Farmland Advantage Garners International Attention
From June 27 to July 3, 2023, the International Federation of Agriculture Journalists Conference took place. As a prelude to the conference, The British Columbia Farm Writers’ Association (BCFWA) planned a pre-tour of Western Canada. The pre-tour began in the Lower Mainland of BC, travelled to Calgary, and consisted of agricultural journalists from all over the world. The tour featured stops at various agricultural locations, including a greenhouse, a berry farm, a flour mill, and more.
On the fourth day of their journey, the group visited Zehnder Ranch, a Farmland Advantage site. Zehnder Ranch is located near Invermere, BC, in the East Kootenays. This site served as the very first FLA pilot site, all the way back when FLA was known as the Ecological Services Initiative and continues to be involved in the program today. Work done on the property includes fencing off riparian areas from livestock and establishing native riparian species in the protected area. Zehnder Ranch is also one of the participants in FLA’s Wildfire Risk-Reduction Pilot Project.
Dave Zehnder led the tour of the property and spoke of the ongoing restoration work on his family’s property and throughout BC being done by Farmland Advantage. The tour was received well by the agriculture journalists and has resulted in Farmland Advantage being mentioned in an article from Finland.
Wildfire Risk-Reduction Pilot Project
In 2022 Farmland Advantage (FLA) expanded to begin a wildfire risk reduction pilot project, funded by the Government of British Columbia through the Ministry of Forests. Support from the BC Wildfire Service (BCWS) is focused on reducing wildfire risk and increasing community resiliency to wildfires across British Columbia. At the end of this pilot, the FLA team hopes to have increased the resiliency of landscapes within the treatment areas.
Farmland Advantage Gets Featured
Metsä Palaa, Jää Sulaa written by Riita Saarinen
Published in the Finnish magazine Tekniikan Maailma, the article’s title translates to ‘The Forest Burns, the Ice Melts’. Saarinen, along with photographer Petteri Kokkonen travelled through BC on the BCFWA Pre-Tour to see and report on the impacts of climate change in Western Canada. The article covers several stories about the impacts of climate change from their journey. The article includes stories from producers impacted by wildfires in Merritt, the effects of inconsistent rain in the Okanagan, efforts to reduce wildfire risk in Invermere, a trip up the Athabasca Glacier and the complexities of glacial melt, and tales of tornados in Carstairs, Alberta.
You are able to read the first portion of the article on their website with the assistance of google translate.
