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Originally published:

June 2019
Vol. 105 Issue 6

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Stories In This Edition

First Cut

Hog farm won’t face charges

Okanagan drives land values

Where’s the beef?

Minister defends Bill 15 changes

Back Forty: Farmers, not just farmland, need revitalization

Editorial: No peace, no order

ALR restrictions make commuting a fact of life

Johnston’s Packers targeted by activists

Child labour

Sidebar: When is a crime not a crime?

Berry growers get long-awaited funding boost

Proteobiotics reduce poultry, swine infections

Greenhouse growth stymied by gas prices

Bloom

Increase farm productivity with cover crops

Ag Briefs: Water fees not evenly distributed among users

Ag Briefs: BC Tree Fruits prepares to relocate

Farmland trust explored for Island

New owner, same faces

Fruitful experience

Fruit growers cautiously optimistic on bloom set

Honeycrisp key to success for Golden Apple winners

Changes to slaughter rules taking too long

Going! Going! Gone

Local meat deamnd creating opportunities

Sidebar: Compost in 14 days

Ranch takes pasture to plate at face value

Market Musings: Technology has its challenges

Oliver veggie grower prefers wholesale

Grocer offers tips to get a foot in the door

Greenhouse veggie days a hit with school

Haskap research may help berry go mainstream

Grow up!

Research: Bee sensitivity linked to neonic pesticides

Fraser Valley orchardist calling it a day

Rally cry

Worming his way to the top of the heap

Mushrooms a viable crop for small growers

Island 4-H beef show celebrates 25 years

Woodshed: Deborah starts her vacation a golf widow

Brewery’s food program spawns farm project

Jude’s Kitchen: Celebrate dads!

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7 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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Johnston’s Packers targeted by activists

Bonnie Windsor recounts how protesters turned on packinghouse and how she chose to fight back

May 28, 2019 byTom Walker

CHILLIWACK – Bonnie Windsor is assistant plant manager at Johnston’s Packers Ltd., the largest provincially inspected slaughterhouse in BC. The business has been processing hogs in Chilliwack since 1937, making it one of the province’s oldest plants, too.

Windsor is bright, articulate, hardworking and has a raucous sense of humour. She could be working in any number of businesses, but she happens to work for a slaughterhouse. This put her on the front lines of an effort by animal rights activists to shut down a local hog farm – and the rest of the BC hog industry – at the end of April.

“I didn’t sign up for this,” Windsor told the BC Association of Abattoirs in Chase on April 27, five days after the PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) released a video to CTV purporting to show pigs living in squalor at Excelsior Hog Farm in Abbotsford. “But I sure think I earned a black belt in PETA over the last four days. You learn quick.”

The video shocked Windsor and the rest of the staff at Johnston’s.

“We were as horrified as anyone else,” she says. “That is not what Johnston’s stands for, but we asked, ‘Is this real?’”

Conversations with the Binnendyk family, which runs the farm, confirmed that the video was taken at night and concentrated on the hospital pen, an area where sick or injured animals are taken for treatment. The family also believes some of the footage was shot elsewhere and edited into the video.

“We were named as the packer that the producer ships to, so I figured we might be next,” says Windsor says.

Cyberattack

The craziness began April 23, the morning after the CTV broadcast. Within a two-hour period, Windsor received more than 2,500 emails, many with the same subject line.

“I was trying to sift through and find any legitimate mail from customers,” says Windsor. “But I just couldn’t.”

Empyrion Technologies Inc., which provides IT services to Johnston’s, froze its account.

Then the activists found her cell number.

“I quickly learned not to answer it,” she deadpans. “I froze. I didn’t know what to do. … I’d already been awake all the first night.”

She spoke with the BC Pork Producers Association and poultry producers she knew who had been targeted by activists in the past. They all said the same thing: “Keep your head down, don’t respond, hide.”

Then she spoke to the Binnendyks, who changed her mind.

“You can’t imagine what those farmers went through,” says Windsor. “There were death threats to the family and people coming up and knocking on their door.”

But they told her the harassment wasn’t going to force them to take their farm sign down. She admired their attitude.

“[Ray Binnendyk] said, ‘We are a second-generation farm family. We are proud to feed the people of this province and we have nothing to hide,’” she recalls.

By the second day, she had found the courage to craft a response.

“I started to realize that we can’t fight with PETA but we can fight against them by making sure our customers [have] the right information,” she says.

Thursday, three days after the CTV broadcast, things got worse. Windsor received more than 10,000 emails that morning, crippling portions of Johnston’s computer system for several hours.

Empyrion helped get the system back in operation and Windsor started to respond to emails from upset customers.

“PETA was telling our story for us and we needed to start telling it ourselves,” she says. “It took me more than an hour to write my first letter. I composed what I thought would sound okay even if they put it on the news.”

The toll on the company has been significant. It has lost just one customer – a grocer who doesn’t believe Johnston’s has done anything wrong but wants to avoid the controversy – but the emotional toll has been huge.

Johnston’s can press charges for the cyberattack – a conviction carries a minimum fine of $100,000 – but it would cost it time and legal fees.

“I prefer to spend my time doing positive things,” says Windsor, who says she has already suffered enough.

“Three nights without sleep, it affects your health. All the hate messages. You start to question your ability to make decisions.”

Beef up security

The message she left with abattoir association members was a warning of the greater risks livestock producers and processors face, and the need to beef up security.

“I hope if I have convinced you of anything, I have convinced you to get security cameras for your plant,” she says. “And we all need emergency response plans. Perhaps we can draw up a master template together.”

She thinks media training would help, too.

“I’ve taken some but when they phone you up for a comment, you are pretty lost,” she says. “I had no idea what to say. … I think we can do a better job of telling our story. I’m certainly not going to keep my head down. I am going to make this industry stronger.”

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