By Alice McFarlane

Agriculture Roundup for Monday February 7, 2022

Feb 7, 2022 | 10:03 AM

MELFORT, Sask. — A recovery package is expected to be announced today for British Columbia’s agriculture industry after devastating floods last November.

The B.C. and federal agriculture ministers were scheduled to make an announcement, billing it as the largest recovery program for the sector in the province’s history.

Record rains combined with overflowing rivers in mid-November swamped farmland in several areas of southern B.C. and Vancouver Island.

In the Sumas Prairie, a prime agricultural area in Abbotsford, water flooded barns, fields, and homes.

Thousands of animals were killed, most of them chickens and hogs, whose owners couldn’t rescue them before the water moved in.

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The Insurance Bureau of Canada has said the storms were the most costly and severe weather event in B.C.’s history with an insured value loss of about $450 million, although that doesn’t factor in the damage to several highways and other infrastructure, or the cost to those who were uninsured.

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Rye can be used as a replacement in swine rations for corn, wheat, or barley.

Researchers with the University of Saskatchewan and the Prairie Swine Center have been evaluating a high yielding hybrid variety of rye developed in Germany that is less susceptible to ergot.

Dr. Denise Beaulieu said as long as the energy content of the ration remained high, diets containing up to 40 per cent rye resulted in feed intake, growth, and carcass composition like that of typical corn or wheat-barley based diets.

“There was some work done, probably 20 years ago, showing that rye could certainly be a substitute for wheat and soybean meal and be a really good feedstuff, but it wasn’t widely used because of this issue with ergot,” she said.

Rye was grown specifically for the brewing industries but with the new varieties the seeded acreage could increase. Beaulieu said with ergot less of a concern rye could be included safely in feed rations.

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alice.mcfarlane@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @farmnewsNOW