If you are looking ahead to this years' growing season, and thinking that you might need to hire one or more employees to help get everything done, there are some wage subsidy programs that you might be interested in.

Get Youth Working is a program that offers negotiated wage subisidies to employers that hire and train eligible youth 16-29 years of age.

Work BC also has a Wage Subsidy Program that is designed to help cover a portion of the wages for hiring and training new employees. If you are interested, please note that you have to sign the funding agreement before hiring the employee.

One of the more commonly known ones, the Canada Summer Jobs Program, is no longer accepting applications. You have to jump on this one early, so if you are interested in this one, bookmark it for next year. Another program for consideration next year is the Youth Employment and Skills Program offered through Agriculture and Agri-food Canada (targets youth between 15 and 30 inclusive). This program is intended to increase opportunities for youth facing barriers.

Attention Summer Students! Investment Agriculture Foundation of BC has a bursary program for full-time students who wish to be employed in the agriculture and food industry. Check out the Summer Student Farm Worker Bursary here to determine if you are eligible. Deadline to apply is April 30, 2024.

Other Resources:

The BC Vegetable Marketing Commission (BCVMC) issued two bulletins in February to notify people of the recent expansion of their regulated area. Before January 1, 2024, the General Orders of the BCVMC only included the southern part of the province up to the 53rd parallel (basically Quesnel) but now cover the entire province.

Based on the information in the bulletin and subsequent clarification, growers north of Quesnel that meet the definition of a Producer as per BC Vegetable Scheme (i.e., "a person who operates a farm on which one tonne or more of the regulated product has been produced during the immediately preceding 12 months") now fall under this regulation. Commercial Producers are defined in the BCVMC General Orders as Producers that grow "Regulated Product of at least a gross value to the Producer of $5,000".

Regulated crops are listed in Schedule II of the BCVMC General Orders. They include storage crops (beets and carrots with tops off, green and red cabbage, parsnips, potatoes, rutabaga, white turnips and yellow onion grown for fresh and processing use), greenhouse crops (cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers and some lettuce grown for fresh and processing use), and processing crops (strawberries, broccoli, peas, beans, brussels sprouts, cauliflower and corn) grown for processing use.

The Rural/Agriculture Committee at the Regional District of Bulkley-Nechako met on the 7th of March, and discussed the recent correspondence from the BC Vegetable Marketing Commission and how it could potentially impact and/or benefit our regional horticulture producers. They directed RDBN staff to ask the BC Vegetable Marketing Commission to prepare a delegation for one of the upcoming meetings in April or May.