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Originally published:

June 2019
Vol. 105 Issue 6

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Stories In This Edition

First Cut

Hog farm won’t face charges

Okanagan drives land values

Where’s the beef?

Minister defends Bill 15 changes

Back Forty: Farmers, not just farmland, need revitalization

Editorial: No peace, no order

ALR restrictions make commuting a fact of life

Johnston’s Packers targeted by activists

Child labour

Sidebar: When is a crime not a crime?

Berry growers get long-awaited funding boost

Proteobiotics reduce poultry, swine infections

Greenhouse growth stymied by gas prices

Bloom

Increase farm productivity with cover crops

Ag Briefs: Water fees not evenly distributed among users

Ag Briefs: BC Tree Fruits prepares to relocate

Farmland trust explored for Island

New owner, same faces

Fruitful experience

Fruit growers cautiously optimistic on bloom set

Honeycrisp key to success for Golden Apple winners

Changes to slaughter rules taking too long

Going! Going! Gone

Local meat deamnd creating opportunities

Sidebar: Compost in 14 days

Ranch takes pasture to plate at face value

Market Musings: Technology has its challenges

Oliver veggie grower prefers wholesale

Grocer offers tips to get a foot in the door

Greenhouse veggie days a hit with school

Haskap research may help berry go mainstream

Grow up!

Research: Bee sensitivity linked to neonic pesticides

Fraser Valley orchardist calling it a day

Rally cry

Worming his way to the top of the heap

Mushrooms a viable crop for small growers

Island 4-H beef show celebrates 25 years

Woodshed: Deborah starts her vacation a golf widow

Brewery’s food program spawns farm project

Jude’s Kitchen: Celebrate dads!

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7 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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Ranch takes pasture to plate at face value

Devick Ranch builds Class A abattoir to meet consumer demand

PROBLEM SOLVING Frustrated by how the lack of meat processing capacity in the province was preventing expansion of direct meat sales to their customers, the Devick family built a Class A abattoir on their ranch near Kamloops. [ANITA DEVICK PHOTO]

May 28, 2019 byTom Walker

by TOM WALKER

HEFFLEY CREEK – Taking the bull by the horns is something the Devick family has been doing since 1906. That’s when it first built a ranch and began running cattle in the Heffley-Louis Creek area north of Kamloops.

It often takes an independent business person to step up and fill a need in the market. While the lack of meat processing capacity has been a topic of concern in BC for a number of years, the Devick brothers and five of their sons have quietly gone ahead and built a Class A abattoir at their ranch.

“We have been doing beef sales for the last 15 to 20 years,” says Paul Devick, who gave a presentation on building a Class A abattoir at the annual general meeting of the BC Association of Abattoirs in April. “We run about 850 cow-calf pairs a year and we also have a feedlot and have been fattening our own cattle.”

A family meeting in February 2017 calved the idea for the slaughterhouse.

“The meat business has been pretty good for us selling to neighbours and friends,” notes Devick. “With our own plant, we would have everything in-house from gate to plate, eliminate the middleman and improve our bottom line along the way. We decided to move forward with the abattoir.”

Although the family wasn’t experienced in abattoir construction, it contracted Dave Charchuck and Sandra Vanderbyl to guide them and talked a lot with veteran Kamloops butcher Ron Keeley.

The first step was to work with BC Ministry of Agriculture staff and develop strategies related to marketing, business development, risk management and labour management.

“This was a very helpful exercise to see if we should carry forward,” says Devick. “We spent a lot of time talking and considering the ups and downs, and it still looked positive.”

They determined that half the plant would be for their own cattle. It would need to process about 12 to 15 animals daily for an annual capacity of 1,500 to 1,600 animals. The coolers would be able to hold about 70 whole beef carcasses, or 140 sides.

“We made a floor plan,” says Devick. “We had a limit of 6,000 square feet and it took probably 10 different plans before we got the [processing] flows right.”

He says they also developed HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points) and standard operating procedures.

Deciding what type of building to construct was where the fun began, continues Devick.

“We looked at a stick-frame and we looked at concrete,” he recalls. “In the end we went with SIP [structural insulated panels].”

Permits and licences were required before a shovel could be put in the ground.

“This is a very important step to be taken care of first,” he emphasizes.

The licences included one for water extractions, a water treatment permit, zoning and building permits, an abattoir licence, a licence to construct a compost system for waste disposal, a sewage disposal permit and, of course, a business licence.

The family acted as their own general contractor and picked trades they could work alongside, which saved money.

“Challenging but worth it,” says Devick. “But check out your contractors. We had a range from very good to one guy who was smoking a joint on his lunch break.”

Ranch equipment was used to move earth and prep the site.

“Make sure you get a geotech survey for your site,” cautions Devick, who said the one he got flagged the need to remove truckloads of clay before construction began.

Other challenges included starting construction in September 2017 and having to work through the winter, something he doesn’t advise. A mix of old and new equipment means that not everything works with the same ease.

On the plus side, labour has not been an issue.

“We feel we are quite lucky with the Kamloops labour base; we have been able to find good help,” he says. “We have one worker who has completed the Thompson Rivers University meat-cutting program and we have another one coming from the program next month.”

Devick says the ranch is now able to manage animals all the way from breeding to the butcher’s block, making them better able to satisfy customers. This hasn’t stopped them from buying animals to meet demand, however.

“It is a challenge having animals available all year round and we do buy some in the summer months,” he says.

A 900-pound calf going into their feedlot takes about three months to reach a 1,200 to 1,300 lb. slaughter weight. The animals are usually spoken for when they enter the yard, part of the ranch’s marketing program.

After their first kill in August last year, they were right into the fall run.

“It’s been a big learning curve but I think it is working well,” Devick says. “For the future, we are planning to move towards more value-added when we get the smoker and the sausage kitchen up and running. We have also looked at the possibility of doing a pet food line to try to reduce our waste and improve our bottom line.”

Devick says one of the keys to the successful start was being able to talk to other plant operators in the province about how to make things work.

“It’s great to have the support of your business associates and this association. They sure helped us a lot,” he said, gratefully.

 

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