Crops’ viability for B.C. Peace to be studied

A five-year project to find the crop varieties best suited to B.C.’s Peace River region and its “unique” growing conditions will get federal backing.

Peace-area MP Jay Hill announced Ottawa’s pledge Saturday of $1.2 million for the B.C. Peace River Cereal, Flax and Pulse Crop Enhancement project.

The project will use crop trials to find what varieties are best suited to the region’s “unique growing environment,” according to an Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada release.

Crops to be researched will include hard white spring wheat and shorter-season flax, barley and pea varieties, as well as ethanol feedstock for biofuel production.

The Peace River region, straddling British Columbia’s northeast and Alberta’s northwest, includes viable grain-growing land at the forest fringe, but what farmers gain from long northern summer days is generally offset by a growing season that can be up to three weeks shorter on average than on cropland further south.

“The Peace region is the largest producer of grains and oilseeds in B.C. and research like this is going to make sure farmers here continue to succeed and grow,” Hill said in the release Saturday.

In the same announcement, Hill also pledged $300,000 of federal funds through the Biofuels Opportunities for Producers Initiative (BOPI) to the B.C. Grain Producers Association, to develop a business plan to build a biodiesel production plant in the Peace region.