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What’s Up...
Recent News...
We have a new name! The OKCGA is now officially the BC Cherry Association. This website will be converting to a new website - with our new name - soon.
2013 Maximum Residue Level (MRL) information for all current export countries is now available. Please consider your marketing plans with your marketer and plan your spray program carefully. Also read and heed the article about testing in the EU from the last newsletter. Thanks to Hugh Philip for updating this again, and to the BCFGA who arranged funding for it this year.
Our Market Access Group remains cautiously optimistic that China may accept Canadian cherries for 2013. David Geen and Andre Bailey attended a meeting of Chinese officials in Vancouver on March 19th, and CFIA are continuing work with AQSIQ and our Market Access Group.
The BC Cherry Association is addressing upcoming needs such as (hopefully) hosting an official Chinese inpsection visit this summer, and ongoing research planned for problems including "Slip-skin" and SWD. Some growers have not renewed their membership or contributed any levy money yet this year while we were expecting we would be shifting to a mandatory levy under a Council. But we still have the work to do, and need your financial support more than ever before. Please renew now, and contribute whatever you can manage! We are applying for matching funds to get work done, so the more we have, the more we can apply for!
We have an active and enthusiastic new board elected from the AGM on March 7th. New members include Joe Hart, Gordon Sandhu, Ravi Dhaliwal, Manjinder Khela, Bill Sandhers, Don Westcott, Andre Bailey, and David Geen. Continuing directors are Christine Dendy (Chair), Sukhpaul Bal (Vice Chair), Dr. David Geen (Treasurer), Graem Nelson (Secretary), Greg Norton, and Chris Danninger (Research Director). Dr. Peter Toivonen has kindly consented to continue in his ex-officio role. The board has worked very hard on everyone's behalf over the last year and their work is greatly appreciated. Our special thanks to David Stirling, Glen Wood, Hank Markgraf, Charlotte Leaming, Duane Holder, Sukhdeep Brar, Roger Bailey, Rick Faynor and Gary Snow for their huge contribution as Directors over the past years. Many of these have kindly offered to continue their work as committee members. Thank you!
Our hopes of organizing a BC Cherry Council may have been dashed, but the work planned for it still needs to be done. The OKCGA is looking at options for restructuring to enable this to happen.
- A first step in this was to strike a Research Committee to ensure the ongoing research program continues to get the attention it deserves. Appointed to this committee are Chris Danninger (Director) and Ravi Dhaliwal, Duan Holder, Dr D. Geen, Dr. David Lane, Glen Wood, Hank Markgraf, Charlotte Leaming, Sukhdeep Brar, and Dr Peter Toivonen.
- Another committee is the Market Access Group which has been working hard since late December. It is chaired by David Geen and includes Andre Bailey, Bill Sandhers, Don Westcott, Clive Sutherland and Christine Dendy.
The intent as we restructure is to delegate the work load to specific committees with members with the expertise and specific interest to do the work. Please let us know if you have a particular interest in helping on a committee, or in any other aspect such as website maintenance, administrative help, promotion, workshops and education.
2012 Research reports are now available in the Members Area.
The latest newsletter is now available on this website.
The BC Cherry Industry meeting on December 14th, 2012 gave full support for the implementation of a BC Cherry Council to provide a higher level of services and co-ordination for our rapidly expanding BC cherry industry. The council would represent the industry in market acess (both domestic and exports) and BC Cherry promotion, as well as provide horticultural support through research and education, similar to the role of Northwest Cherries in Washington/Oregon.
- Details are being developed for presentation to the industry through meetings and newsletters over the next two months, and the concept will be put before OKCGA members at the OKCGA AGM.
The new BC CHERRY MARKET ACCESS GROUP recently returned from meetings January 6-10th in Beijing, where CFIA/AQSIQ talks were succesfull in re-opening prospects of agreed protocols for exporting BC Cherries to China. The Market Access Group will continue to work closely with CFIA on this, and other trade issues, and is 'cautiously optimistic' for an agreed protocol by the 2013 harvest. Federal and BC Trade officials are providing much appreciated support during these meetings. Progress reports will be provided periodically as work proceeds.
2013 Membership Renewals and 2012 Research Levies are now due. Please send in your renewal and payment to Connie Bielert. Please print out the current membership form and mail it in to us. And remember, the rebate of up to 40% of it through SR&D Tax Credits means a penny a pound for research really only cost you 0.6 of a penny! To meet and beat the growing competition in our cherry industry, research is as important as ever! Please support this essential part of our industry. Cherries are our business!
Employer listings will be updated for 2013. Expired listings will be deleted unless renewed prior to March 1, 2013. Make sure your listing is current - this is a very popular website source for people seeking summer work.
Don't be a fool on April 1, 2013. The BC Government has shown no interest in PST tax revisions for agriculture before the return to the old PST system in 2013. Producers and on-farm packers would be wise to consider the timing of purchases of goods and services that will no longer have PST refunded when HST ends April 1, 2013 and we return to the Dark Ages for provincial sales taxation of agriculture. Talk to your accountant and don't wait until after April 1 to buy trucks, computers, office equipment and supplies, or other items that will again become subject to unrefundable PST.
A website for the Western Agriculture Labour Initiative (WALI) is now available
for SAWP application details and other related information. Please note that WALI is no longer processing applications for SAWP.
Revisions to the BC Water Act are in development and we have been very active in representing BC agriculture interests in general and southern interior watershed and irrigation issues in particular. Follow the issues and participate
http://www.livingwatersmart.ca/
Click here for Spotted Wing Drosophila Monitoring and Management Recommendations for Commercial Tree Fruit and Grapes in the Interior of British Columbia from Dr. Acheampong.
Please click on the attached publication "Surveillance and Management of Spotted Wing Drosophila (Drosophila suzukii) in the Interior of British Columbia" for more information. For links to current updates and further information please go to
BC Ministry of Agriculture and Lands: http://www.al.gov.bc.ca/cropprot/swd.htm and Oregon State University: http://swd.hort.oregonstate.edu/
SWD posters to raise awareness and help control SWD spread are available for your farm, employee accommodation, fruit stands, neighbours, and local produce stores. They can be downloaded here to print. Poster 1 Poster 2
A Cherry Picker Training Guide is now available on the web. This is a four page pamphlet you can view online or print out (double sided) to make your own pamphlets for cherry picking. Versions will be added in French, Punjabi, and Spanish. This is part of an ongoing project to delelop a manual for good cherry harvest and packing practices.
For a full and very interesting report, click on the 2009 International Cherry Symposium and Chilean tour report which is now uploaded on this site. Thanks to Nicole Verpaelst for the great work in putting this together and including a lot of interesting observations and photos!
The presentations from the OKCGA February 9th annual research meeting are now available in pdf format: 2010 AGM Presentations
BE PATIENT WHEN OPENING, SOME OF THESE FILES ARE BIG AND TAKE TIME TO LOAD.
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