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Originally published:

JANUARY 2022
Vol. 108 Issue 1

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Stories In This Edition

Flood recovery begins

Outstanding

Insurance under scrutiny

Donations pouring in for flood relief

Editorial: Regenerating agriculture

Back 40: What is normal, anyways?

Op Ed: Looking ahead with a  common purpose

Interior ranches feel forgotten

Hefty fines levied in chicken abuse case

Ag Briefs: Blueberry council chair tenders resignation

Ag Briefs: BC Chicken picks Siemens

Ag Briefs: Outstanding service acknowledged

Ag Briefs: Water quality grants available

BC couple win national OYF competition

High grain prices welcome, but harvest falls flat

Dairy sector looks to the future in virtual meetings

Berry growers face years of lower yields

Ambrosia council takes growers to court over levies

Rising food prices unlikely to benefit farmers

Supply chain disruptions put focus on local food

Preview: Agriculture show returns to Tradex

Water management in focus at short course

Kootenay growers target winter deliveries

Sidebar: Welcome development

New growers bitten by the farming bug

Farmers face new challenges as water recedes

Denman Island initiatives review of farm regulations

Helping load the wagon

Bees shouldn’t become collateral damage

Beekeepers urged to grow their own

Research: BC scientists ready to assess flood-affected soils

BC tech companies give ag waste a new life

Sidebar: Manure recycled into bedding

Milk marketing board chooses new entrants

Drought management requires new strategies

Farm Story: Instagrammable garlic? We’d rather less fuss

New initiative supports local food, business

Woodshed: Ashley’s ready and the party’s about to begin

Self-care can help women focus on their goals

Jude’s Kitchen:

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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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High grain prices welcome, but harvest falls flat

Weather cuts yields for the fourth straight year

Peace River grain growers were hammered by weather events this past growing season and harvested far less than expected. FILE PHOTO

January 1, 2022 byPeter Mitham

DAWSON CREEK – This year’s high commodity prices should be good news for Peace River growers but  extreme heat cut yields and left some producers with as little as 30% of a normal crop.

“The heat dome in southern BC also hit us up north. We broke records and our crops dried right out, and there was far below average taken off this year,” says Malcolm Odermatt, president of the BC Grain Producers Association. “We have exceptional prices, but unfortunately we just have no crop to sell.”

Odermatt, who farms in Baldonnel, east of Fort St. John, harvested less than 40% of what he expected.

“For us, typically we fill 22 bins and we filled eight this year,” he says.

Canola was down by a third while his barley came in at less than 25% of average.

BC Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries says producers have filed 382 notices of loss for grain. Its preliminary estimates indicate that yields are about 30% to 50% of average.

Odermatt says crop insurance is helpful but may not fully cover the losses, thanks to the idiosyncrasies of grain contracts.

“This year, we’ve seen historically high grain prices and lots of farmers went out there and contracted 50% of their expected yields, or maybe 75% – it all depends on their financials and the amount of risk they want to take on,” he explains. “Then we had an absolute wreck of a crop.”

Growers encouraged by high prices this spring and who signed contracts will now have to buy out those contracts at the much higher prices seen this fall. The difference could be as much as 50%.

But insurance is based on crop values in February and doesn’t escalate in step with market prices. This means insured growers will receive payments that are much lower than what they’ll have to pay to buy out their contracts.

“It kind of stinks to get a payout by crop insurance for $12 [a tonne] and (if) you actually had the canola, it would be worth $23,” says Odermatt. “But on the flip side, the price could go down and it would be a higher price because they locked in in February. So it could go both ways.”

This year’s small crop marks the fourth year of weather-related challenges for the region’s grain growers.

Snow in September 2018 put an early end to the season’s harvest, which was already late owing to the impact of wildfire smoke and other issues that year. A decent crop in 2019 was nixed when autumn rains prevented it from drying out on the stalk and farmers couldn’t access fields to harvest it for drying.

Poor weather the following spring meant large tracts of land went unplanted, and rain played havoc with what did get seeded, resulting in one of the worst harvests the region has seen.

But there is good news.

Recent funding for high-efficiency grain dryers will help growers improve grain quality.

Odermatt says this year’s high temperatures resulted in uneven ripening in many fields. So much of his barley was green that he ended up drying it.

“The heat really messed with the plants’ growth cycle, so we had two different stages of crop out there – we had really ripe barley, then we had super green barley,” he says. “We were trying to get both crops off when they’re at two very different stages – about a month apart.”

In December, the BC Peace Agricultural Compensation Fund awarded $147,000 to three farms for grain drying and cleaning equipment.

Odermatt says the grants benefit the industry as a whole because several farms can use the equipment to dry grain from harvest through to  January.

“Even though one producer might get the money and set up the dryer, other producers can utilize it and just pay a fee for drying,” he says. “It’s far cheaper than taking it to the elevator, so it does open up marketing opportunities.”

 

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