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COUNTRY LIFE IN BC • JANUARY 2018
Expo starts with tours of diverse dairy operations Seven farms large and small will welcome visitors
ABBOTSFORD – The popular annual dairy farm self-tour, January 24, begins the day before the BC Dairy Expo at the Pacific Agriculture Show.
Preview by DAVID SCHMIDT
Unlike last year, when farmers had to choose from a record nine farms, this year’s tour has been reduced to a more manageable seven farms stretching from Agassiz to Delta.
The tour includes one of BC’s
largest and two of BC’s smallest dairy farms. The largest is Corners Pride in Rosedale which is in the midst of installing 30 Lely robots for its 1,700-cow herd. The installation includes both two new barns as well as retrofits of its existing barns to accommodate the robots. The two smaller farms are
Bakerview EcoDairy in Abbotsford and Eagle Acres Dairy in Langley. Although both are working dairy farms, their primary purpose is dairy education. Eagle Acres recently moved and their new barn includes both a DeLaval robotic milker and a three-stall demonstration parlour with an overhead viewing theatre to Educate-A-Kid. EcoDairy works with Science World to provide a
Bakerview EcoDairy is one of the stops on this year’s dairy tour. BAKERVIEW ECODAIRY PHOTO
year-round agricultural education experience. Of interest to farmers, they recently installed Canada’s first HydroGreen automated hydroponics system which grows forage from seed to feed in just six days. The 800 square foot belt is designed to
produce 20 acres worth of forage per year. The three other dairy farms on the tour are Hoek Holsteins in Agassiz, B&L Dairy Farm in Abbotsford and Hesdon Holsteins in Delta. Hoek recently installed BC’s largest GEA Monobox robotic milking system and Western Canada’s largest Jourdain headlocker installation in a sand- bedded WeCover clearspan barn. B&L has a new three row sand barn with bedded pack and a Lely robotic milker while Hesdon has a completed a 140-stall outside drive-through barn with a new GEA Mag 90i double 10 parallel parlour fronted with wood reclaimed from the heritage barn it replaced.
Also on the tour is the newly opened Boviteq West barn at WestGen in Abbotsford. Although not a milking barn, it could become most critical to the future of the Western Canadian dairy industry as it is the base for an increasingly popular IVF service. Corners Pride will be open to visitors from 10 am to 4 pm while all other facilities will be open
from 9 am to 4 pm. Complimentary lunches will be available at Hoek Holsteins, Corners Pride and Eagle Acres. Tour guides are available from dairy equipment suppliers and the BC Ministry of Agriculture.
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