Photo by the Government of BC
New Year Interview with BC’s Minister of Agriculture
Minister Lana Popham announced a new online resource in 2020 that will make it easier to learn about jobs and careers in agriculture.
By Tom Walker Every fall Orchard and Vine speaks with the BC Agriculture Minister to recap how the year has gone for the industry in BC, but with the election this year we were unable to connect with Minister Lana Popham until just before Christmas. In this interview, Popham talks about some of her work during the year and some things to look forward to in her expanded role as Minister of Agriculture, Food, and Fisheries.
O&V: “How has this year been for fruit growers, given we had frost, rain, hail, freeze and COVID-19?”
Minister Popham: “It has been relentless, growers have been hit with everything. For the apple growers in particular, if the weather had
been perfect, and we hadn’t been hit with a pandemic and we weren’t having a bunch of cheap Washington apples in our stores, then maybe there could have been some improvements.”
O&V: “BC Tree Fruits Co-op is working on an extensive restructuring plan. Do you see any role for the Ministry in supporting this key business in the tree fruit industry, as they strive to improve fruit quality and the health of the business?”
Minister Popham: “Yes. The Co-op is a corner stone of the tree fruit business in BC and it has been struggling. We have been working since the summer to address some of the issues that were brought up in the governance study and I feel like there is some hope there. Sometimes change is really tough,
but we are almost at the point where there is no choice so we are going to be putting forward suggestions of how we would like to see things change and how we will go about supporting those changes. It is going to be a different approach, very hands on. These are not easy times for change because in some ways people are just hanging on to what they have got. But I think in many ways change is going to be welcome for growers. “Consumers are more in tune with the food system now, which is great. Consumers got a big scare this year when they went to go buy things and the shelves were bare, so I will continue to push hard on producers to develop their domestic markets as well as trying to recover some of the international market. But I don’t have to try and convince anyone anymore because people were there. I sometimes feel a little bit of a broken record when I am talking to producers about the domestic market, but I don’t Pre Spring 2021
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