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Originally published:

SEPTEMBER 2021
Vol. 107 Issue 9

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Stories In This Edition

Wildfire response improves

Bad timing for election call

Hay there!

Food sales still reeling from the pandemic

Editorial: Restart, regenerate

Back 40: Anti-vax rhetoric is far worse than the cure

Viewpoint: Organic practices key to our collective well-being

Producers face unannounced welfare checks

Livestock feel the heat as forage dries up

Farmers take issue with water restrictions

Ag Briefs: Grape growers optimistic as harvest approaches

Ag Briefs: Greenhouse nursery specialist named

Feed BC connects producers with opportunities

Sidebar: Nutrition program continues

Growers welcome grocer code of conduct

Chicken growers address heat stress

Greenhouse growers undertake strategic plan

Turning manure into renewable energy

Sidebar: Biogas gets a boost with changes to regulations

Blueberry growers welcome higher berry prices

Ranchers, farmers on the wildfire frontlines

Sidebar: Water and fans keep cattle cool

Province halts livestock watering reg update

BC farm sales sets new monthly record

Mental wellness resources meet a growing need

Sidebar: Mental health resources

Saving the farm business hinges on planning

Hot potatoes

Farmers produce crops, and loads of plastic

Barnston Island farmers face uncertain future

Market garden rises from battle of the weeds

Sidebar: Oostenbrink’s tips for no-till vegetables

Research: Bumblebee declines not as dire as study states

A non-family succession plan that worked

Living plants are revolutionizing herb sales

Food hub readies for fall opening

Farm Story: Good help at the right time

Small-scale abattoir in the works for Island

Breeding better tasting beets

Woodshed Chronicles: Plans unfold for the ride of a lifetime

Young entrepreneur weaves new use for twine

Jude’s Kitchen: Simpler eats for a new, normal September

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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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Farmers take issue with water restrictions

Food security requires access to water, say growers

built a 500,000 gallon dugout six years ago to stabilize her water supply. SUBMITTED

September 1, 2021 byKate Ayers And Peter Mitham

GIBSONS – With a growing number of watersheds reaching Level 4 drought restrictions or higher, some farmers say regulators need to make greater allowances for food production.

Sunshine Coast Regional District recently implemented Level 4 drought restrictions which prohibit all outdoor water use, including for agriculture.

That doesn’t sit well with Raquel Kolof of Hough Heritage Farm in Gibsons and president of the Sunshine Coast Farmers Institute.

“All farmers, including commercial food farmers, were cut off from outdoor water use on August 10, 2021, as the SCRD went into stage 4 water restrictions on the Sunshine Coast,” she says. “[But] breweries, distilleries and industrial cannabis grow ops have unrestricted water use simply due to the fact that their operations are indoors.”

The farmers institute promptly sent a letter to the Sunshine Coast Regional District asking it to exempt soil-based farmers from the restrictions. It had previously changed the rules in 2019 to exempt farmers until Level 4, but Kolof says allowing industrial users to draw water while prohibiting growers from watering their crops doesn’t make sense.

“Water restrictions based on indoor versus outdoor water use are arbitrary, unfair and not in the best interest of our communities’ need for food security, nor our aquifer’s and ecosystem’s long-term health,” the letter says. “Soil-based farming supports our ecosystem and reverses climate change. Soil-based farmers with healthy living crops and livestock-grazed pastures sequester carbon. This carbon drawdown into living roots feeds our soil microbiome and cools our climate.”

The letter also notes that healthy pastures, cropland and orchards also support wildlife and feed pollinators, which are essential to the food supply as well as being an environmental benefit.

Nature Tech Nursery

co-owner Thom O’Dell in Courtenay also flags the environmental benefits of maintaining agricultural water use.

Drought ratings in two watersheds in the Comox Valley are at Level 4, a stage at which adverse impacts become likely. While maintaining stream flows protects fish, O’Dell would like to see the province support greater investment in on-farm water management.

Nature Tech has yet to hear back regarding its water licence application 19 months after submission and is now considering whether or not to develop a dugout for water storage.

“We hope that the province will implement funding for water storage as it is increasingly clear that we need to do much more to adapt to climate change,” he says. “We think that is a simple and cost-effective contribution that would serve complementary goals of assisting small farmers to be more sustainable in terms of their water use while also enhancing conservation efforts for salmon and other riparian species by reducing the use of surface water by farmers in the growing season.”

Courtenay beef producer Brad Chappell of Heart of the Valley Farms says the federal government also needs to step up.

“If the federal government truly wants to help agriculture, they should develop a plan through grants and financing in regions to develop off-stream and extra watering facilities like dugouts and wells,” he says.

Courtenay organic producer Arzeena Hamir has ensured a stable supply of water for her four acres of vegetables with a dugout she built in 2015. It stores 500,000 gallons of water, augmenting what her well delivers.

Water access is most acute in the Koksilah watershed, one of a growing number of watersheds in the province now rated Level 5, when a “high likelihood of significant irreversible harm to the aquatic ecosystem” are almost certain.

Growers along the Koksilah River became the first in the province to face restrictions under BC’s Water Sustainability Act in 2019 when water access was cut as stream flows fell below 180 litres per second.

“All the streams and wells that are in the Koksilah watershed and support the river and are used for irrigation were also included,” says David Tattam, a producer and environmental farm plan advisor. To manage the risk, a group of 19 producers developed an irrigation scheduling system that sees half of them irrigate four days then the other half irrigate for four days during drought conditions. This approach helped maintain water use until midnight on August 17 when the province once again cut off users as flow levels dropped.

However, some farmers in the area decided not to irrigate at all this year, says Tattam.

“They have to put so much water on that it wasn’t cost effective,” he explains. “Farmers take a pretty big hit financially even with the scheduling. It’s better than no irrigation but you’re only irrigating half the time. They reduce the opportunity of getting second and third crops off. … We’re hoping in the future that we can come up with something better than scheduling and find opportunities to develop access to water.”

Secure access to water will be key for agricultural production to continue in BC. This point was highlighted in a 2006 report for the province, which estimated that an additional 92,000 hectares of irrigated farmland would be needed by 2025 for BC farmers to continue supplying 48% of the province’s food supply.

Climate change, and the responses of local government, has only exacerbated the importance of secure access to water.

The urgency of the situation is prompting some producers to get political.

Cammy and James Lockwood of Lockwood Farms in Cobble Hill have 6,000 laying hens and a market garden, both of which suffered during this summer’s heat waves. They did their best to keep the lettuce and brassicas cool so it wouldn’t go to seed but still lost about 4,000 heads of lettuce.

“Plants were literally just getting scorched. On the nursery side, a lot of the leaves just burnt even when they were well watered,” says Cammy, noting that the farm’s well struggled to keep up with demand.

Growers in the eastern Fraser Valley also made huge demands on their aquifers, and Lockwood says governments need to pay attention.

“I feel not enough is being done about this,” she says. “The government is not treating it like the crisis it is. Food security is at top of mind through the wildfires and heat dome.”

This summer’s events pushed Lockwood to become more politically involved in her region and she will support the Green Party in the upcoming federal election.

“As farmers, we are on the front lines of the climate crisis and it’s getting harder and harder to grow food,” Lockwood says.

With files from Barbara Johnstone Grimmer

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