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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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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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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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