ABBOTSFORD – While the Pacific Agriculture Show is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, the Horticulture Growers’ Short Course – the backbone of the show – has a much longer history. In fact, the Lower Mainland Horticultural Improvement Association, which organizes the annual course, is celebrating its 60th anniversary in 2018. The annual course includes …
NEWS
Lettuce build
Coldstream Ranch sells land to Quebec-based salad maker VERNON – Coldstream Ranch, east of Vernon, has sold 700 acres to Canada’s largest vegetable grower. Quebec-based VegPro International Inc. bought the south-facing site to grow baby greens for its Fresh Attitude brand of salad packs. The deal also gives it land to build a 72,000-square-foot processing …
New year, new start
Six months after wildfire tore through their Princeton ranch, the Schneiders are ready to rebuild PRINCETON – Quentin Schneider had headed into Princeton on July 7 to fetch a part for his mower, which had broken down as equipment tends to do on the first day of haying. The skies were clear and his wife …
Body cams are out
CHILLIWACK – BC’s privacy watchdog has rejected a bid to outfit farm workers with body cameras intended to reduce livestock abuse, saying companies need to follow specific protocols before they do so. An undercover video by Mercy for Animals – the same activist group that used hidden cameras to secure footage of animal abuse at …
Producers take concerns to Victoria
VICTORIA – Keeping farm operations environmentally and financially sustainable were key to the case farm leaders made for the industry when they met with government officials in Victoria at the beginning of November. Big enough now to span two days, BC Agriculture Day is a biennial networking event that attracted close to 80 participants from …
Cattlemen speak out about groundwater licensing debacle
KAMLOOPS – Kevin Boon, general manager of the BC Cattlemen’s Association (BCCA), is calling the Ministry of Environment (MOE) to task for its inept handling of groundwater licensing. “It’s been a fiasco from the start. It has been utter chaos and it has been, I would say, the biggest example of bureaucratic mishandling that I …