38


COUNTRY LIFE IN BC • FEBRUARY 2020


Buckling down for winter conference season Conference sessions can recharge and inspire


Starting right off with a weather reference: my last column mentioned that it had not yet snowed properly. Be advised this is no longer the case. Don’t worry about it not snowing in Pemberton anymore. By the time I finish proofreading it’ll be over the fenceposts. Following


Farm News by ANNA HELMER


with an update on that late fall to-do list: I didn’t wait for it to snow before abandoning it. I just kind of wandered off. Enjoyed a couple of whiz-bang markets and took myself to the first of what I hope will be many conferences this winter. I do love a winter farming conference: indoors all


day, thinking about farming, listening to people talk about farming and making lists of new farming projects for which little action can be taken for weeks or even months. So relaxing. I even enjoy sitting through sessions that are personally inapplicable. For example, I recently spent a lively hour listening to the minutiae of producing white Belgian endive. I had no idea. Sometimes, I find myself fantasizing about


organizing a farming conference here in Pemberton. Accommodations and all the other key logistics are problems easily ignored which keeps this idea very much in the theoretical zone, leaving plenty of time to plan potential sessions and course work. Topics under consideration: cover-cropping for soil health and pest management, advances in mechanical weeding, vegetable cooling systems and wash/pack designs, root crop production.


I would be very keen to bring in speakers on biodynamics. They would have to have a sense of humour – the idea being to inspire more practitioners, not turn them away. A delicate balance to be sure. There would be a full-day session on mechanics:


I think I am getting jaded. Perhaps that would be a good course: Feeling


jaded? Find your sparkle as we poke holes in food trends. Wouldn’t have to be a super-long session. The truth of the matter is that I have become


Here I am making the same argument as an oil patch executive. Perish the thought. I just want to keep selling lots of potatoes in plastic.


pulling bearings, rebuilding hydraulics, emergency welding, and a full demonstration of a tractor pull- apart and put-together. A tractor nose-to-tail, as it were.


Speaking of the latest food trends affecting


farming, how about a course that defined them? What is a “plant-based” diet, for example? Beef and beer are plant-based, so that’s appealing. Is there a non-plant-based diet option? Hmm. Perhaps a session designed to help producers


survive and thrive with food trend fake news (just another way of saying marketing). Most of the work I have done on this topic so far centres around composing sarcastic titles for the course. I have whittled it down to a shortlist of five possibilities, but I have edited them all out.


resigned to a plastic bag ban at Vancouver farmers’ markets. This is happening. Those rolls of plastic bags are going to be prohibited. The decision-makers, and the people asking for this decision, are utterly convinced that this is the next logical step in the fight against


climate change. It leaves a lot of plastic on the table (and in the ocean), I gotta say, and it feels very unfair. It seems like I am expected to become a bad retailer, yet still compete, in order to make people feel like they are doing a lot for the environment. Here I am making the same argument as an oil


patch executive. Perish the thought. I just want to keep selling lots of potatoes in plastic. I am reluctant to be a part of this, but I think I am


buckling under. Maybe that should be a course. How to buckle


under: finding your way when you lose a battle. Anna Helmer isn’t farming today with her family and friends in Pemberton: she is planning her revolution until Thursday, when she has to wash and sort more potatoes.


GIVE YOURSELF THE AVENUE


More fuel savings, more control, more return on investment. Avenue Machinery has the equipment, parts and knowledge to give you precisely the Advantage you need.


ABBOTSFORD 1-888-283-3276


VERNON 1-800-551-6411


EFFICIENCY


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52