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Originally published:

JULY 2019
Vol. 105 Issue 7

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Stories In This Edition

Breakfast on the Farm

Province blinks on ALR

Berry grower hit with fines

BC hop industry matures despite challenges

Smaller than small

Back 40: The ups (and downs) of sustainable agriculture

Viewpoint: Debate over cannabis underscores challenges

Dry weather ushers in provincewide drought

Giant bee-killing hornet identified in Vancouver

Weather ideal for early start to strawberries

Fresh BC strawberries …

FIRB sides with K&M on annualized production

Pricing remains on ongoing issue for poultry sector

Tree fruit competitiveness funds start to flow

Farmers institute members discuss ALR changes

Dairy association seeks general manager

Sitting down on the job

Online platform gives food a second chance

Armyworm comes back for a second helping

Cannabis genes key to long-term success

Twenty years of ambassadors reunite

Policy shifts top ranchers’ list of concerns

Winner! Winner!

Clifton Ranch aims for better beef, habitat

Sidebar: Ranch operations

Treaties create uncertainty for range users

Market Musings: Summertime slowdown

Do you know a horse …

Grazing targets fire prevention, suppression

Kestrel nestbox project will help control starlings

Sterile moth program heads south of the border

Young farmers served a heaving helping of surf ‘n turf

Research: Welfare, reproduction a complex relationship

Variety trials showcase fresh options

Sweet potato has promise for BC growers

Headway made on organic SWD controls

My turn!

The fine art of raising commercial poultry

Winfield couple banks on organic growth

Woodshed: Plans hatch while Kenneth plays golf

Breakfast on the Farm has lessons for everyone

Jude’s Kitchen: Healthy choices

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6 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

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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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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

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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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Province blinks on ALR

Small-lot farmers fight back

June 30, 2019 byPeter Mitham

VICTORIA—Growing criticism of the province’s efforts to tighten protection of the province’s Agricultural Land Reserve is prompting the province to backtrack on some of the new regulations.

A late-night bulletin the BC Ministry of Agriculture posted on June 18 indicates that rules governing second homes in the ALR would allow a grandfathering period.

“As the Province has continued to work on regulations to support Bill 52, the BC government has been listening to local governments and people living in the Agricultural Land Reserve,” the bulletin stated. “There will be more details to come in the next few weeks.”

The new rules stipulate that additional dwellings can only house workers, not immediate family members, drawing criticism from commercial and hobby farmers alike, as well as rural landowners caught unawares by the sudden change. The new rule took effect with implementation of the new Agricultural Land Use Regulation on February 22.

“In the old legislation it actually said that it didn’t need to just be for farm help, that it could be for immediate family,” explains Janet Thony, chair of District A Farmers Institute, an umbrella group representing farmers institutes on Vancouver Island, the Gulf Islands and Sunshine Coast. “They’ve removed that and, to double-down on that, they’ve also decided that they get to adjudicate whether or not you’re enough of a farmer to require farm help. You don’t get to decide that, they do, the ALC [Agricultural Land Commission].”

The issue was the last straw for District A members, which watched cautiously as Bill 52 was passed last fall, eliminating two zones for the ALR as well as addressing fill and residential development. The raft of changes proposed in Bill 15 this spring came as a greater surprise, and complemented growing concern with the approach the province was taking.

Thony, as chair of Coombs Farmers Institute, a member of District A, wrote a letter to BC agriculture minister Lana Popham outlining six concerns with the legislation and requesting a meeting. (The legislation governing farmers institutes grants them direct access to the minister.) A meeting didn’t happen.

“There was a series of unfortunate responses from them that actually kept ramping up our concern and anger level,” she explains. “Because we were getting this extreme pushback, stonewalling and – really – misrepresentation, that’s when we went, ‘okay, where do we go from here?’”

The result was a public meeting in Nanoose Bay on June 17, and the following night, the ministry bulletin.

“I’m putting this out to clear the air and to make sure people know we are continuing to do the hard work necessary to help farmers farm and protect the ALR,” Popham posted to her Facebook account the next morning.

Country Life in BC requested an interview with the minister to discuss the changes, but was told she had nothing further to add to the pledge in the bulletin.

Thony wants to see the specifics.

“She keeps using the term ‘grandfathered,’ so the part we don’t like about that is, is she going to make some backroom deals with these immediately impacted people but still go ahead with the complete restriction on second dwellings? We don’t want anything to do with that,” she says.

Cannabis updated

The same regulation also changed the rules for cannabis.

An order in council last July allowed licensed producers to produce cannabis within the ALR under specific conditions: either in soil-based systems, or structures designated for crop production when government signed the order in council.

But the wording of the new regulation gave municipalities the power to regulate cannabis production, save the forms that were explicitly allowed by the order in council.

“There has been no change made to the Province’s cannabis policy since the original policy framework announced in July 2018,” agriculture ministry staff told Country Life in BC at the end of May.

But the new wording effectively backtracked on the order in council, allowing all forms of cannabis production within the ALR except where prohibited by local governments. This ran counter to initial recommendations of the advisory committee the agriculture minister appointed last year to guide the revitalization of the ALC and ALR.

Those recommendations included “an immediate moratorium on all non-soil bound cannabis production and facilities in the ALR pending provincial-level analysis of impacts” and giving the ALC authority “to establish rules/criteria for cannabis production throughout the ALR” and to “permit cannabis production in the ALR only through application to the ALC.”

Delta South MLA and BC Liberal agricultural critic Ian Paton, who lives in a second residence on his family’s farm and attended the District A meeting on June 17, said the new regulations created “a real mess” for farmers and property owners across the province that’s starting to be felt.

Paton says everyone from large agri-tourism operators such as wineries down to small-scale farmers and charitable ventures such as the Fraser Valley Gleaners have been caught in the province’s zealous protection of the ALR.

“It’s a mess, complete mess right now,” he says. “They’re taking so much heat, … they’re saying well, oops, give us [some] time where we’re going to work on coming up with an idea to allow for some grandfathering. Obviously, they’re backtracking. The heat is on.”

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