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Already 35 registered for agri-recovery workshop

Cariboo Cattlemen’s Association excited about upcoming workshop for ranchers
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Ranchers and farmers impacted by the 2017 wildfires will be attending a workshop in Williams Lake this weekend to help them create recovery plans moving forward. Photo submitted

Around 35 people will be attending a recovery workshop taking place this weekend at the Pioneer Complex in Williams Lake aimed at helping ranchers and farmers manage their way through the recovery phase, following last summer’s record wildfires.

“It’s an excellent response,” Cariboo Cattlemen’s Association president Cordy Cox-Ellis said of the numbers signed up. “It will be led by David Pratt who established the Ranching for Profit School in the United States.”

The workshop has been called “the other side of disaster,” and will help participants develop a plan to rebound from the circumstances they faced in 2017.

“They will create solutions to get through both the financial, emotional and practical issues they are now facing,” she said. “I think it’s going to be great.”

The workshop will also tackle Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and factors that people went through that they may not even realize, she added.

As for livestock losses, Cox-Ellis said while there are no final numbers in, ranchers did not lose as much as was originally thought they could have.

“So far the numbers that are coming off are very good,” she told the Tribune. “It seems like a lot of the animals were able to get away from the fire. A lot of them were displaced and wandered out, but now the guys are starting to be able to get them in and it’s looking really positive.”

The Agri-recovery program developed for people impacted by the 2017 wildfires has been “amazing” she added.

“Lots of guys have been getting cheques. They are getting hay in and things are looking up.”

The workshop is being supported by the governments of Canada and British Columbia through Growing Forward 2 cost-shared programming, a five-year framework that co-ordinates federal, provincial and territorial agricultural policy and programs.

Producers can sign up for the free workshop through the Cariboo Cattlemen’s Association at: cariboocattlemens@gmail.com (mailto:cariboocattlemens@gmail.com)

The workshop takes place Saturday, Feb. 3 and Sunday, Feb. 4.



Monica Lamb-Yorski

About the Author: Monica Lamb-Yorski

A B.C. gal, I was born in Alert Bay, raised in Nelson, graduated from the University of Winnipeg, and wrote my first-ever article for the Prince Rupert Daily News.
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