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Originally published:

APRIL 2022
Vol. 108 Issue 4

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Stories In This Edition

Taking root

No room

Farmland values soar

Orchardist grows international, domestic sales

Editorial: The choices we make

Back 40: Freedom has its boundaries in a civilized world

Viewpoint: Underinsured in a potential disaster zone

BCFGA sheds responsibilities, looks ahead

Province hikes minimum wage, piece rates

Climate Action Initiative disbanded by province

Dusty brown

Letters: Minister is misleading

Chicken growers on watch for avian influenza

Ag Briefs: OrganicBC pursues structural review

Ag Briefs: Online bull sale exceeds expectations

Ag Briefs: Groundwater deadline passes

Turkeys emerge from 2021 in a strong position

Sidebar: Benoit trades turkeys for flowers

Agri-industry project gets green light from ALC

Resilient cherry growers target exports

Labour shortage has abattoirs hogtied

No progress on livestock watering regulations

Soakin’ up the sun

Regenerative agriculture vision outlined

Strong yields and new strategy for cranberries

Tree fruit growers struggle to source plants

Fumigation options

Farm Story: Cull potatoes are about to earn their keep

Pilot program bridges the extension gap

There is a future for BC’s apple industry

A warming world calls for new strategies

Heat dome, cold snaps hit some, miss others

Boiler project cuts costs for Duncan farm

Woodshed Chronicles: A little tough love for Frank and Kenneth

Farm partnership supports local non-profit

BC entrepreneurs meet food waste challenge

It’s time to dust off the barbecue

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10 hours 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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5 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

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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Tree fruit growers struggle to source plants

Rootstock is in dire short supply across North America

Sam and Patti DiMaria of Bella Rosa Orchards in Kelowna are finding it a struggle to update their orchard with new trees because of a lack of rootstock. SUBMITTED

April 1, 2022 byKate Ayers

KELOWNA – Weather challenges and growing demand over the past two years mean some tender fruit growers are struggling to secure new trees for their orchards.

“My son and I attempted to source some peach trees for next spring and the spring two years from now and there’s absolutely nothing. So, we tried to find some rootstock. No rootstocks whatsoever for soft fruits anywhere,” says Sam DiMaria of Bella Rosa Orchards in Kelowna. “This year we attempted to look for rootstocks for pears. It’s been extremely hard. There’s virtually nobody here in Canada, that’s for sure. In the States, if you do happen to find rootstocks, you’re extremely lucky and then there are other problems.”

The nurseries supplying the sector say a number of factors, including the extreme weather events of recent years, have all contributed to the supply pinch.

“We’ve experienced significant losses in our crops over the last three years,” says Mike Byland, vice-president and general manager of Bylands Nurseries Ltd. in West Kelowna.

He says damage occurred “pretty much across the board with all of our commercial fruit trees.”

Bylands also brings in some rootstock from across the border and says the weather-related losses mean tree orders are “really backed up.”

“We don’t have any trees left for 2022, and tree availability will be very limited in 2023 as well because it takes a few years to work through some of the challenges,” says Byland.

The difficulties prompted Byland to change tack and streamline operations, growing to order rather than maintaining a large planting vulnerable to the weather. The high cost of labour for tending trees that may or may not sell was also a factor.

“We used to grow on spec, but it takes four years to grow a tree from start to finish,” he explains. “This long production time, along with high costs of rootstocks, labour challenges and issues with regards to losses, have really impacted our operation and forced us to adapt our practices.”

While the nursery will take orders for 2023 as usual, beginning in June, orders for 2024 and beyond will require a minimum order of 500 trees of a single variety.

“We are moving towards custom growing for the industry,” says Byland. “These custom orders will require a minimum order and for growers to work further ahead with order timeframes, but these details still need to be finalized and communicated to our customers.”

Byland hopes BC does not get battered with another year of weather extremes.

“It’s got to the point where it’s become difficult to be profitable with commercial fruit tree sales,” he says. “We’ve had three years in a row where environmental pressures have had huge impacts on our yield and ultimately, profitability.”

Short supply makes diversification hard

Stock shortages in Canada combined with the challenges of importing clean plant material from the US have BC producers looking high and low for plants to renew and expand their orchards.

Katie Sardinha of Kaleidoscope Fruit Ranch in Summerland primarily grow organic apples, but the family-run farm is looking to diversify with pears, hardy kiwis and some soft fruits.

Sardinha has struggled to find a nursery that would fulfill her 150-tree order.

“We are a small grower with about 10 acres,” Sardinha says. “That’s very common around here, to be small-scale growers, so it makes sense for our business plan to do small replants on a regular basis.”

With the new minimum order requirements at Bylands, she called Van Well Nursery Inc. and C&O Nursery in Washington. Both say they’re no longer accepting orders from Canada, with C&O citing business risks as the key factor.

DiMaria says US nurseries are largely opposed to Canadian Food Inspection Agency rules requiring that incoming trees undergo fumigation to kill invasive species like the Oriental fruit moth, which is still unknown in BC.

“Fumigation is quite an involved process and it’s very expensive for the nurseries to do,” he says. “In order for them to do fumigation, they require a minimum amount of trees for them to cover their costs.”

But even if producers are willing to place the minimum required order for fumigation and cover the costs, nurseries face issues getting their stock into Canada. The nurseries he’s spoken with in Washington and Oregon all claim Canada Border Services Agency officers impose all sorts of red tape that makes shipping to Canada extremely difficult.

“It’s not worth their trouble to ship those things into Canada even after they’re fumigated,” says DiMaria. “They were telling me that I would have to deal with [CBSA] and that I would have to try and resolve any issues that come out of [CBSA] at the border when importing any plant material. They’ve washed their hands of that and thrown it on our lap.”

DiMaria has gone through the process of importing trees from south of the border himself and notes it really is a hassle – “to the point where you’re willing to say, ‘forget it.’”

To renew her aging orchard, Sardinha reached out to smaller nurseries in BC. She was eventually able to secure stock from Similkameen Nurseries Ltd. in Cawston, thanks to the business’s flexibility.

“They only do apples and they agreed to try doing pears. We were lucky that they agreed to do that because otherwise we were basically going to have to do our own nursery, which is a whole new thing for us and kind of overwhelming,” says Sardinha.

She’ll have to wait three years for their new stock to be ready, but it’s easier than doing it herself.

Still, the short supply of rootstock across North America makes it difficult for growers to plan ahead.

“If I want to plant, what do I plant that can make me money? Where do I find the plants,? Where do I find the trees? What’s the cost of the trees, and if I can find them in the US, what are the hurdles that have to be overcome to bring them here?” asks DiMaria. “I’m afraid that a lot of tree fruit growers in the valley are putting off decisions to replant and renew their orchards. … Our choices have been very limited in terms of what we can plant.”

A resolution passed at the BC Fruit Growers’ Association’s annual general meeting in February directed the association to determine ways to improve access to fruit trees from nurseries.

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