19 Recommendations to Rebuild Tree Fruit Industry By Gary Symons The provincial government has made 19 recommendations to rebuild declining sectors of the BC tree fruit industry. Agriculture minister Lana Popham says the apple industry in particular has been in decline, and tree fruit farming as a whole faces structural issues that put the entire sector at risk. “One of the things we have realized - it’s been year after year, decades - is that the fruit tree industry has been declining,” Popham said. “We decided this is it. Either we address some of the problems, which are hard for some people to accept, or we are not going to have an industry at all.” While some of the recommendations may be controversial, the BC Fruit Growers Association says the decline in apple production is a sign the industry needs to change.
“However, there were at the outset linkages made between the decline of one sector, and the possibility of those same problems overflowing into other sectors such as grapes and cherries, and that’s why the study does focus on apples but the scope is all tree fruits and it actually includes grapes as well.” Lucas explains that while grapes and cherries have seen high prices and profitable crops, the same issues facing apple growers face all farmers. A decline in demand or prices, he said, could put those growers in the same position faced by apple growers today. For that reason, Popham says the government believes action must be taken to stabilize and balance all sectors so that price fluctuations don’t imperil the entire tree fruit industry in the coming years. “It’s important for our government to make sure that we are supporting apple and other fruit tree growers because they are a good part of our economy and they are also a
Photo by Gary Symons
“There are 19 recommendations and we support the specific recommendations in the report,” said BCFGA general manager Glen Lucas. “The impetus is the downturn in apple returns over the past four years, and in fact there has been a reduction in apple acreage over those four years of about 15 per cent.
good part of communities,” said Popham. “If we lose them, we lose a lot of other things that go with it, and we are not willing to do that.” The tree fruit sector includes a variety of commodities concentrated in the Okanagan, Similkameen, and Creston valleys, with an estimated 800 growers farming approximately 14,000 acres planted in apples and cherries and 10,000 acres planted in grapes. Ministry research shows the sector contributed $201 million to BC’s GDP in 2019, of which $114 million was labour income from 2,500 jobs across B.C. The preliminary results also suggest that economic activity generated $27 million in provincial taxes and $6 million in local government taxes. But despite this economic activity, the ministry is concerned “the challenges facing apple farmers will expand to impact B.C.’s cherry and wine grape farmers and potentially other crops as apple farmers remove their
apple trees and replace them with cherries and/or wine grapes. “This could negatively impact BC’s reputation as a leading exporter of tree fruit,” the report says. “If these challenges continue, declines in export and domestic sales are likely, which would negatively impact the provincial economy.” Lucas agrees with that assessment, saying balance is needed to ensure all sectors can flourish in BC. “Growing any commodity on land that is not appropriate is, in the long term, probably not viable,” he said. “If we get the economics of the apple sector improved that would lead to more crops being grown on land that is best suited for it. People would make decisions on the best productivity rather than on the current price for a particular crop.” The ministry’s approach is outlined in the 19 recommendations (see sidebar), but in general is designed to increase support for Pre Spring 2022
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