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Originally published:

SEPTEMBER 2021
Vol. 107 Issue 9

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Stories In This Edition

Wildfire response improves

Bad timing for election call

Hay there!

Food sales still reeling from the pandemic

Editorial: Restart, regenerate

Back 40: Anti-vax rhetoric is far worse than the cure

Viewpoint: Organic practices key to our collective well-being

Producers face unannounced welfare checks

Livestock feel the heat as forage dries up

Farmers take issue with water restrictions

Ag Briefs: Grape growers optimistic as harvest approaches

Ag Briefs: Greenhouse nursery specialist named

Feed BC connects producers with opportunities

Sidebar: Nutrition program continues

Growers welcome grocer code of conduct

Chicken growers address heat stress

Greenhouse growers undertake strategic plan

Turning manure into renewable energy

Sidebar: Biogas gets a boost with changes to regulations

Blueberry growers welcome higher berry prices

Ranchers, farmers on the wildfire frontlines

Sidebar: Water and fans keep cattle cool

Province halts livestock watering reg update

BC farm sales sets new monthly record

Mental wellness resources meet a growing need

Sidebar: Mental health resources

Saving the farm business hinges on planning

Hot potatoes

Farmers produce crops, and loads of plastic

Barnston Island farmers face uncertain future

Market garden rises from battle of the weeds

Sidebar: Oostenbrink’s tips for no-till vegetables

Research: Bumblebee declines not as dire as study states

A non-family succession plan that worked

Living plants are revolutionizing herb sales

Food hub readies for fall opening

Farm Story: Good help at the right time

Small-scale abattoir in the works for Island

Breeding better tasting beets

Woodshed Chronicles: Plans unfold for the ride of a lifetime

Young entrepreneur weaves new use for twine

Jude’s Kitchen: Simpler eats for a new, normal September

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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

buff.ly

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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Turning manure into renewable energy

Capturing biogas good for the planet and the bottom line

Six years in, Delta dairy farmer Jerry Keulen says diversifying his dairy operation to produce renewable natural gas was a good move. FORTISBC

September 1, 2021 byKate Ayers

DELTA – With BC working to reduce its use of fossil fuels, some farmers see renewable natural gas (RNG) as an opportunity to add a new income stream to their operations.

Seabreeze Farm owner and dairy farmer Jerry Keulen is among them. He was intrigued by the possibility of reducing his farm’s greenhouse gas emissions while upcycling the manure his cattle produce.

Unlike conventional natural gas, RNG is derived from biogas, which is the product of decomposing organic waste from landfills, agricultural waste and wastewater. Biogas is collected and cleaned to create RNG.

When ARDCorp put out a call for producers interested in RNG technology, Keulen agreed to participate in a feasibility study in 2010. The farm’s proximity to the energy grid and consumers made it an ideal spot to test out a new biogas project. Keulen decided to continue developing the project following the study and the complete waste management facility became operational in 2015.

“We were interested in RNG because the buzzword at the time was diversification, so we wanted to diversify with another income stream,” says Keulen.

The farm’s biogas is purified to pipeline quality natural gas and is then sold to FortisBC as RNG.

This renewable energy is different from the previous biogas options available to producers because it can feed into the existing natural gas distribution network, says FortisBC’s RNG supply manager Scott Gramm.

“You have the option to put it into the existing natural gas system,” he says. He notes that the price is often better than electricity. “Options of the past were to directly use raw biogas to burn for heat or potentially generate electricity. In our program, we offer a fairly high price for this source of energy that we can use to displace conventional gas.”

Keulen feeds his anaerobic digester with the manure from his 400-head milking herd and organics from off-farm sources, including oils and grease from restaurants across Metro Vancouver.

In total, Seabreeze Farms produces 45,000 gigajoules of RNG – enough energy to heat 500 homes for a year.

In addition to Seabreeze Farms Ltd. in Delta, FortisBC works with local suppliers including the Surrey Biofuel Facility as well as landfills in Kelowna and Salmon Arm. FortisBC has also signed a

20-year contract with EverGen, a publicly listed RNG infrastructure platform headquartered in Vancouver. As one of its largest customers, FortisBC will buy up to 173,000 gigajules of RNG annually from EverGen.

FortisBC does not have a minimum production threshold for farms supplying it with RNG, but Gramm says the economics have to make sense.

“My experience tells me that you want to be in the range of at least 200 milking cows plus some other organics to make the economics go round,” he says.

A farm that isn’t producing enough waste on its own can partner with neighbouring farms to produce the tens of thousands of tonnes of waste needed to feed the RNG system each year.

Farmers are responsible for installing the required RNG infrastructure on their properties and then FortisBC offers long-term contracts to farmers.

“You don’t need to go season-to-season but rather you can sign 10-to-20-year agreements,” he says.

At Seabreeze Farms, the byproducts from the RNG process include hygienic bedding for the cattle and a nutrient-rich digestate that can be used as fertilizer.

“Because we’re bringing in more nutrients and off-farm products onto ag land, the ministry of ag was concerned about how we were going to handle more nutrients on land that already has a lot of phosphorus,” says Keulen. “So, we now do a whole nutrient extraction. We collect all those nutrients, put them into a tight package and that allows us to move them off farm in a practical way to other land bases that need nutrients and spread those nutrients over a larger area.”

Those with RNG facilities on their farms need an approved nutrient management plan.

The project does not come without potential challenges, though.

Challenges

“There is a fair amount of work involved. We tried to run it alongside the farm the first five and half years,” says Keulen. “But we recently realized it’s a much bigger task, so we have a plant manager now who has taken over the daily operations. You can’t just turn on a switch and away you go.”

In addition, location is a determining factor in project viability.

“If you want to put renewable natural gas into the existing natural gas system, you have to have natural gas close to your farm,” says Gramm. “Sometimes that is a challenge for producers who have large properties and the gas line is far away. It can make the economics a little more challenging.”

Through all the lessons learned since they started the project in 2010, Seabreeze is excited about the technology’s contributions to a decarbonized economy.

“Collecting methane, the RNG program and putting nutrients into a tight package – there are a lot of really good aspects to it. I think they can work together perfectly and there have been a lot of new developments and technologies,” Keulen says.

After six years in operation, “we are no less excited about the potential of how RNG can work for us as dairy farmers and what the future holds.”

Producers who are interested in RNG projects on their farms can visit FortisBC’s online supplier guide and the Canadian Biogas Association’s website, which has a farm-to-fuel guide on biogas projects.

 

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