Thank you very much.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak to your committee about agriculture and my experience being a young farmer in Canada.
I've been growing fruit on our family farm for the past 10 years. I'm a third generation of Dobernigg to farm on that property. I served on the executive of the Fruit Growers' Association 2004 to 2007--until my second daughter was born and I had time constraints. And now I'm up to my third daughter.
Our farm right now is in transition, both in succession and renewal. Our farm succession plan has been completed and we're slowly working through the legal aspects of land transfer.
We have recently embarked on revitalizing our farm through the removal of larger trees and unprofitable varieties while replanting high-density plantings and more profitable varieties. I'm hopeful the federal removal program will continue past its end date of March, as it sounds like new money would not be needed to keep this program going; at the current rate, we will not be able to spend all of the money in that program. A replant program would also be useful to help continually revitalize the industry.
I once heard agriculture defined as the use of land, water, capital, and labour to produce food. I'd like to address each of those points briefly.
Agricultural land in the Okanagan Valley is prohibitively high-cost for people who want to become a bona fide hands-in-the-dirt farmer. In B.C. we have a policy that is pretty good at protecting agricultural land. However, it tends to be that those who can afford to buy agricultural land do, but most of these are more interested in the rural lifestyle than agriculture. In my neighbourhood, productive agriculture is being replaced by large houses in the middle of 10-acre fields, with a few horses or cows that are largely kept to maintain tax breaks.
All of the young farmers I know come from farm families, and a large percentage of those from my dad's generation came from farm backgrounds as well. There are very few youths or others entering agriculture due to low returns and high land prices. This trend does not bode well for our ability to grow our own food once the current generation of farmers, many into their senior years, retire.
Water is vital to the production of food, and the Okanagan is experiencing increased pressure on water availability. Increased development and decreased snowfall in the recent years have put stress on our water resource. Research at PARC, the Pacific Agri-Food Research Centre, has predicted that agriculture will need more water in the future to adapt to climate change. B.C. has a policy of protecting our agricultural land. However, there is no protection for water for agriculture, which leaves our farms very vulnerable in drought years, more of which are expected than in recent years.
Money or capital has always been a challenge for agriculture, and margins are tight across almost all commodities. Fruit production in the Okanagan is in its second straight year of harsh market prices, well below break-even. There are a few reasons for this, and they include the strong Canadian dollar, massive production in Washington state, and the economic downturn. My own farm suffered a massive hailstorm, wiping out the crop this past year, with 97% damage, so to some degree we avoided the market conditions of last year.
Labour is the issue that keeps me up the most at night. It's difficult to find people to harvest a delicate perishable food item. SAWP has worked well, if you have the necessary housing and facilities in place. However, if you do not have the ability to bring workers in from a foreign country, you have to put in a pretty good effort to find reliable workers for a four- to six-week harvest and a few weeks of summer work. By harvest time for apples, most students who would be a good fit are back at school and unable to participate in the harvest.
Overall, it feels like there are few supports for young farmers in my industry. Education for tree fruit production is non-existent. You either learn from your parents or you learn from being a farm labourer and take the next step of leasing or purchasing land.
Several years ago I took a course to improve my horticultural knowledge. Despite the Okanagan's history and emphasis on tree fruit production, there is nowhere to go to learn about fruit production, so I took agricultural marketing and agricultural finance courses through Olds College in Alberta. The focus was on field crops and cattle. There was nothing on horticulture.
Almost a decade ago, I participated in an agricultural exchange program. It was striking to see the significantly different approach to agriculture in Europe. In Sweden, an agricultural degree was needed to purchase the land. In Germany, in the Bodensee area where I was, there was a seven-year program for fruit production, which was similar to trade school, with class time and work hours needed. In Italy, their land prices are double what we have, so their farms are old, with their families owning their land for generations. With that value in the land and in farming, farmers have a status similar to that of doctors, lawyers, or the professional class.
Thank you very much.