DELTA – A veteran of the seed potato sector has stepped down after 44 years with the BC Certified Seed Potato Growers Association. Noel Roddick declined to stand for re-election at the association’s annual general meeting at the end of November. Roddick had served as the association’s secretary-treasurer since 1978, when Richmond grower George Wright …
CROPS
Christmas trees in demand
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,” says Art Loewen of Pine Meadows Tree Farms Ltd. in Chilliwack, who has been growing trees since 1970. “We’re getting …
Potato stocks tight
BC potato yields were decent despite a late start for most growers, but lower production may have processors and producers scrambling for supplies next year. “Normally they would be done planting by sort of mid-May and [this year] they were still trying to get potatoes in the ground in June,” says United Potato Growers of …
Automation boosts market garden’s efficiency
COBBLE HILL – Tracey Wilkin and Don Nelson entered the agricultural industry later in life but apply previous job skills, including marketing and mechanical engineering, to bolster their market garden’s productivity and business strategy. The middle-aged couple from Cobble Hill started their Sayward Haven Farm last year and just wrapped up their second growing season. …
BC Tree challenge falls short
BC Tree Fruits Cooperative members narrowly defeated a motion to turf the co-op’s current board and management at a special general meeting in Peachland, November 22. The special meeting, held just two weeks before the co-op’s regular annual general meeting on December 12, was triggered by members opposed the co-op’s decision to consolidate its packing …
Province funds fruit growers
Training, extension services, pest management and marketing received funding as the province allocated a further $2.5 million in support of the tree fruit sector, November 17. With the hard work of stabilizing the province’s tree fruit sector beginning in earnest, the province hopes a new certificate program at Okanagan College will give growers the training …