Photo by Gary Symons
Summerland apples
BC Tree Fruit Competitiveness Program's biggest project provides 50% of the costs of purchasing orchard tarps that reflect light.
After two years of implementing the BC Tree Fruit Competitiveness Program, Glen Lucas, general manager of the BC Fruit Growers’ Association (BCFGA), says that experience has given way to a new scope for the program which was updated on November 4, 2020.
In the early stages, the program focused on projects supporting new varieties, research and education into modern orchards. It’s essentially a companion to the replant program. Funding from the province is administered jointly by the Investment Agriculture Foundation of BC and BCFGA for individual projects. Lucas says the revisions to the program reflect the changes in the industry since the province first began funding it.
“We are emphasizing that understanding export markets and understanding key markets in Western Canada is important to the future success of the industry,” he says. “Strengthening the competitive advantage through quality tree fruit production is a key and that can include extension and education for growers.”
Improving fruit storage and expanding horticultural knowledge are also included as key objectives in the revised program. “Working towards a reduced pesticide brand and finally to support packinghouse infrastructure are areas that the program seeks to support,” Lucas explains. “Now we’re allowing equipment for smaller projects, where previously there was no funding for equipment. It does have to be related to demonstration and innovative projects for equipment, but there’s certainly an allowance to have a pilot project to have something new.”
Equipment is a cost-sharing fund arrangement, so applicants could receive up to $50,000 for a project of a maximum of $100,000.
Other project values vary depending upon their structure and benefits to growers.
“It’s hard to compare an improved insect control project with an improved storage project,” Lucas says. “What will vary is the percentage of contribution to the project depending on how generic the project benefit is.”
As Lucas explains, the broader value the project has to all growers and/or packers, the more likelihood there is of higher funding.
“Probably, the biggest thing that the committee looks at in grant funding is, ‘is the project transformational?’,” he says. “Does it change the way we do business?”
Lucas gives an example of a project that looked at immature cherries (fruitlets) being sampled and assessed for nutrient composition to determine storage qualities. This could lead to better storage or better storage practices for all growers, and so it was funded.
“We’ve never done this research for cherries. That’s now being investigated,” he explains. “We saw how it transformed apple storage.”
Another study by Okanagan College looked at tech readiness of growers and their ability to adopt new technologies around things like electronic spray records and the use of cell phones, computers or tablets.
“What we found was that we’ve got a lot of homework to do there in terms of increasing growers’ Information Technology (IT) skills in order to adopt new practices and equipment,” Lucas said.
Another aspect of the same project was looking at mapping IT usage by organizations and how to simplify processes. Lucas uses the example of an address change and says right now, it requires each organization to make a manual change to the address.
“And you just ask, is there a better way of doing this? And that’s a really simple example,” he says. Overall, the amount of data in the sector is very much more complex than a simple address, but often the information is ‘stranded’ and not providing the value that it should be.
Orchard tarps that reflect light into apple trees to improve colour was another example of a project that earned funding.
“It’s actually our biggest project right now,” Lucas said. “The program provides 50 per cent of the cost of purchasing these tarps and it’s a four-year program,” he says. “There’s $700,000 of grants that we can give out. There would be about $1.4 million tarps purchased. If fully subscribed, that would really transform the way we do business.”
There is about $2.5 million in funding still available in the fund and it’s expected to be fully spent by March 31, 2023, as long as projects that make sense continue to come in. Lucas says BCFGA is hoping to extend that date for projects that may go beyond 2022 so that new multi-year projects can continue to be considered.
All tree fruit projects are eligible and he notes that BCFGA is available to help with applications to ensure they are a fit before they are completed. More information is available at bcfga.com under Members Services.
Note: At press time the project has been suspended but projects received before December 16, 2020 will proceed.
