• Menu
  • Skip to right header navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Before Header

The agricultural news source in British Columbia since 1915
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Country Life In BC Logo

The agricultural news source in British Columbia since 1915

  • Headlines
  • Calendar
  • Subscribe
  • Advertise
  • About
  • Archives
  • Contact
  • Search
  • Headlines
  • Calendar
  • Subscribe
  • Advertise
  • About
  • Archives
  • Contact
  • Search

Primary Sidebar

Originally published:

NOVEMBER 2019
Vol. 105 Issue 11

Subscribe Now!

Sign up for free weekly FARM NEWS UPDATES

Select list(s) to subscribe to


By submitting this form, you are consenting to receive marketing emails from: Country Life in BC, 36 Dale Road, Enderby, BC, V0E1V4. You can revoke your consent to receive emails at any time by using the SafeUnsubscribe® link, found at the bottom of every email. Emails are serviced by Constant Contact
Your information will not be
shared or sold ever

Stories In This Edition

ALC gets an earful

Herding Hens

Food hub funding boost

Municipalities challenge ALC over process

No bad apples

Editorial: Taking stock

Back Forty: Remembering Aunt Dolly, and others

Viewpoint: Keeping BC farms (and farmers) growing

Farm status undermined by local bylaws

Big green gourd

Heavy rains don’t wash out potato hopes

Giant hornets headline beekeepers’ concerns

Honey producers honour industry leaders

Country Life in BC wins awards at conference

Bridging the urban-rural divide

New skills needed for technology-driven agriculture

Data drives more efficient poultry farming

Ag Briefs: New CEO appointed at BC Tree Fruits

Ag Briefs: Site launched for farmers’ institutes

Ag Briefs: Child labour feedback sought

Demand underpins cheesemaker’s expansion

Cranberry growers expect lower yields

Neighbours raise stink over cannabis farms

Sheep farmers share their experiences

Lots (and lots) of pumpkins

Federation moves forward on key initiatives

Riparian assessment requirements updated

On-farm slaughter a key skill for producers

On the move

Sidebar: Better than offal

Feedback on new watering regs a concern

Market Musings: The future in beef looks like a slam dunk

Growers all ears at silage corn field day

UBC dairy centre signs five-year lease

Falkland Dairy volume buyer at Holstein Sae

Mega-dairies are the future of US farms

Research: Bacterial leaf streak lacks chemical controls

Big beef show at BC Ag Expo

Farm News: Growing prospects brighten dark autum days

BC Young Farmers look to grow north

Horse Power

Day-long 4-H event puts emphasis on safety

Woodshed: Newt schemes to rescue Kenneth’s tractor

Good gourd! Giant vegetables weigh off

Jude’s Kitchen: Late fall harvest

More Headlines

Follow us on Facebook

Comments Box SVG iconsUsed for the like, share, comment, and reaction icons

9 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

Link thumbnail

Rewarding farmers for enhancing riparian areas

buff.ly

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...
View Comments
  • Likes: 0
  • Shares: 0
  • Comments: 0

Comment on Facebook

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

Link thumbnail

Your weekly farm news update

web-extract.constantcontact.com

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
View Comments
  • Likes: 2
  • Shares: 0
  • Comments: 1

Comment on Facebook

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

Link thumbnail

Christmas trees in demand

buff.ly

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…
View Comments
  • Likes: 2
  • Shares: 0
  • Comments: 0

Comment on Facebook

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.
View Comments
  • Likes: 2
  • Shares: 3
  • Comments: 1

Comment on Facebook

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
View Comments
  • Likes: 10
  • Shares: 8
  • Comments: 8

Comment on Facebook

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..

View more comments

Subscribe | Advertise

Neighbours raise stink over cannabis farms

Province urged to intervene

November 1, 2019 byPeter Mitham

LANGLEY – A year after their crop was legalized for recreational use, cannabis growers in BC are facing a challenge familiar to other agricultural sectors – greater regulation.

Both municipalities and neighbours are calling on the province to adopt legislation consistent with federal regulations requiring cannabis producers to have systems that “prevent the escape of odours.”

Lake Country put forward a resolution to that effect at the Union of BC Municipalities’ annual meeting in Vancouver at the end of September. A petition has also been launched on StoptheSmell.ca asking the Agricultural Land Commission to intervene with the same goal.

The petition is the initiative of John Cameron and other neighbours of the massive Canopy Growth Corp. greenhouse in Aldergrove. Cameron set up a Facebook page in August to voice his concerns and rally support after what the group calls “the summer of stink” in Delta, Langley, Maple Ridge and Abbotsford. The petition, launched in September, asks Premier John Horgan to intervene, noting that the Agricultural Land Commission seems happy to regulate other forms of construction while turning a blind eye to cannabis facilities.

“The ALC seems to have plenty of time to enforce building rules, fill applications, farmland uses, mobile home applications and other rules – it’s time they enforce this one,” says a form letter on the site.

ALC compliance and enforcement staff are limited to enforcing the commission’s own regulations, however, not federal law. Regardless, Cameron says cannabis farms need to be good neighbours.

“The solution is as simple as this,” he says. “Show respect for the neighbours and contain the smell; they were here first.”

The initiative parallels a move by Metro Vancouver to regulate emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from cannabis facilities. A discussion paper Metro Vancouver released in the run-up to a public consultation that ended

October 31 claimed VOCs from cannabis “may contribute to the formation of harmful ground-level ozone and fine particulate matter through reactions with other substances and sunlight in the lower atmosphere.”

“Cannabis production has the potential to cause negative air quality impacts if emissions are not adequately controlled,” a discussion paper regarding the regulation states.

While the smell of cannabis bothers some neighbours, Esther Bérubé, division manager for air quality bylaw and regulation development with Metro Vancouver, says the health impacts of the emissions is what concerns the regional district.

It inventories emissions in the region every five years to determine which, if any, to regulate in accordance with its powers under the province’s Environmental Management Act.

The discussion paper cites research that says cannabis produces 57 grams of VOCs per kilogram of plant tissue each year, versus 1.5 grams per kilogram of tomatoes. But when greenhouses shift from vegetable production to cannabis, they often aren’t retrofitted to mitigate emissions. Metro Vancouver estimates cannabis production could emit 870 tonnes of VOCs a year, versus

less than 200 tonnes by the rest of the agriculture sector.

However, the BC Agriculture Council notes that cannabis is a permitted farm use and farms of any sort will generate some level of odour. It objects to measures that would introduce regulations for cannabis that could be extended to other types of production.

BCAC recommends that complaints regarding odour be taken to the BC Farm Industry Review Board, the tribunal appointed to deal with complaints regarding farm practices.

Bérubé points out that the province’s Environmental Management Act trumps the provisions of the Farm Practices Act.

“So, basically, they cannot be in contravention of Metro Vancouver’s requirements,” she says.

Bérubé says feedback gathered during the consultation will be the foundation of a report that goes before directors of the regional district early in the new year. She expects a second round of consultation will follow prior to the regulation coming before directors for a vote.

 

 

Related Posts

You may be interested in these posts from the same category.

BC farm cash receipts up

Raising a stink

BCAC defends pot growers

Greenhouse vegetables rebound from cannabis

Cannabis growers see the light

‘Green rush’ overwhelms OK planning staff

Weed will be an ag product unlike any other

Previous Post: « Giant hornets headline beekeepers’ concerns
Next Post: ALC gets an earful »

Reader Interactions

Copyright © 2023 Country Life in BC · All Rights Reserved