BCFGA 127th Annual General Meeting

Date: Friday and Saturday – January 29-30

Place: Ramada Hotel & Conference Centre, Kelowna

It’s been more than three decades since B.C.’s tree fruit industry was this healthy.

B.C. Fruit Growers Association president Fred Steele says the apple industry bucked a three-decades long spiral in 2015.

While cherry crops have grown year-over-year for some time, the apple industry grew in 2015 for the first time in 32 years.

“The future is bright,” said Steele, who will be running for a third-term as president on Saturday.

He said the industry now must put the building blocks together to get to where they want to go.

“If we can concentrate on good size, to quality, niche market fruit of the new varieties that we’re producing like Ambrosia and Salish, we can almost get double the price for the farmer,” said Steele.

That, according to Steele is achievable, as they work to increase the amount of growing lands and new lands in order to grow the industry.

“The cherry industry is booming especially with being able to extend the season.

“We used to have a five week season … now, the last new variety of cherries coming out will be on the Labour Day long weekend. If you have that going on all summer and you can extend the season by growing at a higher altitude, you now have a situation where you can extend the crop size.”

Steele sees a situation where, in 10 to 12 years, they could actually be struggling to have enough product, due to increased demand.

“That’s a nice problem to have.”

With files from Castanet