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Originally published:

NOVEMBER 2021
Vol. 107 Issue 11

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Stories In This Edition

Down to the crunch

Producer prices on the rise

Feeling burned

Groundwater users could lose rights next year

The right thing

Editorial: Freedom worth having

Back 40: The battle continues long after the war is over

Viewpoint: Stories bridge the gap between producers, consumers

Growers wrestle with irrigation upgrades

Wildfire 2021

Abbotsford updates farmland policies

Stormy skies

Ag Briefs: Douglas Lake “right to roam” challenge dismissed

Ag Briefs: Creston food hub opens

Ag Briefs: Food processors receive funding

Ag Briefs: Vanderspek appointed

Summerland grape specialists retire

Grapevine virus spread threatens BC industry

Caught in the act

Abbotsford sheep grower honoured

Tag readers help with livestock recordkeeping

RegenBC kicks off agritech network

Producers silent on Columbia River Treaty impacts

Cranberry fields forever

Manitoba farmers make dreams a reality

Enderby dairy is anything but conventional

Improvement to classification services explored

Up close and personal

Partnering with farmers to reduce food loss

Sidebar: Upcycled food

Slow and steady wins the day for irrigation

Research: Study takes soil health to the next level

Nelson farm builds soil and local community

Cash flow analysis is key to resilience

New app zeroes in on reducing lost produce

Sidebar: Food hub offers room to grow

Farm Story: To hoard or not to hoard: that is the question

Bursary benefits rising farm professionals

Woodshed: So much for a little peace and quiet

Saanichton Farm receives Century Farm award

Jude’s Kitchen: Fall Flavours

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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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The battle continues long after the war is over

The Back Forty

November 1, 2021 byBob Collins

In November 1968, I worked on a maintenance project in a large Vancouver sawmill. To avoid the worst of the morning traffic on the Patullo bridge, I left home early and regularly spent the half-hour before work on my own drinking coffee in the gloomy lunchroom. I arrived one morning to the sound of weeping in the back of the room. It was a man I will call Gerry. I only knew Gerry from work. He was a good carpenter and a good guy, and I’d never seen him at work a half-hour early. I asked what was wrong. Gerry apologised and said he couldn’t help it, but he just got that way sometimes, particularly at that time of year. He invited me to sit down, confessed he didn’t like to talk about it. Then, as if he felt some explanation was required, he told me why.

In October and early November of 1944, Gerry fought in the battle to liberate the Scheldt estuary in Holland. The specifics Gerry spoke of don’t bear repeating here. In generalities, he became we: We were always wet and tired, there were bodies everywhere, and we were scared all the time. A lot of us died.

The fight for the Scheldt estuary was particularly brutal. Casualty rates in some actions neared 50%. Gerry was still reliving it in vivid detail 24 years after the fact. He apologised for sharing his story and asked me not to tell anyone else about it. It is a good bet he expected to be alone in that lunchroom and hadn’t imagined sharing any part of his story with anyone else, least of all a 19-year-old workmate he hardly knew. I said something about how awful it must have been and promised not to mention it to anyone.

A few weeks, later I was dispatched to a project in another city and I never worked with Gerry again. But I never forgot that brief lunchroom encounter.

I came to realize that Gerry’s reliving of his combat experiences, and his hesitancy to let anyone know about them, were classic symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Over the years, I could see the same stoic silence in other veterans I met and wondered how many of them were caught in a secret recurring nightmare like Gerry was.

We now understand PTSD to be commonplace, even inevitable to some degree in people who have experienced substantial or prolonged trauma. Add to it moral Injury, with similar symptoms but more often related to feelings of guilt. Both conditions can lead to anxiety and depression disorders, which in turn can lead to self-harm. Canadian Forces numbers released in June showed 191 member suicides in the last 10 years compared to 158 killed in operations in the 13-year Afghanistan campaign. For some, the war is never over. For others, it ends in suicide.

I will take time to reflect on the sacrifice of all veterans on Remembrance Day. Those who died in war and those who brought it home with them. I will remember Gerry. In a perfect world, I like to think his lunchroom conversation all those years ago somehow lowered his guard and opened a door to more conversations with people who could offer him more than I did. Sadly, I can still see him weeping alone under the weight of a burden he could never escape.

The trauma that gives rise to PTSD comes in many guises. Everyone suffers from some kind of stress somewhere along the line. If you are stressed or anxious or depressed, or can see someone who is, don’t be afraid to strike up a conversation. Nothing ever gets fixed until someone admits there’s a problem. For a helping hand, check fcc-fac.ca/en/community/wellness.

Bob Collins raises beef cattle and grows produce on his farm in the Alberni Valley.

 

 

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