- Who? The BC Ministry of Agriculture and Food is hosting a Regional Extension Workshop for the Peace Region! All agricultural producers, researchers, and academics from the BC Peace Region are invited
- Where/When? The Workshop will take place at the Farmington Community Hall on November 23rd, 2023 from 10:00am-4:00pm MST (lunch will be provided) Please Register On The Eventbrite Page by November 16th for catering numbers. If there is an issue with your registration, please contact Events02@vgnresources.ca
- What? The main objective of the workshop is to receive feedback and engagement from the BC Peace Region’s agricultural community on what kinds of extension or knowledge transfer projects they would like to see over the next 4 years
- Why Attend? The results of this workshop will be used to determine the direction of Ministry of Agriculture and Food-Extension Branch’s regional project funding over the next 4 years. If there are any agricultural, climate extension projects that you would like to see funded over the next 4 years, please come tell us about them
The Full Background:
The B.C. Ministry of Agriculture and Food recently announced the new Regional Extension Program, focused on environment and climate strategies and solutions. The goal of this program is to share knowledge around practices that support production under a changing climate. Centering producer voices, the goal is to develop region-specific solutions to common barriers to adopting practices that support farm productivity and environmental sustainability. The new Regional Extension Program builds on past work completed under the B.C. Ministry of Agriculture and Food’s Climate Change Adaptation Program (CCAP), formerly known as the Climate Adaptation Initiative (CAI). This program produced over 200 resources which are available online at https://bcclimatechangeadaptation.ca/.
Throughout the month of November, the B.C. Ministry of Agriculture and Food is hosting engagement session for farmers, ranchers, and key agricultural stakeholders under the new Regional Extension Program, focused on environment and climate strategies and solutions. Planned and facilitated regionally by the Ministry’s Regional Agrologists, the goal is to engage producers on their local knowledge of climate and soils and hear personal examples of key environmental issues that are challenging agriculture in the region.
This feedback will guide future applied research, information sharing from researchers and ministry staff to the producer community, and learning opportunities, such as peer-to-peer data sharing, webinars, and decision tools or other resources that will facilitate the adoption of beneficial management practices on farms.
Each region has been working with a committee of local producers from across agricultural commodities (referred to as the Regional Extension Committee, or REC) for several months. This committee has worked to review the issues facing agricultural producers in their region and refine the issues down to a short list of priority areas. The goal of these upcoming engagements is to share these priority areas and encourage broader producer input on these issues and any other climate and environment-related issues producers are experiencing. Participants will discuss their barriers to adoption and brainstorm potential solutions, which will inform future extension events and resources.
The Regional Extension Program will deliver activities such as knowledge transfer events, data sharing, on-farm demonstrations, workshops and webinars that highlight best practices and the latest research and technologies to support sustainable agriculture. The information shared by producers at these engagements will guide ministry staff in creating these resources and events.
If you have any questions about the event, the Regional Extension Program, or are unable to attend but would like to provide input via survey, please contact Brenna Schilds using the information below:
Brenna Schilds, P.Ag. | Regional Agrologist BC Peace
Work: 250-795-4101 Cell: 250-224-6053
