Some British Columbia’s farmers face challenges because the province has adopted year-round Daylight Saving Time.
Peter Mithlin who reports for Country Life in B,C, farm newspaper said it will delay the start of work on many farms because it will still be dark up until 9:30 in southern parts of the province,
It will also put the province out of synch with customers and suppliers in Oregon and Washington State and will disrupt some companies with operations on both sides of the Canadian border with the United States.
The BC Landscape and Nursery Association (BCLNA)plans to join with other organizations to lobby the government to reconsider its move.
“There was very little consultation before this announcement was made,” BCLNA said in a newsletter to members this month.
Reduced visibility is always an issue in winter, and those issues will be exacerbated by the time change, it said.
The Greater Vancouver Board of Trade (GVBOT) and other business groups have spoken out against BC’s unilateral move, noting that just 19 per cent of respondents to a 2019 provincial consultation favoured going solo on the change. Government at the time promised to wait until neighbouring jurisdictions agreed to move, “to avoid any economic disruption and disadvantage.”create an additional headache for businesses operating on both sides of the border,” GVBOT president and CEO Bridgitte Anderson says.
While the provincial consultation found that 92 per cent of farmers favoured a permanent shift to Daylight Saving Time, Jack Bates of Tecarte Farms in Delta told Country Life in BC at the time he was ambivalent.
People will work with the light they’ve got, he noted, and the livestock wouldn’t care. But safety could be an issue, particularly with longer hours of darkness in the morning.
“On those dark, dreary days in December and into January, it might not be light until 9:30, so it might be dark when kids are going to school. It might be a safety issue,” he said. “There’s a reason why it changed, and everyone’s forgotten that.”
