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Originally published:

MAY 2020
Vol. 106 Issue 5

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Stories In This Edition

Rapid response

Worker health crisis

Spring melt floods Cariboo

Foreign Labour an essential service for fruit growers

Editorial: Watershed moments

Back Forty: COVID-19 will be a reality check for many

Viewpoint: Register now, question later to keep water rights

COVID-19 has varied impact on poultry sector

Social distancing

Honey producers keep focus on research

Beekeepers stung about import issues

Sidebar: Advocating for technology transfer

Farmland values facing headwinds

IAFBC defers major decisions

BCAC focuses on public trust with lower budget

AgSafe governance set for a shake-up

COVID-19 leads to oversupply of dairy

BC Fairs positive as large events banned

Peace growers facing multiple challenges

Co-op considers four-way fix at crossroads

Surprise audits to double

Co-op focuses on cutting costs, increasing sales

Volatility from plant shutdowns could hit BC

Island farmers renew request for local abattoir

Meat processing capacity stable despite closures

Direct marketing saves producers’ bacon

Small producers ride the online sales wave

Farm equipment dealers keep sale smoving

Strawberry growers pin survival on levies

Sidebar: Blueberry and raspberry AGMs postponed

Raspberry growers target fresh market, quality

Apple soda breaks ground in saturated market

Chilliwack family cracks open direct sales

EFB-resistant trees not out of the woods

Distillery shows resilience as it adapts to market

Home gardeners overwhelm seed companies

Sidebar: Commercial seed supply affected

Research: Viruses pursue unique strategies to evolve

Moisture sensors are not created equal

Woodshed: Kenneth gives new meaning to social isoluation

Farmers’ markets go online as channels shift

Farm Story: Pandemic forces a hard pivot to stay in the game

Cheesemaker adapts to coronavirus restrictions

Jude’s Kitchen: Stay-healty food in uneasy times

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4 weeks ago

It’s been four years since the last tulip festival was held in Abbotsford, but this year’s event promises to be an even bigger spectacle than ever. Spanning 27 acres along Marion Road, Lakeland Flowers will display more than 70 varieties of the spring blossom, including fringe tulips and double tulips, the first of six months of flower festivals hosted by the farm. Writer Sandra Tretick spoke with Lakeland Flowers owner Nick Warmerdam this spring to find out how the floods on Sumas Prairie in 2021 have had an impact on his business plan as he transitions from wholesale cut flower grower to agri-tourism. We've posted the story to our website this month. It's a good read.

#CLBC #countrylifeinbc #tulipfestival
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Tulip grower makes the shift to agritourism

www.countrylifeinbc.com

ABBOTSFORD – On a bright sunny day in early April, Nick Warmerdam points out his office window at No. 4 and Marion roads to a spot about half a kilometre away across the Trans-Canada Highway.
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Omg 🥹 Jared Huston let’s go pls

1 month ago

Farming, like any other job.. only you punch in at age 5 and never punch out 🚜 ... See MoreSee Less

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Easton Roseboom Levi Roseboom🚜

1 month ago

The province is allocating $15 million to be administered by the Investment Agriculture Foundation of BC. for a perennial crop replant program benefitting tree fruit, hazelnut, berry and grape growers. The program aims to cover 100% of plant removal costs and 75% of replanting costs. Funds are also available for sector development. The new program replaces a suite of sector-specific replant programs and recognizes the importance of sector adaptation in the face of market, disease and weather challenges. ... See MoreSee Less

The province is allocating $15 million to be administered by the Investment Agriculture Foundation of BC. for a perennial crop replant program benefitting tree fruit, hazelnut, berry and grape growers. The program aims to cover 100% of plant removal costs and 75% of replanting costs. Funds are also available for sector development. The new program replaces a suite of sector-specific replant programs and recognizes the importance of sector adaptation in the face of market, disease and weather challenges.
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1 month ago

Just a week after the Canadian Food Inspection Agency officials revoked the last primary control zones established in the Fraser Valley to control last fall’s outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza, a new detection on April 29 at a commercial premises in Chilliwack underscored the risk of a spring wave. This is the first new detection since January 22, also in Chilliwack, and brings to 104 the number of premises affected since the current outbreak began April 13, 2022. The disease has impacted 3.7 million birds in BC over the past year. ... See MoreSee Less

Just a week after the Canadian Food Inspection Agency officials revoked the last primary control zones established in the Fraser Valley to control last fall’s outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza, a new detection on April 29 at a commercial premises in Chilliwack underscored the risk of a spring wave. This is the first new detection since January 22, also in Chilliwack, and brings to 104 the number of premises affected since the current outbreak began April 13, 2022. The disease has impacted 3.7 million birds in BC over the past year.
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Any other details for FVN and chillTV please? radiodon11@gmail.com

1 month ago

The province is contributing $3.2 million for upgrades to the Barrowtown pump station in Abbotsford that was overwhelmed during the November 2021 flooding on Sumas Prairie, part of a collaborative approach to flood mitigation in the region. During a press conference at the BC Ministry of Agriculture and Food offices in Abbotsford today, the province said a collaborative approach that includes First Nations is needed as Abbotsford pursues a comprehensive flood mitigation strategy due to the potential impacts on Indigenous lands. Agriculture's interests will be represented by technical teams within the agriculture ministry. ... See MoreSee Less

The province is contributing $3.2 million for upgrades to the Barrowtown pump station in Abbotsford that was overwhelmed during the November 2021 flooding on Sumas Prairie, part of a collaborative approach to flood mitigation in the region. During a press conference at the BC Ministry of Agriculture and Food offices in Abbotsford today, the province said a collaborative approach that includes First Nations is needed as Abbotsford pursues a comprehensive flood mitigation strategy due to the potential impacts on Indigenous lands. Agricultures interests will be represented by technical teams within the agriculture ministry.
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I sure hope part of that money is to educate the people in charge of the pumps and drainage system! They just relayed on computers and weren’t even physically monitoring the water levels. I’ve lived in the Fraser Valley my whole life and the old guys managing that system know how to do it. The new generation just sit behind computer screens and don’t physically watch the water levels. That system works very well when you do it right. The Fraser river levels are very important. The system is designed to drain the Sumas Canal (the part that runs thru the valley) into the Fraser. When they let it get backed up it put pressure on the dyke and the weak part burst. Simple science. And yes, the dykes need to be worked on too. Abbotsford has not been maintaining properly for years.

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Distillery shows resilience as it adapts to market

COVID-19 creates opportunity for Forbidden Spirits’ alcohol

May 1, 2020 byMyrna Stark Leader

KELOWNA – A retired accountant from Vancouver has given a mature orchard a new lease on life with a vodka that’s finding a niche in local and international markets.

Blair Wilson and his wife moved to southeast Kelowna about 10 years ago after several business ventures in Vancouver and a career in federal politics, including sitting as the Green Party of Canada’s first-ever MP. The couple settled on a 20-acre parcel that came with 6,000 Ambrosia and about 300 Spartan apple trees. Not one to relax, Wilson took up farming. The fruit was sold to BC Tree Fruits Co-op.

“I never realized how hard being a farmer is until then,” says Wilson, a self-proclaimed entrepreneur.

When he saw the returns he was getting for the fruit, he decided there must be another opportunity. He explored making cider but the cost of canning was prohibitive. Instead, he settled on vodka production after chatting with a copper still manufacturer at a whiskey conference in Seattle.

He hired a chemist to figure out the right components for a winning recipe, including a proprietary yeast. Wilson’s apples plus apple concentrate from Kelowna’s Sun-Rype juice plant now underpin two premium apple vodkas: Rebel, which is distilled 25 times, and Forbidden Spirits, distilled 50 times. Added distillations remove impurities and create a smoother-tasting end product.

“Typical vodkas tend to be distilled between three and 10 times,” he explains.

It takes about 25 pounds of apples make one 750-ml bottle of Rebel.

Wilson opened a production facility and tasting room in 2019 and recently received a lounge licence for a 75-seat outdoor patio. Additional tanks were added this spring to accommodate orders he’d been working hard to negotiate from the European Union and China.

“When you have a great-tasting, quality product that’s made in Canada, foreigners are willing to buy. They love the Canadian reputation of being safe and producing things that are safe, clean, and good for you, and that’s helped with marketing,” he says.

But exports demand attention to details quite different from the local market.

“Each country and even each port sometimes has different rules about importing alcohol,” says Wilson. “Navigating the continually shifting sands of economic politics and trade, like Brexit, also takes persistence and agility.”

On the plus side, he says a free trade agreement with Europe means products from Canada don’t face the 25% tariff that US products do. China’s palate for alcohol is also changing from sweeter to dryer, creating opportunities there as well. This spring, Wilson and his wife were booked to be part of a trade mission to South Korea organized by the BC government but it was cancelled due to COVID-19.

That’s not the only change in plans the distillery has faced this spring.

In April, Forbidden Spirits retooled its processing to meet an emerging demand brought about by COVID-19 for industrial-grade alcohol for hand sanitizer, joining the likes of Okanagan Spirits, Wise Acre Distillery and others across the province.

Wilson says the speed of the approval process for the switch amazed him. He put his application in with the federal government to produce alcohol for sanitizer one day and received a phone call from them the next.

“We have all the paperwork done and the licences and continue to work to source bottles, which is the common challenge. I’ve managed to find some in Kentucky,” he says.

Provincial regulations allow production through July 15.

With the new business model, including sanitizer give-away days for the public, Wilson hopes to at least break even without the usual tasting room traffic and overseas sales, both on hold due to COVID-19.

With an estimated daily production of 1,000 litres of sanitizer, he looks forward to rehiring staff laid off in early March when normal business halted. He’s thankful the federal government is providing a 75% subsidy for small business wages to help him make payroll and help cover interim carrying and operating costs during the crisis.

While they are still selling vodka locally, foreign orders are on hold, but there is vodka in tanks ready when the crisis passes.

Wilson is also working to put together a Canadian Craft Spirit Association, a national group that will lobby for changes to the $3.51 federal excise tax per bottle that craft distillers have to pay when producing limited quantities using local Canadian agriculture products.

 

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