Communities plan for agriculture

BC communities are taking innovative approaches to agriculture planning with the help of $252,773 from the Investment Agriculture Foundation of BC.

IAFBC’s Local Government Partnership Program awarded eight local governments $252,773 in July for agricultural planning and implementation. While four of the recipients will use the funds to create or update agricultural plans, others are taking a slightly different approach.

Tsawwassen First Nation is the fist Indigenous government to receive funding through the program, which was open to First Nations for the first time this year.

TFN will conduct a community farm pilot on an acre of the 800-plus acres of agricultural land it received when its treaty took effect in 2009. The pilot builds on its 2013 agricultural plan and was identified as one of four priorities in its 2020 agricultural business plan. The pilot aims to build capacity and food security.

Alberni-Clayoquot Regional District will be looking at ways to bring Indigenous perspectives into its existing food and agriculture planning processes. It adopted an agricultural plan in 2011.

IAFBC funds will also support an Islands Trust review of farming regulations on Denman Island, which completed an agricultural strategy in 2011 and a farm plan in 2012.

Township of Spallumcheen is creating an agricultural industry plan for its southeast sector to augment its 2006 agricultural plan.

Four regional districts have received funding to create or update agricultural plans. Plans will be created for the Cariboo Regional District and the Lower Columbia region in the Regional District of Kootenay Boundary. Comox Valley and Central Okanagan regional districts will be reviewing and updating their existing plans, prepared in 2002 and 2005, respectively.

“This is a great crop of local government projects,” says IAFBC chair Jack DeWit. “Agricultural planning is vital at all levels of government, especially for regional districts, municipalities, First Nations, and other local governments. It’s so important to provide funding for planning at that local level to ensure the success of agriculture across our province, for everyone’s benefit.”

IAFBC relaunched the Local Government Partnership Program in April after a two-year hiatus. Since the first round was fully allocated, a second intake for up to $250,000 in funding is set for this fall.

The funding is through the Agri-Food Futures Fund, with the federal and provincial governments created in 2001 to finance development activities across a broad range of sectors. The trust managing the fund winds up in 2022, meaning the remaining funds must be allocated before then.

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18 hours ago

Forty-six regions in BC are eligible to participate in the federal livestock tax deferral program, announced yesterday, more than anywhere else in the country. The program allows producers who downsize their breeding herds by 15% to defer reporting the proceeds until the following year, when they buy replacement stock. But after multiple years of drought, the BC beef herd is cruising 25-year lows and some producers are calling for more support to maintain and rebuild their herds. For more, see: [www.countrylifeinbc.com/bc-leads-livestock-tax-deferrals/]

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5 days ago

After weeks and weeks of no moisture, there's rain in Kelowna today. While much more moisture is needed over the coming weeks and months to reduce drought conditions and the air smells of wet campfire, the slow, steady rain is very welcome for fruit grower#BCAg#BCAg ... See MoreSee Less

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6 days ago

The first Delta Farmland and Wildlife Trust Grassland Set-aside Variety Trial Field Day was held at Delta's family-owned Tecarte Farms, August 27. Co-owner Bill Bates and DFWT executive director Christine Schmalz welcomed more than 35 people to view seven acres planted to different grassland blends specifically chosen to rejuvenate the soil and support the farm's blueberries. For the Bates family, it was time to try something different following the decline of the field's blueberry bushes over the past several years. "We tried everything, and nothing worked," says Bates. The blueberries were removed in May and the grassland crops planted about a week later.

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Bessette Creek is the latest watershed hit with a temporary fish protection order this year as the province moves to protect returning Chinook salmon. A total of 131 surface and groundwater users must cease drawing water immediately, with forage producers, greenhouses and nurseries impacted. "Declining flows in Bessette Creek reached record lows in early July 2026 and have remained below the minimum level required to support fish population survival," says the province. Bessette producers have embraced voluntary cutbacks, scheduled irrigation and other measures to reduce water use, and are also waiting on funding to boost water storage infrastructure. They're the second group of producers hit with a provincial order this year. Salmon River irrigators were told to top watering earlier this month following a reprieve to address wildfire risk. Growers in both the Salmon River and Bessette watersheds are urging the province to support new water storage infrastructure in advance of next year.

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There is a problem... having lived in the salmon river ( silver creek ) area, I remember a fish biologist telling family members that salmon only "survive" in high iron content creeks, they do not "thrive".... salmon river ( silver creek ) is a very high iron content, would stain clothes brown when i would use bleach... So don't expect high salmon numbers off of that creek , even in ideal situations...

I just wish they would take an interest in CHASE CREEK....went bone dry...100% of trout abd other species died...smell was terrible from rotting fish. Understand this has happened many times in the past. Chase Irrigation District totally responsible for this disaster. Now fishermen are complaining about major drop in water levels at Pillar Lake.

They could not mismanage things worse than they have. It's impossible for them to. The fact that farmers that we need for our animals are now suffering the consequences our governments have not protected us from, is absolutely fucking wild.