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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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1 week ago

The Great Spallumcheen Farm & Food Festival and North Okanagan Plowing Match is happening this Sunday, September 24 from 10-3 at Fieldstone Organics, 4851 Schubert Rd, Armstrong. The outdoor festival features tastings and a market brimming with local food and beverage vendors, a horse and tractor plowing competition and vintage farm equipment displays. ... See MoreSee Less

The Great Spallumcheen Farm & Food Festival and North Okanagan Plowing Match is happening this Sunday, September 24 from 10-3 at Fieldstone Organics, 4851 Schubert Rd, Armstrong. The outdoor festival features tastings and a market brimming with local food and beverage vendors, a horse and tractor plowing competition and vintage farm equipment displays.
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Patti 😊

2 weeks ago

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2 weeks ago

The top five issues the Canadian Centre for Food Integrity identified in a recent survey were the cost of food, inflation, the cost of energy, keeping healthy food affordable and the Canadian economy. “We are seeing that environmental concerns are not in the top 10,” says Amy Peck, manager of the Canadian Cattle Association’s public and stakeholder engagement program. “If you are concerned about being able to afford to feed your family, the environment becomes less important.” ... See MoreSee Less

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Ranchers get the backstory on public perception

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VERNON – Ranchers might be concerned about how the public sees their industry, but a producer-funded team at the Canadian Cattle Association has their back. Amy Peck, manager of the Canadian Cattle...
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2 weeks ago

BC Tree Fruit Co-op has sold its Lake Country packing house as part of its long-term plan to consolidate operations. The sale, to an undisclosed buyer, closed on August 31, 2023 for $15.8 million. ... See MoreSee Less

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Lake Country packing house sold

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BC Tree Fruit Co-op has sold its Lake Country packing house as part of its long-term plan to consolidate operations. The sale, to an undisclosed buyer, closed on August 31, 2023 for $15.8 million.
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Who bought it ffs ?

Ted Nedjelski Karen Turner

One of my first jobs was apple grading in a packing plant in Vernon

Vivian, is this where you worked?

I’d hear the company that owns the big Cannabis company that owns the green houses all around this packing plant was buying up everything around to expand. Wonder if it’s them that got it.

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2 weeks ago

The federal government has committed $1.81 million over the next three years to support the BC Poultry Association's preparation for direct participation in responses to future outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza in the province. “The persistence of the virus in wildlife and recurrence of outbreaks globally, presents additional risks during the migratory bird season in North America later in 2023,” the National Collaborating Centre for Environmental Health in Vancouver advised in July. For more, visit www.countrylifeinbc.com/ai-risk-rises-with-fall/ ... See MoreSee Less

The federal government has committed $1.81 million over the next three years to support the BC Poultry Associations preparation  for direct participation in responses to future outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza in the province. “The persistence of the virus in wildlife and recurrence of outbreaks globally, presents additional risks during the migratory bird season in North America later in 2023,” the National Collaborating Centre for Environmental Health in Vancouver advised in July. For more, visit https://www.countrylifeinbc.com/ai-risk-rises-with-fall/
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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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