Avian Flu Affecting Poultry Farms In Lower Mainland BC

Nov 28, 2022

At that time, more than 17 million birds, mostly in the Fraser Valley, had to be destroyed because of avian flu. This week, another 7 poultry farms in the Fraser Valley east of Vancouver were put under quarantine, after 3 of the farms had confirmed cases of the deadly H5N1 strain, the same strain that's resulted in the culling of hundreds of thousands of birds this year in Alberta and in other parts of the country as well.

There are still several active cases of avian flu here in the province. BC's ag minister told reporters this week, the H5N1 strain is behaving very differently than previous variants. "This year has been a lot more difficult. We haven't seen the pressure, disease pressure get alleviated as we normally would. I feel confident that we're going to get on top of this, but currently right now, there is a lot of pressure."Lana Popham says the inspection agency has protocols in place to deal with infected farms and that of course means surviving birds,sick or not, will have to be destroyed. She says the situation right now isn't as bad as 2004 and they hope it won't get there.

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Video: Western Canadian Agriculture: Hard Times Made the World's Best Farmers

Western Canadian agriculture produced the most advanced farmers in the world not through abundance but through adversity. The crow rate fell. The wheat price went nowhere. The brown envelopes stopped.

When the subsidies disappeared, the bad farmers left and the good ones stayed. And the ones who stayed could not just grow wheat anymore. They started growing lentils and canola and peas and flax and faba beans. They built crop rotation. They got serious about agronomy because there was no government backstop. That process produced the Western Canadian agriculture Dennis Bulani describes in this clip: the most advanced, most educated farming culture in the world.

His contrast with Iowa corn and soybean farmers is sharp. At a DeKalb farmer meeting in Okoboji, Iowa, he asked what crop rotation they ran. Beans on corn stubble, corn on bean stubble. How do you fertilize? The co-op agronomist handles it. Have you considered other crops? No need. We make so much money on corn and soybeans. Western Canadian agriculture was never allowed that comfort. And now those Iowa farmers are watching soybean markets lock up with China and corn prices slide, and they do not have the agronomy knowledge or the research base to pivot. Western Canadian farmers adapted on a dime because they had done it before.

Dennis also makes the case that Western Canadian agriculture keeps adapting in real time. Low commodity prices over the past year have pushed growers to look seriously at precision spot-spray technology. He knows a neighbor who bought a sprayer with the seeing-eye system and sprayed only 80 out of 320 acres. As a chemical retailer Dennis acknowledges that will affect his sales. He supports it anyway, because if it advances Canadian agriculture and makes farmers money, that is a good outcome.

The lesson Dennis draws from the tale of two farms: continuous improvement is the only durable strategy. When canola was $22 a bushel some growers went to Arizona instead of the Crop Production Show. When the price came down those same growers came back to the research and the discipline. Products do not go on Rack Petroleum's shelves unless they pass a replicated trial first. That is what Western Canadian agriculture built through hard times: farmers who do the work whether the times demand it or not.

Dennis Bulani is CEO of Rack Petroleum and Ultimate Yield in Biggar, Saskatchewan. Dan Aberhart hosts GTF Productions, Western Canadian Agriculture's foremost live briefing platform and its foremost AI training platform for ag operators