British Columbia farmers face a ‘heartbreaking’ reality

On Wednesday, Julia Smith opened the door to her store that a few hours earlier had been submerged in the water of a fast-flowing river. Cautiously entering, the Merritt, BC rancher saw his freezers full of meat, the fruit of years of work and his main source of income, floating face down in cold water filled with feces.

“It’s totally heartbreaking,” he said. “I’m dealing with it one day at a time right now.”

Rising waters in the Coldwater River forced city officials Monday to evacuate the city of 7,000 people and low-lying ranches in the surrounding area. While Smith’s farm was left outside the evacuation zone, the store where he stores and sells his meat is not and was flooded with at least a meter of running water.

But with animal feed in short supply due to the flood and the city still under water, Smith, who also volunteers with local search and rescue, had little time to delay her losses. He needed to feed his animals, still safe on his farm, three hundred meters above the village, and help his neighbors overcome the crisis.

Similar scenes have unfolded in southern British Columbia in recent days as the province grapples with an unprecedented storm that flooded Merritt, Princeton and much of the Fraser Valley under meters of dirty, icy water. While the floods have started to recede, farmers and officials warn that the crisis is far from over as they fight in the coming days to keep their herds and herds alive.

Most of BC’s farms are located in the highly fertile Fraser Valley, producing everything from blueberries to tomatoes to milk. More than half of the chicken consumed in the province comes from the region, and its dairy farmers produce about 62 percent of British Columbia’s milk, according to a 2020 study commissioned by Metro Vancouver.

Dozens of these farms remain underwater after torrential rains last weekend caused water to spill over the riverbanks and levees that protect the Sumas Prairie, a former lake drained last century to give step to farmland.

“There are probably hundreds of farms that have been affected by the floods … and we have thousands of animals that have perished and many, many more that are in difficult situations,” BC Agriculture Minister Lana told reporters. Popham, during a press conference on Wednesday. , the ex-farmer’s voice cracked with excitement.

The province will help veterinarians access the animals in the coming days to assess their health and euthanize them if necessary. He is also rushing to supply food and water to farms before more animals begin to suffer in an effort to bolster farmers’ tireless efforts to save their herds, he said.

“There was a relatively small group of farmers, maybe 40, who stayed and worked apparently as a team,” said Laura Ballance, an Abbotsford resident who lives on a hill overlooking the worst of the flooding. “During the night of Monday night and Tuesday night, you could see the tractor lights (while) working together to get the animals out of the area just before it got horribly worse.”

“It’s totally heartbreaking. I’m dealing with it one day at a time right now,” Merritt rancher Julia Smith said of the flooding that is affecting her community. #BCStorms

Farmers least affected by rising waters helped worst-affected neighbors convince cows with boats, jet skis and tractors to find themselves on safer ground. Ballance even heard reports of octogenarians stoically helping save herds in the freezing water until the flooding became too intense and they had to evacuate by boat or helicopter.

While many of these animals have since ended up in nearby barns on higher ground, countless challenges lie ahead, explained Jill Robbins, a chicken farmer from Abbotsford who has friends in the dairy industry.

“They all took as many cows as they could. But the problem is, these are dairy cows. These animals are used to being (milked) twice a day, three times a day. And now with them all over the place, it’s hard to put them in a milking schedule … and it is very painful for a cow to sit there full of milk for several hours. ”

Even cows that did not need to relocate pose a huge challenge, as most farms no longer have electricity, running water, or enough dry feed. These problems must be addressed early to avoid further losses, which not only have a great emotional impact on farmers, but also threaten their financial viability and the survival of genetic lines from previous generations.

Milk producers weren’t the only ones affected. A spokesperson for the BC Egg Marketing Board said that at least 60 egg farms, broilers and turkeys are in the evacuation area, although not all were flooded. Robbins also noted that produce farmers, especially organic producers, are likely to suffer as the flood washed away carefully tended soil and contaminated them with manure, pesticides and fertilizers.

Authorities have repeatedly warned people to stay away from flooded regions. For farmers, getting away from their animals is nearly impossible, Robbins said.

“They care about these animals. They interact with them every day. They have known them since they were babies. For people to say that they should just leave, (is like) saying, ‘Stay away from your children.’ I don’t think anyone can take those decisions. “

Reference-www.nationalobserver.com

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