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Originally published:

DECEMBER 2019
Vol. 105 Issue 12

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Stories In This Edition

Parties unite on trespass legislation

Protesters rally at Ag Day

Got milk?

Peace faces worst grain harvest in 30+years

Editorial: Light in darkness

Back Forty: The West is packing its bags. Does Ottawa care?

Farmers’ passion for the land is strong

Ranchers voice ALR concerns at public meetings

Chefs, farmers foster new relationships

Sidebar: VFM Direct shuts down

Summerland grower steps up as co-op president

Recommendations from report nearly fully implemented

Food and beverage innovation centre launched

Japanese beetle control an industry priority

Langley farmers launch local farmers’ institute

BC agritech attracting major partners

New dam safety information flows

Bee-utiful

No-till takes centre stage at field day

Students showcase on-farm research projects

Emergency plans top agenda for bison ranchers

Rad

Regulatory issues top concerns for cattlemen

Processing adds value to Cowichan farm

Mentorship network helps new farmers

Research: Gene-editing eliminates horns in dariy bulls

Preserving owl, bat habitat is good for farming

Sidebar: Better bait

Seed app helps producers grow research data

Cannabis class wins high marks at BC fairs

Cannabis growers square off against diseases, pests

Pear-fect

Sidebar: Breaking the mold

Fine-tune feeding for healthier lambs

Farm Story: Performance anxiety knows no boundaries

Island AgSafe consultant changes gears

Woodshed: Intrigue deepens as barn repairs take shape

Century Farm award honours historic milestone

Jude’s Kitchen: So much to celebrate

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10 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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No-till takes centre stage at field day

Untilled soils are healthier, have greater biodiversity

Catherine Tarasoff, left, and Rachael Roussin demonstrate an infiltrometer that measures how long it takes the soil to absorb water. TOM WALKER PHOTO

December 1, 2019 byTom Walker

ROCK CREEK – West Kootenay farmers had a field day in the hills above Rock Creek on September 10.

“We had an opportunity to view both informal and formal field trials that the farmers are developing,” says Rachael Roussin, coordinator of the Kootenay and Boundary Farm Advisors, which organized the event. “But these field days also make a space for conversation among the farmers.”

The first stop was at Doug and Erica Fossen’s cattle ranch. Classic curious farmers, the Fossens are always looking to improve the efficiency of their ranch.

This has made Doug is a fan of zero-till, the practice of seeding each year’s crop through the stubble of last year’s.

Benefits include less compaction and healthier soils because there’s no loss of organic matter or microbes.

“We’ve had spots, like on our calving grounds, where the soil was so compact we couldn’t grow anything,” he explains. “We have been zero-tilling for probably 20 years now, and those areas are not compacted anymore and the soil is getting stronger.”

Less time on the tractor also saves on the gas bill.

“We are always looking for ways to reduce our fuel bill,” he adds.

The Fossens showed a field planted to corn and intercropped with clover. The aim was to have some clover left behind for fall grazing after the corn was cut for silage. The clover was not as successful as he had hoped, however.

“My timing was a bit off, and the seeder I am using is really old,” he says. “But there should be some clover roots to stabilize the hillside soil in the spring and the new growth could give some early grazing.”

He also shared tips on growing and harvesting corn silage and corn grazing.

“I got good yields on my corn, around 7.5 tons of dry matter per acre,” he says. “I had more than I needed for silage so I left two fields for the cows to graze in December.”

He grazed an eight-acre field two years ago and he believes he got the equivalent yield in the field as if he had harvested it.

“I am hoping that each 13-acre field with about 400 cows will last 15 to 17 days,” says Fossen. “So, hopefully, we can get an extra month of grazing past when we would normally have to start feeding.”

But it’s good to have a back-up plan, he says.

“We have enough silage out in the pit to feed if everything goes wrong and it is just an ugly experiment for the neighbours to talk about,” he chuckles.

Radish rescue

Over 100 years of dry-land farming in the Rock Creek sunshine have left the grain and forage fields on Jamie Haynes’ ranch pretty compact. When it does rain, the dense soils are less able to absorb the moisture.

“After talking to the Fossens, I have transitioned to no-till methods to increase organic matter and reduce soil compaction,” explains Haynes.

A grant from the BC Agriculture and Food Climate Action Initiative’s Farm Adaptation Innovator program helped Haynes conduct an on-farm research project to see if he could improve soil function by interplanting tillage radishes while maintaining a satisfactory forage yield.

“We wanted to see if the radishes would help with water infiltration so when it does rain, the water will go in further and last longer,” explains Roussin.

Half a 60-acre field was planted with spring rye, oats and peas, and tillage radish, while the other half had no radish. Roussin coordinated the trial and Catherine Tarasoff, of Thompson Rivers University, and Agrowest Consulting provided support for research design and standardized measurements.

Tarasoff says the radishes served two purposes.

Radishes have long roots that are able to punch through the hardpan layer of soil, she explains. When the roots rot in the fall, they leave a kind of tube in the soil that allows water infiltration as well as adds organic matter.

“We found that [infiltration] where the radishes had been planted was almost twice that of the control area,” says Tarasoff. “But it’s not a silver bullet. That hardpan has taken years to build so it will take a number of plantings of radishes to break it up.”

The yields in both plots were comparable.

“We found that the yields on both the rye, oats and peas alone and the radish mix were very similar,” says Tarasoff.

However, radish planting reduced weed growth.

“The radish plantings had only half as many weeds and a more consistent yield,” she says.

That’s good for the long-term health of the field, Tarsoff points out.

“If the weeds are choked out, they will have less to seed the next year,” she says.

Low risk

On-farm research doesn’t require a lot of risk, Tarasoff notes.

“You can start with an acre just to see if something works,” she says. “And you always need an adjacent plot without the experiment so that you can compare

results.”

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