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Originally published:

NOVEMBER 2020
Vol. 106 Issue 11

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Stories In This Edition

Apple returns raise alarm

Ottawa urged to fulfil promises

Snow job

New government faces old issues in next term

Caught in the act

Editorial: Time for action

Back 40: Finding the perks in a pandemic world

Viewpoint: Changing times require a flexible vision

Invasive hornet nest destroyed south of Langley

Country Life in BC wins a record eight national awards

US launches investigation into blueberries

Hog producers face changes to code of practice

Growers, wineries welcome sustainability launch

Sustainability program delivers value to industry

Ag Briefs: Ag sector claims $8.5 billion economic impact

Ag Briefs: Farm worker protection funded

Ag Briefs: Autumn calf prices down

Grant programs encourage Indigenous ag projects

Range issues dominate NOLA meeting

Sidebar: BCV Cattlemen critique water intentions

BC Beef plant in Falkland ready to process this month

Winter warning

Corn trial results help make better planting decisions

Sidebar: Sweet results

New barn promises better egg production

ALR co-founder, defender embraces retirement

Seed sppliers seeing sustained demand as 2021 orders begin

Research: Breeding crops for the future means looking backwards

Straight ahead

Potatoes head for record-breaking harvest

Weather posed challenges for garlic growers

Garlic groewrs employ mixed marketing strategies

Association aims to foster collaboration

Demand boosts interest in older cider apples

Evans Farms marks a century of ranching

Farm Story: Nominees announced for seasonal awards

Bursary winner plants roots in Cawston

Provincial Winter Fair hosts live 4-H events

Woodshed: Janice Newberry bids farewell to love-sick Henderson

Where there’s a will, there’s gotta be a way

Jude’s Kitchen: Autumn Eats

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7 days 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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2 weeks 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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Weather posed challenges for garlic growers

Cool temperatures, pre-harvest rain complicated high-quality crop

Ian Richardson has been growing garlic at Rocky Ridge Farm in Mara since 2000. Wet weather in June, before harvest, made it challenging to cure this year’s crop. PHOTO / SUBMITTED

November 1, 2020 byMyrna Stark Leader

KELOWNA – BC garlic growers are harvesting about four times as much garlic as they did a decade ago, but a cool spring and wet weather just before harvest challenged some growers this year.

“It was a very stressful year for many of my growers,” says Jim Capellini of Rasa Creek Farm in Lumby. He’s grown garlic since 2009. He markets seed garlic purchased from about a dozen other growers who sell directly to him.

Capellini planted about 4,000 cloves last fall for harvest this summer.

“I lost about 30% of my crop because it was too wet. Bulbs began to develop mold while still in the ground prior to harvest,” he explains.

Two of the organic growers who supply him with seed fared even worse than he did, losing their crops to botrytis.

“Both farms were certified organic, and so my access to certified bulb was seriously restricted,” he says.

Botrytis spores can travel with seed stock to new fields, introducing the fungus to an otherwise clean crop when conditions are right. Organic growers have few options for controlling the fungus, so neither Capellini nor his growers felt comfortable reserving a portion of this year’s crop for seed sales.

Ian Richardson, who’s been growing garlic since 1988 and has operated Rocky Ridge Farm in Mara since 2000, planted about 20,000 cloves on half an acre this year. While he didn’t see significant losses, the weather made it tough to cure the crop.

“Our growing season was okay, just okay,” he says. “We lost some garlic as it was too wet, especially right before harvest time, which is when you want garlic to be drying out in the ground. In a normal year, you quit watering about two weeks before you harvest. This year it rained almost right up to harvest.”

Abdul Majid of BC Garlic Growers Inc. in Abbotsford also faced challenges curing his crop. He farms 48 varieties, for a total of approximately 150,000 plants. The quality was excellent, but didn’t come without effort.

“We had a fantastic crop,” he says. “The least amount of crop loss, and crop quality was great and sizes were amazing. … But rain once a week wasn’t good for drying and curing these large heads.”

Doug Saba of Curly Willow Organic Farms in Grindrod lost about a quarter of his crop, or more than 900 bulbs, to botrytis. His Russian Red was more affected than his Yugoslavian garlic.

Fortunately, he was able to salvage enough good cloves to replant this fall, hoping that the healthy cloves will give next year’s crop a measure of resistance to the fungus.

To try and ward off fungus issues with his next crop, Saba will use less mulch around his plants. He may also look for an organic product to treat them in the spring. Knowing that this years crop had botrytis, he chose not to sell it as seed garlic.

Kelowna grower fared well

Even with a cooler spring, some growers in Kelowna saw good crops.

Now in their third year of garlic production, Michael and Jane Johnston of Avoca Farms and Vineyards had their best crop ever.

They used garlic as a way to boost cash flow while developing their aronia berry operation. They seeded 165,000 cloves in the ground on about 2.5 acres, and another 30,000 in pots.

Jane says 75% of the cloves produced heads of garlic varying in size. They were happy with the outcome, attributing their success to their sandy soil and greater experience.

A notable challenge this year was voles. While garlic is supposed to deter the rodents, the vole population seemed higher this year. The tiny varmints not only made runs through the field but moved bulbs, increasing the risk of disease spreading around the planting.

She says their potted garlic turned out even better due to the controlled growing environment. Michael’s familiarity with potted growing in Ireland, where the method is more common, prompted them to give it a try in Canada.

“It took a year of trial and error to get the fertilizer, watering and management of it in place,” she says, “but, overall, we were very successful for what many have told us was a challenging year.”

Monde Janzen of Janzen Garlic Acres Inc. in Kelowna was pleased with the results of her own 5,000 plants following a poor crop in 2019.

Janzen relocated from her operation from Abbotsford to Kelowna two years ago. Although she had success with the crop in Abbotsford, she’s spent the last two years adjusting to local growing conditions in the Okanagan.

“We got good quantities but I learned that we’ll stick with hard-neck garlic and work next year to increase the garlic’s size,” she explains.

Janzen sees opportunities for local garlic and plans to plant 30,000 to 35,000 cloves this fall, using a garlic splitter to separate them from the heads. The splitter reduces labour costs.

The ambition and innovation of growers like Janzen and the Johnstons give Capellini confidence in the future of the sector. He’s been working to grow it since planting his first 107 cloves of Russian Red, German Red and Yugoslavian garlic in 2009. He expanded to 40,000 bulbs annually and planned to grow even larger, but scaled back to focus on growing the industry through workshops and seed sales.

Capellini believes there’s a hole in the marketplace that could be filled with locally produced garlic.

According to international trade data, Canada imported 45.6 million pounds of garlic worth $60.5 million last year. China accounted for more than 80% of imports, followed by the US and Spain.

“We’re still importing 85% of what we need for fresh garlic in Canada,” says Capellini. “The demand is there, if people can produce it.”

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