Between annoying deer, red tape and a major drop in apple prices, members of the BC Fruit Growers Association were faced a challenging start to 2018. And more hurdles are still on the horizon.
After the BCFGA’s 2018 AGM for the South Region on Nov. 15, Pinder Dhaliwal, president of the BCFGA: “The beginning of the year was very tough. We had all these issues that came up in the foreign labor program; a lot of farmers had trouble finding their workers.”
Many farmers hire their staff from abroad through the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program, and the 26,000 foreign workers who use the program now have to go through a new level of security called biometrics. Biometrics requires every worker to undergo a facial recognition process and fingerprinting. “There’s only one processing center in Mexico.”
There are major concerns that biometric processing won’t be able to process tens of thousands of people in a short period of time, which could severely limit access to Mexican workers by the start of the 2019 growing season.
“We’re trying to get growers to be aware of it,” said Dhaliwal, adding that the BCFGA is taking measures to deal with a possible backlog.
Looming minimum wage increases are also expected to stifle competitiveness. Furthermore, the value of apples did not prove to be very fruitful last year.
“The 2017 crop returns were very poor. It went from 23 cents on average down to 16.” When asked if the drop in apple prices could result in fewer local orchards, Dhaliwal said, “I think we’ve been seeing that already.”
Although it can be costly for a farmer to transition from one crop to another, “more and more people are making that switch.”
Source: osoyoostimes.com
