On Agriculture Minister Lana Popham’s Help For Bees in B.C.

March is all the time a frenetic time for us. We’re simply popping out of winter, stuffed with hope for our bees and longing for the brand new season.

It’s also the month that delivers new info and concepts, and when theoretical info can remodel into sensible use.

I’m talking in regards to the B.C. Honey Producers Affiliation’s semi-annual schooling days, which simply happened on-line on the weekend.

I’m one of many organizers of this system, together with Dan Mawson, the opposite vice-president of the affiliation. This 12 months we introduced in some audio system who, frankly, utterly altered how we take into consideration probably the most fundamental parts of our beekeeping craft. I’ll discuss these audio system in one other put up.

However on the very prime of the listing of excellent issues popping out of the assembly is Agriculture Minister Lana Popham’s announcement of funding for our affiliation’s Tech Switch Program.

Lana Popham introduced the BCHPA will obtain $100,000 this 12 months to assist begin a Tech Switch Program.

For so long as I’ve been on the board of the BCHPA, I and plenty of others have argued that British Columbia wants a TTP to assist beekeepers in areas of sensible software, schooling and utilized analysis.  The province’s Apiculture Division is likely one of the finest within the nation, and is even the envy of many U.S. states, which regularly don’t have any such regulatory capability or assist for beekeepers. However a tech switch program, run by a beekeepers’ affiliation, is a distinct animal. It affords  companies that the federal government regulatory company can’t or gained’t undertake, akin to utilized analysis, non-regulatory testing,  instructing built-in pest administration, efficient queen-rearing and extra.

Satirically, B.C. as soon as did have a TTP-style extension service operated by the province. Kerry Clark, our speedy previous president, and John Gates had been the 2 extension specialists. However like many governments that wished to chop “pointless” applications or switch the prices to the personal sector, the BC authorities of the Nineteen Nineties did away with the service.

During the last six years the remainder of Canada’s beekeepers adopted on the grand-daddy of Canadian TTPs, the Ontario program first envisioned by Medhat Nasr, and began co-funded applications. We now have been the final one with out such a significant service.

Lana Popham, Minister of Agriculture

That now ends with Popham’s announcement on Saturday that the B.C. authorities is giving the BCHPA $100,000 for the primary of what we hope and anticipate is a long-term annual dedication. The BCHPA and beekeepers have additionally bought some pores and skin within the recreation, and this isn’t a “handout” however comes with some hefty strings connected. We additionally face some vital long-term monetary challenges. We’re going to have to rent a supervisor, develop cost-effective however results-producing applications and begin up a analysis apiary. And that’s solely within the first 12 months.

Over my lengthy profession as a journalist I used to be all the time cautious in how I referred to politicians. My want for objectivity required me to stroll a balancing beam that, if I fell or jumped off, might injury my credibility.

However I’m going to take that danger now and level out that I’ve by no means seen an agriculture minister like Popham. Her ardour for her portfolio and her curiosity in meals safety, selling farmers and defending the underpinnings of excellent agricultural ideas, akin to rehabilitation of the Agricultural Land Reserve system, is refreshing and welcome.

There have been good agriculture ministers up to now, and others who had been extra curious about utilizing the portfolio as a stepping stone of their political careers, to the detriment of the sector. Those who invested of their portfolios centered on necessary sectors like grain, cattle, tree fruits and bush fruits. Only a few acknowledged the foundational significance of honey bees, with out which most of these sectors could be weakened.

Popham places all of them to disgrace. I imply, who on the planet would have created a “Bee BC” program designed to enhance bee well being outcomes? The littlest insect is acknowledged by Popham for its highly effective function within the agricultural financial system.

Full disclosure, our firm has been the recipient of some Bee BC grants to enhance bee well being, together with two permitting us to look into novel virus therapies utilizing mycelium, and two that help Kootenay beekeepers in decreasing illnesses and pathogens by sterilizing tools at Sterigenics in Port Coquitlam. These grants require cost-sharing on our half. And beekeepers within the Sterigenics program need to pay their very own sterilization charges, although the price of transport to the Decrease Mainland is underwritten by the grants.

Display screen shot of video produced by Funding Agriculture Basis about Honey Bee Zen Bee BC initiatives.

To others wishing to serve in elected workplace, I say look to Popham for instance of what public service actually means.