Coming home from a holiday in Mexico where we consumed great food products (avocados, maize, limes, tequila, and beans…), I quickly browsed the agriculture press to see what was new.
Drought tops the news stories because of the urgency, i.e. lack of precipitation and low water storage volumes, and the need to have a plan in place for water sharing.
The B.C. government, through its water agencies and agriculture programs, is having seminars and information sessions for water license holders who for the most part have the high priority of the right to use water for irrigation based on the earliest dates on their water licenses.
Those producers and users (often water districts) in western Canada can share their “prior rights” with users lower on the totem pole (where does that saying come from?) for a greater good, that is, a greater number of producers and users needing water.
More storage of freshet water that would otherwise rush to the ocean during spring run-off is one solution to pending shortages.
This idea of water sharing instead of just allocation by prioritized rights (First in time, First in Right or FITFIR) is being substituted for more sophisticated “water sharing” initiatives. This is going on in Alberta which has the most irrigation, in the US West (e.g. Montana and Colorado River Basin where the river dries up before it gets to the Ocean), and now in B.C. to some extent.
Information sessions are being presented by government in a series of water workshops including Williams Lake this weekend. Attend if you have a license and you think you are in a drought area!
The premier (Eby) and Minister of Agriculture (Alexis) announced money for water efficiency projects including storage (dams).
Other news of note:
Oat milk products have been found to have high levels of pesticides and herbicides.
Sustainability measurements are not prevalent and available for farmers.
Therefore, they are getting less motivated to try to do the right thing for conservation.
Lenore Newman from B.C.’s Food and Agriculture Institute (UBC) has said that scientists suspect that prairie producers are sequestering as much carbon in their fields as is being emitted by Alberta’s oil sands.