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Originally published:

JANUARY 2023
Vol. 109 Issue 1

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Stories In This Edition

BC leads AI case count

Winter harvest

Eby appoints new ag minister

Generational change in BC potato busienss

Editorial: Good news, bad news

Back 40: Give us this day our daily bread

Viewpoint: Changing the playing field for farmers

Popham ends terms with strong ambitions

Higher food prices make little difference to farmers

Growers fail to block co-op consolidation

Sidebar: Co-op nomination process sidelines critics

Ag Briefs: Former BCFGA president, co-op chair dies

Ag Briefs: New chairs announced

Ag Briefs: COVID-19 response reviewed

BC loses a champion of agriculture

Canadian diary sector positioned well for growth

Honoured

Dairy producers raise alarm on costs

Flower growers shutter auction gallery

Sidebar: Talking turkey about flower sales

Risk management plans make safety sense

Biodynamic workshops receive funding

Producers reflect on past, plan for future

Pacific Agriculture Show on track for 2023

Sidebar: Stand up for the BCAC gala

Provincial priorities in focus at ag show

Berried treasure …

Islands farm show gears up for next month in Duncan

New opportunities but little progress for meat capacity

Roll call

Sidebar: Hub money

Meat producers need to focus on cost management

Greenhouse extends growing season, sales

Plant physiologist heads up BC grape research

Work-life balance is a fallacy for farmers

Pilot helps UBCO’s Feed BC initiative grow

Sidebar: Other factors at play

Drones provide a high-level view of scorch

Farm Story: Mum’s the word on fellow farmers

Bees better kept at a distance

Sidebar: Survey says

Woodshed: Kenneth’s MacGyver moment fails him

Climate, food secuirty motivate change

Jude’s Kitchen: Adventure with your new kitchen gadgets

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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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Generational change in BC potato business

Commercial production grows while local seed declines

Noel Roddick is stepping down after a remarkable 44 years as secretary-treasurer of the BC Certified Seed Potato Growers Association. RONDA PAYNE

January 1, 2023 byPeter Mitham

DELTA – A veteran of the seed potato sector has stepped down after 44 years with the BC Certified Seed Potato Growers Association.

Noel Roddick declined to stand for re-election at the association’s annual general meeting at the end of November. Roddick had served as the association’s secretary-treasurer since 1978, when Richmond grower George Wright called him from that year’s AGM.

“I said, ‘I probably should think about it,’ and he said, ‘You should also think about the fact there’s a whole lot of customers in your room here, and if you don’t want to do it I’m sure none of them is ever going to buy another ton of fertilizer from you ever again,’” Roddick recalls.

Roddick, now 84, had started his farm supply business in 1970, and was fast becoming a familiar and trusted member of the local farm community. He accepted Wright’s invitation.

“We had a fertilizer office and we had all the equipment so it was a natural thing to do and didn’t take a lot of time,” he says.

The role of secretary- treasurer was important. With the help of federal potato researcher Norman (Bud) Wright, a virus-free breeding program had been established in Pemberton in the 1960s. It handled more than 100 varieties at its peak.

“He picked Pemberton because it was an isolated valley,” says Roddick. “They did this tissue culture and they got generations of virus-free seed potatoes in every variety. … This meant there was really, really clean seed.”

Pemberton growers grew the seed, then sent stock to Richmond and Ladner to be multiplied.

“This is where I came in, keeping the accounts and doing the books for them,” says Roddick.

The program set the pace for growers across North America, he says. The province always had a strong reputation for potato production, with Asahel Smith of Ladner winning a trophy for the best potatoes in North America at the Grand Pan-American Exhibition in New York in 1911. The virus-free program furthered that reputation.

“People would come from Idaho and California and they’d see these spuds, and there wasn’t a blemish on the whole field. They couldn’t believe it, how good they looked, and they went and did their own programs along the same lines,” says Roddick.

However, the province has become a victim of its own success. BC seed potato acreage has steadily declined from 1,036 acres in 2013 to 556 last year. Meanwhile, acreage in all other Western provinces has increased, led by Alberta.

“Alberta’s now a huge seed potato grower, and they followed Bud Wright’s program,” says Roddick. “I think it was inevitable that others would see what a good program it was, and what clean and vigorous seed it produced.”

The result is that BC seed producers are exiting the industry. Lower Mainland growers like Bill Zylmans are retiring, while the Pemberton Valley is down to just six growers following the decision of Ronayne Farms to exit the business after five generations.

Meanwhile, commercial acreage has increased thanks in part to the efforts of BC Fresh to grow local sales against a tide of imports from neighbouring jurisdictions as well as investment in new processing facilities.

And herein lies an irony: while the opportunities for seed producers should be increasing in step with commercial production, they’ve declined. Despite a push for locally adapted varieties in crops from vegetables to blueberries, the big commercial growers are sourcing their seed from elsewhere.

“The potato business has been able to expand its share of the local market,” he says. “We just hope that when it comes to buying seed potatoes, the people who grow the commercial stuff will buy local, too.”

Anna Helmer, whose family has been farming in the Pemberton Valley for three generations and supplies organic seed to growers across BC, shares Roddick’s concern. While her business continues to see good demand, she knows that without good seed, neither organic nor conventional growers will be producing a solid crop. And that knowledge gives her hope.

“Potatoes require good seed to produce commercially or eventually, the crop will fail. Commercial growers need us,” she says. “I am cautiously excited for the future of the seed business. I think the conventional ones will get bigger and the organic ones will just continue to slowly grow the business.”

But the industry also needs leadership, and with Zylmans and Roddick retiring, there’s a need for younger growers to step up. Nicki Gilmore of Pemberton has stepped into Roddick’s role, but Zylmans – who received the BC Agriculture Council’s Award for Excellence in Agriculture Leadership last year – has been almost irreplaceable.

“It’s quite a commitment. I don’t know whether the younger brigade are going to be able to do that.”

 

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