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FEBRUARY 2023
Vol. 108 Issue 2

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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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College assignment sparks salsa business

Commercializing a family recipe created a path to growing the ingredients

Tyler Chartrand
rand’s business, Ogopogo Salsa, adds value to local produce. Anna Zeitner

April 1, 2021 byMyrna Stark Leader

KELOWNA – Tyler Chartrand saw a hole in the market he decided to fill. Since 2014, he’s been growing tomatoes and peppers and processing them to make Ogopogo Salsa.

The business idea came to him while he was pursuing an accounting degree at Okanagan College. During an entrepreneurship class, students were tasked with creating a full business plan. Part of his research included learning that salsa was outselling ketchup in the US.

“The other two guys in my group dropped the class so I had free rein. I’d always made salsa with my family in year-supply batches. We had a good recipe and it was a tradition. I didn’t see anybody making it and selling it locally,” says Chartrand.

With a completed business plan in hand, he built a 12×12-foot kitchen in his parent’s basement. He designed the kettle and baskets which were fabricated at a local welding shop. Then he skipped his first month of classes the following September to make salsa.

The venture reached a milestone last September, moving from selling at Kelowna’s farmers market to having the salsa on shelves at local grocers Nature’s Fare, Peter’s Independent Grocer and Paynter’s Fruit Market, a seasonal fruit and vegetable stand in West Kelowna. He also started selling online.

Chartrand grows about 4,000 pounds of tomatoes and 1,000 pounds of peppers on just under an acre of land provided free of charge by Anne Dyck. She and her grown children live on her 15-acre parcel in Kelowna’s Lower Mission neighbourhood, a parcel in the Agricultural Land Reserve that’s mostly been used for hay. Where Chartrand grows was always garden but Dyck’s children were never interested in farming, nor are her grandchildren. So, when Chartrand approached her, even though she didn’t know him, she agreed to let him use the land in return for some fresh produce.

“I was so encouraged to see a young person interested in the land,” says Dyck. “And he’s such a hard worker. He didn’t really know much about growing but he’s not afraid to approach other growers and learn. He’s such a sweetheart.”

Chartrand calls Dyck’s contribution a blessing. Without it, his current business model wouldn’t be profitable since it’s funded by savings.

“I’m pretty risk-adverse, so the business is in the green. But if I had to pay for the land, I probably would have dropped out of the farming business in the first couple years due to the labour involved, the learning curve of failed crops and the cost to keep going,” he says.

Although his father grew up on a farm, his dad had a teaching career so everything Chartrand has learned about farming has been through trial and error, YouTube, and connecting with other local growers like Jennay Oliver, owner of Paynter’s Fruit Market.

“I called her once to ask her how to change the rototiller on the tractor,” he says of Oliver, whose family has been growing in the Okanagan since 1926.

Seed starter

Chartrand grows his plants from seed. Greenhouse and field tomatoes include varieties like Oxheart, San Marzano and others geared towards sauce making. He also grows a mix of hot and sweet peppers.

Peaches for the peach salsa are sourced from Paynter’s as well as Crosby Organics in Kelowna.

Recognizing that great soil is the foundation of his business, Chartrand will focus on soil health this year.

“I’ve partnered up with Optimize Organics. They’ve got their compost tea brewing and are just total nerds on the soil science and microbe synergies. So, I’m very excited to do as much soil-building as possible,” he says. “Getting healthy soil is years in the making but I’m genuinely most thrilled about that this season. It’s part of investing in the future.”

Chartrand works as a builder in the off season, skills he also applies to his farm. In 2014, he built a 500-square foot commercial kitchen/processing facility at his home, a big update from the original basement kitchen.

“My favourite part of the process is the blanching of peaches or tomatoes, because I have this crane now. I can pick up 100 pounds, put it in the boiling water, take it out, take it over to my cold sink bath and it just tilts and everything pours in. In my first kitchen, it was a lot of me scooping and lifting things above my shoulders manually. The iteration process has been a neat journey on the processing side. I also understand now why there isn’t a local salsa. It’s easy to make hundreds of jars but it’s hard to make thousands,” he admits.

His new kitchen allows him to process 240 jars in an eight or nine-hour day compared to about 200 in a 14-hour day in the former space. Last year, he made 5,000 jars of salsa, up from 700 in 2014. His ultimate goal is to produce 10,000 jars a year.

Chartrand is grateful for friends who want to come help in the garden and get paid by the hour. He says he planted the whole acre a few times but was unable to manage the field work and processing at the same time.

“Last year is the first year I was able to really capture everything that I grew, whereas years before, as it turns out, it’s easy to grow a ton of food but trying to time everything like harvesting and processing has been challenging. I’ve made a lot of compost over the years so, you know, it’s not a bad thing,” he says with a laugh.

Although the farmers market was a good way to introduce his product to consumers, especially when people could taste-test the product, Chartrand knows he needs to find new markets if he wants to grow the business.

“I’m slowly getting that mindset in gear but marketing is a full-time thing. As well, I want to grow at a pace I can manage financially and from a growing and processing side,” he says.

Chartrand continues to be motivated at the prospect of building a business that outlives him, one with more employees and bigger production. But he’s taking it one step at a time.

“I graduated, became a live-in caregiver and was able to afford a house in Kelowna before the market went crazy,” he says. “I had this idea of urban homesteading, living more self-sufficiently within an urban setting as opposed to out in the bush. Ogopogo Salsa is recession-proof in the sense that all the overhead costs have been kept under my own living expenses. The factory in my backyard. It’s under my control, and it’s food which everyone needs.”

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