4 Watershed moment


A new year is upon us, and anyone who thought the past year was wild should brace for what’s ahead. A year ago, a hard-fought provincial election loomed. The government of the


day was ramping up announcements positioning it as doing the right thing. Six months later, having failed to win a majority, the old government embraced elements of its opponents’ platforms. By the end of the year, the new government of the day got behind Site C, one of the most contentious of the old government’s projects. Plus ça change, as they say. The government’s handling of Site C is consistent with its approach to other


issues, however, and represents a deeper shift in how business is being done in Victoria. Rather than a top-down approach to government, Premier John Horgan is


taking steps towards what the BC Liberals were widely expected to do when they took power in 2001: create an environment that lets everyone else do what they’re supposed to do.


BC Liberal commitments to individual companies under Buy Local are laying


the foundation for the revived Buy BC program which will support producers across the province. Horgan will back the Agricultural Land Commission to do its job, but has also pledged more cash for municipal planning departments to do theirs when it comes to farmworker housing. Ultimately, the approach might even be to agriculture’s benefit as the new


government seeks to address the concerns of groups across the province. Agriculture was front and centre as Horgan pledged to make amends for Site


C, a project neither he nor many others wanted. Besides the $20 million allocated under the BC Liberals to offset the project’s indirect impacts on agriculture, revenues from power sales will fuel a food security fund designed to support local production. Horgan has also made clear he’s serious about deep reconciliation with First


Nations, disappointment regarding Site C notwithstanding. Salmon farm tenures were one example he gave media of issues he plans to address this year, having taken personal control of the file after initial comments by the agriculture minister raised fears of a Victoria-knows-best approach.


With a provincial budget in the works for next month, the odds seem likely


for changes that won’t please everyone but spending that begins to make a difference. Agriculture is almost certain to benefit – and certainly more than last year when key initiatives such as the public trust went begging. Sure, there could be a cost as the government mulls a carbon tax and new


regulations, but the fact that agriculture and food production is top-of-mind in some of the government’s most controversial decisions to date is a promising sign of what’s to come.


To better times ahead: hope is in our DNA Hope smiles from the threshold of the


year to come, whispering, “It will be happier.”


–Alfred Lord Tennyson Perhaps Tennyson is correct but he


wrote these words more than 125 years ago and rare indeed would be any intervening lifetime that was


The Back Forty BOB COLLINS


blessed by a succession of years each happier than the one before it. Certainly, he has captured the nature of hope and what farmer or rancher hasn’t marked the turn of the year with the similar hope: things will be better next year? This enduring belief is probably rooted somewhere in our DNA. It is a central tenet of our calling – what keeps us keeping on. Many among us might contemplate the past year and offer supplication for a better one to come. Given 2017’s many trials and tribulations, it is a little hard to imagine a rougher ride in 2018. The week-long storm that dumped 90 cm of snow and an inch


of freezing rain on the Fraser Valley in early February collapsed buildings and closed roads for days. The storm was less intense on Vancouver Island but unseasonably cold weather set in for a month-long stay. When spring finally arrived, it was


long, cold and wet everywhere. In early April, as farmers struggled to finish harvesting crops caught by snow the previous fall and get seed in the ground, two storms dumped as much as a foot of snow on the Peace region. Gloomy, cold and wet weather delayed fieldwork province-wide. The weather turned hot and dry in


late May and stayed that way until September. In early June, an infestation of previously unseen armyworm – larval Mythimna unipuncta – destroyed forage crops in the Alberni Valley. Larvae counts were as high as 150 per square foot. By mid July, the insect had been detected throughout Vancouver Island and in Powell River. In some instances, crop losses were as high as 75%. Eventually, armyworms showed up in grass and corn fields in the Fraser Valley. In early July, wildfires exploded


throughout the Central Interior. Lightning west of Williams Lake


started more than 140 wildfires on a single day. Fires raged, often out of control, all summer and many ranchers under evacuation orders spent weeks wondering when they might go home and if there would be anything left when they did. The Plateau fire alone, west of McLeese Lake, burned more than half a million hectares: more than five times the provincial total for all of 2016. As of this writing in early December, there are 34 of the summer’s wildfires still burning and it may take years to understand their full impact on the cattle industry. As fire fighters gained the upper hand and the wildfires subsided, fall arrived and brought wet conditions to most of the province. Farmers in the Peace struggled with high moisture levels in late harvested crops and on Vancouver Island, heavy November rains created flooding in several areas. November flooding has become a


near-annual event for many Island producers. Flood levels that used to occur once every 10 to 15 years are now happening four years out of five and producers are having to re-think how and what they grow. On top of this, animal agriculture


Publisher Cathy Glover


The agricultural news source in British Columbia since 1915 Vol. 104 No. 1 . JANUARY 2018


Published monthly by Country Life 2000 Ltd. www.countrylifeinbc.com


604-328-3814 . publisher@countrylifeinbc.com Editor Emeritus David Schmidt 604-793-9193 . davidschmidt@shaw.ca Associate Editor Peter Mitham news@countrylifeinbc.com


Advertising Sales & Marketing Cathy Glover sales@countrylifeinbc.com Production Designer Tina Rezansoff Production Ass’t: Naomi McGeachy Happy New Year, Peter & the Mrs!


was in the public eye again in January as $345,000 in fines and surcharges were paid in a high-profile dairy farm animal abuse case. In June, a shocking video of poultry abuse was released to immediate public outrage. Everyone gets tarred with the same brush and the industry has been scrambling ever since to defend itself and enact measures to prevent any future incidents. There is ongoing angst in the supply managed sectors as they find themselves squarely in the crosshairs whenever and wherever trade negotiations take place, and there is no shortage of trading partners itching to pull the trigger. Then there is a case involving the


free movement of beer between provinces currently before the courts. If the inter-provincial barriers fall, it won’t be long before someone tests the supply-managed commodities. How that might end is anyone’s guess. All-in-all, 2017 has given BC farmers and ranchers more than their fair share of challenges. We are all standing on the threshold of a new year, so let’s cast a hopeful eye forward and look for a happier and better year ahead.


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