Yvonne Turgeon
I am on my hands and knees in the field. There’s a knife in one hand and a roll of paraffin wax in the other. I shuffle in the dirt to the next plant, cut into the rootstock and graft on the tender apple cutting.
When I finish, I survey the two acres of apple trees beginning their new life in the fledgling prairie orchard. Fast forward to the spring, and I celebrate the success of a 98 percent take rate. The apples were added to three acres of Saskatoon berry plantings, with the fruit destined for a local resort town market.
My brief stint as a part-time orchardist was nearly two decades ago. This journey into farming was thanks to the innovative researchers at the University of Saskatchewan (the apple program dates back to the 1920s), who were testing plots of rootstock hardy enough for the bitter prairie winter and market apple varietals that were large, juicy and tasty.
Today, the market production of fresh apples in Canada totals more than 340,000 tonnes. Nationwide, the 2021 Census of Agriculture counted 7,101 fruit and tree nut farms (including apple orchards). British Columbia had 3,036 of them, including the 1,448 in the Thompson Okanagan census region that outnumbered all of Ontario’s.
And the amount Canadians pay to bite into a juicy red apple has also grown. Stats Canada tracked a 17 percent increase in apple prices in September 2022 than the prior year. Today, cash receipts for fresh apples in Canada total over $242 million.
Here in the Okanagan Valley where I now call home, the cherries are about to come to market (national farm gate values should reach over $70M), and the wine industry is replanting winter-damaged vineyards and tending the 2023 crop. The roots of the B.C. wine industry that began with the establishment of the BC VQA in 1990 have grown into a $1.2 billion industry. Vineyard plantings have increased ten times, and winery numbers have lept from 20 to more than 340. Looking to the large wineries, investments of over $500M have been made in just the last five years.
But getting that fruit to market, whether fresh, juiced, fermented, or as valued-added agri-food products, continues to come with challenges. So in this 2023 Innovation Issue of Orchard & Vine, we’re highlighting new industry trends and shining the spotlight on the innovators, researchers and industry rainmakers that are helping us all to get growing.
— Yvonne Turgeon, publisher
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