You're very welcome.
Thank you, and good morning.
First of all, I'd like to welcome all of you to Kelowna. If you were here yesterday, we had just a banner day. The weather was fantastic. Today you'll be visiting orchards that are on the verge of blooming. Cherries will be blooming and apples are certainly opening up. You hit the right time of the year. We're two weeks ahead of normal. We're ahead of last year's crop stage, so you'll get treated to blossoms.
I would like to say I was totally impressed by the young farmers that I helped recruit to the panel this morning. Nick is one of them here as well, of course, but David Dobernigg, David Machial, and Madeleine Van Roechoudt did an excellent job. You as committee members also asked some excellent and very pertinent questions, and I appreciate that. It does flow that information back and forth.
I have been a fruit grower; I'm into my 28th year in the business, and this is my tenth year of life with the B.C. Fruit Growers' Association. Currently I'm president of the association. I've seen a lot of changes in the industry, and certainly I had an opportunity for input in various capacities during that time.
My wife and I operate an orchard in Summerland. That's just south of here. It's a beautiful part of the valley as well. It's almost impossible to keep my 77-year-old father out of the orchard still. If it's in your blood, it's in your blood. Certainly we've had a father-son succession plan going there, in case you're interested.
Of course, the B.C. Fruit Growers' Association appreciates this opportunity to present to all of you today, certainly on the theme of young farmers and the future of farming in Canada. We need young farmers to enter the agricultural industry, to provide it with a future. Similarly, we need a vibrant and profitable agricultural sector to attract those same young farmers. Also of note, maintaining a high level of national food security depends on getting a new wave of young farmers.
We have seen four years of serious downturns in the industry in the Okanagan in terms of our revenue streams, four years out of the past six years. In fact, we realized cost of production in the 2006 and 2007 crop years. We were at the cost of production or thereabouts, but we've had four other years where we failed to hit that target.
Our current approach is to request financial help from the province to sustain our industry, and we are awaiting an answer from our provincial Minister of Agriculture, though he has ruled out a direct payment to growers.
Current government fiscal challenges are making it difficult to address this situation, let alone future challenges for farming. While there is much the government can do with minimal impact on agricultural budgets, investing in horticulture should be a top priority for government if healthy eating habits based on local production are to be successful.
Here in B.C. we continue to suffer from the lowest percentage or lowest ratio of agricultural program expenditures compared to agricultural GDP in the country, though New Brunswick is also in the race to the bottom. So we have that additional challenge of government not investing enough. This impacts our investment in agriculture and diminishes our future prospects. This is discouraging to both current and new farmers. How can the federal government turn this situation around? Perhaps some pressure on our province would help.
In terms of entry into our industry, many young farmers of course enter the agricultural sector because their parents operate or operated a farm. The other primary way new entrants come into the industry is the fact that they were employed as farm workers or managers at one time, and many of the growers in our industry who were farm workers and managers at one time first took on leasing property. So leasing is definitely very much conducted here and in the valley. Similarly, they eventually moved on to purchase property after having become experienced in the industry, and leasing still happens to this day. Many growers have long-term leases in our industry because we have a lot of absentee landowners as well.
How do we encourage young farmers and new entrants into the agricultural sector? The best way is to make agriculture economically attractive. Canada and B.C. do have many competitive advantages, and we need to remove various serious barriers or protect our farm sector from unfair competition. That was brought up this morning, I think very clearly.
We also need to build a positive, winning attitude that attracts the best performers. You have to have experience and horticultural knowledge on your side to get into this business and approach it successfully.
In recent B.C. Fruit Growers' Association activity, we have noticed the broad public appeal of producing locally grown product and promoting the healthfulness of fruits and vegetables. In the words of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, “Most top-performing countries have achieved better health outcomes through actions on the broader determinants of health such as environmental stewardship and health promotion...”. In the report, B.C. is identified for its ActNow program. B.C.'s internationally lauded ActNow program, which encourages citizens to exercise more and eat healthier food, is a particularly promising model of intergovernmental collaborations to develop health policy.
For those of you who haven't heard, we do have a provincial school fruit and vegetable nutrition program. It is a key investment for the Ministry of Health in this province. The province is having trouble addressing chronic health care costs, let alone the cost of promoting good nutrition. But we feel that the federal government could translate this into financial support for a national school fruit and vegetable nutrition program. It would achieve the following two goals: introduce our impressionable youth to healthy eating choices, and make our industry a positive contributor to health and therefore a more attractive industry to participate in for youth and new entrants. Furthermore, we would be mimicking what the U.S. already does in terms of approaching nutrition in the schools on a national basis.
The renewal program is something that has been talked about briefly this morning. The BCFGA and other apple-producing provinces, through the CHC, the Canadian Horticultural Council apple working group, have developed an AgriFlex proposal to renew our industry through strategic investment in replanting, integrated pest management, and researching and promoting best horticultural management practices. This program will benefit other provinces most, as B.C. has already had 15 years of a replant program, but it also recognizes the benefit of the renewal of the production base for tree fruits.
We encourage the support of this committee for our federal AgriFlex proposal. It has gone in, so maybe some of you could call up that information and see what our proposal is all about at another time.