VANCOUVER—It’s a sunny afternoon in the Lower Mainland as Maddy Clerk and Elana Evans of City Beet Farm harvest tomatoes for the weekly produce boxes they’re assembling for delivery the following day. The two run a successful community-supported agriculture (CSA) program, and there’s enough produce for them to also participate in a biweekly market and …
Ministry working on land use inventory
WILLIAMS LAKE—Producers used to keeping an eye out for suspicious activity were on alert in the Cariboo this summer when an unfamiliar vehicle bearing Alberta plates was spotted with a crew claiming to be working for the BC Ministry of Agriculture. But all was well: the vehicle was indeed carrying a team of consultants whose …
Food-X connects shoppers, farmers
A maxing out of farmers markets and the rise of online grocery shopping has fuelled widespread reports in the US of declining traffic to farmers markets and even market closures. The threat is not unknown to the BC Association of Farmers Markets, which is striving to meet changing shopping patterns and explore online shopping options. …
Country Life in BC wins big
Country Life in BC contributors won the lion’s share of photography awards during this year’s annual conference of the Canadian Farm Writers Federation, which took place in New Westminster last weekend. Tom Walker won the Don Baron award with his first-place feature photo of Vern Winger of WaterTec Irrigation with a TWIG wireless irrigation unit …
Seed-saving at risk
The Canadian Federation of Agriculture is urging farmers to complete a survey regarding potential changes to how royalties are levied on seeds for cereal crops in Canada. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency launched a public consultation last winter to gauge feedback on two options for collecting royalties on saved seed. …
ALC needs local governments
The linchpin of farmland protection in BC is local government, according to the head of the Agricultural Land Commission. “The commission can’t really do anything without local government,” Kim Grout, the commission’s CEO told a meeting in Merville last week that kickstarted a seven-week consultation on how the province can better support farmers and farming …