Agriculture committee  I think I would preface my remarks by saying that the B.C. apple industry is a bit unique. It's not that the problems are unique, but there are two things, and I want to build on the base here for a second. One, we have the agricultural land reserve in the Okanagan. The wine industry and the grape industry have put tremendous pressure on the price of agricultural land for the purposes of grape growing, which, in most cases, is similar to where the apples are right now, to the point where we have European interests buying grape land for $150,000 an acre.

Agriculture committee  Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity to provide some of horticulture's thoughts, concerns, and suggestions relating to business risk management and the serious challenges facing Canada's horticulture sector. I'm a fourth-generation farmer. Prior to 1999, we had a farrow-to-finish hog farm.