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Originally published:

MARCH 2022
Vol. 108 Issue 3

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Stories In This Edition

Lucky chickens

$227m rebuild fund

Glyphosate shortage looms

Province opens ALR to agritech development

Editorial: Divorced from the earth

Back 40: Broken supply chain weakens food system

Viewpoint: BC’s emergency response needs improvement

Building back better means avoiding past mistakes

Sidebar: Grand Forks initiative protects farms

Rural, urban areas prepare for extreme weather

Ag Briefs: Property owner appeals BC SPCA seizure

Ag Briefs: Province sued over mind ban

Farm income projected to reach new heights

Potato growers brace for higher input costs

Keeping cranberries cool a hot topic

Rewarding farmers for enhancing riparian areas

Sidebar: Farmers need not apply

Diversification drives growth of organic farm

Leadership skills can help farmers cope with disaster

Winter rainbow

Compost facilities facing pushback

Cheese leads the way as BC dairies seek capacity

Island yogurt producer boosting production

Grape growers prepare for climate change

The perfect solution for farmers on the go

Small-lot egg producer awarded quota

Sidebar: Future quota draws likely limited

Broiler health in spotlight for small-lot farmers

Pest data helps with management decisions

Research: Researchers discover a world of apple microbiomes

Farms meet the demand for local food

Better berry harvester meets growers’ needs

Farm Story: Spring demands the old heave-ho

Safety in the spotlight as farms recover

Woodshed: Henderson style has chins wagging

Chilliwack teams plow past the century mark

Jude’s Kitchen: Spring has sprung! Time to make bread!

 

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BC Cattlemen’s Association members gathered in Cranbrook for their 97th AGM last week. BCCA president Werner Stump welcomed upwards of 300 ranchers as he signalled a change in tone with the association’s approach to government. “We are going to be a lot more blunt in our dealings with government as we fight for our livelihood,” Stump told his audience. The North American herd size remains down, and calf prices are expected to stay strong, says Brenna Grant from Canfax. “We could see $5.50 -$5.70 this fall for a 5(00) weight calves.” Duncan and Jane Barnett and family from Barnett Land and Livestock in 150 Mile House received the Ranch Sustainability Award, which recognized their riparian management and community involvement. From left to right, Clayton Loewen with Jane, Duncan and Lindsay Barnett.

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BC Cattlemen’s Association members gathered in Cranbrook for their 97th AGM last week. BCCA president Werner Stump welcomed upwards of 300 ranchers as he signalled a change in tone with the association’s approach to government. “We are going to be a lot more blunt in our dealings with government as we fight for our livelihood,” Stump told his audience. The North American herd size remains down, and calf prices are expected to stay strong, says Brenna Grant from Canfax. “We could see $5.50 -$5.70 this fall for a 5(00) weight calves.” Duncan and Jane Barnett and family from Barnett Land and Livestock in 150 Mile House received the Ranch Sustainability Award, which recognized their riparian management and community involvement. From left to right, Clayton Loewen with Jane, Duncan and Lindsay Barnett.

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Congratulations!!!

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Congratulations Duncan and Jane Trott Barnett Well deserved recognition

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Congratulations to Duncan, Jane, and all the rest of the Barnett family!

Congratulations Duncan and Jane!!

Congratulations Jane and Ducan! Sandra Andresen Hawkins

Congratulations Jane & Duncan 🥳

Congratulation Duncan & Jane!!

Congratulations Jane Trott Barnett and Duncan!!!

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2 weeks ago

Grapegrower Colleen Ingram, who was recognized earlier this year as the 2024 Grower of the Year by the BC Grapegrowers Association. “Given the devastation we have had over the last three years, I feel like this award should be given to the entire industry,” she says. Her story appears in the June edition of Country Life in BC, and we've also posted to our website.

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Industry champion named BC’s best grape grower

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KELOWNA – Colleen Ingram’s enthusiasm for collaboration within the BC wine industry is so great that when she was named 2024 Grower of the Year by the BC Grapegrowers Association, she wanted to sh...
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2 months ago

From orchard manager to government specialist and now executive director of the BC Fruit Growers Association, Adrian Arts brings a rare blend of hands-on farming experience and organizational leadership to an industry poised for renewal. His appointment comes at a pivotal moment for BC fruit growers, with Arts expressing enthusiasm about continuing the momentum built by his predecessor and working alongside a board that signals a generational shift in agricultural advocacy.

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Arts leads BCFGA forward

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A combination of organizational management and practical farming experience has primed the new executive director of the BC Fruit Growers Association to lead the industry forward.
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2 months ago

A public consultation is now underway on the powers and duties of the BC Milk Marketing Board. Key issues for dairy producers include transportation costs, rules governing shipments and limitations on supporting processing initiatives. Stakeholders have until May 31 to comment.

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Milk board undertakes review

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A public consultation on the powers and duties of the BC Milk Marketing Board is underway as part of a triennial review required by the British Columbia Milk Marketing Board Regulation.
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Building back better means avoiding past mistakes

Going with the flow of status quo invites future disaster

The rush to rebuild in areas of the province hammered by rain and floodwaters needs to include strategies that reduce future risk. SUBMITTED

March 1, 2022 byTom Walker

KELOWNA – Planners and decision-makers are in a difficult position as they face the challenge of creating a plan to mitigate damage from last November’s unprecedented rainfall.

On the one hand, property owners want a return to life as it was, minus the water. But at the same time, building back – even if it is better – does not guarantee that future disasters won’t be repeated.

If nothing changes, the same properties face the same potential for damage in the future, warns Tamsin Lyle, principal of Ebbwater Consulting in Vancouver.

Lyle spoke to the Okanagan Basin Water Board’s water stewardship council in February and reminded them that flooding is both natural and necessary.

“Flooding is the reason we have the wonderful farming area of the Lower Mainland,” she says. “But when flooding interacts with things we care about, we have a problem.”

That interaction caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage in November to more than 1,100 farm properties on Sumas Prairie, in the Nicola Valley and Princeton, according to the province. Yet if planners don’t expand their toolbox of mitigation strategies, we are at risk of the same amount of damage occurring again, says Lyle.

Lyle urges planners to evolve past a singular approach to flood management.

“We need to break out of the serial engineering path,” she quips. “Don’t put so much emphasis on dikes. They do breach and last November showed us how catastrophic a breach can be. There are so many other non-structural things we could be doing.”

Restoring the more than 600 km of dikes across the Lower Mainland shows that government is responsive and is good for people, says Lyle, but it doesn’t address the fundamental risks extreme weather poses.

“We know that climate change will continue to increase the hazards of extreme weather events and we know that expanding development in the Fraser Valley will increase the numbers of people vulnerable to those events,” she says.

The latest flood event caused disruptions similar to those of the 1948 freshet, notes Lyle.

The accepted response after 1948 was to build more dikes to protect the population living on the flood plain, which is now more than 10 times what it was then.

Lyle says planners should consider three non-structural risk reduction strategies under the themes of land stewardship, land-use management and building management.

With land stewardship, planners and government work to maintain and restore natural assets and systems such as watersheds, wetlands and riparian areas.

Land use management involves developing strategies and regulations to reduce exposure. Limiting or selecting development within a flood zone reduces the number of people or businesses that could be impacted.

Sumas Prairie has much to offer as a farming location but building a processing operation such as a packing facility outside the flood zone would eliminate the risk for that business. Provincial animal and plant health labs that were closed due to flood damage also don’t need to be on the floodplain.

Building management involves strategies and regulations that can reduce the sensitivity of structures to flood damage. Building codes can require flood protection, ranging from placing structures above flood levels (Sumas Prairie homes often sit atop a berm) to using flood-resistant materials, or even constructing a permanent water barrier around a building.

Rush to rebuild

In the rush to return to normal, Lyle says planners can overlook other important values. The dikes built following the 1948 flood often failed to consider Indigenous values.

While no one would criticize the rapid rebuilding of critical highway infrastructure following the most recent floods and landslides, she says thousands of tonnes of untreated rock were dumped into important waterways in the process.

But economic forces may mandate change faster than planners, Lyle believes.

She has spoken with pension fund executives who are worried about the losses that they’re taking on real estate investments in the Fraser Valley. Banks are reluctant to lend money right now to Fraser Valley farmers, and insurers are declining coverage.

“Insurers are saying that are no longer interested in insuring as it doesn’t make sense on the financial side,” she says. “These are really powerful tools for change.”

 

 

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