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Originally published:

June 2018
Vol. 104 Issue 6

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Stories In This Edition

A Taste of Spring

Flooding wallops southern interior

Ottawa wires CAP cash

Minimum wage hike squeezes farm margins

Editorial: The new democracy

Back Forty: Horgan on receiving end of pipeline challenge

Viewpoint: BC has led country in national check-off support

New chair appointed to land commission

Richmond expands farmhouse provisions

Demand for land drives farmland values higher

Biosolids raise a stink with neighbours

Rising wine sales boost demand for red grapes

Game-changer on dividend splitting

Mushroom merger

Wildfire, flood review has First Nations focus

Sidebar: Snapshot of recommendations

Labour tops issues as hothouse growers meet

Growers on look-out for activists

Antimicrobial lockdown

Ag briefs: Island farmers on lookout for armyworm

Ag briefs: AgSafe elects new chair

Ag briefs: No flood of licences

Ag briefs: Direct delivery

Hops revival gains traction with feds

Wildfire top concern of grape growers

Sidebar: Preparing for fires in the Okanagan

Nuffield scholars

Two studies promise to ensure slaughter capacity

Sidebar: Consultation schedule

Oversight sought

Bumper crop of invasive weeds after wildfires

Elk sights have producers concerned

Guichon heads back to life on the ranch

Research: Grazing cattle the sustainable way

Farmers markets focus on cultivating trust

Veggie days open house

Co-ops offer values-based alternatives

Region focuses on boosting local food usage

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Growing opportunity

Garden City project breaks sustainable ground

Weevils pose challenges

Protecting pollinators key for crop yields

Wannabe: Keeping up with the times

Young farmers turn on, tune in and download

Woodshed: Kenneth has another go at the Massey

4-H BC thanks partners for their support

Jude’s Kitchen: Co-op food

 

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BC Cattlemen’s Association members gathered in Cranbrook for their 97th AGM last week. BCCA president Werner Stump welcomed upwards of 300 ranchers as he signalled a change in tone with the association’s approach to government. “We are going to be a lot more blunt in our dealings with government as we fight for our livelihood,” Stump told his audience. The North American herd size remains down, and calf prices are expected to stay strong, says Brenna Grant from Canfax. “We could see $5.50 -$5.70 this fall for a 5(00) weight calves.” Duncan and Jane Barnett and family from Barnett Land and Livestock in 150 Mile House received the Ranch Sustainability Award, which recognized their riparian management and community involvement. From left to right, Clayton Loewen with Jane, Duncan and Lindsay Barnett.

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BC Cattlemen’s Association members gathered in Cranbrook for their 97th AGM last week. BCCA president Werner Stump welcomed upwards of 300 ranchers as he signalled a change in tone with the association’s approach to government. “We are going to be a lot more blunt in our dealings with government as we fight for our livelihood,” Stump told his audience. The North American herd size remains down, and calf prices are expected to stay strong, says Brenna Grant from Canfax. “We could see $5.50 -$5.70 this fall for a 5(00) weight calves.” Duncan and Jane Barnett and family from Barnett Land and Livestock in 150 Mile House received the Ranch Sustainability Award, which recognized their riparian management and community involvement. From left to right, Clayton Loewen with Jane, Duncan and Lindsay Barnett.

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Congratulations!!!

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Congratulations Duncan and Jane Trott Barnett Well deserved recognition

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Congratulations to Duncan, Jane, and all the rest of the Barnett family!

Congratulations Duncan and Jane!!

Congratulations Jane and Ducan! Sandra Andresen Hawkins

Congratulations Jane & Duncan 🥳

Congratulation Duncan & Jane!!

Congratulations Jane Trott Barnett and Duncan!!!

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1 month ago

Grapegrower Colleen Ingram, who was recognized earlier this year as the 2024 Grower of the Year by the BC Grapegrowers Association. “Given the devastation we have had over the last three years, I feel like this award should be given to the entire industry,” she says. Her story appears in the June edition of Country Life in BC, and we've also posted to our website.

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Industry champion named BC’s best grape grower

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KELOWNA – Colleen Ingram’s enthusiasm for collaboration within the BC wine industry is so great that when she was named 2024 Grower of the Year by the BC Grapegrowers Association, she wanted to sh...
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2 months ago

From orchard manager to government specialist and now executive director of the BC Fruit Growers Association, Adrian Arts brings a rare blend of hands-on farming experience and organizational leadership to an industry poised for renewal. His appointment comes at a pivotal moment for BC fruit growers, with Arts expressing enthusiasm about continuing the momentum built by his predecessor and working alongside a board that signals a generational shift in agricultural advocacy.

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Arts leads BCFGA forward

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A combination of organizational management and practical farming experience has primed the new executive director of the BC Fruit Growers Association to lead the industry forward.
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A public consultation is now underway on the powers and duties of the BC Milk Marketing Board. Key issues for dairy producers include transportation costs, rules governing shipments and limitations on supporting processing initiatives. Stakeholders have until May 31 to comment.

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Milk board undertakes review

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A public consultation on the powers and duties of the BC Milk Marketing Board is underway as part of a triennial review required by the British Columbia Milk Marketing Board Regulation.
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New chair appointed to land commission

While he’s disappointed, Frank Leonard isn’t surprised his term wasn’t renewed

June 1, 2018 byPeter Mitham [photo By Chad Hipolito]

VICTORIA – The outgoing chair of the Agricultural Land Commission believes it’s in good hands as the province prepares to receive recommendations for its revitalization.

The province appointed Frank Leonard chair of the commission in 2015 following the abrupt termination of Richard Bullock. Leonard’s completed his three-year term and his appointment was not renewed.

“I enjoyed it. I’m grateful to have served in that role, and I’m certainly going to miss it,” Leonard told Country Life in BC. “I think I’m the only one who kept telling people I was not likely to be reappointed. … It wasn’t so much the job I was doing, it’s just the flavour I’ve had in my past life around politics. So I get it, I was prepared for it, though I’m disappointed to leave.”

Leonard served as mayor of Saanich from 1996 to 2014, and previously worked in his family’s tire business. His career led to several involvements with municipal government organizations.

Leonard has now been replaced by Jennifer Dyson, a Vancouver Island water buffalo farmer who was most recently chair of the nine-member panel charged with gathering public feedback and reviewing options for revitalizing the Agricultural Land Reserve.

Dyson’s appointment sends a clear signal that the province is keen to implement recommendations of the panel, which will draft its report under the leadership of vice-chair Vicki Huntington.

Leonard believes he’s leaving the commission in good hands. Key staff, including CEO Kim Grout, remain in place and the commission continues to enjoy the larger budget granted it under former agriculture minister Norm Letnick.

“The biggest difference I made was in changing the management and in managing the change. I’ve had people, even on social media, comment that they thought that the land use decisions I made were appropriate and consistent with the legislation,” he said, acknowledging that social media can make reputations as well as break them. “People didn’t see a difference in the land use decisions. … Applications that were taking more than two years when I arrived [were] being done in 90 working days when I left. People were still getting ‘yes’ or ‘no’ as appropriate [but] they were getting the answer a lot sooner.”

When he was appointed, Leonard said the best way to protect the ALR was to ensure that the farms within it were financially viable. This is in sync with the arguments BC agriculture minister Lana Popham has put forward, and the thrust of several comments made during both formal and informal discussions regarding the future of the ALR during the recent consultation, which ended April 30.

However, Leonard worries at the exact shape revitalization may take, given the political differences between the current government and that of the BC Liberals.

“There’s some nostalgia for the ALR prior to the Liberals bringing in legislation that changed it,” he says “I’m hoping ‘revitalization’ isn’t a cover word for ‘back to the future.’”

While the two-zone structure introduced in 2014 has been “less than successful,” Leonard says regional panels that allow landowners to make a case to local commissioners are important.

“I wouldn’t fight very hard to keep the zones but the panels, I think, have been very successful,” he says. “Doing site visits, having face-to-face contact with applicants, have just given us so much more credibility with applicants and with stakeholders, rather than having people meet in Burnaby once a month and make decisions. It’s much more respectful to applicants to have local people on their property listening to them and letting them tell their story.”

Bullock, for his part, continues to advocate for farmland protection. Shortly after his dismissal in May 2015, just seven months before the end of his five-year term, he gave a presentation to the Institute for Sustainable Food Systems at Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU) in Richmond that framed his termination as politically motivated.

BC NDP agriculture critic Lana Popham told Country Life in BC at the time she agreed, calling Bullock’s termination, “a completely incompetent decision.”

“He has always championed agriculture, and he knows how important it’s going to be in our future,” she said. “That is not something that this current government wants to hear.”

KPU hopes Popham gives Bullock a more sympathetic hearing. KPU asked him to write the foreword to its recent white paper on farmland protection. The paper aimed to challenge free market ideals in order to ensure farmland is valued for food production, and used for that purpose.

“The ALC is positioned to move to the next stage, one in which the ALR is accepted as simply being a part of who we are,” Bullock wrote in his foreword. “The minister must be bold in her recommendations to move this key legislation forward. At this juncture,

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