Farming in British Columbia

My guests on the show today are Rebecca Kneen and Bryan MacIsaac of Left Fields Organic Farm in Sorrento. Their ten acre farm is a diversified operation that includes hops, veggie gardens, poultry and sheep. Until very recently, Left Fields was not the only business running on the property, though. Bryan and Rebecca were the founders of Crannog Ales, an on-farm craft brewery they founded in Januar...

This episode: updates from around the province, including a smattering of the kinds of complaints some of you have received while working in the ag sector.

This episode: a conversation about agrivoltaics--the integration of solar power generation with food production--with guest Omri Haven, who believes agrivoltaics can and should play an important role in energy generation in BC in the coming years. Reach out to Omri on Linkedin or email him . Youtube explainer on agrivoltaics referenced in the episode: https://youtu.be/lgZBlD-TCFE?si=IQMdRs9NdUx8iz...

This episode, an interview with Helen Schwantje. Helen was the Wildlife Veterinarian for British Columbia from 1992 to 2021. To this day she continues as an emeritus and conducts contract work for government and NGOs on a variety of wildlife health issues. Helen has spent a lot of her career focused on the health of BC’s wild sheep herds, and she joined me to talk about the relationship between a...

Tristan Banwell can't be the only farmer whose volunteer commitments clash with the needs of his farm. But he was the only one who **volunteered** to talk to me about this. This episode, Tristan explains why he can't seem to reign in his volunteer obligations and what that means for his farm. Then he gives some advice to future Tristan. Then I talk to future Tristan. Hijinks ensue.

Herein: my conversation with Liz Blakeway, Executive Director of the Land To Table Network, an Okanagan-based society seeking a more properous and interconnected regional food economy. Liz and her colleagues have advocated for institutions like universities and health authorities to devote more, or in many cases, some, food-procurement dollars to purchasing regionally-produced food. I've been skep...

This episode started out as an effort to learn about a PhD thesis focused on how farmers feel about data-sharing, but discovered some sidebars that were also worth sharing with you. First up: former British Columbian and perennial soil nerd Clare Sullivan on a circuitous path to an Ag-focused PhD in Greece by way of Oregon State University's extension program. Clare compares extension services in...

This bonus episode was produced on behalf of the Small Scale Meat Producers Associatio n with funding it received through the Farmed Animal Disease Program . The funding was delivered by the Investment Agriculture Foundation on behalf of the BC Ministry of Agriculture and Food. This episode, two conversations aimed at helping us understand the risks posed by highly pathogenic H5N1. This strain of...

In 2019 BC's Ministry of Agriculture & Food launched the BC Food Hub Network , a major component of which was significant funding for new food hubs in the province. This episode, a couple of conversations with people for whom Life Is Food Hubs; the rest being Just Details. Sarah-Patricia Breen is the BC Regional Innovation Chair in Rural Economic Development at Selkirk Innovates, the applied r...

Herein: part of my conversation with Jerome Lenkeek, Senior Policy & Market Analyst with the BC Vegetable Marketing Commission , who gave me an interview to fill in some gaps that Lillian Pusch and I didn't cover in our conversation in episode 28. In this segment of our conversation, Jerome explains how exemptions work within BC's Vegetable Scheme, which is kind of cool name for the regulatory...

My guest today is Lillian Posch, General Manager of Okanagan Grown Produce Ltd ., a veggie marketing agency located in Vernon. Marketing agencies like OGP play an important role in the orderly marketing of BC Vegetables. For those unfamiliar with the term, Orderly Marketing is the weaker yet earnest cousin of Supply Management. And in BC, it's the term we use to describe a legislated regulatory sc...

Today on the show, a tip from a listener takes me up to Northern BC, where some farmers and their co-conspirators are playing with fire! My guest is rangeland agrologist Nadia Mori, the coordinator of the Peace River Forage Association . She joined me to talk about her role as the coordinator of the Peace River Forage Association and a couple of its current projects. One explores the potential ben...

Today on the podcast, a return to a topic that, if download numbers are any indication, many of you are interested in. Way back in episode six of the show I released an episode I titled The Current State of BC’s Farmers Markets . It featured an interview with the board chair of the BC Association of Farmers Markets. And Wylie and I did talk about the state of BC’s Farmer’s Markets in that episode,...

Today on the show, BC’s recently re-elected premier David Eby finally issued mandate letters for his new cabinet, so I asked a politically-minded farmer to join me to talk about what’s contained in the one for our brand new but also returning Minister of Agriculture and Food, Lana Popham. We reference the BC Ag Council's Strategic Priorities released during the last BC election. Here's that docume...

Hey everyone! This is Jordan with some bonus listening for you. As you may know, I’m the producer and host of The Organic BC Podcast, and over there, I’ve been busy producing a miniseries about whether GAP certification is a viable option for small-scale farmers who want to gain, preserve, or expand access to wholesale marketing channels. You’re about to hear episode one of that series, exactly as...

This episode, Emily Huxter of Wild Antho (and also episode one of this podcast) is back. The first time around, I had too much good tape to work with so I omitted this chunk of our conversation, which is about the practice and business of breeding & selling queen bees. I learned a lot about bee love-making, and now you will, too. Other links: farminginbc.ca/submit if you'd like to contribute y...

In this episode, I hope to give you a sense of how our agricultural community responds to emergent agricultural pests, with a focus on the activities of BC’s Ministry of agriculture. Later on in the episode, you’re going to hear a conversation I just recorded with Susanna Acheompong, an extension entomologist with the BC Ministry of Agriculture based in Kelowna. Susanna spends a lot of her time fo...

This episode features a score called Italian Opera by Steve Oxen with an open source license.

This episode: when my guest was an urban farmer in Vancouver in the 2010s, she co-founded a marketing co-operative with her colleagues to streamline her produce sales. Intrigued by the problem-solving potential of cooperative business structures, she went on to obtain her Masters degree--and then her PhD--studying farming cooperatives in Japan. Emi Do currently works for Young Agrarians as its co-...

This episode, a couple of conversations inspired by an invitation I received to moderate a panel on Farmland Accessibility at the Columbia Basin Food & Buyers Expo in Nakusp later this week. In this episode, you’re going to hear from two of the three panelists who’ll be joining me in Nakusp to talk about innovative strategies for accessing farmland. Much of BC’s farmland is the most expensive...

This ep: FARMERS VOTE 2024! I invited the three major parties to provide a 2024 BC Election candidate to talk to me about agricultural policy; herein, a conversation with the BC Green Party's candidate for Courtenay-Comox, Arzeena Hamir , about the party's vision for Agriculture in BC. Teaser: they'd manage water differently and consider a Basic Income Guarantee for qualified farmers. After that,...

This ep: A long-ranging coversation with four owners of two farms that sit side-by-side in Mara: Louise Bruns and her husband, Hermann, own Wild Flight Veggie Farm . Across the road is Hamberlin Holsteins, owned by Daniela Bruns and her husband, Quentin. Daniela, Louise, Quentin and Hermann sat down with me to talk about how each operation came to be, how their upbringings influenced the farms the...

In this bonus episode of the podcast, farmer, co-op expert and newly minted University of the Fraser Valley faculty member Chris Bodnar describes a BC Tree Fruits Cooperative that was beset with internal problems in the years leading up to BCTF's recent, sudden closure in late July. Chris published a piece on Linkedin that delves deeper than we do. It's good. Read it here.

In which I cold-call a bunch of farmers to learn how everyone's doing this year. Other links: farminginbc.ca/submit if you'd like to contribute your thoughts for a future episode of the show. You're also welcome to send an audio recording to Jordan via text/whatsapp/signal Jordan at 250 767 6636 or via podcast@farminginbc.ca farminginbc.ca/sponsorship to learn more about buying ads on the podcast...

As promised last episodes, here are snippets of a few interviews I conducted a couple of years ago that provide some extra insight into the BC Tree Fruits Closure that has just thrown a wrenth into the gears of this year's apple harvest.