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Originally published:

May 2018
Vol. 104 Issue 5

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Stories In This Edition

Fraser Valley bee shortage overstated

Still waiting: ag waste regs

Cannabis shift delivers hit to vegetable sector

Peter’s legacy

Editorial: The straight dope

Back Forty: Our best friend deserves greater recognitiontory

Overheard: Farmers should embrace First Nations model

Change is coming, fast and furious

Foundation effective in fueling ag projects

New meat producer association launched

Sidebar: On board

Traceability regs to include animal movement

Report recommends FN approval on tenures

Province urged to regulate farmhouse size

Dairy group highlights industry needs on tour

Ottawa plays hardball with Agassiz leases

IAF showcases innovative ag projects

Neonics in water not from farm operations

Potato growers need to exploit opportunities

Spuds in tubs

Vegetable commission optimistic

Sidebar: Variety update

MacAulay grilled over farm labour issues

Apiarists want pollination income to count

Sidebar: BCHPA launches pollinator health study

Raspberry growers increase board size

Popham meets with berry growers

Hazelnut growers flush with optimism

Ranchers schooled in disaster preparation

Westgen eyes beef semen sales for growth

Big prize money draws big entries

Holstein auction sets new sale benchmark

North 40 bull tops Vanderhoof sale

Reclaiming market share in a global economy

Day-neutrals show promise for strawberry fields

Weather skews results in Peace variety trials

Salal berries have market potential

Vole control in blueberries

Wannabe: When tragedy brings us together

Watchful eye

Woodshed Chronicles: Henderson masterminds an apology

Jude’s Kitchen: Celebrate May with beef on the ‘barbie’

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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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Traceability regs to include animal movement

Farm to fork and everything in between will be tracked

Sheep

April 30, 2018 byBarbara Johnstone-grimmer

PENDER ISLAND – Traceability regulations are right around the corner.

The promise is something livestock producers have heard before, but this time the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) says it’s the truth.

Sometime within the next year, regulations will require more than just an approved ear tag. Premises will have to be registered and movements of animals reported to the Canadian Livestock Tracking System (CLTS) if producers expect to purchase or sell livestock.

“Producers tell me that we’ve been talking about changes in traceability regulations for a long time and many are at the point where they just want to know what the regulations are going to be and what their obligations are,” says Canadian Sheep Federation executive director and Canadian Cattle Identification Agency (CCIA) board member Corlena Patterson.

“We have a general understanding of the changes that are coming,” says Lisa Levesque, traceability and premises identification team lead for the BC Ministry of Agriculture. “The proposed regulations are federal so we are looking forward to seeing the details when they’re published.”

Patterson and Levesque are both members of the industry-government Regulatory Implementation Committee (RIC) formed to identify and prioritize actions to help prepare for a smooth implementation of the amendments to the federal health of animals regulations.

Regulations coming

Draft regulations should be released later this year, and a 75-day comment period will follow. The final regulations will likely be published and take effect sometime in 2019.

Traceability is the ability to trace an item – animal, plant or product – through the supply chain, from farm to  fork, backwards or forwards. The purpose is to provide accurate and timely information to reduce the impacts of a natural disaster, disease outbreak or a food recall.

In the case of a serious situation, such as a reportable disease like BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or ‘mad cow’ disease) or scrapie, animals would be traced back to the home farm and sites in between. Stock that came in contact with infected animals would also be identified through the tracing system.

The system depends on the traceability of animals, the premises where they’re located and movements between premises to be identifiable and tracked. Animal movements will have to be reported to the responsible administrator (with only a few exemptions), and a manifest (paper or electronic) that details the movement will need to accompany animals in transit. Subject premises include farms, auctions, assembly yards, fairgrounds, abattoirs and rendering plants.

These three parts to traceability – identification, premises, movements – allow the tracing of an animal through the supply chain.

If the system works well, the impact of an event on the livestock industry can be minimized and market access can be maintained.

BSE cost livestock producers across Canada upwards of $6 billion in 2003. Current estimates peg the cost of cross-species outbreak of a disease like Foot and Mouth at up to $45 billion.

The new regulations will address gaps in the current livestock identification and traceability system. Proposed regulatory amendments include identification requirements for goats, farmed deer and farmed elk, which increases the number of animals subject to traceability requirements. Regulations have already been in place for identification of bison, cattle, sheep and pigs.

The pork industry in BC and the rest of Canada is ahead of the pack with Pig Trace, a mandatory traceability system in place since 2014. The rest of the livestock industry currently has a broken system, however.

Sheep producers, for example, purchase approved RFID tags and the tag information is stored in the CLTS. Although producers are required to keep records of movements, they aren’t required to report to CLTS.

Moreover, livestock species that share diseases are not currently all subject to traceability requirements; the time to report an event is too long to support an effective response; information about the precise location of livestock is limited; and information on domestic animal movements is lacking.

The new regulations also promise to reduce the maximum time to report a tag replacement, movement or animal death to the responsible administrator from 30 days to seven.

In Canada, premises ID falls to the provinces. BC has made it voluntary but producers will need to register their farms and provide a premises ID number if they want to move livestock to other locations. Registration of the premises can be done by mail or online in a simple 10-minute process that provides producers with unique identifiers for their locations.

Premises ID proved its worth during last year’s natural disasters. According to the BC Cattlemen’s Association, the Cariboo wildfires resulted in almost full registration of its members within days last summer.

To report animal movements or purchases of new animals, producers and other livestock facilities will need to report to the CLTS system online or by telephone. The new Canada Agricultural Partnership (CAP) is expected to have cost-share funding available to assist individuals and organizations purchase equipment and management software to help make the reporting process as easy and accurate as possible.

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