Premier Christy Clark welcomed His Excellency Narendra Modi
Premier Christy Clark welcomed Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, to British Columbia. The two leaders discussed new opportunities to grow the strong cultural and commercial ties between India and BC.
Kelowna’s city counsellor Mohini Singh is spearheading the charge to get BC apples into India. Singh, who works as the communications officer for the Ministry of Agriculture, brought up the topic when she was speaking to some tree fruit growers. “I was talking to them and said it would be great if we could export apples to India.”
Singh said it was all about timing, and being in the right place at the right time.
“I was at the dinner in April in Vancouver for Narendra Modi, India’s Prime Minister. Everything was about trade and I hoped that meant trade would come to the Okanagan too,” said Singh. “I was looking for my table and I saw Premier Christy Clark. We chatted and I told her I wanted to be sure that any trade benefit BC receives should include the Okanagan. She’s now looking into it.”
When Singh returned from Vancouver she met with the Minster of Agriculture, Norm Letnick. “He told me to follow it up and if there was a market he would look into it. I had a meeting with Glen Lucas of the BCFGA and I then I spoke to Fred Steele, the president of the BCFGA. Now Glen is doing a study and looking into pricing and the market. I also talked to Alan Tyabji, general manager at the Packing House, and he came up with some great ideas. We are looking at selling the apples in bulk and having them packaged in India.”
President of the BCFGA, Fred Steele said he hoped they could tie exports to India with the bare ground planting for niche market exports. “We need to get all the participants together to discuss how to do it. I see it benefitting a great deal, because with the new free trade deals on the international trade scene, we can niche market into a number of countries like India, Korea and Vietnam where there are a rising number of middle-income families.”
As for the timing, it doesn’t look like this will happen any time soon. “We don’t know how long it takes to negotiate something,” said Steele, “but from past experience the pattern is that it takes five years at least. Once you sign the agreement then you have to plant the trees and they take at least three years to produce. Over the next five to seven years many of the tariffs now in place will be coming off. Because of this, we may be able to secure a better relationship with India in the area of trade.”
Singh knows that replanting may be the only way to have enough apples for export to India. “People have torn up their apple orchards because they weren’t financially viable. Now we are still studying the whole market situation to see if there is potential.”
India already imports apples from other countries; however, Singh believes BC apples are a much better product. “I have made calls to India and what they told me is the apples that come there from New Zealand, USA and China, just don’t taste that good. We have fabulous apples here and just maybe it is a specialty fruit and we can corner a specialty market. There is a lot of appetite at the Canadian federal level for things like this. Prime Minister Modi really wants to open up trade.”
Singh is a strong believer in the old adage, 'when opportunity meets preparedness things happen'. “I see an opportunity so let’s prepare ourselves to meet that opportunity,” she said. “We now have an opportunity as the trade links are there. We have such fantastic fruit here and we are known for it. Even if we could get a tiny market it would be good. There are still of lot of things to discuss on the provincial and federal levels because there are tariffs on the Indian side that have to be worked through.”
To say Singh is passionate about this project would be an understatement. “I am not going to let this drop until we have an answer one way or the other,” she said. “I want to take the lead on this because I am honoured to work on it. I truly want to find out if we have the potential to make money here.”
Singh hopes that once the door opens for the fruit trade, other relationships can be built that will benefit all sectors of the Okanagan.