Canada: B.C.'s fruit production drops amid climate and market pressures

Canada’s fruit production fell 8.1 per cent last year as dry conditions and swings in temperature across the country’s west drove reduced yields, new data from Statistics Canada shows. At a national level, the sale of blueberries fell the furthest, declining by nearly a third, while cranberry sales dropped 22 per cent in 2023. British Columbia saw the third largest decline in sales, falling $8.9 million after Quebec and New Brunswick. “Fruit growers in British Columbia were challenged by difficult growing conditions, such as untimely frost and extreme heat,” said Statistics Canada in a release Friday. B.C. led all provinces with a more than 14 per cent decline in apple production, more than double that of a far second Quebec. Ryan Swanson, who co-owns Laughing Apple Farm on Saltspring Island, B.C., with his wife, said the number of juicing apples they produced dropped about 30 per cent last year, the result of a tent caterpillar infestation and swings in temperature that impact ...