VANCOUVER - Mink farmers in British Columbia and elsewhere in Canada are dropping their legal challenge over a pandemic-era ban in the province due to legal fees they say are "far beyond their means."

The British Columbia Mink Producers Association and the Canada Mink Breeders Association had been petitioning for a judicial review of the province's ban on mink farming and had been challenging the policy decision, which dates back to November 2021.

In a statement, the mink farmers say they remain angry at the move by the province, which they describe as driven by "an aggressive anti-fur lobby."

The farmers say they have fought the province unsuccessfully in several separate court attempts while no financial compensation has been offered to operators who had to tear down their farms.

ABBOTSFORD - The mayor of flood-struck Abbotsford, B.C., says he is disappointed and frustrated with the federal government over what he calls "inaction" on cross-border flooding that has repeatedly inundated his city.

Ross Siemens said he had not been contacted by the federal government about this week's flooding, which has forced hundreds of households to evacuate, inundated poultry barns and forced livestock relocations.

Siemens told a news briefing Friday he was pleading for flood mitigation to be addressed, that authorities across the border in Washington state needed to "wake up," and for the issue to be part of an international treaty.

Flooding can result in the Fraser Valley when the Nooksack River in Washington overflows its banks, as it did Wednesday, sending water pouring north and potentially inundating the farmlands of the Sumas Prairie.

HALIFAX - Canadian farmers plan to lobby the federal government to implement a guaranteed annual income and a cap on the profits of the major grocery store chains in the country. 

The lobbying plans were adopted as a part of nine resolutions approved by members of the National Farmers Union who met at an annual conference in Moncton, N.B., last week.

A number of the farmers spoke at the conference about how it is becoming more difficult for them to conduct business in Canada every year. 

David Thompson, executive director of the union, says over the last two decades, profits for small and mid-scale farmers have sunk, costs for equipment and inputs have risen, and the price of land is now unattainable for many farmers. 

Rumours that farming equipment giant John Deere is leaving Canada spread this week on social media alongside a video claiming the company would be moving its factories to the United States. 

In fact, John Deere hasn't manufactured farm equipment in Canada since 2009 and the company says the claims in the video are false. The video comes from a YouTube channel that appears to use artificial intelligence to produce spam news content. 

THE CLAIM

"John Deere didn't quietly cut production. They packed up the future of Canadian manufacturing and moved it straight into the United States," said the narrator in a 17-minute-long video posted to YouTube, where it reached more than 200,000 views in two days.

Infectious disease veterinarian Scott Weese says the hundreds of ostriches shot dead on a rainy night at a British Columbia farm this month "probably weren't infected" with avian influenza at the time of the cull by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

The problem, says Weese, is that "we don't really know," and logistical challenges and conditions at the farm would have hindered rigorous testing of all of the birds.

The H5N1 avian flu virus — detected in the flock of more than 300 ostriches months earlier, prompting a battle by the farm to prevent the cull — cannot be controlled by hoping for the best, says Weese, a professor and infectious disease expert at the Ontario Veterinary College based at the University of Guelph.

"And that's what we would have been doing here."

The cull of hundreds of ostriches at a British Columbia farm is set to begin after the Supreme Court of Canada announced it would not be hearing an appeal by the farm's owners.

Here are five things to know about the situation at Universal Ostrich Farms in Edgewood, B.C.

1. The court fight

The Supreme Court of Canada on Thursday declined to grant the farmers leave to appeal their case again, after they previously lost bids to save the birds in Federal Court and the Federal Court of Appeal. Thursday's decision lifts a stay on the cull, meaning there's no legal barrier to the cull beginning immediately.

HALIFAX - This summer’s prolonged drought across Atlantic Canada has had a costly impact on wild blueberry growers in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

Donald Arseneault, general manager of the NB Blueberries industry group, says that as this year’s harvest was wrapping up, the total yield was believed to be 70 per cent less than the previous three-year average.

“This year has been tremendously dry and we haven't really seen this in a long time,” Arseneault said, adding that this year’s crop amounted to about 20 million pounds, down from the annual average of 68 million pounds.

The industry, which ships its product around the world, was also hurt by delays caused by the provincial government’s decision to temporarily shut down the harvest as it tried to deal with a growing number of wildfires that flared up amid tinder-dry conditions.