ONCE BURNED, TWICE SHY, CULTUS LAKE RESIDENTS FEAR DRAFT PLAN Willing to fight to keep trees and a say in future development
times
Mixed bag for Chiefs
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Chilliwack
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2015
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Pipeline snubbed by board
360 million
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[Approx. Chilliwack agriculture gross farm receipts]
Kinder Morgan looking to cut deal to expand right of way BY GREG LAYCHAK glaychak@chilliwacktimes.com
T One in five local jobs revolves around farming . . . you better believe it’s our economic driver BY PAUL J. HENDERSON phenderson@chilliwacktimes.com
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Originally established by Cornelis Kooyman in 1958, the farm was transferred to Len and Gerda Kooyman in 1963. Their seven sons are the third generation, all of whom run the operation, with many members of the fourth generation involved as well. Six times every 24 hours the milk truck stops by this massive operation to pick up the 90,000 litres of milk produced every day. After visiting Chilliwack Cattle Sales, the two busloads of mostly bankers and other finance-related partners in the agriculture industry, visited one of Chilliwack’s most unique operations, Tri-R Cranberries. Case and John Guliker, and father Harry Guliker, created three 9.6-acre bogs in 2009 to try some-
thing totally new to Chilliwack. Cranberries are not an easy crop to grow and John Guliker said four years in, unexpected northeast winds caused a lot of crop damage. Still, the experience has been “interesting” for the family and this year they hope to harvest 25,000 pounds of cranberries for Ocean Spray. Third stop on the tour was Fraser Valley Specialty Poultry (FVSP) in Yarrow. Formerly known as Fraser Valley Duck & Goose, FVSP is the fifth largest agricultural employer in Chilliwack. At any one point there are 140,000 ducks, 80,000 chickens and 10,000 geese on the 100-acre farm, where { See TOUR, page A25 }
{ See SCHOOL, page A3 }
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s Chilliwack grows and diversifies both economically and socially, there can be a tendency to focus on the geography of the Yale/Vedder corridor and forget what lies beyond. But make no mistake, Chilliwack is farm country. It always has been but guests on the annual Chilliwack Agriculture Tour last Friday were reminded that farming is just as important today as it was when Jonathan Reece held the first fall fair in 1873 on his land where A.D. Rundle sits today. With one in five local jobs in farming, 939 farms and 67 per cent
of the land in the Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR), Chilliwack agriculture brings in approximately $360 million in gross farm receipts, mostly from dairy, poultry and greenhouse operations. “This is an economic driver,” said Garry Fehr, the new director of the University of the Fraser Valley’s (UFV) Agriculture Centre of Excellence. “It employes a lot of people in our community.” Upwards of 40 people are employed at the first stop on this year’s tour, Chilliwack Cattle Sales. With seven people on each shift tending to 2,800 cows that methodically go on and off the Kooyman family’s 72-stall rotary milking parlour, this is the largest dairy farm in Canada.
Paul J. Henderson/TIMES
Attendees on the annual Chilliwack Agriculture Tour at Canada’s largest dairy farm owned by Chilliwack Cattle Sales.
he Chilliwack board of education snubbed oil giant Kinder Morgan’s recent compensation offer at the first public meeting of the 2015/16 school year Tuesday night. With Martha Wiens absent, the board voted 4-2 in favour of declining an offer from the oil company fo r it s ex pan sion of the Trans Mountain pipeline right of way u n d e r Ve d d e r middle school’s field. Trustee Paul McManus point- Paul McManus ed to the three options presented by district staff based on a retained lawyer’s advice, but noted there was a fourth option: saying ‘no’—full stop. “Because ultimately the money that we’re talking about is negligible it’s not about the money,” he said prior to the vote. “It’s about the philosophical decision of whether we want to say ‘yeah, go ahead’ at some point down the road. I’m not comfortable with that, with just opening up the doors.”
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