The apple industry’s problems are the fault of government since 1972-1973.
When government at that time introduced the Agriculture Land Reserve to force people to farm the lands, they were told by farmers, voters and opposition government that it would never work or pass legislation unless both land and farmer were preserved. At that time to preserve both land and farmer the Farm Income Assurance was introduced. The FIA was introduced to guarantee the cost of production for all agriculture products.
It (FIA) worked excellent for a few years and was referred to by government as a sacred piece of legislation and not to be tampered with, for as long as ALR was in place. That same government of 1972-73 introduced the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia. They said the only way ICBC would work would be to force everybody to buy into it and cut out all competition.
Forty years later we still have the ALR, but the FIA is long gone because it cost government money, so they kept their cake and ate it too. All these smart politicians had to do was the same thing they did with ICBC, sell all B.C. agriculture products before allowing all the cheap agriculture products from around the world into B.C. The farmer then would not need a penny from the government. But that would be too simple for these politicians and we would hear their poor excuse, “Oh, we can’t do that because this is not free enterprise.”
Hello politicians, the ALR and ICBC are not free enterprise. and how the heck have you allowed it for 40 years. It’s no wonder all the farmers are in deep trouble in B.C.
They have been telling us what to do for the last 40 years and yet they have the lowest agriculture budget in all of Canada and across the world. When it comes to agriculture in B.C. for the last 40 years, the B.C. politicians have only had one thing on their minds, alcohol. They say, “plant more grapes and remove those trees.” I strongly believe that politicians have so much alcohol on their minds that it is affecting the way they are governing agriculture in B.C.
Lucio Almeida
Penticton