Bal Family
The extended Bal family in front of the Hillcrest Farm Market, centre of a multigenerational farm business.
Today, Hillcrest Farm is one of the most successful cherry farms and fruit market operations in the Okanagan Valley, if not in Canada, but few people know the farm’s success was sealed through a ‘handshake deal’ between a hardworking immigrant from the Punjab, and the pioneering Okanagan farm family the Stewarts, now known as owners of the famous Quail’s Gate Winery.
The saga began when Bhagu Singh Basran left drought conditions in his farming village in the Punjab in 1906 to seek a better life in Canada. Basran worked for a number of years in the BC Lower Mainland, but together with several friends he later walked … yes, literally walked … the roughly 400 kilometres from Vancouver to the Okanagan Valley in 1914.
“They had heard there was good fertile land and the beginnings of a farming industry, and it was what they knew best,” says Bhagu’s great grandson Sukhpaul Bal. “The story is that they tied potato sacks on their feet for shoes, but we don’t know what route they took or how long the journey was.”
At the time Bhagu arrived in the Okanagan as an immigrant to Canada he was not legally allowed to own property, but fortunately for him, the enterprising young man met and befriended a generous farm family who themselves have made Quail’s Gate Winery a household name in Canada. Bhagu shook hands with the Stewarts in a deal that saw the Stewart family hold land for him in trust until Bhagu was legally allowed to buy it. That first acreage is the center of Hillcrest farm, which today sits on the Rutland Bench heading east out of Kelowna up Highway 33.
“Great Grandfather Bhagu was very proud to be in Canada,” says his grandson Sukhpaul, now the President of the BC Cherry Association. “He wore a suit and tie every time he went to town.” Bhagu first grew vegetables and later fruit trees. He added lease land to his original purchase. The farm was successful and Bhagu was able to build a family home during the 1930’s; a far cry from his journey over the mountains wearing potato sacks for footwear.
Bhagu’s four sons inherited the farm from their father and their mother Udham Kaur in the 1950’s. Jaginder, the eldest, ran the farm while the other boys moved to the Kootenays. The farm went through several transitions, and was even a small cattle ranch at one point.
Today Sukhpaul and his father manage the family cherry orchards, a specialty that his parents Barbara and Chanchal Bal began building in the late 1990s. “When my dad was in university in India, he actually wanted to work in the financial sector,” says Sukhpaul. “But when he immigrated to Canada in the late 1970’s and married my mom, he worked in manufacturing and leased an apple and pear orchard in north Kelowna to support the family.”
“My parents were able to purchase 50 acres on a hillside just north of the original property in 1988,” Sukhpaul continues. “My dad bought an old bulldozer and re-contoured the land and by 1998, we were growing about half Gala and Ambrosia apples and the other half was our first cherry plantings.”
Hard times are always around the corner for any farmer, and the Bal family has seen their share. Freezing -30 temperatures with no snow cover in the winter of 2004-05 caused a lot of winter damage to the apple trees and production quality crashed. But Chanchal Bal saw an opportunity in the late season export market and he and Sukhpaul began to replant all the apple blocks with the new late season varieties developed in Summerland. “It now made sense to go all in to cherries with the investments in cherry packing we had been making over the years, though my mom complains that she doesn’t have one apple tree for her own fruit,” Sukhpaul says.
Eventually, they were able to purchase Bhagu Singh’s original farm property, re vitalize the orchard, and build a state of the art packing line and the Hillcrest Farm Market and Café.
The family now has 80 acres in production. Supported by 150 staff in peak season they pick, pack and ship 800-900 tons depending on the year. 70% of that fruit goes to export markets. They aim to harvest across the entire season, but most of their plantings are later ripening Sentennial and Staccato. Since the Chinese market opened to Canadian cherries in 2014, the majority of their exports have been going to China.
“We strive to grow the highest quality speciality fruit,” says Sukhpaul. “Our large size, dark red, crisp and juicy cherries get a premium price in export markets.” This summer, they will be shipped under the Bal’s own brand of ‘Hillcrest Cherries’.
It is a high-risk business, Sukhpaul notes. “Planting cherries is not for everyone,” he says. “There have been years when we have lost close to 50 per cent of our crop the week before harvest because of rain and bird damage. But there is also the chance of high returns.”
Those returns are only for top quality fruit, Sukhpaul adds. “Anyone can put cherries in the ground and be shipping direct to China four years later, but if the quality isn’t there, it brings down our overall reputation as BC growers.” The BC Cherry Association, of which Sukhpaul is president, supports growers through education days, and by investing in research and market access.
“I joke that anyone can be a cherry grower for the first 10 years of production,” says Sukhpaul. “But to maintain those trees in top condition after, that takes a lot of hard work and dedication.”
“It was a hard learning curve for me and there was a time early on when our quality dipped, but having your own packing line really makes you responsible,” Sukhpaul says. “When my dad would ask me why there were so many culls, I couldn’t blame anyone else. Now I really focus on crop load management as one of the keys in growing export quality fruit.”
Cherries don’t like to wait after they are picked. They should be in a hydro cooler, sorted, and into cold storage within hours of harvesting, Sukhpaul points out. As cherry production grew across the valley in the mid 2000’s, the Bals, like several other growers, looked for the best model to handle their fruit to optimize returns. This is when they were first introduced to independent packing.
“One year we drove our cherries up to Vernon to pack at an independent. Our whole family and some of our workers would go in for a second shift after the owners had run their own fruit, but that meant we were working 20-hour days,” Sukhpaul recalls.
Chanchal heard about a used packing line over in the Mission area of Kelowna. “We were convinced that we could make it work on our farm” says Sukhpaul. “We brought it over piece by piece in our own truck and trailer.” They squeezed the equipment into the only building they had, a 40 by 60-foot shop. “We had to bump out part of the walls to fit in all the equipment,” he says.
Today, the Bal family are looking to the future of the farm that Bhagu famously founded in the early 20th Century. They do want to keep it as a family business Sukhpaul says. His brother Mandeep is a GP in Kelowna His sister Davinder is a teacher in Kamloops and youngest sister Dilraj is a dentist also in Kamloops. “But everyone is a farmer when they are back helping out during harvest season,” says Sukhpaul.
After a hike, I often stop into the Hillcrest café and market that is one of the agri-tourism ventures the family has added to the property. Last June, I was speaking with Chanchal and admiring a large family photo on display. “With the challenges in farming, it is often hard for a family to attract the younger generation to the business,” he mused. “We have worked hard as a family to build and diversify our farming operation, and we hope our grandchildren see the benefits of farming, like the generations before them.”