VANCOUVER — A recovery package is expected to be announced today for British Columbia’s agriculture industry after devastating floods last November.
The B.C. and federal agriculture ministers were scheduled to make an announcement, billing it as the largest recovery program for the sector in the province’s history.
Record rains combined with overflowing rivers in mid-November swamped farxjmtzywmland in several areas of southern B.C. and Vancouver Island.
In the Sumas Prairie, a prime agricultural area in Abbotsford, water flooded barns, fields and homes.
Thousands of animals were killed, most of them chickens and hogs, whose owners couldn’t rescue them before the water moved in.
The Insurance Bureau of Canada has said the storms were the most costly severe weather event in B.C.’s history with an insured value loss of about $450 million, although that doesn’t factor in the damage to several highways and other infrastructure, or the cost to those who were uninsured.
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Minister of Agriculture Lana Popham speaks during a press conference in the press gallery at the Legislature in Victoria, B.C., on Wednesday June 20, 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chad Hipolito
