The B.C. NDP government has announced limited initial steps to support fruit growers hurt by the sudden closure of a B.C. co-operative that has helped Okanagan farmers get their products to market for nearly 90 years.
Starting Wednesday, the Ministry of Agriculture will operate a web page and phone line providing contact information for companies offering fruit packing and cold storage services that were previously provided by B.C. Tree Fruits to its members. Farmers will need to negotiate service contracts on an individual basis.
The ministry will also convene an emergency working group to “identify actions that can be taken in the short-term, based on the first-hand knowledge and advice of the industry,” Agriculture Minister Pam Alexis said in a statement.
“My first priority is listening to the growers and other workers who know the industry best and taking action to support them,” Alexis said.
The announcement came days after B.C. United called for a pause of the co-op’s efforts to sell off assets and for the government to provide emergency funding for affected farmers.
“As B.C. Tree Fruits faces its most challenging period in its almost 90-year history, we are urging the NDP government to step up and provide the necessary resources to support this vital industry,” B.C. United leader Kevin Falcon said in a statement on Thursday.
Academics and members of the B.C. Fruit Growers Association, an industry group, called the announcement a positive step but wanted the co-op’s liquidation efforts halted and a guarantee that farmers would be paid for fruit that they shipped out for packaging this year and last.
“Everything’s got to be put on hold,” Amarit Lalli, an Okanagan fruit farmer, said of the co-operative’s liquidation efforts. “The No. 1 issue is [cold storage] capacity … which B.C. Tree Fruits had a lot of.”
He said that B.C. Tree Fruits “basically set the price” of tree fruits for the rest of the industry, due to the size of its storage and processing facilities.
“B.C. Tree Fruits has to be restructured,” Lalli said. “It’s what keeps the industry going. If we’re not able to get the packing house up and running again, it’s going to be a bloodbath.”
Many farmers are still waiting on payment from the co-operative for this year’s cherry crop, as well as apples from last year, according to Pinder Dhaliwal, B.C. Fruit Growers director and a fruit farmer in Oliver in the Okanagan Valley.
“That’s money they don’t want disappearing,” he said.
“The liquidation should be halted until the membership has spoken,” said Kent Mullinix, director of sustainable agriculture and food security at Kwantlen Polytechnic University. “The B.C. provincial government should do everything in its power to assure the vitality of British Columbia’s apple production sector, because it’s an exceptional sector.”
Mullinix called the decision to close B.C. Tree Fruits “kind of predictable” but said it didn’t have to be.
“The thing I don’t get is how the B.C. fruit co-operative could not be more responsive to the growers. It’s antithetical to the concept of a co-operative,” he said.
Dhaliwal said many co-operative members wanted the government to get the shuttered co-op facility “up and running real quick.”
“Just bring in another management committee to run it for the next six months, to get this crop into the cold storage, packaged and sold on the market,” he said.
“Let’s use the facilities and the equipment we have, because it’s all there. There’s nothing wrong with it,” Dhaliwal said.
