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Originally published:

February 2018
Vol. 104 Issue 2

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Stories In This Edition

Province launches ALR review

You lookin’ at me

Ambrosia royalties disputed

BC municipalities tackle farmland housing

Editorial: Love and money

Back 40: It’s time for farmers to speak up

Op-Ed: More workers needed to meet local demand

Ag waste regulation needs united front

Milk production catching up to demand

FIRB appointment comes ahead of busy year

Cottage dairy diversifies with milk dispensing system

Wildfire recovery underpins growing range of programs

Cowichan goats inspire global ambitions

Worker housing issue hinges on collaboration

Growers should file early, file complete

Disaster assistance

BCAC public trust manager steps down

Sidebar: Are you smarter than a 10th grader

Koski steps in at Investment Ag

Farmers keen to make land connections

Courtenay co-op seeks community investment

Backers flock to support sheep farm

Okanagan Spirits focuses on innovation

Research supports year-round starling traps

Feedback sought on water regs

New food guide demands changes in marketing meat

Cattle production expected to rise in 2018

Cattle production expected to rise in 2018

Affordable workshops for new farmers

Dreams become udder reality

Sheep federation charting new future

Growers watching stink bug’s spread

Research: How beavers will help improve cow digestion

Fly larvae offer sustainable alternative protein

Fish help balance greenhouse growing system

Island home to Canada’s top Highland breeder

Where good food comes from

Wannabe: Waste not, want not

Woodshed: When there is good-bad, and bad-bad

Jude’s Kitchen: Red & chocolatey

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4 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

1 month 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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2 months ago

The scale of this year's avian flu outbreak now rivals the massive outbreak of 2004. An additional 13 commercial farms in the Fraser Valley have tested positive in the last week. To date, 49 commercial farms and 1.2 million birds have been impacted. CFIA is struggling to keep up with depopulation of sick birds. ... See MoreSee Less

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AI outbreak rivals 2004

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The scale of this year’s outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza now rivals the massive outbreak of 2004 that saw farms throughout the Fraser Valley depopulated. An additional 13 commercial…
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Commercial operations need to reevaluate their stocking densities and overall health and welfare of the animals within their systems if they are ever going to have a fighting chance against this virus.

Yup cause food shortage

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Province launches ALR review

February 1, 2018 byPeter Mitham

Panel includes veterans, critics of farmland policies

VICTORIA – The province kicked off the new year with a bang, announcing a nine-member panel to review and recommend steps for the revitalization of the province’s 45-year-old Agricultural Land Reserve.

Headed by Port Alberni water buffalo farmer Jennifer Dyson, who until last year sat on the Agricultural Land Commission’s regional panel for Vancouver Island, the committee is charged with providing “strategic advice, policy guidance and recommendations on how to help revitalize the ALR and ALC to ensure the provincial goals of preserving agricultural land and encouraging farming and ranching in British Columbia continue to be a priority.”

Committee members include Vicki Huntington, former independent MLA for South Delta; Byron Louis, chief of the Okanagan Indian Band; Lenore Newman, an associate professor at the University of the Fraser Valley; poultry farmer, real estate agent and Chilliwack city councillor Chris Kloot; Irmi Critcher, a Peace region grain farmer; Arzeena Hamir, president of the Mid Island Farmers Institute and a director of the Investment Agriculture Foundation of BC; former ALC planner Shaundehl Runka and retired ALC deputy CEO Brian Underhill.

“The ALR and the ALC are incredibly important to the health and economic well-being of our province’s future, and making it easier and more efficient for the commission to fulfill its mandate of protecting farmland and encouraging farming is a commitment the BC government is delivering on,” said BC agriculture minister Lana Popham in announcing the review.

The committee’s first order of business is writing a consultation paper that will be the basis for a public engagement process in February and March. Dyson expects the consultation paper to be available by the end of January.

“We’re not going to lay out a list of problems. We don’t want to lead the consultation process to a conclusion,” she explains. “The discussion paper will [say] this is the committee, this is what we’ll be doing, this is what the commission is, does, and how it works; these issues and themes are a number of things that impact agriculture on a regular basis.”

Responses to the report as well as comments received at community meetings will feed into the committee’s recommendations. Meetings will be held in Abbotsford, Cranbrook, Fort St. John, Kelowna, Kamloops, Nanaimo and Prince George.

“We really want open-ended discussions,” Dyson says. “Ultimately, it will be the wisdom of government to essentially make changes.”

The province says “any legislative changes that support the revitalization of the commission and the reserve are targeted for late 2018 or early 2019.”

Preliminary comments from those on both sides of the reserve – those seeking stronger protections and those who see it as an obstacle to development – were muted.

Bal Atwal, a principal in the Vancouver office of Avison Young, a commercial property brokerage, says the committee is in a tough spot. While most people want to protect land that’s in production, the other half of the reserve – the acreage that’s not being farmed – is what divides people.

“That will always cause speculation and uncertainty and broad views on the general idea of ALR land within all the various parties,” he says. “Unfortunately, I don’t believe this review will satisfy many at either end of the spectrum.”

Exclusions difficult

Whatever form revitalization takes, recent months indicate that exclusions aren’t becoming any easier.

“I’ve heard some indications in the last few months that it’s even more difficult than it has been to get an ALR exclusion, particularly for residential development,” says Mike Harrison, a land sales specialist with Front Line Real Estate Services Ltd. in Surrey.

Delta Council approved a land swap with MK Delta Lands Group that would have facilitated industrial development north of Burns Bog and added to protected area further south, for example. This would typically have facilitated approval by the land commission. However, the proposal is facing scrutiny by the commission’s executive council. Other proposals face similar assessment.

Opposition MLAs, meanwhile, jumped on the fact that various sectors and regions have been left out.

While two committee members have farms in the Peace region, ranchers and fruit growers aren’t represented on the committee.

“When I look at the committee members, I’m extremely concerned that there aren’t more farmers on this list,” said Delta South MLA Ian Paton in a statement. “Surely, the minister can find a few more British Columbians who have actually farmed for a living to provide valuable feedback.”

Popham was unavailable to comment on the choice of committee members but Dyson said they were chosen to listen to everyone rather than represent specific sectors or regions.

“There is no end to the consultation we want with farmers and ranchers in all sectors,” she says. “I’m not there to represent a commodity. And I’m not there to represent a region of the province. But I can tell you, I’m a cattle grower and I’m a dairy farmer, and we will definitely be seeking a consultation with the farming and ranching community.”

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