tradition on island

New varieties key to industry’s future

Successful farm tours pay attention to detail

Sidebar: No detail too small

Research: UBC perfects test of smoke taint in wine grapes

Sensors help nurseries cut water use up to 60%

Producers encouraged to monitor irrigation water quality

Sidebar: Water sampling tips

Urgan farmers take their dreams up country

Processor capacity challenges small scale producers

New entrants give fresh life to old dairy barns

KPU student receives Tim Armstrong award

Wannabe: Hurry up, Spring!

Woodshed: Clay lives up to all of Ashley’s expectations

Jude’s Kitchen: Spring brunch

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7 days ago

Farmland Advantage is receiving a $445,000 grant from the federal government. The program, the “brainchild” of Invermere cattle rancher Dave Zehnder, provides compensation to farmers for their conservation efforts to protect BC’s grasslands, riparian areas and wildlife habitat. The funding from Environment and Climate Change Canada under the Species at Risk Partnerships on Agricultural Lands (SARPAL) and Priority Places programs, will be administered by the Investment Agriculture Foundation of BC. Rewarding farmers for enhancing riparian areas appeared in our March 2022 edition and you can view it at ... See MoreSee Less

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Rewarding farmers for enhancing riparian areas

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INVERMERE – Farmers and ranchers in the Columbia Valley will continue to see rewards for taking action to conserve and enhance important riparian areas on their farms. The Windermere District Farmer...
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2 weeks ago

A standing-room only crowd of more than 250 people attended a public hearing the Agricultural Land Commission hosted in Langley Monday night regarding a proposal to include 305 acres controlled by the federal government in the Agricultural Land Reserve. More than 76,000 people have signed an online petition asking municipal and provincial governments to protect the land from development, and for the federal government to grant a long-term lease to the Heppells. Read more in this morning's Farm News Update from Country Life in BC. conta.cc/3XYXw6k ... See MoreSee Less

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Your weekly farm news update

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The agricultural news source in British Columbia since 1915 January 25 2023 Surrey ALR inclusion cheered A standing-room only crowd of more than 250 people attended a public hearing the Agricultural L
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Mike Manion Pitt Meadows City Councillor

2 months ago

Christmas tree growers in BC are seeing strong demand this season and prices remain comparable to last year. But the number of tree farms has decreased dramatically over the past five years and the province will increasingly need to look elsewhere if it wants to meet local demand. More in this week's Farm News Update from Country Life in BC. ... See MoreSee Less

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Christmas trees in demand

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Christmas tree growers in BC are seeing strong demand, with high quality trees making it to market. “The market is good. We’ll probably outdo last year and last year was one of our best years…
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2 months ago

Another four poultry flocks in the Fraser Valley have tested positive for avian influenza over the weekend -- 15 in the last week alone. There are 60 farms currently under quarantine in BC, more than any other province in Canada and three times that of Alberta, which ranks second. Officials maintain the virus is being spread by dust and groundwater and not farm-to-farm transmission. No farms in the Interior have tested positive this fall. ... See MoreSee Less

Another four poultry flocks in the Fraser Valley have tested positive for avian influenza over the weekend -- 15 in the last week alone. There are 60 farms currently under quarantine in BC, more than any other province in Canada and three times that of Alberta, which ranks second. Officials maintain the virus is being spread by dust and groundwater and not farm-to-farm transmission. No farms in the Interior have tested positive this fall.
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Avian influenza virus can be killed by chlorine at no higher a concentration than is present in drinking water, so unless farms are using untreated groundwater in their barns I don't see how it could be a source of transmission. www.researchgate.net/publication/5594208_Chlorine_Inactivation_of_Highly_Pathogenic_Avian_Influen...

2 months ago

In a surprise move, Lana Popham -- hailed at the recent BC Dairy Industry Conference as a key ally of the agriculture sector -- has been replaced by Abbotsford-Mission MLA Pam Alexis as part of a cabinet overhaul today by new BC premier David Eby. Popham will now oversee Tourism, Arts, Culture and Sport. The two ministers worked closely together following the atmospheric river events last fall. ... See MoreSee Less

In a surprise move, Lana Popham -- hailed at the recent BC Dairy Industry Conference as a key ally of the agriculture sector -- has been replaced by Abbotsford-Mission MLA Pam Alexis as part of a cabinet overhaul today by new BC premier David Eby. Popham will now oversee Tourism, Arts, Culture and Sport. The two ministers worked closely together following the atmospheric river events last fall.Image attachment
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Goes to show how far-removed our current government is from the agricultural sector. To put someone in this position who has no farming background is a slap in the face to all of our hard-working producers.

Going to be a heck of a learning curve. Helping the agricultural community recover from the biggest natural disasters in history, handling the avian influenza outbreak that is threatening our poultry industry, dealing with a crisis in meat processing, managing ongoing threats from climate change, supporting producers who are facing unprecedented inflation in an industry with very slim margins to begin with..... to name a few of the challenges our new Minister will have to face all with one of the lowest budgets of any ministry. I wish her the best of luck but I hope she's got a lot of support around her.

Best of wishes in your new position

Congrats to Pam, cool to see a Fraser Valley based ag minister but also so sad to see Lana reassigned . I have no doubt she will do an amazing job in her new role.

Will be missed by #meiernation

Bryce Rashleigh

Nooooooo!

Lana did a shit job and now we have a minister with no farming background at all. Aren’t we lucky..

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ALR sessions closed to public

General public limited to survey, written submissions

March 1, 2018 byPeter Mitham

VICTORIA – The public engagement process aimed at gathering feedback towards revitalization of the 45-year-old Agricultural Land Reserve kicked off in early February with meetings in Richmond and Nanaimo.

But not everyone was welcome at the meetings organized by the nine-member committee charged with conducting the review. The invitation-only events were strictly for representatives from farm organizations and local governments. Dates, times and locations of the meetings are not advertised.

“We have a list of every local government in the province and every farm organization that we are aware of – every farmers’ institute, you name it – everybody’s getting an invitation,” committee chair Jennifer Dyson told Country Life in BC.

Well, not quite everyone. Groups with an interest in farming but not linked to production agriculture are excluded.

“We’ve had some groups that are food security groups, and we think food security is great, but they’re not necessarily the stakeholder that we’re meeting with,” Dyson says.

Nevertheless, the BC Food Systems Network, which “works to create healthy, just and sustainable food systems” presented.

The general public, meanwhile, are welcome to comment via the online survey set up to garner feedback, or a written submission.

“We’ve had a lot of MLAs wanting to attend and we’ve said, ‘Thank you for your interest, but this is a stakeholder meeting,’” Dyson says.

Concerning

That’s not sitting well with Opposition agriculture critic Ian Paton, the BC Liberal MLA for Delta South, who previously criticized the lack of representation from commercial farmers on the review committee. The inability of the general farm population, let alone farm landowners, to address the committee directly concerns him.

“It’s definitely a concern that [BC] agriculture minister Lana Popham won’t allow members of the public to make face-to-face submissions to her committee,” he says. “If the true intention of this committee is to protect farmers and farmland, why is she putting so many restrictions on who can give input, and how they can do so?”

During consultations for the BC Agriculture Plan in 2006, open houses were held across the province that attracted a broad spectrum of speakers. Similarly, when Popham led the Opposition Standing Committee for Agriculture and Food on a tour of the province in 2015, she said it was an opportunity for farmers to give feedback that government might not always want to hear.

“Giving the agriculture community a chance to be heard is dangerous for government, because then you actually need to hear the facts,” Popham said at the time. “They’re so thankful that there’s an opportunity to have a committee like that.”

Paton says the limitations on who can meet with the current committee suggest that the government has made up its mind on issues such as whether or not to return to a single-zone ALR.

“The minister has publicly stated that she sees that change coming, in the same breath that she promises to consult in a meaningful way,” he says. “In my view, genuine consultation involves speaking face-to-face with the people who will be most affected by one’s decisions. It’s my hope that Minister Popham will re-think her consultation strategy and give actual farmers, ranchers and producers the opportunity to face her directly with their ideas.”

Independent committee

However, Popham says that the committee has full independence and made the call on how to structure the engagement process itself.

“When I chose the committee members, it was made very clear that they’re independent of me, so they’ve made that decision themselves,” she says. “They’re a volunteer committee, and they’ve basically put into their schedule how many places they can meet and how much time they have to spend to come up with a report for me with these very, very serious recommendations by the end of the summer.”

Popham says she’s received “an enormous amount of positive feedback,” adding, “everybody’s invited to give their input online 24 hours a day till the end of April, so nobody’s left out of the process at all.”

Dyson agrees, noting that participation in the stakeholder meetings and online has been positive.

“People are extremely well prepared to speak,” she says. “We’ve had young people desperate for access to land. We’ve had an incredible mix of individuals.”

Online submissions have numbered in the hundreds, Dyson says, something she considers “phenomenal.”

The leading concerns in the feedback received till mid-February were house size on farm properties, and cannabis production. Many local government representatives also pointed to the challenge a general ignorance of agriculture poses.

She expects a diversity of opinions as the committee moves across the province, especially given the lack of consensus farm organizations are voicing regarding the ALR.

“There’s no unanimity around the farm organizations themselves in terms of what we hear. It’s just all over the map,” she says, noting that local governments have been more uniform in their concerns and advocacy for agriculture.

“As our provincial government does less and less and less and less and less in agriculture, the local governments have picked up more,” she says. “They’re putting on events in their communities; they’re trying to support agriculture. That has picked up where farm organizations have left off.”

Stakeholder meetings are scheduled for dates through March 14, with further dates to be set. Participation in the online survey and written submissions will be accepted through April 30 at 4 pm. For more details, visit [https://engage.gov.bc.ca/agriculturallandreserve/ways-to-participate].

The review committee’s report and recommendations to government will be delivered in fall 2018.

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