B.C. fruit vs. U.S. fruit

Re: Fired for protesting

This letter is not about Mr. Bryde as much a it is about what he says he was protesting, but he did inspire it.

I am a consumer and not an authority on the fruit industry, but I also have asked the question many times, why do we import fruit - the same fruit which we grow- from the United States at the same time as our own fruit is ready for harvest?

It has always bothered me to see trucks loaded with apples coming up from the Oroville/Osoyoos border loaded with crates of apples while I drove past orchards loaded with the same product.

If it really is a question of economics, that being that they can produce it and sell it at a better rate than what we can then why do we bother growing it at all? Are we simply supplementing the demand with our own fruit after the American harvest has sold?

There must be thousands of acres of land which farmers would love to be able to sell off to developers for profit if they are not able to compete with the American producers when it comes to fruit production, but they can’t. So what do they do? How long do they hang on? At what point does our own government step in and offer relief?

Maybe instead of seeing how far down the line orchardists can make it before the government with their seemingly endless supply of cash steps up and starts to paying out crop insurance or subsistence or whatever it is they do when farmers can’t pay their bills, because their fruit is rotting on the vine because they can’t compete with a more reasonable tax system, we could simply make our own products the primary instead of the secondary by adjusting our own tax system and supporting our own?

As a consumer, I would support that. I live with these people and they live to produce consumables which at one time we used to buy in our own back yard.


Richard Hammersmith