Sukh Khun Khun grew up in Kelowna’s tree fruit industry, working alongside his parents.
In that time he’s witnessed a lot of industry change, including ebbs and flows in profitability, shifts in technology and growing conditions.
His roots in Okanagan agriculture, for better or worse, run deep. And he, like many of the farmers who gathered in Kelowna for a protest Thursday is frustrated by BC Tree Fruits’ recent decision to sell the Lake Countrypackinghouse and kibosh plans for another state-of-the-art facility without consultation.
“I’m here because a decision was made, without the consultation of the mass majority, to move facilities to another city, that just financially, economically and morally does not make sense,” Khun Khun said.
“So who is benefiting from these decisions? That’s the question we have: Who is benefiting? Because as you can see behind me, the growers do not feel like they are the ones benefiting?”
Gurjit Pabla, a grower since 1977, explained that more than 75 per cent of B.C. apples are grown in Central and North Okanagan.
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He said moving the facility more than an hour drive’s south for the majority of farmers would create increased transportation costs to the facility and raise the potential for damaged fruit.
Then there would be more costs racked up as bins are taken back. Pabla pointed out that some fruit is transported via air carrier, and that means the fruit would again have to be transported back to Kelowna.
“That needs to be changed,” Pabla said.
BC Tree Fruits announced last month it would end operations at the Kelowna and Lake Country packinghouse, saying it’s due to the many challenges facing the industry over the last number of years. Plans for a more state of the art facility being built were also shelved, and shifted to Oliver.
Roughly 100 jobs will be lost in the move but the co-op claims that it will be an overall financial win.
“The economics in this case with the substantial increase in construction costs, coupled with the increase in interest rates, all come together. So even though the team in Winfield has done an exceptional job, the economics would say that Oliver is the right place for us to make an investment,” president and CEO of BC Tree Fruits, Warren Sarafinchan said in an interview at the time.
Khun Khun doesn’t feel that the argument holds water, and he and the others gathered, simply want them to backtrack.
“We want (them) to reverse the decision in all honesty. Our goal is to keep things as is and figure out the best path forward from here,” he said.
“This seems to the growers, to be a rash decision to launch a brand new facility down in the south,” he said.
“It doesn’t make sense … and so we have a lot of questions as to how this this decision was reached, as well as we have a lot of opinions about why it should remain here.”
While they were hoping the meeting for the cooperative would be a good time to voice those concerns, the meeting was moved online when news that there would be a protest made its way to officials.
Khun Khun said that he hadn’t had a chance to digest that fully but pointed out it was a peaceful protest.
“We are not being belligerent by any means. We are not unruly. We are literally here just peacefully protesting and wanting our voices to be heard,” he said.
“Nobody here has been out of line or anything like that. We have reached out to the CEO of BC Fruits directly invited him here to continue the meeting as scheduled.”
— With files from Jayden Wasney