Splendid letter Ritchie Leslie — Cherries are not the problem. Growing food is a challenging labour of love, laden with expense, risks, long days and hard work.
Food security and sustainable production will come to our corner of the globe when we are ready to pay the real cost of food production in our economy and climate. Farmers are not going to feed us for free, nor is government.
My friends in Asia, whose wages are a quarter of mine, happily pay more than double the price I do to enjoy a bowl of cherries.
I’m glad B.C. cherry farmers can make a good living because of that.
When future generations value home grown food & are happy to pay for it, farmers will be selling all they can on the domestic market. When that day arrives, everyone who eats will be very thankful that today’s farmers did whatever they had to do to keep our agriculture land productive.
After all, we’ve not yet figured out how to make more of it and reclaiming fertile soils will be expensive and mostly impossible.
I am not a farmer but very grateful to those who continue to make a living farming the land.
A. Stuart
Vernon