VANCOUVER – A farmers market is much more than a place to buy food, serving as a social hub, tourism destination and economic driver with significant community benefits, a new study shows. “What this study does is really bring a lot of data and credibility,” says BC Association of Farmers Markets executive director Heather O’Hara. …
Metchosin farm transitions to new owners with high hopes
METCHOSIN – Long hours of hard work, years of experience and a ready local market will not guarantee success in vegetable farming on southern Vancouver island without stable, long-term land tenure. “I was tired of leasing land. I’d been doing it for years and it felt like it could all be torn away so quickly,” …
Throne speech silent on agriculture
MLAs returned to Victoria this week for their final sitting before this year’s provincial election, but agriculture rated barely a mention in the government’s agenda. The top priority for the government is pushing through amendments to the Land Act in the name of reconciliation, according to the speech from the throne delivered by Lieutenant Governor …
SIR appoints new GM
Michelle Cook has been appointed general manager of the Okanagan-Kootenay Sterile Insect Release Program (SIR) following a February 9 meeting of SIR’s board. She will officially take the helm of the organization when current GM Melissa Tesche formally succeeds Glen Lucas as general manager of the BC Fruit Growers Association in early March. Cook joined …
RCMP recruits 4-H youth
Farm kids make good policemen, says RCMP Corporal Cory Lepine, and he might be promoting a police career to a 4-H club near you. “When I was a kid growing up, all of the Mounted Police I knew were big Prairie farm boys and they had a different mannerism and a way of dealing with …
Land Act firestorm
The BC government is proposing changes to the Land Act that will affect how Crown land tenures are administered, but they have provided very little information on what those amendments will look like and that has cattlemen extremely concerned. In early January, the BC Ministry of Water Land and Resource Stewardship (WLRS) began contacting stakeholders …