Farming in British Columbia

My guest today is Brody Bolen. He's 28 years old and a third generation rancher and butcher based in Jaffrey, in the southeast corner of BC. Brody's grandparents established the ranch in 1957 as a commercial cattle operation. Brody and his wife Kashtyn now live there and operate a farm-to-table business model in which they're directly involved in every step of producing their beef, including delivering it themselves to households around the southern interior.  

Brody's nothing if not a cowboy and a cattleman. But he has another passion you may not have guessed: goats! Press play to hear about it!

This episode I speak with Tom Walker of Country Life Magazine and BC Minister of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship Nathan Cullen.

Much of BC has experienced various stages of drought in the last few years, with each successive year of drought compounding the issue of water scarcity in numerous parts of the province. In some areas, water scarcity in 2023 led to tensions among different water users. One example is Westwold, a small town in the Thompson Okanagan region dominated by large ranches and forage operations. Many of those operations source their irrigation water from deep aquifers in the Salmon River watershed. Last summer, water levels in the Salmon River got so low that the ability of salmon to spawn became a concern. Because of this concern, farmers in the region were abruptly told by BC government officials to curtail their irrigation, at a really crucial time of the production season. This created a lot of angerin the community. Some farmers demanded to see the science that proves that drawing water from 200 feet underground meaningfully affects water levels in the river, because they don't believe there's a connection.

Things will probably get worse. We're headed into the 2024 farming season with a pretty low snowpack in many parts of BC, and meanwhile, mid-march brought warm weather that shattered a lot of temperature records. So I invited Tom Walker to talk to me, since in his gig as a writer for Country Life Magazine, he's been covering the issue of water scarcity for a few years now. I also reached out to the BC Ministries of Agriculture and also Water, Land and Resource Stewardship for comment. Specifically, I asked if I could speak to a hydrologist who could explain the relationship between drawing irrigation water from deep wells in Westwold, and water levels in the salmon river. They told me, maybe, and so far, no dice, but they did allow me to interview Minister Cullen for 10 minutes. You'll hear from him after my conversation with Tom Walker.

This episode: a conversation with apple grower and cider maker Mike Harris of Dominion Cider Company in Summerland.

You'll learn how a guy went from an oil & gas job and no farming experience to managing an apple orchard and producing good cider in just a few years, why the snobs who say you can't make good cider with dessert apples are totally right and totally wrong, and how one of the best recent investments Mike made in the business made him less efficient at what he does.

Email the show: podcast@farminginbc.ca

Zak Vescera just wrapped up a stint at The Tyee as its labour reporter, and last August he launched a series focused on the housing and working conditions of BC's migrant farm workers. Here's a link to the first article in the series.

The series was deeply reported, and went beyond specific allegations to look at the value of seasonal farm worker programs to BC's ag sector, their structure, and their oversight and enforcement.

Zak joined me on the podcast to talk about his findings.

Zak has just started a new gig at theInvestigative Journalism Foundation.

Welcome to a new podcast about farming in BC! This first episode, a conversation with Emily Huxter, a beekeeper based in Armstrong. 

In our conversation, Emily contrasts honey production on the prairies and the Okanagan, why the economics of beekeeping is probably not what you have assumed, and why 50% of a jar of 100% Canadian Honey may actually be from Singapore.

Visit Wild Antho's website

Email the show! podcast@farminginbc.ca