Vegetable growers in British Columbia’s Fraser Valley have received federal assistance because severe rain last fall made more than half their crop unharvestable.
The cost-shared AgriRecovery program is aimed at helping farmers who had less crop to sell last year and higher-than-normal costs in planting this year’s crop.
Costs included preparing gullied and eroded land for planting and repairing drainage systems.
Heavy rain overwhelmed field drainage capacity last fall and left more than 3,400 acres of vegetables unharvested in the Fraser and Pemberton valleys and parts of Vancouver Island.
The marketing commission estimated a 43 percent reduction in normal crop volumes.
