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Originally published:

APRIL 2020
Vol. 106 Issue 4

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Stories In This Edition

Sheep labour

Growers scramble for workers

Province implements Bill 15

Farmers’ markets help communities recover

Looking ahead

Back 40: Food security demands out-of-box thinking

Viewpoint: Government needs to step up farm support

Groundwater bill causes confusion for Island farmer

Cannabis expansion goes up in smoke

Dairy producers surveyed on regulation impact

Institute keeps ALR changes on the front burner

Organic growers face mainstream competition

Egg producers reflect on productive year

Better together: Broilers, hating eggs collaborate

A job well done

Turkey growers see slow demand for birds

Dairy driving increase in semen sales

Beef conference BC-bound

Dairy producers rail against new transport rules

Beef industry looks beyond pandemic

Abattoirs required to cut back overtime

Tax credit review

Cattlemen take their concerns to Ottawa

Cattle sales an essential service

Funding will help farmers address nutrient runoff

Manure management guide updated for small-lot farmers

Potato growers optimistic

Hazelnut growers survey indsutry

Cherry growers focus on export opportunities

Weather woes drive cranberry yields lower

NFU highlights role for ag in climate crisis

Research: Reducing dairy production’s carbon footprint

Independent corn trials a priority for group

Silage management must be taken seriously

Brewing a local future

Orchardists urged to work smarter, not harder

Breakout sessions take growers deeper

Farm News: With spring comes a field of dreams

BCAFM considers Alberta vendors in border markets

Woodshed: Kenneth reaches a new low in the Bahamas

Authentic stories will resonate with consumers

Jude’s Kitchen: Food for holy days

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1 month 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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Food security demands out-of-box thinking

April 1, 2020 byBob Collins

Food security has been a core public health program of the BC Ministry of Health since 2005.

A food security model core program was released in 2006. The original program was updated in 2013.

The paper outlines the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)’s definition of food security, and the four dimensions required to achieve it. A chart then neatly boxes 53 potential influences on food security in BC.

Among the boxes is one for Agriculture, one for Fisheries and one for Farmers, Growers, and Fishers.

Noticeable by their absence are any boxes for drought, flood, fire, hail, frost, insect infestation, pandemic illness, red tape and regulation, wildlife damage, or that thing no one ever could have imagined. All of these, and others like them, get crammed into the agriculture box.

There are also boxes for NGOs and advocacy groups. Most communities will have one or more of these addressing the issue of food security. Some of them will be focussed on outcomes as specific as feeding the homeless: the issue becomes immediate for people with nothing to eat today. Other groups will embrace a broader perspective that includes what goes on in the agriculture box. At this point things start to get fuzzy.

The FAO defines food security as a situation that exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active healthy life. That’s certainly straight-forward as it stands, but when it’s embraced as a public goal, we begin to see qualifying phrases added in. Phrases like: locally sourced, ethically produced, sustainably grown, non-GMO, and a host of others.

With the best of intentions, and sometimes righteous zeal, these additions and the expectations that accompany them ultimately make their way over to the Agriculture box.

Things are starting to get a little crowded in the Agriculture box, and the farmers, ranchers, and growers will need to navigate the shoals of social expectation before they will be granted a “social licence” to ply their trade.

The FAO food security definition doesn’t mention a social licence. It specifically addresses food: sufficient, safe, and nutritious.

It also mentions food preferences and it might be here the social expectations congregate, as in: I prefer food that is locally sourced, ethically produced and sustainably grown.

Farmers and ranchers might fairly ask, what exactly does that mean? Define locally sourced. Is it grown within 20 km of your house? 50 km? 100 km? Anywhere in BC? California? Ethically produced: are domesticated animals ethical? Is it ethical for apple growers to be paid 20 cents for a pound for apples that sell in the store for $2.49? Sustainably grown: Is it sustainably grown if fossil fuel powered the machinery that harvested it? Or hauled it to market?

There are no specific answers, rather a spectrum of them for every question.

Producers might wonder about the ethics of a social licence if fulfilling its terms drives costs beyond the economic access of many consumers or returns below the cost of production.

To paraphrase an old saying: When you’re up to your armpits in expectations and regulations it’s hard to remember the objective was to grow food and make a living.

The take-away in all this is for the 98% of the population who rely on the other 2% to grow their food: If farmers and ranchers can’t make an economic case to grow food and get on with it, don’t assume they will keep it up for the sheer joy of the exercise or from a sense of social obligation.

Food security is best understood by people who have been truly hungry. Be thankful so many of you have never seen it that way.

Bear in mind there are more farmers over 70 than under 35. As a thank-you for all the sage advice and guidance (if I were you, I’d plant three acres of garlic and sell it all at the farmer’s market for $12 a pound), here is an observation from US President Dwight Eisenhower from an address in 1956: “You know, farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil, and you’re a thousand miles from the cornfield.”

Bob Collins raises beef cattle and grows produce on his farm in the Alberni Valley.

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