MLAs returned to Victoria this week for their final sitting before this year’s provincial election, but agriculture rated barely a mention in the government’s agenda. The top priority for the government is pushing through amendments to the Land Act in the name of reconciliation, according to the speech from the throne delivered by Lieutenant Governor …
SIR appoints new GM
Michelle Cook has been appointed general manager of the Okanagan-Kootenay Sterile Insect Release Program (SIR) following a February 9 meeting of SIR’s board. She will officially take the helm of the organization when current GM Melissa Tesche formally succeeds Glen Lucas as general manager of the BC Fruit Growers Association in early March. Cook joined …
RCMP recruits 4-H youth
Farm kids make good policemen, says RCMP Corporal Cory Lepine, and he might be promoting a police career to a 4-H club near you. “When I was a kid growing up, all of the Mounted Police I knew were big Prairie farm boys and they had a different mannerism and a way of dealing with …
Land Act firestorm
The BC government is proposing changes to the Land Act that will affect how Crown land tenures are administered, but they have provided very little information on what those amendments will look like and that has cattlemen extremely concerned. In early January, the BC Ministry of Water Land and Resource Stewardship (WLRS) began contacting stakeholders …
Provincial nursery specialist appointed
It’s been four years since the retirement of the province’s long-time greenhouse and nursery specialist Dave Woodske. Woodske retired in early 2020, just as COVID was about to shut down life as we knew it. Now, with a new normal in place, Karina Sakalauskas has been appointed as provincial ornamental greenhouse and nursery specialist. Woodske’s …
CanadaGAP participation drops
CanadaGAP is a linchpin of foodsafety for many horticulture operations across Canada, and BC’s flourishing fruit and vegetable farms make it one of the best-represented jurisdictions in the program. But last year also saw it log one of the steepest declines of any province in the country. CanadaGAP’s annual report for the year ended August …