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COUNTRY LIFE IN BC • MAY 2018 Dairy group highlights industry needs on tour


Processing plant a missing piece of the Okanagan picture


by TOM WALKER ENDERBY – Kamloops


Okanagan Dairy Association (KODA) members led an industry tour in early April that emphasized the community aspects of local dairy operations. Trinity Dairies of Enderby, operated by the Van Dalfsen family, hosted 60 dairy producers and a gaggle of local, regional, provincial and federal politicians for a day. A key objective was to tell politicians what local dairy farmers are doing. “We want them to have confidence and knowledge when they speak about our industry,” said Ralph van Dalfsen.


A number of individuals in


the North Okanagan oppose the industry, and their arguments aren’t always backed by correct information. “It’s a similar objective that


we have with our annual breakfast on the farm tour,”


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adds van Dalfsen. “The visitors who come are not against dairy farming; they just want to see how it works for themselves.”


One of the things that


amazes visitors the most is the sophistication of dairy technology – everything from ultrasound pregnancy testing to robots that sweep feed closer to cattle and an electronic scanner that reads each tag and checks cow stats when they are being milked. Still, van Dalfsen emphasized the family nature of the farm. His parents, Henry and


Zwaantje, emigrated from Holland and came to Enderby in 1959. Zwaantje was present for the tour, though Ralph and his wife Heather now own and operate the farm. But they’re also looking


ahead, planning the farm’s transition to their son Ryan, now the farm manager, and his wife Jori, who is herd manager. Ryan’s sister Sara is assistant herd manager and milker, and Sara’s partner, Chance Lowe, is a full-time employee. Van Dalfsen also introduced


the young families that run the four neighbouring dairy farms up the Trinity Valley. “The term factory farming


really pisses me off,” he says. “Do these guys look like factory farmers to you? Two local dairymen, Rene


Miedema and Michael Haak, shared statistics on the five dairy farms in the Trinity Valley. The farms milk an average of 130 cows each and each generates more than $1 million in economic activity for a combined contribution of $5.5 million to the region. Feed takes up the largest chunk at 24%. Wages and management remuneration are around 8% each, with vet services, freight, contract work, fuel and insurance rounding out the list. Those dollars are largely spent in the community. Each farm works with an average of 50 local businesses.


Dairy farmer Ralph Van Dalfsen started a tour to his Trinity Valley farm with a history lesson at the farm’s original homesite before taking guests through his 180-cow dairy. CATHY GLOVER PHOTO


John Alstead from


Shepherd’s Home Hardware in Armstrong pointed out that his business has grown from 12 employees in the 1980s to more than 80 today, thanks in large part to dairy expansion. “This is an industry that is


stable, that we can count on. We know we will get paid,” Alstead said. The bankers are happy, too. The farms’ average debt is $20,700 per cow. Enderby electrical


contractor Pat Doorn of Mountain View Electric Ltd. put it well. “There isn’t a dairy or a


poultry barn or a beef operation that I go to where the people don’t want to live there,” he says. “I consider it a privilege to live in an agriculture area myself. And in spite of the political scene around here, the farmers still want to be farming. … This is a multi-generational thing.” “Since the Saputo


Armstrong plant closed some 15 years ago, a lot of our milk goes to the Fraser Valley,” explains Henry Bremer, president of the Kamloops Okanagan Dairy Association.


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“We really would like to see more of it processed locally.” There is a lack of


processing capacity in Western Canada, Bremer explains. “Certainly from a farmer perspective, it makes sense to build a new plant in the North Okanagan,” he says. “Rather than pay to ship it, the milk board has been trying to encourage a new plant with a bit of a renewed emphasis.” Bremer says 70 to 80 million litres of North Okanagan milk gets trucked to the Lower Mainland every year. That’s six or seven B-train loads of milk each day. He says farmers were


happy to discuss a plant at the KODA farm tour as local government has a role to play in attracting one. However, there would need to be industrial land both available and suitable for food manufacturing. “It’s questionable if it’s had


a sawmill on it,” Bremer says. A dairy processor would also need good water and sewage systems. “Regional districts have


been working on water supplies, so I know it’s closer


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than it has been in the past,” he says. With the province working to boost value-added food production, he says a dairy plant is critical – and timely – for the North Okanagan. “I think when you are


looking at the long-term sustainability for the North Okanagan, you need both the farming and the processing end. It’s a partnership,” says Bremer. “There is a window of opportunity, so we hope to get our local politicians thinking about how they can build on that.” Bremer suggests the ideal


processor would be a company with a ready market but no nearby plant. “There are some middle-


size processors who have a bigger footprint in the east, who might be looking to the West,” he suggests. “People are looking for local products and we would like to put less miles on our milk before it hits the shelf but it all has to work. … The trick for a company building a new plant is, can they make a profit? It’s easy to bottle milk. It’s another thing to sell milk at a profit.”


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