It’s good enough for the Columbia Shuswap Regional District, therefore the formation of an agricultural advisory committee and agricultural development plan should also take place in the North Okanagan.
That’s the belief of Enderby dairy farmer Lorne Hunter of the Kamloops Okanagan Dairymen Association (KODA), who made a presentation to Regional District of North Okanagan board members Wednesday.
“We would encourage the board to consider developing an agricultural plan and create an agricultural advisory committee,” said Hunter, who was part of two tours in the fall and last month introducing politicians to the area’s dairy industry.
A tour of dairy farms in Salmon Arm in October was such a great success that Hunter figured it would be a natural to do the same thing in the North Okanagan.
Tours of two Spallumcheen area dairy farms were conducted in April.
“The Columbia Shuswap Regional District approved creation of an agricultural plan, and they are going to apply to the Investment Agricultural Foundation for the funding for the creation of the plan and advisory committee,” said Hunter.
“I was very pleased to hear that.”
One other thing that came out of the Salmon Arm tour was that Okanagan College’s Downtown Community Campus project coordinator Margaret Hardy vowed to make agriculture the flagship technology for a downtown campus.
Hunter told RDNO directors that there are 90 dairy farms under KODA that produce 90 million litres of milk in the valley, and dairy farmers get paid 70 to 75 cents per litre.
All of the businesses Hunter deals with in his operation is local, meaning Salmon Arm to Kelowna but mostly businesses in Armstrong and Enderby.
“I deal with 61 businesses and of those 61 there are 360 employees,” said Hunter, who mentioned one such business, Mountview Electric in Enderby.
“Mountview has 26 jobs and a million dollar payroll,” said Hunter.
Because agriculture is a regional function, Hunter suggests a joint agricultural advisory committee be established between CSRD and RDNO.
“Lots of work will go into it but I can see a lot of synergies coming from the work of both regional districts working together,“ he said.
Mike Macnabb, director for BX-Silver Star, told Hunter the regional district has commenced with the process of setting up a regional agricultural committee.
“We’ve sent information out to the electoral areas, municipalities and to the ALC (Agricultural Land Commission) for comment,“ said Macnabb.
“This came out of our regional growth strategy. It’s grassroots. This is what the communities wanted. Agriculture is huge in this area. I’m really encouraged.“
Hunter said KODA would offer its services to RDNO in assisting with making land use decisions and policies that will have an impact on agriculture and its viability.
