Farmwest

Some 100 delegates from 36 countries meeting at FAO today called on farmers to join the ongoing “Greener” revolution represented by a form of farming known as Conservation Agriculture. This farming system, CA for short, aims to help feed the world more sustainably by building up soil ecosystems and reducing unnecessary soil disturbance wherever possible.

According to one study, some 20 percent of the earth’s cropland is now being eroded or otherwise degraded – a potential catastrophe given the need to double world food production by 2050 to feed a population of more than nine billion.

Rebuilding good soil structure and encouraging biological processes in soil increases its capacity to produce crops, the delegates declared in a Framework for Action adopted at the end of a three-day technical meeting on Investing in Sustainable Crop Intensification and Improving Soil Health.

Agassiz

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Low: 10°C	High: 15°C Low: 10°C POP: 40%	High: 20°C Low: 9°C POP: 40%	High: 20°C Low: 8°C	High: 16°C Low: 9°C POP: 60%
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Updated: Aug 29, 2008 at 4:10PM

The provincial Agroforestry Management Committee is pleased to announce it has initiated a strategic plan for the period of 2009 to 2013. A key element to the success of the Agroforestry Initiative has been its focus on the priorities from various stakeholders around BC. In September we will be conducting online surveys to gauge your ideas, interests and aspirations for the coming years. In October and November we will be conducting a series of regional focus group meetings to gather more detailed information and help us with the process of prioritizing agroforestry development needs and shaping future agroforestry support programs. General written submissions, of any length, with ideas, suggestions or links to organizations, programs or information you think would be of benefit to the development of agroforestry in BC are most welcome.

Coombs Farm Animal and Poultry Swap A farmers market for live animals. All farm animals and poultry. Also bring any surplus equipment, machinery, hay, grain, fencing - anything farm. A great place to meet the farmers. Happens the second Sunday of each month, March til November. Next swap date: September 14 (August is cancelled).

Morice Region Arability Study Completed Over twenty thousand hectares of undeveloped Crown land in central BC could eventually be available for farmers and ranchers to expand their farming operations. The possibility emerges from the results of a newly-completed study of crown land in the Morice Region, south of Houston, looking at the suitability of the land to grow vegetable, grain and forage crops.

Biogas Technology Not the Right Fit for B.C. - for now Around the world, anaerobic digestion is being touted as a way to turn animal and green waste into biogas, a combination of natural gas (methane) and carbon dioxide, which can then be used for heating and/or power generation. The technology is already popular in Europe and was identified as an action item in the new B.C. Agriculture Plan. A farm biogas system would put manure and other wastes through an anaerobic digester (AD). About 15 percent of the mass would be turned into gas which would feed a cogeneration unit and the remaining “digestate” directed into a manure pit and eventually spread as fertilizer, composted or used as bedding.

BC Forage Council Wet Meadow Forage Variety Demonstration Project

The BC Forage Council, the Cariboo Cattlemen and the BCMAL are working on the first year of a three-year demonstration project to determine which varieties of forage offer the best survivability in the wet meadows of the Cariboo region of the province. Two sites were seeded in the fall of 2007 near 150 Mile House, B.C. Field Tours will be held in the summer of 2009. More photos.

Field Crop Protection Guide, 2008-2009

Guide To Best Management Practices In British Columbia for Cereals, canola, field corn, field peas, grasses and legumes for forage and seed production. The 2008/09 edition of the Field Crop Protection Guide is now available for B.C. producers. Contact your nearest B.C. Ministry of Agriculture and Lands office to obtain a copy. Contents of the Guide are also available off the BCMAL website in PDF* format. Contents:

Introduction
Disease Management
Insect Pest Management
Weed Management
Herbicide Abstracts
Application Equipment and Calibration
Herbicide Tables

Herbicide Selector

This selector will help you find herbicides to control specific weeds in cropping and non-cropping situations. You can begin the selection by choosing a crop, if you know the crop and leaf stage, and then selecting for the weeds you want to control. Click on the results link to display all the products and registered mixes that can be applied to control or suppress weeds for that situation. Alberta Agriculture link.