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Originally published:

MAY 2023
Vol. 109 Issue 5

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Stories In This Edition

Province revamps replant program

Groundwater penalties coming

Steady hand

Hopcotts named Outstanding Young Farmers

Editorial: Freedom to grow

Back 40: Demographic shifts underpin farm labour crisis

Viewpoint: Bridging the information gap in agriculture

Tulip grower makes the shift to agritourism

Insurer steps up to cover farmgate abattoirs

Straight and narrow

Ag Briefs: AgSafe board puts mental wellness front and centre

Ag Briefs: AgSafe board puts mental wellness front and centre

Ag Briefs: Wage pressures increase

Ag Briefs: Raspberry growers hopeful

Lucas marks 25-year milestone with fruit growers

Climate change spurs call for new wine rules

Pilot proposed to address worker shortfall

Guatemalans boost foreign farm workforce

Island farmer fined for environmental infractions

Leadership changes herald a year of transition

Colony losses top agenda for beekeepers

Western Milk Pool will benefit BC dairy farmers

Farmers urged to lobby for flood mitigation

BC steps up to permanently double vet seats

Sidebar: AI pause

Persisten drought points to risks ahead

Armstrong greens grower targets local niche

Fish habitat compromised by ranch operation

Ranchers honoured

Veteran cattle seller Al Smith retires

Angus bull tops Williams Lake Bull Sale

Okanagan food hub a step closer to reality

Baling ag plastics key to efficient recycling

Upright fruiting system makes orchards future-friendly

Lack of wool processing capacity limits revenue

Sweet business, small profits for honey producers

A fading art

Farm story: Spring is sprouting – as are the potatoes

Sugar alcohol a sweet solution for SWD control

Woodshed Chronicles: One step forward; two smelly steps back

Invermere market garden thrives by putting soil first

Jude’s Kitchen: Baby veggies are a taste of spring

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4 weeks ago

BC Cattlemen’s Association members gathered in Cranbrook for their 97th AGM last week. BCCA president Werner Stump welcomed upwards of 300 ranchers as he signalled a change in tone with the association’s approach to government. “We are going to be a lot more blunt in our dealings with government as we fight for our livelihood,” Stump told his audience. The North American herd size remains down, and calf prices are expected to stay strong, says Brenna Grant from Canfax. “We could see $5.50 -$5.70 this fall for a 5(00) weight calves.” Duncan and Jane Barnett and family from Barnett Land and Livestock in 150 Mile House received the Ranch Sustainability Award, which recognized their riparian management and community involvement. From left to right, Clayton Loewen with Jane, Duncan and Lindsay Barnett.

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BC Cattlemen’s Association members gathered in Cranbrook for their 97th AGM last week. BCCA president Werner Stump welcomed upwards of 300 ranchers as he signalled a change in tone with the association’s approach to government. “We are going to be a lot more blunt in our dealings with government as we fight for our livelihood,” Stump told his audience. The North American herd size remains down, and calf prices are expected to stay strong, says Brenna Grant from Canfax. “We could see $5.50 -$5.70 this fall for a 5(00) weight calves.” Duncan and Jane Barnett and family from Barnett Land and Livestock in 150 Mile House received the Ranch Sustainability Award, which recognized their riparian management and community involvement. From left to right, Clayton Loewen with Jane, Duncan and Lindsay Barnett.

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Congratulations!!!

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Congratulations Duncan and Jane Trott Barnett Well deserved recognition

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Congratulations to Duncan, Jane, and all the rest of the Barnett family!

Congratulations Duncan and Jane!!

Congratulations Jane and Ducan! Sandra Andresen Hawkins

Congratulations Jane & Duncan 🥳

Congratulation Duncan & Jane!!

Congratulations Jane Trott Barnett and Duncan!!!

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4 weeks ago

Grapegrower Colleen Ingram, who was recognized earlier this year as the 2024 Grower of the Year by the BC Grapegrowers Association. “Given the devastation we have had over the last three years, I feel like this award should be given to the entire industry,” she says. Her story appears in the June edition of Country Life in BC, and we've also posted to our website.

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Industry champion named BC’s best grape grower

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KELOWNA – Colleen Ingram’s enthusiasm for collaboration within the BC wine industry is so great that when she was named 2024 Grower of the Year by the BC Grapegrowers Association, she wanted to sh...
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2 months ago

From orchard manager to government specialist and now executive director of the BC Fruit Growers Association, Adrian Arts brings a rare blend of hands-on farming experience and organizational leadership to an industry poised for renewal. His appointment comes at a pivotal moment for BC fruit growers, with Arts expressing enthusiasm about continuing the momentum built by his predecessor and working alongside a board that signals a generational shift in agricultural advocacy.

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Arts leads BCFGA forward

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A combination of organizational management and practical farming experience has primed the new executive director of the BC Fruit Growers Association to lead the industry forward.
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2 months ago

A public consultation is now underway on the powers and duties of the BC Milk Marketing Board. Key issues for dairy producers include transportation costs, rules governing shipments and limitations on supporting processing initiatives. Stakeholders have until May 31 to comment.

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Milk board undertakes review

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A public consultation on the powers and duties of the BC Milk Marketing Board is underway as part of a triennial review required by the British Columbia Milk Marketing Board Regulation.
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Tulip grower makes the shift to agritourism

Sumas Prairie flood fast-tracks new business direction

Nick Warmerdam is rethinking his business plan after his 200-acre wholesale cut flower business on Sumas Prairie was flooded in 2021. RONDA PAYNE

May 3, 2023 bySandra Tretick

ABBOTSFORD – On a bright sunny day in early April, Nick Warmerdam points out his office window at No. 4 and Marion roads to a spot about half a kilometre away across the Trans-Canada Highway.

“The dike broke over there,” says Warmerdam, recalling when Sumas Prairie flooded in November 2021. “The water came through here fast. We had about six feet of water on the fields.”

While his crew was busy hand-pulling rogue daffodil bulbs from his tulip fields further south along Marion Road in preparation for the start of the Abbotsford Tulip Festival in mid April, Warmerdam opened up about the flood and its aftermath.

“I was actually in Mexico when it happened,” he recalls. “Here on this side of dike, it went from no evacuation alert to immediate evacuation the next morning. I [spoke] to my son at 6 o’clock. By the time we finished the call, the police had come by to tell him to get out.”

Warmerdam considered rushing back to Abbotsford, but after speaking to a few of his neighbours, he heeded their advice and stayed put for another week.

The owner of Lakeland Flowers, a commercial cut flower wholesaler, he made arrangements to divert three containers of tulip bulbs already en route from the Netherlands and cancel other orders that hadn’t shipped yet.

“We lost a little bit of money, but we didn’t lose it all,” he says.

Cancelling his seasonal workers was also a high priority. The first group was due to arrive from Mexico the following week to begin preparations for the 2022 growing season.

Lakeland Flowers has relied heavily on seasonal agricultural workers since the BC program began in 2004. Before the flood, Warmerdam was normally getting 80 to 90 workers to supplement a local crew of six to 10 people.

When Warmerdam returned to Abbotsford from Mexico, he waded through three feet of water to reach his house. Inside, there were telltale water marks on the walls at around 18 inches and a thick layer of mud over everything. It had been built just four years earlier, and he spent a week clearing out garbage and mud, ripping out wet drywall and insulation and airing it out.

Then, together with his son, two workers and some volunteer help, his attention turned to his four acres of greenhouses and warehouses where water decommissioned the automated equipment and deposited three inches of mud.

“The priorities at the time were to get the electrical service working again and then get my heating for the greenhouse working so that if it started to freeze hard, we wouldn’t lose all of the water piping in the greenhouse,” he says.

The power and heat was working just in time for the freeze that followed in late December.

But this April, areas that normally would be teeming with activity and filled with plants was eerily empty with just a couple of crews repairing equipment and only a fraction of the area devoted to trays of tulips, lavender and peonies. The equipment has yet to be fully fixed, but Warmerdam is hopeful that much of it, including a $600,000 tulip buncher from the Netherlands, can be salvaged.

As the flood water flowed over Marion Road it created a cascading waterfall effect on the far side and the current undermined the road base creating giant holes. He found his neighbour’s tractor upside down in one of them.

His own fields were under water for about three weeks. Warmerdam has a total of 200 acres. Most of his peonies survived the flood, but some didn’t produce flowers last year. He says they look more promising this year.

Warmerdam received some emergency funding for losses to his tulip and daffodil bulbs that were in the ground, which he used to replace stock, but he ran into the $3 million cap before he finished replanting. Crop insurance covered some of the income he lost on his bulbs, but he wishes the limits had covered more than just a part of his losses.

“That’s going to work against [the government’s] goal of having people invest in agriculture if they only cover losses up to a certain size,” he laments.

Insurance has been another challenge.

“Different things were insured by different companies,” he says. “It’s a fairly big place so it’s a little harder to get coverage.”

His equipment was covered but he learned, much to his surprise, that he didn’t have flood insurance on his buildings. Following a bunkhouse fire in 2018, his long-time underwriter didn’t renew his coverage and he had to find a new provider. He was given to understand that he had flood coverage, but that wasn’t the case. He is currently in litigation.

Warmerdam says the whole experience has been “kind of stressful.”

“There’s a lot of chaos and then there’s a lot of uncertainty,” he says. “You can’t fix everything all at once. What to start with? What to put off? What to get help with? It actually requires quite a bit of thought and planning to deal with it.”

Shift in direction

Warmerdam turned 60 in early April. That milestone, combined with the flooding, has made him re-evaluate his business and streamline his activities.

“I don’t really think that I’m interested in climbing the hill of getting back to where I was,” he says. “The flood and the short and long-term repercussions from [it] spurred me to cut back a little quicker. I’m getting used to not putting myself under as much pressure.”

Previously he was doing greenhouse tulips as well as field daffodils, tulips and peonies, but he says it’s difficult to operate a wholesale cut flower business with as many as 80 people in the field picking flowers, especially after his business was interrupted for two years.

Although he bailed out of the 2022 season and spent the year cleaning up, he did manage to do a sunflower u-pick last summer.

“You kind of need to have the momentum. It just looked like the right time to cut back on the wholesale cut flower activities and switch over more to retail,” he says.

Going forward, he expects wholesale will only be 10% of his business with the rest of the focus on retail and agritourism.

Despite that, he was intending to start shipping field tulips to the United Flower Growers Co-op auction by mid April with peonies to follow. He’s missed out on the last two years, although he did send some sunflowers to auction last summer.

Warmerdam has about 45 acres of tulips, including 27 acres earmarked for the tulip festival. He plans to selectively harvest tulips from the festival fields to leave enough blooms so visitors don’t notice a “few are missing.”

He also has plans to extend the season for his agritourism business. The tulip festival ends at Mother’s Day but he’s diversifying to include other flowers.

“We’re trying to extend that through Labour Day,” notes Warmerdam. “We planted some acres of lavender and I’ve bought some hydrangea plants.”

There’s also the peonies and he’s planting lupines and sunflowers again. An experiment with winter canola didn’t pan out this year, but he’s hoping the plants may yet flower in time for the festival. This is a business model he thinks he will enjoy doing for quite a few years.

“If you’re doing it all yourself when you get closer to 60, the little details start to get to you more,” he says. “I think what I’m doing now, I can do for a long time. I like that.”

If his father, Peter Warmerdam, is any example, Nick has plenty of years ahead of him. Peter started Lakeland Flowers in 1974. Now 95, he was “forcibly retired” out of the business eight years ago, at the age of 87.

 

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