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September 2023
Vol. 109 Issue 9

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1 week ago

The Great Spallumcheen Farm & Food Festival and North Okanagan Plowing Match is happening this Sunday, September 24 from 10-3 at Fieldstone Organics, 4851 Schubert Rd, Armstrong. The outdoor festival features tastings and a market brimming with local food and beverage vendors, a horse and tractor plowing competition and vintage farm equipment displays. ... See MoreSee Less

The Great Spallumcheen Farm & Food Festival and North Okanagan Plowing Match is happening this Sunday, September 24 from 10-3 at Fieldstone Organics, 4851 Schubert Rd, Armstrong. The outdoor festival features tastings and a market brimming with local food and beverage vendors, a horse and tractor plowing competition and vintage farm equipment displays.
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Patti 😊

2 weeks ago

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2 weeks ago

The top five issues the Canadian Centre for Food Integrity identified in a recent survey were the cost of food, inflation, the cost of energy, keeping healthy food affordable and the Canadian economy. “We are seeing that environmental concerns are not in the top 10,” says Amy Peck, manager of the Canadian Cattle Association’s public and stakeholder engagement program. “If you are concerned about being able to afford to feed your family, the environment becomes less important.” ... See MoreSee Less

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Ranchers get the backstory on public perception

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VERNON – Ranchers might be concerned about how the public sees their industry, but a producer-funded team at the Canadian Cattle Association has their back. Amy Peck, manager of the Canadian Cattle...
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2 weeks ago

BC Tree Fruit Co-op has sold its Lake Country packing house as part of its long-term plan to consolidate operations. The sale, to an undisclosed buyer, closed on August 31, 2023 for $15.8 million. ... See MoreSee Less

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Lake Country packing house sold

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BC Tree Fruit Co-op has sold its Lake Country packing house as part of its long-term plan to consolidate operations. The sale, to an undisclosed buyer, closed on August 31, 2023 for $15.8 million.
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Who bought it ffs ?

Ted Nedjelski Karen Turner

One of my first jobs was apple grading in a packing plant in Vernon

Vivian, is this where you worked?

I’d hear the company that owns the big Cannabis company that owns the green houses all around this packing plant was buying up everything around to expand. Wonder if it’s them that got it.

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2 weeks ago

The federal government has committed $1.81 million over the next three years to support the BC Poultry Association's preparation for direct participation in responses to future outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza in the province. “The persistence of the virus in wildlife and recurrence of outbreaks globally, presents additional risks during the migratory bird season in North America later in 2023,” the National Collaborating Centre for Environmental Health in Vancouver advised in July. For more, visit www.countrylifeinbc.com/ai-risk-rises-with-fall/ ... See MoreSee Less

The federal government has committed $1.81 million over the next three years to support the BC Poultry Associations preparation  for direct participation in responses to future outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza in the province. “The persistence of the virus in wildlife and recurrence of outbreaks globally, presents additional risks during the migratory bird season in North America later in 2023,” the National Collaborating Centre for Environmental Health in Vancouver advised in July. For more, visit https://www.countrylifeinbc.com/ai-risk-rises-with-fall/
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Comox Valley farmers seek support

The dugout at Amara Farms in Courtenay was down 10 feet in late July and lower than it has ever been for the time of year. Arzeena Hamir / Photo

August 16, 2023 byPeter Mitham

Mid-Island Farmers Institute representatives spoke to the Comox Valley Regional District this week to advocate for a coordinated response to the region’s water shortage and threat of restriction on irrigation water.

“We have a dugout at our farm and it’s virtually empty,” institute president and produce grower Diane Jackson of Fitzgerald Farms in Merville told CVRD directors on August 15.

Jackson says she has been watering her crops just once a week since early July in order to conserve water.

“We’re looking at having to truck water in for our cistern in the future, which will cost about $200 a week to water once a week in order to feed the valley,” says Jackson, who sells her produce locally through farmers markets and other channels. “We’re really hoping that we can get the CVRD along with some of the other people that are involved to come up with a good crisis management plan.”

Jackson also typically irrigates pasture for her sheep, but low yields mean she ordered winter hay in early July knowing supplies would be short, a theme expanded on by institute director Arzeena Hamir of Amara Farms in Courtenay.

Hamir says one livestock grower she knows has already started feeding his winter hay because of low yields this year.

“Vegetable growers are now having to sacrifice crops and pull them out because there’s no water left,” Hamir adds. “We are having to face, as farms, natural resource officers coming to our properties and telling us that, potentially, we can no longer water.”

Hamir says the Mid-Island Farmers Institute would like the CVRD to convene a roundtable focused on the Tsolum watershed with representatives from the province, First Nations, farmers institutes, forest industry and conservation groups.

“You are the level of government that’s closest to the farmers,” she says. “You have relationships with many of the others, and have the ability to bring people together, to bring organizations together.”

This is in line with recommendations of the CVRD’s own watershed plan, and vital to local food security.

“When we can no longer water our fields, water our animals, and we are being told to sacrifice and stop watering while you still have forestry happening up in the headwaters, it just does not make sense,” she says. “It is the farmers that are having to bear the brunt of the mismanagement.”

The institute would also like the CVRD to support zero-interest loans to farmers to install dugouts and cisterns for water storage, noting that existing provincial programs require excessing paperwork that effectively double the cost of projects that should come in under $10,000.

CVRD directors will discuss the institute’s recommendations prior to making any decisions.

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