Show Notes
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 specific virus, the domesticated sheep that carry it, and the wild sheep populations that are under threat because of it. And how she hopes to see more action by our governments and by farmers to do what’s necessary to contain this threat. I’ll also be sharing some updates from our colleagues in the BC farming sector in the middle segment. Links: Transmission, the full length documentary about MOVI and its effect on wild sheep. Wild Sheep Society of BC A Helen Schwantje bio from the web This recent interview with Helen provides a broader perspective on her career.
More from Farming in British Columbia
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Belatedly. Herein: a hodge podge. It's fun. LISTEN TO IT.
This episode: my interview with Chris Bodnar, a University of the Fraser Valley professor and long time Abbotsford-based farmer. Chris is the primary author of a recently published report titled Farming at the Edge, commissioned by the BC Agriculture Council and BC Dairy. In it, Chris presents a financial analysis of our sector that tells a different story than the one that Statistics Canada has told in its most recent report on BC’s Farm Economy. This analysis led Chris to a bold set of policy recommendations for our sector that he shares in the report. Chris joined me on the phone in mid-September to talk about his findings. Here’s that conversation. Also featured: a visit to the Farming in BC tradeshow to learn about a conference Holistic Management Canada is hosting in Kamloops November 20-22.
Today on the show, a conversation with Richard Hebda about seed security and seed conservation. Richard is an Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Victoria and an expert in botany and paleontology, and a curator of botany and earth history at the Royal BC Museum. Richard has published research for decades on many topics, but what’s worth noting here is that much of his research has focused on the impacts of climate change on natural and human-influenced ecosystems. Richard joined me to talk about a project aimed at preserving and adapting heritage seeds in the context of a changing climate, although mostly we talk about what's going well, and what's lacking, in our collective efforts to slow down the loss of our seed diversity. You can learn more at heritagepotato.ca, although the URL will soon change to cropclimate.ca
The BC Ministry of Ag has proposed rule changes for food processing in the ALR that would make it much easier to build food processing facilities on classes 4-7 land, with a much lower requirement for the use of BC-produced food. I've already produced two episodes about this; in this one I'll share some listener feedback about this topic. ******* The proposed rule is as follows: On class 5-7 soil (and class 4 if the parcel is serviced by the date this rule is implemented), ALC approval is not necessary to build food processing plants in the ALR, so long as 5 percent of the primary product used in the processing is grown or raised in the province. Read the Ministry of Ag's proposal and discussion paper here. You can tell the government what you think of this proposal by emailing Ag Minister Popham at [email protected]
The BC Ministry of Ag has proposed rule changes for food processing in the ALR that would make it much easier to build food processing facilities on classes 4-7 land, with a much lower requirement for the use of BC-produced food. This is part two of my coverage. Part one dropped Aug 17th, 2026. Herein: four more perspectives on the proposal. The proposed rule is as follows: On class 5-7 soil (and class 4 if the parcel is serviced by the date this rule is implemented), ALC approval is not necessary to build food processing plants in the ALR, so long as 5 percent of the primary product used in the processing is grown or raised in the province. Read the Ministry of Ag's proposal and discussion paper here. You can tell the government what you think of this proposal by emailing Ag Minister Popham at [email protected]