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12 Illu s t r a t i o n : S a k o r n S u k k a s e m s a k o r n / i S t o c k B C B U S I N E S S . C A J U LY/A U G U S T 2 0 2 5 Sukhdeep Brar had worked on his family's Summerland fruit farm for decades, but he had never seen anything even close to this. It was March of 2024, two months after a deep freeze saw temperatures plummet to -30 degrees across the Okanagan Valley, and Brar was walking through what had long been a productive 18-acre peach orchard. But where there had always been buds, the branches were empty. "We were like, 'This is not going to be good,'" remembers Brar, who is also vice president of the BC Fruit Growers' Association. "There's nothing here." The cherry trees—which make up the bulk of the 160- acre farm—fared better, but only marginally. "The leaves still came out, but the actual fruit didn't come out," he says. "I was looking at the blossoms, and they were all dead inside." They tried to harvest the cherries they did get, but the cost was too high for the little they could salvage, and after a week they called off the harvest—and even though Brar went looking for peaches on his trees, he never found a single one. Still, he had to cover the costs of maintaining and operating the farm. Brar says the financial B U S I N E S S C L I M AT E BITTER FRUIT How climate change is taxing B.C.'s fruit growers packing, storing and marketing Okanagan fruits—suddenly ceased operations, leaving growers in a deepening spiral. Dr. Kirsten Hannam, systems agro-ecologist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, says one of the biggest issues is a phenomenon known as compounding damages. For example, a cold snap might cause damage to the stem tissue of an apple tree; then wing moths will nibble around at the graft union; then that dead tissue is susceptible to invasion by bacteria or fungi. With each extreme heat wave and freeze, the problems are adding up. "Eventually you have a tree that's got so much damage on its stem that it struggles to pull water up, and the tree is already teetering on the brink of not being able to feed its foliage with enough water and nutrients. Then we get a really warm spell, and the trees just collapse," says Hannam, who is based in Summerland. "With one of these events or another, a fruit tree or grape vine could have probably By Jennifer Van Evra Jennifer Van Evra is an award-winning Vancouver journalist, broadcaster and UBC writing instructor. losses were "in the seven figures" and the mental toll was immense. "It was the worst year for me, for sure." It was the worst year for many Okanagan fruit growers, where losses skyrocketed into the hundreds of millions. For some, it was a knockout blow— especially following the COVID pandemic, the 2021 heat dome and multiple deep freezes that also bit into their bottom lines. Adding to the already precarious situation, because of the low fruit volumes the BC Tree Fruits Cooperative— which was instrumental in EMPTY BASKET Fruit growers like Sukhdeep Brar are feeling the effects of climate change, and paying a price for it too endured. But when there's this death by a thousand cuts it just pushes these systems over the edge." Hannam says researchers have been looking into everything from the best root stocks for a changing climate to the optimal orientation for orchards, and from soil amendments to protective structures like nets and sun shades—but the dramatic shifts in climate have upped the ante. "We're realizing how urgently we need to figure out which of these are the most practical and effective, and worth the growers' investment," she says. By their nature orchards require significant capital, she adds, and then take three or four years for the trees to become productive, so growers can't be as nimble as those who grow crops that are easily rotated. "If you lose your trees or vines, you can't recover next year the way you can if you're growing wheat or lettuce. So I really feel for them." B.C.'s Minister of Agriculture and Food Lana Popham—also a former farmer—says that in farming circles climate change has been considered a slow roll, but its effects are speeding up. In response, the government has put in more than $225 million to support tree fruit growers since 2020, including

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