Orchard Profits and Problems

The profitability of orchards has fluctuated over the last 110 years. For example, the Depression years of the 1930s hurt the Okanagan fruit growers. Many people around the world could no longer afford to buy fresh, imported fruit. As a result, British Columbian apples were not selling as well as they had before, and prices dropped. First grade apples were selling for only 20 cents per 35-pound (15.9 kilogram) box! Okanagan orchardists were not even earning enough to recover their costs. But they agreed they were not going to just give away their fruit. Their slogan was “a cent a pound or on the ground.” This meant they would rather let their apples fall to the ground and rot than sell them for less than one cent per pound! Besides the fluctuation in apple prices, there were three other major obstacles that caused problems for Okanagan fruit growers: lack of water, poor weather, and bothersome bugs.

Irrigation Then and Now

Early Okanagan fruit growers realized that they needed an effective irrigation system if they were to be successful. There was not enough rainfall in the Okanagan, at least in the South and Central Okanagan, to support orchards. Many people may ask, “Why didn’t they use water from Okanagan Lake to irrigate the orchards?” But in the early days, there was not the technology to pump large quantities of water out of the lake onto the orchards. So, the orchardists had to develop other ways to irrigate their land.