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Originally published:

October 2018
Vol. 104 Issue 10

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Stories In This Edition

Sheep thrills

Farm employers on edge

Right-to-farm case upheld

Snow puts the brakes on Peace grain harvest

Editorial: The hands that feed us

Back Forty: Saving farmland fruitless without water

Op Ed: US could learn a thing (or two) from Canada

Piece-rate study sets stage for payday changes

Photo: Day at the Farm

Berry growers report decent growing season

FIRB posed to set live BC chicken prices – again

BCYAF grants support key 4-H initiatives

Cherry growers hit hardest by wildfire smoke

Ag Briefs: Winner

Ag Briefs: Right to Farm Act review cancelled

Local governments can’t undermine ALR rules

Winfield grower has ambitious cannabis plans

Province funds land-matching program

BC Fresh expands to meet national demand

Challenging year fails to daunt new producer

Corn trials focus on lower heat units for BC

When the right thing turns out to be wrong

Wildfires prompt local response planning

Mixer-feeder offers all-in-one feeding option

Non-traditional forage mixtures promising

Small farmers network targets knowledge gap

Hazelnut renewal enters second phase

Research: Scratch that itch

Partners announced for farmers’ market trail

FV land limitations means higher density

Fair lives up to its farm roots

Pumpkin growers use crop to reach out to public

Wannabe Farmer: The usual gives plenty of cause for thanks

Woodshed: Wishful thinking as Caribbean holiday nears

Jude’s Kitchen: Fall heralds heartier meals, yummy appies

 

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6 days 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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2 weeks 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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Cherry growers hit hardest by wildfire smoke

Apple growers benefit, while grape growers optimistic

October 2, 2018 byTom Walker

KELOWNA – Cooler, clearer weather has finally beaten back smoke from the province’s worst wildfire season on record that delivered air quality worse than Beijing, but producer groups are reporting mixed effects.

Hank Markgraf, field services manager at BC Tree Fruits, says the smoky skies were the worst he’s ever seen, and that created problems for cherry growers.

“The smoke caused higher than normal humidity levels and that led to increased mildew pressure in cherry orchards,” he says. “If growers didn’t get on top of it with their sprays, it led to damaged fruit. It’s tough to have to tell a grower that their delivery to the packing house can’t be accepted because the fruit is damaged.”

While the smoke was an unprecedented phenomenon for Okanagan growers, it may have helped apple growers.

“The smoke cover gave us cooler temperatures and that slowed down the growth of the fruit to a more normal pace,” Markgraf says.

Apple trees don’t like constant 35-degree days, he explains.

“The trees will actually shut down and stop growing on hot afternoons. The fruit doesn’t get to size up and we get a lot of small apples like we saw last year, which is a nightmare for the marketing folks.”

The smoke also helped prevent sunburn in the apple crop.

“If we had had the bright intense sun that we know was there above the smoke day after day, we would not be in as good a shape as we are,” Markgraf says.

While residents across the province felt like they were living next to a campfire for days, Markgraf says the taste of apples won’t be affected.

“We do taste tests all the time and it is just not showing up,” he says.

Whether or not the smoke reduced photosynthesis and affected crops is not known at this time.

Touchy subject

The topic of smoke taint in the grape crop is a sensitive issue and one hard to predict.

“Nobody wants to suggest that their wine might be off,” Glenn McGourty from the University of California

Cooperative Extension told the BC Grape Growers’ Association at its annual general meeting this past April.

“We don’t like to use the word ‘taint’ but rather ‘smoky flavours,’” McGourty told growers.

Smoke flavours concentrate in the grape skin, so red wine – where juice usually sits on the skins during fermentation to yield colour – is more at risk than white wine.

Researchers at UBC Okanagan are researching ways to test grapes and predict the effect of smoke exposure on the finished wines, however.

UBCO assistant professor of chemistry Wes Zandberg, together with doctoral student Matt Noestheden, is working to develop a testing protocol.

“Although we have a sensitive and accurate smoke taint test for the grapes, ultimately we have to recognize that trying to predict how wine is going to taste from the chemical analysis of fresh fruit is challenging,” says Zandberg. “We can run our tests and we can give vineyards and winemakers a heads-up that they should be planning for the possibility, but really absolute certainty requires fermentation.”

Noestheden, who also works with the Kelowna company Supra Research & Development, confirms that they have been looking at quite a few samples from across the valley this year.

“I know that a number of wineries have gone to the length of doing a small batch fermentation to sample their fruit and we are involved with testing those,” he says.

Zandberg says wineries aren’t powerless in the face of smoke taint, noting several tools are available to address the issue.

“There is reverse osmosis, and you can think about blending wines,” he says. “We are really in the plan-ahead business so that growers can be thinking about their options.”

While smoke lay thick across the Okanagan in 2017 as well, Noestheden says he hasn’t heard of any issues with last year’s vintage. He’s optimistic that 2018 will have the same outcome even though conditions seemed worse.

“There are more people worried this year, but we still don’t have any evidence that there will be a problem with this year’s vintage,” he says.

Forage setbacks

Serena Black, general manager of the BC Forage Council, says there are some anecdotal reports from forage producers in the Cariboo that the quality of forage may be lower.

“I know a couple of people who have borrowed our testing equipment, so I will get some information back from those samples,” she says. “I certainly think it affected my home garden here in Prince George, but we don’t really know at this time.”

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