Farmers In The Lower Mainland May Have To Wait Months Before Returning

Nov 22, 2021

There are many farmers in the Fraser Valley between the cities of Abbotsford and Chilliwack who believe it will be months before they can set foot on their farms again.

Many were flooded by more than a metre of water as a result of a huge storm on the west coast about a week ago. Although some farmers managed to get horses and cows to higher ground, it's believed at least a thousand animals died in the flooding. There are also many chicken farms in the area and some of those farmers were forced to abandon them. Several that weren't flooded were quickly running out of feed because of washed out highways.

This past weekend, the situation was beginning to improve. The Fraser River started receding and some traffic was moving again between Hope and the Okanagan.

Alberta is helping out our neighbors to the west. Late last week, Premier Jason Kenney said he had a phone call with his BC counterpart, John Horgan and they discussed various ways our province could help producers in the Fraser Valley, including setting up veterinary lab services.

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Video: Learning to Wrench From Dad the Hard Way

Harvest is a week out and the farm picked this week to fall apart. The truck needs a battery, the barn curtain's got a problem, and the corn and beans are telling us we're out of time to get it all fixed.

So it's a full day of wrenching. Tork supervises while I get the truck back running, then we're out at the hog barn where one rusted up part has the whole curtain system hung up. Ladder work, cable work, and a little dad-and-son disagreement about the right way to do it. We close it out walking the fields, shelling beans and checking corn, because whether everything's fixed or not, harvest starts when harvest starts.

Chapters: 00:00 Everything breaks the week before harvest 01:00 Tork supervises while I fix the truck 12:30 Out to the barn to find the curtain problem 14:30 One rusty part hung up the whole curtain 20:00 Running the curtain cable from the ladder 24:00 Walking the beans and corn before harvest 26:30 Wrapping up

We're a 6th generation family farm in southeast Iowa showing the real ups and downs of pig farming and row crop farming. No script, just the work. Subscribe and follow along.

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