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Originally published:

MAY 2021
Vol. 107 Issue 5

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Stories In This Edition

Water licence angst

Green gold

Pandemic puts pinch on finances

Province to lift restrictions on second homes

Editorial: On the level

Back 40: Asian giant hornets aren’t welcome here

OpEd: Proposed meat regs a step in the right direction

Province plans pilot for new drought ratings

Sidebar: Universal

High snowpack limits drought

Jack Frost nips potential for huge cherry crop

Ag Briefs: Dog attacks put sheep producers on alert

Ag Briefs: Poultry scholarship established

Ag Briefs: BC Tree Fruits extends CEO contract

Letters: Build soil with carbon tax

Funding revived for local gov’t agriculture plans

Sidebar: Mission expands definition of accessory use agriculture

Record funding flowed through IAFBC last year

Lotsa tomatoes

AgSafe embraces new governance structure at AGM

ALR exclusion fails to win ag committee support

BC dairy industry sees steady demand

Dairy producers work to resolve quality issues

Tree fruit consultations off to flying start

Canada holds off Asian giant hornet restructions

Strawberry groewrs eye new varieties

Funding stopped up for raspberry replant

Beekeepers welcome technology transfer program

Island couple step up to revive local abattoir

Tech crucial to speed variety development

Research: Urban farms can contribute to food security

Building soil structure with organic compost

Locally grown asparagus fills a niche market

BC propagator awarded research grant

Understanding the methodology to farm financing

Seed bank continues legacy of seed-savers

New owners to extend Woodside Farm’s legacy

Ruckle Farm looks toward the future

Farm Story: Spring deliveries inspire the urge to get farming

Farmer-chef connections still paying off

Woodshed: Henderson between a rock and a hard place

Pandemic forces BC agricultural fairs to adapt

Jude’s Kitchen: Herbs & sprouts

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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 to lift restrictions on second homes

Proposed regulation creates residential flexibility in the ALR

Meghan McPherson, with son Eric, 4, at a Courtenay dairy where she is employed, was among the first to speak out against legislation introduced in 2019 that would limit secondary residences on farm properties. The province has announced it will be revisiting those rules and making them more flexible CHRIS MCPHERSON

May 1, 2021 byPeter Mitham

VICTORIA – The province is preparing a new regulation to allow property owners in the Agricultural Land Reserve to have a secondary dwelling without Agricultural Land Commission approval.

“For almost 50 years, BC’s agricultural land reserve (ALR) has existed to encourage farming and protect farmland,” said BC agriculture minister Lana Popham said in Facebook post highlighting a factsheet on the changes. “It should go without saying that farmers need a place to live, and that many non-farmers live in the ALR. We are now finalizing changes that will create more residential opportunities in the ALR.”

The new rules follow a public consultation last year and will “provide more flexibility to help farming families thrive and to benefit non-farmers living in the ALR.” The consultation included submissions from 29 local governments as well as 257 individuals and associations.

According to the factsheet, the new rules will “enable ALR landowners to have both a principal residence (that could include a secondary suite) and a small additional residence, whether or not there is farming activity on the property.”

The changes please Meghan McPherson, a Comox Valley landowner who led the charge against the original regulation in 2019.

Critics argued that the restrictions on secondary residences limited the ability for extended families to live on the same property, impeded agritourism and left many unable to obtain insurance for existing dwellings that could not be rebuilt under the new rules.

“I’m hopeful that it will relieve a majority of the pressure that’s been felt by the housing restrictions,” she says. “We’re all on standby, still waiting for the official announcement on what the changes are going to look like so we can begin to make plans and proceed with our lives.”

District A Farmers Institutes president Raquel Kolof was also pleased with the change, which limited her ability to secure financing for an expansion of her farm in Gibsons.

“The proposed changes … would go a long way to help farmers stay afloat in these challenging times,” she says, noting the frustration the restrictions created for a number of families and small-scale farm operations.

Bill 52 was a surprise

The new regulation backtracks from an initial regulation designed to give force and effect to Bill 52, passed in 2018. Sprung without notice on property owners in February 2019, the new regulation was designed to support farming but effectively outlawed most forms of secondary residences.

Many landowners in the process of securing manufactured homes for their properties were caught offguard.

An outcry over the changes led to a temporary reprieve in which landowners were given extra time to obtain the permits and authorizations required to situate manufactured homes for immediate family members on their properties. It has been extended three times, with the latest extension running until December 31, giving local governments time to adjust their bylaws to accommodate the new regulations.

However, the adjustments may include implementing their own restrictions on the kinds of housing allowed on properties within the ALR. While some larger municipalities will likely try to contain residential development, McPherson hopes rural municipalities will be more lenient

“We’ve fought really hard to have access to basic, modest housing in rural parts of the province, and to then have local governments restrict that further is definitely a really concern for some people,” she says.

McPherson halted her own bid to place a manufactured home on her property because it would jeopardize her ability to rebuild the primary residence should it burn or otherwise be significantly damaged.

“That was too much risk for my family,” she says.

Happily, her neighbour’s property came up for sale, allowing her parents to move in next door.

But the changes probably won’t please everyone.

“There’s some people who proceeded with getting a modular home because they thought there was only a little window and it was their only opportunity to ever have a second house,” she says. “Now, any month or any week we could hear that they could have built a cabin.”

Nevertheless, the changes are probably the best property owners could have hoped for under the circumstances.

“She doesn’t completely want to rewrite the changes that she made, but she is trying to find reasonable flexibility for the people who are ‘non-farmers,’” she says, adding that it’s even better than a straight backtrack because a second home won’t be contingent on farming activity or the ALC. “What we’ll be left with, if the changes go through the way she’s implying it will, is … a better option than what was in place before.”

 

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