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Originally published:

April 2019
Vol. 105 Issue 4

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Stories In This Edition

One province, one panel

Groundwater deadline extended

Happy as a pig!

Sidebar: Still waiting

Feds pour millions into tree fruit research

Sidebar: Will local procurement help?>

Editorial: Confined spaces

Back Forty: BC farmers need more than a land bank

Island Good campaign drives local sales

Poultry industry seeks to stop infighting

Good egg!

Egg farmers to receive biggest quota boost ever

New entrant focus

Decision day looms for chicken pricing appeal

Producers look to CanadaGAP for certification

Organic sector undertakes core review

Hopping to it!

Island couple named Outstanding Young Farmers

Turkey consumption continues to decline

BC potato growers enjoy a strong footing

Sudden tree fruit dieback a growing concern

Late season BC cherries in global demand

Farmers’ markets aim to be local food hubs

Field trial hopes to reduce phosphorus levels

Future looking bright for BC dairy producers

BC could benefit from US trade battles

Saputo puts its Courtenay plant out to pasture

The land of milk and salmon

Sidebar: Farming for the future

Out of the hands of BC farmers

Codes of practice need producer input

Preparation essential for wildfire response

Sidebar: Relief announced for drought, fire

Sidebar: Be FireSmart with these tips

New traceability regs to track movement

Agriculture a notable threat to species at risk

Improper pesticide use threatens access

Threat to neonics spurs scare in spud growers

Orchard presses forward with diversification

Climate-smart growing

Staying on top of soil health is key to sound farming

No small potatoes

Farm families need to have affairs in order

Rotary parlours go upscale at two FV dairies

Study compares organic, conventional diets

Advisory service foresees growing demand

Sidebar: Tree fruit cutbacks a concern

Island dairy producers hone first aid skills

Woodshed: And that’s how rumours get their teeth

Research farm showcases small projects

Jude’s Kitchen: Shooting stars of spring

 

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10 hours 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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5 days 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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BC farmers need more than a landbank

PHOTO / MYRNA STARK LEADER

April 1, 2019 byBob Collins

A conversation I overheard recently in a schoolyard while waiting to pick up my granddaughter seems to sum up a big part of the dilemma facing the Agricultural Land Commission and the production it is expected to foster within the Agricultural Land Reserve. One 30-something parent was excitedly telling another about a rural property they had just purchased.

The gist of the conversation concerned a plan to subdivide into one or two-acre lots. The property owner lamented that the small lots might be derailed by the land’s ALR status and in a worst-case scenario they might have to settle for five-acre lots. The ALR was the only reference to agriculture and though extensive farming plans may have gone unmentioned, I couldn’t help but feel there is a generous measure of disappointment looming on this particular rural horizon.

This is by no means an isolated circumstance. It was once very forcefully proposed to me: a lot line adjustment was the equivalent of a Get Out of Jail card in Monopoly that could be invoked to force the ALC to allow a subdivision of farmland.

How to circumvent ALR regulations always seems to be a hot topic of conversation with people thinking of moving to the country. Conversely, trying to craft an agricultural business model that will function within ALR regulations is an ever-present consideration for many who are already there. Particularly small-lot landowners.

Provincial legislation tightened the regulation of activities in the ALR last fall with an eye to embracing the “agriculture first” criterion proposed by the ALR advisory committee. This is all fine and good from a policy perspective but what does it offer the 110,000 parcels of ALR land that are under 4 ha. (10 acres) in size?

According to Statistics Canada figures from 2016, BC had 17,528 farms. More than 40% of them generated less than $10,000 in annual gross income.

There are many small-parcel success stories but their number will pale in comparison to their overall number. What business model does the government see that will allow small-lot producers escape what has been termed the “$10,000 ghetto?” The current small farm orthodoxy embraces unpaid labour, often in the guise of an apprenticeship. Presumably, the apprentices learn they, too, will have to find apprentices when they strike out on their own, and those apprentices will learn the same, and on it goes like some sort of agricultural Ponzi scheme. Eventually, no one signs on to work for free and the jig is up.

Putting agriculture first on most small farms means investing enormous amounts of time and money, fiscal stress, often family and relationship stress, and convincing yourself that the outcome of the endeavour has so little value that the work involved must be done for free. Top it off with another job (or two) to subsidize the whole enterprise.

The issue is fraught with problems for all concerned. The ALR has been in place for more than 45 years. The broad social objective of saving arable land for food production is hard to argue with and putting agriculture first seems like a natural fit, but how does that work without someone to do the farming?

When it was enacted, the ALR legislation included income insurance and cost-of-production schemes. Those initiatives fell by the wayside long ago and while we have legislation placing land in what amounts to a public trust for agricultural purposes, there is no countervailing legislation requiring the public to purchase any of the resulting production.

If the goal is to save the 110,000 small parcels in the ALR and have someone put them to agricultural use, a more enlightened food policy is necessary. Simply handcuffing producers with tighter regulations and expecting them finance the ALR’s objective with off-farm income and free labour isn’t fair or reasonable.

Such a situation simply guarantees another seismic shift for the ALR when the inevitable change of government comes.

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