On July 26, fruit farmers from across the province woke up to news that the BC Tree Fruits Cooperative will no longer be accepting their produce.
"Due to extremely low estimated fruit volumes, weather effects, and difficult market and financial conditions, the cooperative will not be able to effectively operate the business moving forward," said Laurel Van Dam, Vice President of Grower Relations and Corporate Affairs at BC Tree Fruits, in a statement.
BC Tree Fruits has been a part of the farming industry since 1936, with more than 330 current members and three packing and six receiving facilities.
"We are shocked and at a loss of words for what to do mid-season," said Jennifer Deol of There and Back again Farms in Kelowna.
She said that some farmers are out in the fields in the middle of harvesting right now and were expecting to deliver their produce to BC Tree Fruit facilities today.
Deol said the closure of BC Tree Fruits will have the largest impact on small-scale farmers, who rely on the collective for not only the sale, but also for the storage of their produce.
Deol explained that after harvest, farmers who were members of the cooperative would deliver their fruit to the cooperative for storage and processing. The cooperative would then negotiate sale of the fruit with buyers around the world. The process was transparent, since the farmers were also shareholders in the organization, said Deol.
Now, without access to the storage facilities at BC Tree Fruits, farmers will be forced to make quick deals with private buyers before their fruits rot. The storage facilities, which prolong the life of fruit, also gives sellers time to negotiate with buyers and allowed growers to avoid flooding the market with fruit all at once, said Ted Vollo of Summerland Heritage Cider.
Without the luxury of time, farmers, like Vollo and Deol will have to make quick decisions.
Table grapes, like those grown at There and Back Again farms, must be stored in a temperature controlled facility immediately after being harvested or they will go bad.
Vollo has thousands of bins of apples that need to be stored somewhere quickly.
"Effectively, we have 60 or 70,000 bins that as of today need to find a new home."
He said that there is not really another option for farmers, particularly those in the Okanagan Valley, who rely on the scale of BC Tree Fruits' operations and unique services like controlled atmosphere storage.
For many farms, the cooperative represented a stable and reliable source of income.
Not all farmers are members of the collective and chose to manage the sale, storage and processing of their fruits independently or through private companies.
Deol said she expected BC Tree Fruits to close, but did not anticipate that the announcement would come during the middle of the growing season.
She said that losing the avenue to sell their produce compounded by an "abysmal" growing season is a "devastating loss," not only for small-scale farmers, but also for the industry as a whole.
"It has been very emotional."
Doel expects that many small-scale and family-owned farms will be forced to sell after this season as they will be unable to make profitable deals with private buyers in time.
She hopes that another organization steps up to fill the vacuum behind by BC Tree Fruits who will advocate for small-scale farmers.
In 2023, BC Tree Fruits broke ground on an expansion of its Oliver packing house, after putting its Kelowna packing house up for sale in 2021, putting its Kelowna offices up for sale in 2020 and closing its Lake Country packing house in 2022.
BC Tree Fruits and its subsidiaries will now liquidate its assets "in an effort to maximize recovery for all stakeholders," said Van Dam.
