Cherry grower Gayle Krahn shares strategies for communicating with nonfarming neighbors to help them understand the importance of farming practices, such as wind machines and bird cannons, that might pose a nuisance to neighbors during the Southern Interior Horticultural Show in Penticton, British Columbia, on Feb. 13. (Kate Prengaman/Good Fruit Grower)
Cherry grower Gayle Krahn shares strategies for communicating with nonfarming neighbors to help them understand the importance of farming practices, such as wind machines and bird cannons, that might pose a nuisance to neighbors during the Southern Interior Horticultural Show in Penticton, British Columbia, on Feb. 13. (Kate Prengaman/Good Fruit Grower)

British Columbia orchardists and vineyardists gathered this week at the Southern Interior Horticultural Show in Penticton to discuss strategies for managing climate challenges, pests and diseases and neighbor complaints. 

British Columbia is unique in that two geographically small regions in the southwest and south-central portion of the mountainous province account for 80 percent of the population and 80 percent of the gross farm receipts, said Chris Zabek, an agrologist from the province’s Ministry of Agriculture and Food.

Many disputes and misunderstandings can stem from farming in close quarters with nonfarming neighbors, Zabek said as he introduced a session on the right-to-farm laws in Canada and the legal process in place for handling nuisance complaints from neighbors. 

Cherry grower and agronomist Gayle Krahn shared some recent headlines from Kelowna residents complaining about helicopters and wind machines growers use to protect cherries — and wondering why the activity can’t be conducted during daytime hours. 

While growers can’t control those issues, she urged them to communicate with their neighbors in good faith to explain why they do what they do and respond to complaints when they can. For example, on her farm, she put up chicken wire fencing to prevent leaves from blowing onto a neighbor’s property.

Krahn also recommended keeping good records so that if neighbors do make a formal nuisance complaint — such as saying that wind machines or sprayers “run 24/7,” as one newspaper quoted, growers can show what is actually going on.

Under the Farm Practices Protection Act, which was established in 1996, complaints go to a review board that looks at whether a farm is using “normal farm practices,” said Sara Thiesson, a senior case manager with the British Columbia Farm Industry Review Board. Usually, complaints are settled during a dispute resolution process the board facilitates. 

No farmer wants to see disputes with neighbors escalated, but it has happened. “This program is here to help,” Krahn said. 

On the horticulture side, several sessions focused on mitigating cold damage, a hot topic (pardon the pun) in the region after it sustained near-total cherry and wine grape crop losses last season due to a January 2024 cold event.

There are new tools on the horizon that could help growers protect trees from springtime cold events, such as sprayable protectants, said Matt Whiting, a physiologist from Washington State University.  

But when it comes to midwinter cold damage, such as that which British Columbia growers experienced last year, the solution likely lies in a deeper understanding of the genetic variation in cold tolerance and selecting varieties with better suitability to a region’s climate extremes or in breeding with more focus on cold-hardiness, he said. 

Off the agenda, at the trade show, there was a lot of chatter about the potential impacts on Canadian growers in the face of a trade war with the United States and the already-apparent increased emphasis on buying Canadian-grown products. 

—by Kate Prengaman