The Ontario Apple Growers represent 300 commercial apple growers in Ontario, who collectively produce approximately 200,000 tonnes of apples annually valued at over $65 million. Ontario produces about 40% of all Canadian apples.
The national replant strategy for tree fruit and grapes is something you've heard about on more than one occasion. The Canadian tree fruit industry continues to face flatter, declining producer returns due to subsidized imports from competing jurisdictions, declining exchange rates, and rising costs.
This has resulted in an ever-increasing reliance on business risk management programs. The ability of the current programs, CAIS and production insurance, to help growers deal with the recent extreme market and weather conditions and the devaluing of our crop has been very disappointing to a large majority of our growers.
In an effort to help pull growers out of this downward spiral and provide support for them to replant newer, more marketable, and we hope profitable varieties, the Canadian grape and tree fruit industry has developed a national replant strategy, which if implemented would reduce our need for other government funding support.
I view this as an infrastructure investment in the industry similar to what's going on in other sectors of agriculture today. The strategy calls for a partnership between growers and the federal and provincial governments, who would share equally in the cost of replanting.
The B.C. government has funded a provincial replant program for the past 16 years. Nova Scotia approved a second five-year replant program in 2005. Now Quebec, as of December 13 last year, has a replant program as well. The Quebec program is of similar design to the national replant strategy that has been proposed for the federal government. Ontario is now the only major fruit-producing province that does not have a replant program.
The B.C. Fruit Growers' Association made a presentation to you a couple of weeks ago, , I believe, or in the recent past. They estimate that the B.C. fruit growers, who generate an average of $56.7 million annually at the farm gate, received $11 million more from the marketplace than they could have expected without the replant. Through their statistical analysis, they determined that without the provincial replant program, the acreage dedicated to the production of fruit would have dropped by about 43%. This is exactly what's happened in Ontario. Our production is down dramatically over the last 15 years.
Ontario's agriculture minister, the Honourable Leona Dombrowsky, has confirmed that the Ontario government is onside with a replant program, but they're waiting for the federal commitment. We have urged her to move ahead with the Ontario component to remain in step with similar provincial commitments in B.C., Quebec, and Nova Scotia, but she is waiting for you folks.