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

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 2021
Vol. 107 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

Down to the crunch

Producer prices on the rise

Feeling burned

Groundwater users could lose rights next year

The right thing

Editorial: Freedom worth having

Back 40: The battle continues long after the war is over

Viewpoint: Stories bridge the gap between producers, consumers

Growers wrestle with irrigation upgrades

Wildfire 2021

Abbotsford updates farmland policies

Stormy skies

Ag Briefs: Douglas Lake “right to roam” challenge dismissed

Ag Briefs: Creston food hub opens

Ag Briefs: Food processors receive funding

Ag Briefs: Vanderspek appointed

Summerland grape specialists retire

Grapevine virus spread threatens BC industry

Caught in the act

Abbotsford sheep grower honoured

Tag readers help with livestock recordkeeping

RegenBC kicks off agritech network

Producers silent on Columbia River Treaty impacts

Cranberry fields forever

Manitoba farmers make dreams a reality

Enderby dairy is anything but conventional

Improvement to classification services explored

Up close and personal

Partnering with farmers to reduce food loss

Sidebar: Upcycled food

Slow and steady wins the day for irrigation

Research: Study takes soil health to the next level

Nelson farm builds soil and local community

Cash flow analysis is key to resilience

New app zeroes in on reducing lost produce

Sidebar: Food hub offers room to grow

Farm Story: To hoard or not to hoard: that is the question

Bursary benefits rising farm professionals

Woodshed: So much for a little peace and quiet

Saanichton Farm receives Century Farm award

Jude’s Kitchen: Fall Flavours

More Headlines

Follow us on Facebook

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

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

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: 1
  • Shares: 0
  • Comments: 0

Comment on Facebook

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

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

Nelson farm builds soil and local community

Couple reinvests in their market garden

Scott Humphries and Emma Sowiak are the team behind Bent Plow Farm, one of the larger market gardens in the Nelson area. BRIAN LAWRENCE

November 1, 2021 byBrian Lawrence

NELSON – One of the Nelson area’s larger market gardens, Bent Plow Farm, is a model that other farmers and agriculture enthusiasts are excited to see. About 30 people braved heavy rains

September 27 to attend a field day organized by Kootenay & Boundary Farm Advisors and Young Agrarians.

But if visitors huddled under umbrellas against the downpour, Bent Plow owner Scott Humphries says the fields just soak it up.

“This will be dry tomorrow,” he explains. “The drainage is too high. … We could put irrigation on, and in 24 hours it would be dry and wouldn’t get waterlogged.”

It’s a challenge common to growing in a landscape carved by glaciers and characterized by acidic alluvial silt and morainal till.

“The glacier came and dropped stuff, and with its kilometre-thick weight, ground and compacted it,” says Humphries.

Due to the farm’s undulating topography, it’s even a challenge to add nutrients, such as green compost and fish emulsions. Drip irrigation allows too much fertilizer to settle in dips and furrows. This means much of the watering is done by hand.

“We did a lot with watering cans,” he says.

Humphries and his wife Emma Sowiak farmed for two years in the Ottawa Valley before moving to Nelson in 2016. They spent the following year preparing their certified organic 1.5-acre market garden.

“It was just a brown field,” Sowiak says in the shelter of their packing shed. “We’re slowly building it up – our irrigation, our production shed. Even the soil is building up.”

Humphries and Sowiak both began farming early in life, but their formative years were quite different. Sowiak was raised in an intentional community north of Nelson where residents cultivated an orchard and raised chickens, while Humphries’ father ran a seventh-generation 100-acre beef farm in Ontario where he grew up around tractors and hay production.

In 2010, Humphries met a couple running a market garden, an eye-opening experience.

“It was cool to see a different side to agriculture,” he says. “You’re more in touch when your hands are in the ground, as opposed to driving a tractor.”

Sowiak attended university in Ottawa, and later joined an urban farm incubator program in which a dozen farmers shared the workload in exchange for their own plots. Of those, 11 are still farming in various ways — one, for example, grows microgreens, while another has a rooftop garden at Ryerson University.

“It’s been interesting seeing how we all followed different paths,” she says.

After she met Humphries, the couple started the Ontario incarnation of Bent Plow, a name that’s as self-explanatory as it sounds.

“It’s because we had a bent plow his dad found,” says Sowiak. “Working here, too, we’ve bent enough tools.”

“There’s something poetic about the imperfection of farming,” adds Humphries, who tells the guests that he’s pulled up to 1,000 pounds of rocks out of a single bed.

An impressive feature of the farm is a drive-through packing shed, which has a walk-in fridge and dry room, and has power ready for a 15-foot cooler if needed. As much as possible, equipment and supplies are moved around with wheeled carts.

“I highly recommend concrete floors,” says Emma.

In 2018, they began selling at the Nelson farmers market and launched a community-supported agriculture (CSA) program in 2019 for 20 subscribers, a number that grew to 95 this year. Each box contains seven items, with early season boxes containing lettuce and radishes, and later season boxes including pumpkins and beets.

“We’re putting in the seven best vegetables at that moment,” says Sowiak. “It gives customers an appreciation of eating through the season.”

They also enjoy receiving unfamiliar types of produce –“anything with a different size, shape or colour,” says Sowiak – which included pointy cabbage, black futsu squash and shishito peppers.

They also pack 40 six-item boxes, which the West Kootenay EcoSociety purchases to distribute to lower-income families through its Farms to Friends program, helping to dispel a common misconception.

“There’s an idea that local produce is not accessible to lower-income folks,” says Sowiak.

To pack the CSA boxes, they set up four or five tables of vegetables, which two employees pack while one replenishes the stock. When deliveries are made, recipients don’t have to worry that their box will be left out in the hot summer sunshine – Humphries delivers them starting at 2 a.m.

“Everyone gets their box by 7,” says Sowiak. “Our customers really like it.”

The CSA is an excellent way to form stronger ties to the community, and also gives the farmers an opportunity to try growing a wider range of produce in a limited quantity.

“We like the CSA because it’s a nice direct connection to the customers,” says Sowiak.

“You can really grow a little bit of everything,” says Humphries. “And we kind of like to grow everything. It’s nice that there’s something different in the box.”

That also allows for better crop rotation, and makes Humphries and Sowiak better growers.

But she candidly admits they don’t like everything they grow.

“Our staff gets sick of cantaloupe,” says Sowiak, who also notes that she doesn’t like to see anything go to waste.

“I didn’t even like them, and I ate an entire one for lunch,” Humphries says, to laughter from the visitors. “And then I kind of wanted another one.”

A significant advantage of the CSA is that it provides the couple with income up front, rather than relying solely on market shoppers to buy produce.

“It’s kind of like a jump-start to the season financially,” says Sowiak.

That allowed them to make two significant purchases this year: an industrial salad spinner, which can handle up to 15 pounds of greens at a time, and roller tables for a greenhouse, which can be raised, lowered and moved side-to-side to maximize available space.

They also swear by their Polaris Ranger UTV (utility task vehicle), which is used to carry harvested produce to the packing shed and apply compost to the garden beds.

“We don’t carry anything,” says Humphries. “This is the best and most used tool on the farm.”

Despite the rainy start to the evening, the couple enjoyed the opportunity to show off their farm to the visiting group – in smaller communities, lending support and advice to others in similar businesses is a key to success.

“That comes from working collaboratively, not cutting each other down,” says Humphries.

That philosophy applies on the farm, as well, with Humphries and Sowiak each having defined roles – he handles much of the outdoor work, which she joins in while also handling the administrative side.

“I love the challenge of maintaining the infrastructure, and when things go wrong on the farm and fixing it,” says Humphries. “And it’s nice seeing crops grow well that maybe didn’t do well the year before.”

Sowiak says it’s the best of both worlds, “getting to be a small business owner, but also getting to work with my hands. Not many jobs have both of those.”

And the opportunity to work with her husband is special, too.

“We complement each other nicely in this small business,” she says.

 

Related Posts

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

Fossens recognized for innovative practices

Co-ops’ importance highlighted

Leasing farmland a vital strategy for farmers

Province rethinks land matching pitch

Land matching pays off

Reeve leads BC Young Farmers

City Beet harvests profits from urban gardens

Soda Creek social highlights land-matching

Young Agrarians land funding

Previous Post: « US approves SWD parasite
Next Post: The battle continues long after the war is over »

Copyright © 2023 Country Life in BC · All Rights Reserved