Frustrated B.C. farmers say that local buyers are killing their business purchasing only imported strawberries.
To drive his point home, Birak Berry Farms manager Ravinder Gill symbolically dumped a truckload of berries on the side of No. 6 Road in Richmond on Thursday.
“This pile denotes that the strawberry is garbage this year for us because nobody is buying,” he told CTV News.
According to growers, many major B.C. supermarkets and berry processors are choosing to buy cheaper imported berries from California and Mexico.
“This year, the canneries in Abbotsford have bought only 15,000 lbs. from us, which is like 0.1 per cent of the total,” Gill said.
He estimates that 400,000 lbs. of berries will be wasted on his farm this year – which will be a big loss because the labour to pick the fruit costs the company about 40 cents per pound. He wants Premier Christy Clark to step in to help the province’s strawberry farms.
“Either she should give some incentives, some subsidies, or the government should put some import duties on the import of the berries,” Gill said.
Agriculture Minister Don McRae says he’ll meet with strawberry farmers, but he isn’t making any promises.
At W&A Farms on Westminster Highway, owner Bill Zylmans says he’s learned the hard way not to count on business from big outside buyers. More than half of his strawberries used to go to processors and supermarkets, but that’s changed drastically.
“Over the last five years it’s been declining on a constant basis. This operation used to have 40-tonne contracts yearly. Last year I had a five-tonne contract,” he said.
This year, his farm doesn’t have any contracts.
“We are 100-per-cent fresh market; that’s about 60-per-cent ready-picked and 40-per-cent you-pick now,” he said.
With a report from CTV British Columbia’s Shannon Paterson
