B.C. farmers dealing with wildfire challenges, could lose crops: Agriculture Council

Farmers in B.C. are dealing with significant challenges amid the worst wildfire season in recent years, causing them to brace for potential crop loss.

The BC Agriculture Council is warning of possible food security issues as a result, and spokesperson Paul Pryce adds there now are drought alerts for much of the province contributing to the problem.

“There could be some effects when it comes to crop losses or diminished crop outputs just because of these challenging conditions,” he said. “So there is that risk … we’re hoping that we’ve been through the worst of it this year — that we don’t encounter further issues — but we are bracing ourselves.”

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Pryce says air quality can even affect the number of hours workers are able to get onto the field — sometimes adding a health and safety issue to an already difficult situation for the farm itself.

“Of course, when the wildfire comes on to a particular property, that is devastating, but more generally, there’s aerosolized debris that’s spread out by these wildfires that can really affect the soil quality in a negative way. Then of course … some of the runoff can contribute to some ill effects in terms of water quality.”

However, Pryce says it’s not just wildfires causing trouble. He explains the province saw a deep freeze affect its wine growers.

“We’ve heard some news of a cold snap recently which really has affected some wine growers, for example, in the Okanagan, and potentially caused crop losses,” he said.

“It really just overall is an unusual year where you can talk about cold snaps affecting wine growers but then — at the same time — drought and wildfires affecting other commodities.”

According to data from the BC Wildfire Service, fire crews around the province are fighting or monitoring almost 100 fires right now.