Peach farmers in B.C.'s Okanagan optimistic for 2025 after years of climate disaster
Peach farmers in B.C.'s Okanagan optimistic for 2025 after years of climate disaster
Two peach farmers in B.C.'s Okanagan region say they're optimistic for the upcoming harvest after years of climate disasters wreaking havoc on their crops.
B.C.'s farmers have been particularly affected by climate disasters over the last few years, with a heat dome in 2021 cooking fruit on the branches, and two subsequent cold snaps in the winter. One of those, in 2024, led to the destruction of a year's worth of crops in some areas.
But now, two stone fruit farmers in the Okanagan Valley say they hope the push to buy local helps them as they look forward to a productive peach crop later this summer.
Jennifer Deol, the owner of There and Back Again Farms in Kelowna, says she hasn't had a full crop of peaches since 2021.
"It has been hard to survive these past four years, but we're just grateful," she told CBC News.
"This season we've got fruit on the trees and the trees are looking healthy — the trees that did survive the winter of 2024."
I recognize climate change, but if you grow fruit for a living anywhere in Canada, you are definitely going to experience some baaaad climatic conditions occasionally. If you have survived this industry for 25 years, has there truly been a “disaster”? The Okanagan valley is a Canadian micro climate, one of the very few places where fruit trees can survive the winter. But to characterize a few incidents of crop damage as a “disaster” is not unbiased journalism.