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Originally published:

JANUARY 2021
Vol. 107 Issue 1

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Stories In This Edition

Full moon rising

New year, new era

Insurance premiums soar

Popham looks forward to a new term

Editorial: New openings

Back 40: New farmers are a crop worth growing

Viewpoint: Let’s get real about mental wellness on the farm

Trade issues, pandemic dog dairy producers

Dairy associations pull through challenging year

Second wave of pandemic hits close to home

Grain producers mark one of their worst harvests

Grower takes issue with groundwater limits

Grape phylloxera found on Vancouver Island

Pioneering entomologist remembered

Leasing farmland a vital strategy for farmers

Raspberry growers tackle new pest challenge

Province comes through with replant money

Pacific Ag Show embraces the digital realm

Berries, berries and more berries

Sidebar: Short course continues to educate growers

Green shoots on the vegetable front

Gala closes out opening day

Ag innovation day

The show must go on

CannaTech West returns

Optimism follows on the heels of 2020’s challenges

Rotational grazing improves soil health

Taking the guesswork out of herd management

Research: Highly sensitive pigs help solve soybean allergies

Bill Awmack honoured with leadership award

Farmers put electric tractors to the test

Kootenay farm advisors resume field days

Kelowna school embraces new container farm

Farm Story: Winter is a good time to problem-solve

Farm women encouraged to take a stand

Woodshed: Breaking the good (and not so good) news

Uncertainty prevails for BC fairs in new year

Jude’s Kitchen: Leftovers re-imagined make tasty meals

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4 days 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

1 month 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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2 months ago

The scale of this year's avian flu outbreak now rivals the massive outbreak of 2004. An additional 13 commercial farms in the Fraser Valley have tested positive in the last week. To date, 49 commercial farms and 1.2 million birds have been impacted. CFIA is struggling to keep up with depopulation of sick birds. ... See MoreSee Less

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AI outbreak rivals 2004

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The scale of this year’s outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza now rivals the massive outbreak of 2004 that saw farms throughout the Fraser Valley depopulated. An additional 13 commercial…
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Commercial operations need to reevaluate their stocking densities and overall health and welfare of the animals within their systems if they are ever going to have a fighting chance against this virus.

Yup cause food shortage

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Grower takes issue with groundwater limits

Intended use governs water licences

Oliver grape grower Hans Buchler says the province's decision to license groundwater use to crop unfairly limits his management and diversification options. photo / tom walker

January 1, 2021 byTom Walker

OLIVER – When Hans Buchler and his wife bought the land for their 18 acres of vineyard almost 40 years ago, one of the attractions was the water.

“There is a good well on the property, which was important,” he says. “When I talked to the district of Oliver, they told me it would be difficult and expensive to pump water up here, and there still isn’t a purveyor connection up to this bench.”

The bench sits north of Oliver in the shadow of McIntyre Bluff. The sandy soil supports grape vines for Covert Farms, Andrew Peller Ltd. and Okanagan Crush Pad. Buchler’s own vines are nestled in small pockets among rocky cliffs. When you notice the dry grasses and the antelope and rabbit brush popping up between the rocks, it is hard to imagine cultivating any crop without water. Indeed, the surface water rights on the property extend back to 1898.

But in order to tap groundwater under the new licensing regime the province introduced in 2016, Buchler has to specify the crop he intends to irrigate. He feels that backs him into a corner.

“When I began discussing my application with FrontCounter, I was told that my licence has to be tied to the crop that I currently grow, my grapes,” he says.

He feels this ignores the historic uses of the property, which in the past has supported livestock, forage and vegetable production. By licensing to crop, as the practice is known, he says FrontCounterBC is unfairly constraining him.

“Wine is a luxury item,” he says. “With the realities of climate change and food security, we may need this land for growing vegetables. I’ve had livestock here in the past and have even grown forage.”

Jeff Nitychoruk, senior water stewardship officer for Okanagan-Shuswap with the BC Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development, says groundwater allocations are tied to crop under section 30 of the Water Sustainability Act.

“If we were to issue a license that was designed for maximum allocation for forage, regardless of what was being grown, we would be setting people up for non-compliance of section 30,” he says.

Buchler filed his licence application three and a half years ago, in June 2017. The water use calculator the province provides applicants directed him to seek a licence for an annual allocation of 42,400 cubic metres for each of his two parcels. But that’s less than half the allocation he would need if he was growing apples.

FrontCounterBC says applicants can simply apply for a new groundwater licence if they change crops, but Buchler says it’s an expensive undertaking. Given the province’s duty to consult other stakeholders, he worries there wouldn’t be enough water to spare if he went back and asked for more.

“The amount of proof you would have to provide through environmental assessments and aquifer assessments would make it pretty much impossible for most farmers,” he says. “You are talking tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars to have that type of assessment performed.”

Buchler believes that his surface water source, Park Rill Creek, is already over-allocated.

“I expect that I would be told that there was no more water volume available,” he says. “In very dry summers in the past, we have nearly run out of water.”

He also worries that a new license would jeopardize his first-in-time/first-in-right status.

Changing viticultural practices may also affect water demand. The growing adoption of organic practices in the Okanagan and Similkameen could see greater extractions to enhance cover crops and control emerging challenges such as red blotch virus.“There are several studies that are showing that doubling the amount of water for diseased vines helps control the virus for a time,” says Buchler.

Watering is cheaper than pulling up and replanting an entire vineyard with virus-free stock and waiting the three years before the vines are in full production. But the new groundwater regime isn’t flexible enough to accommodate such shifts, he contends.

“The people at FLNRORD who are administering the water licensing program seem to be completely out of touch with the needs of the farming community,” he says. “They have told us that our traditional water rights can be grandfathered in, which in my mind means that I would get to keep the volume of water that I now have.”

But that was never the intention of the legislation says Mike Wei, a consultant who was the province’s technical expert during development of the Water Sustainability Act and the Groundwater Protection Regulation.

“Grandfathering” is not a term found in the legislation, and staff are discouraged from using the word in explaining the licensing process to applicants, he says.

Buchler could appeal, but there is a catch.

“They have told me that I can appeal the allotment in my license, but of course I have to get the license first.”

With files from Peter Mitham

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