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Originally published:

November 2018
Vol. 104 Issue 11

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Stories In This Edition

Dairy pays price in new trade deal

USMCA uncorks wine sales

ALC crippled while province mulls revitalization

Editorial: Think Big

Back Forty: If wishes were horses, beggars would ride

Viewpoint: Antibiotics are important tools for producers

Farms scramble as thousands of jobs go unfilled

Farmers’ institutes set to meet in Vancouver

Poultry growers adjust to reduced antibiotic use

Traceability regulations expected next year

UFV consolidates two centres

Plowman in the making

Letters: Animal welfare monitored

Success starts with a solid business plan

Turkey growers look to boost markets

Dairy sale

Strawberry growers rank fruit quality highest

Westcoast Holsteins brings home the prizes

Cannabis raises new workplace concerns

Tasty!

Ag Briefs: Cannabis conference alongside PAS

Ag Briefs: First Nations farms funded

Ag Briefs: Cannabis grower breaks ground

Ag Briefs: harvest conflict results in fewer plow match competitors

Pilot project in Delta supports perennial crops

Uvic research seeks perfect picking time for wine grapes

Ag council wants to get farmers CHATting

Sidebar: Remember to CHAT

Fleeced

Buying stations gain ground

Snow joke

Triple Threat

Meat processing review fails to meet expectations

Livestock transport under scrutiny by activists

Ranching program grads ready for next field

Yields high as cranberry season runs late

Tour features multi-generation farms

Horse Power

Edible flowers show promise for BC growers

Retirement blossoms into flower nursery

Research: Sunflower pollen can help improve colony health

Woodshed: The countdown begins for Kenneth, Deborah

4-H BC: Funding helps advance initiatives

Wannabe: Choosing gratitude

Jude’s Kitchen: Roots and keepers

 

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8 hours 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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5 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

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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Meat processing review fails to meet expectations

Select standing committee calls for more consultation; lacks action

October 29, 2018 byTom Walker

MERRITT – First it dodged half the province by cancelling a week of scheduled meetings in June and now it’s squandering the chance to show leadership and help the BC meat processing industry move forward.

The legislature’s Select Standing Committee on Agriculture, Fish and Food has delivered its final report, making no definitive recommendations on the key issues it was asked to address.

“This is a very safe report,” says Julia Smith of Blue Sky Ranch in Merritt and president of the Small-Scale Meat Producers Association.

The committee’s 21 recommendations use bland wording, she said, such as “encourage,” “work with” and “investigate options.”

“There are not a lot of recommendations that can be implemented without more time-consuming, resource-intensive processes,” Smith says. “For all of the time and effort that has been spent across the province, this report doesn’t put us much further ahead.”

The lacklustre report follows a decision the nine-member committee made to cancel an entire week of meetings scheduled in June and hold just three days of hearings.

The move ruled out face-to-face meetings with stakeholders in the Peace, Prince George, southern Vancouver Island and the entire Lower Mainland. Ultimately, the committee based its recommendations on 50 oral presentations as well as 36 written submissions and 74 online survey responses, many of which offered well-considered and thorough perspectives.

“I submitted 27 written pages of recommendations that were all reviewed by my board of directors,” notes Nova Woodbury of the BC Association of Abattoirs. “For each item that the presentation spoke to, we gave specific strategies on how the issue might be solved.”

The committee also had the benefit of the 96-page report on D & E class licensing that summarized the findings of a targeted survey conducted in May, just prior to the committee’s own hearings.

While the committee’s failure to make specific recommendations frustrates producer groups, committee chair Ronna-Rae Leonard explains it this way.

“As a committee we can make recommendations; we don’t have the power to make change,” she says. “You have an all-party committee that is trying to consolidate all of the comments and frame it in a way that will move the agenda forward.”

“In the report you have a lot of recommendations that talk about partnership collaboration and discussion,” adds deputy chair Jackie Tegart. “What we wanted to do as a committee was to encourage collaboration with industry and indicate to the Ministry of Agriculture that there are concerns and to encourage them to talk with people in the field, in regards to … the best way to deal with [concerns].”

That’s the kind of lengthy process Smith hoped could be avoided.

“We just don’t know if the small-scale meat industry can wait much longer,” she says, noting that one of her association’s members had to take her turkeys to Vancouver Island for processing because there was no capacity in the Lower Mainland.

Woodbury sees the same urgency. Her counterparts in Alberta and Ontario can’t believe that BC allows the sale of uninspected meat in certain areas as a way to get around the shortage of inspectors. Other facilities have had to cancel bookings because, she says, “there are not enough provincial inspectors to work with them.”

The report does little to address processing capacity issues. It doesn’t recommend increasing total animal units at D & E plants, or supporting the completion of more A & B plants, including D &D plants that are looking to upgrade.

Indeed, the report makes only two specific actionable recommendations: reducing travel times to one hour between facilities and seeking ways to make mobile slaughter capacity accessible to small producers.

“That is a possible way to alleviate some of the capacity issues,” says Smith. “But right now the requirement to have a permanent kill floor and direct-source potable water make it expensive. Why can’t water come in on the mobile plant?”

Woodbury notes that the report does speak to the multiple staffing and training issues across the province.

“The problem is, there are no specifics around funding,” says Woodbury. “We know that we need more training, but will the money come from the Ministry of Agriculture or Advanced Education?”

Woodbury and Smith both say they’re urging government to take specific actions to help processors. Leonard, for her part, says agriculture minister Lana Popham is taking the committee’s report seriously.

“[She] took a look at the report fairly quickly and is encouraged by it,” says Leonard. “So I expect that there will be actions taken.”

 

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