SEEDS OF GROWTH | GLEN LUCAS
New Varieties Key to BC Fruit Industry Strategy
T
he access to and adoption of new varieties has been a cornerstone of previous five year strategic plans for the tree fruit sector, and it would be a surprise if this important topic were not part of the soon to be released (or perhaps, by the time you read this, the recently released) Tree Fruit Stabilization Initiative of the BC Ministry of Agriculture Food and Fisheries.
For tree fruit growers, access to varieties is a priority as new varieties are the best opportunity to receive higher prices for apples or cherries. New varieties attract premium pricing in the marketplace because they are either ‘new’ or are a bit older but protected from overproduction.
plant varieties.
Another requirement for premium pricing is that the new variety must have superior or unique attributes, such as unique combinations of flavour and texture, like Ambrosia, or timing of ripeness that places the variety production in a time where there is less production and less competition, like Staccato. The Summerland Research Station has had a very strong track record of releasing the top cherry varieties in the world and there are promising apple varieties in the development pipeline.
Prior to this control by the owner, a new variety was simply released to the world, with no rights of the owner to the variety. Anyone could plant as much of a pre-PBR variety as they wanted to, and they did. For varieties with promise, such as Gala, early plantings were lucrative for the grower, but as more and more Gala trees were planted, the variety moved from a premium to a commodity product. The price crashed. Enter PBR. The variety owner can extend the life of the variety by limiting access. Growers would need to join a variety club in order to gain access to trees and in order to sell the apples produced by those trees. The effective control of variety releases was quickly realized not to be in the nursery trade (though commercial nurseries are a key component in the replication of trees and the collection of royalties), but packinghouses and marketers.
Ambrosia was early on the scene of club varieties; it was ‘clubbed’ in the rest of the world but not in Canada. What is a variety club? Because varieties are owned by the inventor/discoverer, that allows the owner to collect royalties on whoever plants the variety, but more importantly the owner can control who can plant or sell the variety. This ownership is enabled by Plant Breeders Rights (PBR) - a concept supported worldwide to encourage investment in and discovery of new
It is of interest that in an area which does not control access
to Ambrosia (i.e. British Columbia), market returns are lower than in areas where a club controls the marketing of the variety (i.e. Asia and Europe), although Asia is protected by trademark rather than PBR. Almost all new varieties are now released as club varieties. Access to the club is usually through a packinghouse (or marketer) which has signed a license with the variety owner. One issue of PBR is that the rights expire after a number of years, and this period varies by country and also can change from time to time. If PBR for a particular variety in a country expires after 20 years, that variety reverts to the ‘open access’ concept and oversupply can occur. Most new varieties are therefore now released as numbered varieties under PBR protection. The variety name is separately trademarked without expiry. Thus the variety protection is in two steps; one step provides PBR protection (say 20 years) early in the variety’s life when it is growing in popularity, and
Year End 2021
35
