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Originally published:

MAY 2021
Vol. 107 Issue 5

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Stories In This Edition

Water licence angst

Green gold

Pandemic puts pinch on finances

Province to lift restrictions on second homes

Editorial: On the level

Back 40: Asian giant hornets aren’t welcome here

OpEd: Proposed meat regs a step in the right direction

Province plans pilot for new drought ratings

Sidebar: Universal

High snowpack limits drought

Jack Frost nips potential for huge cherry crop

Ag Briefs: Dog attacks put sheep producers on alert

Ag Briefs: Poultry scholarship established

Ag Briefs: BC Tree Fruits extends CEO contract

Letters: Build soil with carbon tax

Funding revived for local gov’t agriculture plans

Sidebar: Mission expands definition of accessory use agriculture

Record funding flowed through IAFBC last year

Lotsa tomatoes

AgSafe embraces new governance structure at AGM

ALR exclusion fails to win ag committee support

BC dairy industry sees steady demand

Dairy producers work to resolve quality issues

Tree fruit consultations off to flying start

Canada holds off Asian giant hornet restructions

Strawberry groewrs eye new varieties

Funding stopped up for raspberry replant

Beekeepers welcome technology transfer program

Island couple step up to revive local abattoir

Tech crucial to speed variety development

Research: Urban farms can contribute to food security

Building soil structure with organic compost

Locally grown asparagus fills a niche market

BC propagator awarded research grant

Understanding the methodology to farm financing

Seed bank continues legacy of seed-savers

New owners to extend Woodside Farm’s legacy

Ruckle Farm looks toward the future

Farm Story: Spring deliveries inspire the urge to get farming

Farmer-chef connections still paying off

Woodshed: Henderson between a rock and a hard place

Pandemic forces BC agricultural fairs to adapt

Jude’s Kitchen: Herbs & sprouts

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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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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!!!

Congratulations 👍🎉

Congratulations

Congratulations <3

Congratulations Duncan and Jane Trott Barnett Well deserved recognition

Congratulations!

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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Building soil structure with organic compost

New facility in Surrey is churning out bulk compost for farms

At Quails’ Gate Winery in West Kelowna, senior viticulturist Ed Tonner and Veratec business development manager Greg Ewasiuk check out a new compost produced in Surrey they hope will help rejuvenate 20-year-old vines. The compost is the byproduct of natural gas produced from organic waste diverted from the Metro Vancouver landfill and is in the process of organic certification. MYRNA STARK LEADER

May 3, 2021 byMyrna Stark Leader

SURREY – A three-year-old biofuel facility in the heart of the Lower Mainland has ramped up compost production, creating a new soil amendment source for BC growers.

Owned by the City of Surrey and operated under a 25-year contract with Convertus, the Surrey biofuel facility is the first closed-loop organic waste facility in North America. Built at a cost of $68 million through a public-private partnership with Orgaworld Canada, it is the  largest enclosed composting facility in Canada with the ability to process 115,000 tonnes of residential and commercial organic waste a year into renewable natural gas. Approximately 80% of the raw material is green waste like residential yard trimmings and 20% food waste collected by municipalities across Metro Vancouver.

The gas fuels Surrey’s waste collection trucks. A byproduct of gas production is compost. While repurposing organic waste is common in Europe, the scale of the Surrey facility is unique in North America.

“The facility is currently putting out 40,000 tonnes of dry, lightweight organic compost per year,” says Greg Ewasiuk, business development manager at Veratec Engineered Products Inc., the BC soils and mulch producer with exclusive rights to market and sell the compost.

Veratec is seeking organic certification for the compost. Ewasiuk says production takes about three weeks resulting in a dry material with a fine texture, consistent composition and little odour. The closed-loop system is approximately four times faster than composting outdoors.

“Typically, outdoor windrow compost is made from all kinds of incoming compost feedstock such as food waste, green waste, biosolids (sewage) and animal manure,” explains Ewasiuk. “But it’s a much slower and lower-volume process that’s harder to consistently control.”

Surrey’s compost doesn’t contain biosolids, manure or added wood or sawdust fillers. Veratec says it is on par with other soil amendments, adding nutrients and building soil health. The recommended application rate is 30-50 tonnes per hectare in the Okanagan, with application over several years recommended for best results.

Commercial vineyards, orchards, market gardens, cannabis growers and nurseries throughout the Lower Mainland, on Vancouver Island, as well as in the Okanagan, are the target market for the product, marketed under the Thrive Organic Compost banner.

Ewasiuk says building up soil structure using compost should significantly reduce the future use and dependency on conventional fertilizers and manures, which he says are proven to be harmful to the environment if used long-term.

“We’ve got trials running at over 20 locations throughout BC. It’s being used on berries as well in the Lower Mainland,” he says.

For growers, the product is viewed as a natural soil amendment and an environmentally sustainable way to improve plant health, fruit quality and yield.

In West Kelowna, Quails’ Gate Winery is trialing the compost on 10-12 acres of mature Pinot Noir and Chardonnay vines. Quails’ Gate wants to rejuvenate the planting and has applied Veratec’s compost to the ground around the vines at a rate of about six tonnes an acre.

Ed Tonner, who joined Quails’ Gate as senior viticulturalist this spring, says the compost was brought to his attention by the winery’s former viticulturist, Chad Douglas.

“We’re looking to uplift the soils and give the vines a little extra push since we’ve now got viable buds and cane selection made possible by our vineyard team,” he says.

The compost will also count towards the winery’s certification under the Sustainable Winegrowing BC program, a project of the BC Wine Grape Council. In the vineyard, much of the focus is on water and erosion management which will be especially important with a new residential development going in directly above some of Quails’ Gate’s vineyards.

Abbotsford kiwi grower Gorgi Petkov is also using the compost. He’s used mushroom, duck and chicken manure to build the soils in his eight-acre orchard in the past, along with traditional fertilizer. But last November he took delivery of Veratec’s compost and applied it at 30 tonnes per hectare. It lay in the orchard over the winter and was tilled into the soil this spring.

While he won’t see any effect on the soil till this fall, he is confident the compost will be effective.

“In general, this compost was the cleanest, nicest structure compared to others I’ve used in the past and it was almost odourless,” says Petkov. “I will still use some nitrogen supplements but my hope is to use less and less fertilizer … and the benefit of this product is that it is so consistent and always available.”

Although trials of Veratec’s compost are just beginning, Ewasiuk says the use and benefits of compost are well documented in Europe, Germany, the Netherlands and France, particularly among organic growers in vineyards, orchards and berries.

“They’ve been doing that for, some of them, over 10 years now. They’ve had some really good results there,” he says.

He believes year-round product availability will be a game-changer for growers across North America as more cities look for ways to use organic waste

“Fertilizer dependency is expensive so if farmers can move to something organic and sustainable, and instead fix their soils long-term, the foundation of their business, I think it’s a no-brainer they will,” he says, noting the product is great for boosting nutrient levels in sandy and clay soils.

Thrive Compost contains less salts than most traditional fertilizers. It offers a slower, more even release of nitrogen and phosphorus, reducing the risk of burning young plants. It also helps to increase soil organic matter, structure, moisture-holding capacity and stimulates important micro-nutrient development in the soil.

“Nitrogen fertilizing in some form is always going to be necessary seasonally for certain crops but if you correct your soils with compost and micronutrients, far less fertilizer is required, and far less water use as well, which is also costly in some areas,” he says.

Ewasiuk expects additional closed-loop waste recycling facilities to open in BC in the next five to 10 years, including the Okanagan. Reusing organic waste is good for the environment and enables farmers to demonstrate a sustainable practices. But adoption of the new product will take time and education. Veratec has an in-house agrologist on staff to help.

“I deal with many of the farmers. They’re becoming aware of this type of product and they’ve been wanting to make this switch for a long time, but it hasn’t been available in large, consistent quantities nor viable,” says Ewasiuk. “But within the next three to five years, definitely, we’re going to see some really large changes in the industry as it moves towards increased sustainability.”

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