Days after B.C. Tree Fruits announced it would be shutting down after nine decades of operation due to a lack of incoming revenue, B.C.’s official Opposition is calling on the province to initiate a full independent review of the collective and provide emergency support to farmers.
BC United agriculture critic Ian Paton says he has been touring the Okanagan with party leader Kevin Falcon the past few days and is shocked to see the impact that the closure of B.C. Tree Fruits is having on farmers.
He said it is just the latest in a series of catastrophes that have rocked B.C.’s agricultural sector, including the heat dome during the summer of 2021 and this January’s cold spell that killed off much of the province’s cherry and wine grape crops.
“The emotion of speaking to farmers in the last few days, those guys fully in tears telling us they’ve got nowhere to send their fruit, and a lot of them haven’t even been paid from last year’s crop,” Paton said.
Besides an independent audit and funding for farmers, BC United is also calling for the province to put an immediate halt to liquidation proceedings for B.C. Tree Fruits and provide alternative temperature-controlled storage for crops once harvested.
The party did not specify what their plan to save B.C. Tree Fruits would cost.
Asked whether the government plans to follow any of the suggestions laid out by BC United, Agriculture Minister Pam Alexis did not address any of the specific recommendations, instead reiterating that the province has provided $200 million in support for the tree fruit sector over the past four years and has collaborated with industry on a $6-million stabilization plan.
“We will continue to work on solutions to support this iconic industry going forward,” she said.
B.C. Fruit Growers’ Association president Peter Simonsen estimates that 75,000 bins, or between a third to half of the association’s total crop, was reliant on B.C. Tree Fruits for packaging and storage.
He said the government has provided him with no indication of what it plans to do to help and many of his members are getting ready for the possibility of having to either sell all of their produce at once, or leave it on the vine to rot.
“If it all shows up on the market in September, it’ll be a bloodbath to try and sell it and that’s not going to help anyone,” Simonsen said.
According to Simonsen, B.C. Tree Fruits had been struggling for a while and the closure came despite countless conversations with the Ministry of Agriculture, who he said placed one of its staff on the collective’s board to help oversee operations.
He said he had hoped to see the province provide some subsidies in order to ensure stability for farmers, but that money never came to his knowledge.
“I think that was the hope, by putting having someone on the board, they could possibly help with the restructuring,” said Simonsen, pointing out the similar situation a few years ago with Nova Scotia’s Scotian Gold co-operative, which went bankrupt before being restructured with government support.
Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s director of sustainable agriculture and food security, Kent Mullinix, said it is important the government do something fast or it could lose its apple industry for good.
He said any solution, however, should be developed in co-operation with the members of B.C. Tree Fruits themselves and not be handed down from on high.
“That’s a catastrophe heaped on hardship,” he said of the closure. “The B.C. government needs to decide whether it really wants the apple sector to thrive again, and then work closely with B.C.’s apple producers and specifically the cooperative to ensure that that can happen.”
