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FEBRUARY 2023
Vol. 108 Issue 2

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7 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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Clifton Ranch sustainability recognized

June 19, 2019 //  by Cathy

The grasslands of the South Okanagan are, according to BC Parks, “one of the four most-endangered ecosystems in Canada.” They’re so significant that discussions to gather them into a national park reserve are in the works.

But protecting grasslands doesn’t necessarily mean fencing them off from cattle, as the Clifton family of Keremeos has shown.

During the BC Cattlemen’s Association annual general meeting in Williams Lake at the end of May, the family-run Clifton Ranch receive the association’s ranch sustainability award. The award considers a ranch’s livestock management practices, land stewardship, animal care, benefit to the environment and contributions to the livestock industry or the local community.

“This year’s recipient was selected for their outstanding commitment to sustainability,” says Renee Ardill, chair of the BCCA environmental stewardship committee. “They are recognized for the large number of species at risk that they support on their landscape, the water developments they have created, and the partnerships they have built to better manage the land.”

One of those partnerships is with the Nature Trust of BC.

“We have land adjacent to an area at White Lake that the Nature Trust of BC had bought to preserve,” explains Wade Clifton in a video BCCA produced to highlight the ranch’s achievements. “They had fenced it off. There were going to be no cattle on the land and they were going to let it go back to a more natural state.”

The ranch was looking to expand its grazing area, however, and started a dialogue with the trust.

“Nature Trust realized that what they were doing wasn’t working,” says Clifton. “We wondered if we were crazy, but we started going to meetings with biologists who said the cattle shouldn’t be there, they will wreck this.”

Careful management of rotational grazing, sometimes only two or three weeks every two years, began to restore the grasslands.

“We were actually able to stimulate the native grasses and take out some of the weeds,” says Clifton. “The land is changing from a spear grass to more of a native species of blue bunchgrass.”

Keeping cattle off the land may not support the native species at risk, says Clifton.

“The cattle have been part of that ecosystem for over 100 years,” he notes. “The reason that most of the species that live there now are there is because of the ecosystem that the cattle have contributed to.”

Biologists now support a system that integrates grazing rather than rejects cattle.

“They see the benefits and understand the cattle are now part of the ecosystem,” says Clifton.

The video documenting the ranch’s practices is available at [https://vimeo.com/339163285].

 

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