COUNTRY LIFE IN BC • APRIL 2019


The land of milk and salmon


Comox Valley was considered the finest land for dairy farming


by GRANTWARKENTIN


The Comox Cooperative Creamery Association was founded in 1901 by a group of Vancouver Island dairy producers who managed to scrape together $4,040 and build a plant to make butter. More than just a milk processing plant, the creamery was a symbol of self-sufficiency and empowerment. Before it was built, dairy farmers had to make and sell their own butter. The new plant processed milk from northern Vancouver Island herds, which totaled just 255 cows – the equivalent of about two or three average-sized dairy farms on Vancouver Island today. It was a bold move on their part, attempting to establish


dairy farming – or any kind of farming – in a region mostly known for its abundance of salmon, trees and wilderness. But it worked. The new creamery allowed Comox Valley farmers to access bigger markets and get better value for their products. They were pioneers who started an important agricultural industry which persists today. “It is doubtful if there are more suitable conditions for the


breeding and feeding of livestock than are to be found in the Courtenay-Comox district, and its fertile valley comprising some thousands of acres. For dairy farming, the district is unquestionably the finest on Vancouver Island,” reported the Courtenay Herald in September 1914. The economic boom that followed the Second World War changed everything. In 1946, the BC Milk Marketing Board was created to manage the milk supply in BC, creating a new period of stability and growth for dairy farmers. Comox Valley farmers rebuilt their processing plant in the same year to take advantage of the new economy created by supply management and post-war technology. “Prior to the mid-50s, the majority of the Cooperative’s members were part-time farmers who augmented their dairying incomes by fishing or logging. With the arrival of pasteurization in 1956, part-time dairy farming became a profession of the past,” says a document published by Dairyland in 1982, when the Courtenay plant was upgraded for the third and final time. Dairyland was formed out of several BC milk processing cooperatives during the 1960s and 1970s. By the 1990s, it included processors in Alberta and Saskatchewan. In 2001, Dairyland was purchased by Saputo.


Humble beginnings. The Comox Creamery received milk from just 255 dairy cows when it was first built in 1901. COURTENAY AND DISTRICT MUSEUM AND ARCHIVES PHOTO


Farming for the future


When Dairyland upgraded the Courtenay plant to a new $4.5 million facility in 1982, it established the Comox Valley as an important part of BC’s thriving dairy industry. It also created opportunities for new


farmers, who took up dairying after careers in the 1960s and 1970s as union negotiators, logging line-haulers, and truck drivers. “Dairy farming has been a way of life in


the Comox Valley’s past and there is certainly every indication that this trend will continue,” says a document published by


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Dairyland in 1982 to accompany the plant upgrade. Today, second, third and even fourth generation dairy farmers are still managing their herds in the Comox Valley and Black Creek regions. However, that could soon change as the valley deals with rising real estate values caused by the ripple effects of the Vancouver housing market. Some farmland has already been turned into housing and commercial developments, and more will inevitably follow.


—Grant Warkentin


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